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diff --git a/55261-0.txt b/55261-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3c0b6a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/55261-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8594 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Nothing of Importance, by John Bernard Pye Adams
+
+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/license
+
+
+Title: Nothing of Importance
+ A record of eight months at the front with a Welsh
+ battalion, October, 1915, to June, 1916
+
+Author: John Bernard Pye Adams
+
+Release Date: August 4, 2017 [EBook #55261]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by MWS, Wayne Hammond and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE
+
+[Illustration: J B P Adams]
+
+
+
+
+ NOTHING
+ OF IMPORTANCE
+
+ A RECORD OF EIGHT MONTHS AT THE
+ FRONT WITH A WELSH BATTALION
+ OCTOBER, 1915, TO JUNE, 1916
+
+ BY
+ BERNARD ADAMS
+
+ WITH A PORTRAIT AND THREE MAPS
+
+ METHUEN & CO. LTD.
+ 36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+ LONDON
+
+
+_First Published in 1917_
+
+ TO
+ T. R. G.
+ WHO TAUGHT ME HOW TO THINK
+
+
+
+
+_IN MEMORIAM_
+
+BERNARD ADAMS
+
+
+John Bernard Pye Adams was born on November 15th, 1890, at Beckenham,
+Kent. From his first school at Clare House, Beckenham, he obtained an
+entrance scholarship to Malvern, where he gained many Classical and
+English prizes and became House Prefect. In December, 1908, he won
+an open Classical scholarship at St John’s College, Cambridge, where
+he went into residence in October, 1909. He was awarded in 1911 Sir
+William Browne’s gold medals (open to the University) for a Greek
+epigram and a Latin ode, and in 1912 he won the medal for the Greek
+epigram again, and graduated with a First Class in the Classical
+Tripos. In his fourth year he read Economics.
+
+On leaving Cambridge he was appointed by the India Office to be Warden
+and Assistant Educational Adviser at the Hostel for Indian Students
+at Cromwell Road, South Kensington. “He threw himself,” writes Dr. T.
+W. Arnold, C.I.E., Secretary of Indian Students, “with the enthusiasm
+of his ardent nature into the various activities connected with 21
+Cromwell Road, and endeared himself both to the Indian students and to
+his colleagues.” Adams was always a quiet man, but his high abilities,
+despite his unobtrusiveness, could not be altogether hidden; and in
+London, as in Cambridge, his intellect and his gift for friendship had
+their natural outcome. Mr. E. W. Mallet, of the India Office, bears
+testimony to “the very high value which we all set on his work. He had
+great gifts of sympathy and character, strength as well as kindliness,
+influence as well as understanding; and these qualities won him--in the
+rather difficult work in which he helped so loyally and well--a rare
+and noticeable measure of esteem.” On his side, he felt that the choice
+had been a right one; he liked his work, and he learned a great deal
+from it.
+
+His ultimate purpose was missionary work in India, and the London
+experience brought him into close touch with Indians from every part of
+India and of every religion.
+
+In November, 1914, he joined up as lieutenant in the Welsh regiment
+with which these pages deal, and he obtained a temporary captaincy in
+the following spring. When he went out to the front in October, 1915,
+he resumed his lieutenancy, but was very shortly given charge of a
+company, a position which he retained until he was wounded in June,
+1916, when he returned to England. He only went out to the front again
+on January 31st of this year. In the afternoon of February 26th he was
+wounded while leading his men in an attack and died the following day
+in the field hospital.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+These few sentences record the bare landmarks of a career which, in the
+judgment of his friends, would have been noteworthy had it not been
+so prematurely cut short. For instance, here is what his friend, T.
+R. Glover, of St John’s, wrote in _The Eagle_ (the St John’s College
+magazine) and elsewhere:
+
+“Bernard Adams was my pupil during his Classical days at St John’s, and
+we were brought into very close relations. He remains in my mind as
+one of the very best men I have ever had to teach--best every way, in
+mind and soul and all his nature. He had a natural gift for writing--a
+natural habit of style; he wrote without artifice, and achieved the
+expression of what he thought and what he felt in language that was
+simple and direct and pleasing. (A College Prize Essay of his of those
+days was printed in _The Eagle_ (vol. xxvii, 47-60)--on Wordsworth’s
+_Prelude_.) He was a man of the quiet and reserved kind, who did not
+talk much, for whom, perhaps, writing was a more obvious form of
+utterance than speech.
+
+It was clear to those who knew him that he put conscience into his
+thinking--he was serious, above all about religion, and he was honest
+with himself. Other people will take religion at secondhand; he was
+of another type. He thought things out quietly and clearly, and then
+decided. His choice of Economics as a second subject at Cambridge was
+dictated by the feeling that it would prepare him for his life’s work
+in the Christian ministry. There was little hope in it of much academic
+distinction--but that was not his object. A man who had thought more
+of himself would have gone on with Classics, in the hope (a very
+reasonable one) of a Fellowship. Adams was not working for his own
+advancement. The quiet simple way in which, without referring to it, he
+dismissed academic distinction, gives the measure of the man--clear,
+definite, unselfish, and devoted. His ideal was service, and he
+prepared for it--at Cambridge, and with his Indian students in London.
+
+When the war came he had difficulties of decision as to the course he
+should pursue. Like others who had no gust for war, and no animosity
+against the enemy, he took a commission, not so much to fight _against_
+as to fight _for_; the principles at stake appealed to him, and with an
+inner reluctance against the whole business he went into it--once again
+the quiet, thought-out sacrifice.”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+In this phase of his career his characteristic conscientiousness was
+shown by the thoroughness and success with which he performed his
+military duties “He is a real loss to the regiment,” wrote a senior
+officer; “everybody who knew him had a very high opinion of his
+military efficiency.”
+
+As is so often the case, a quiet and reserved manner hid a brave heart.
+When it came to personal danger he impressed men as being unconscious
+of it. “I never met a man who displayed coolly more utter disregard for
+danger.” And in this spirit he led his men against the enemy--and fell.
+From the last message that he gave the nurse for his people, “Tell them
+I’m all right,” it is clear that he died with as quiet a mind and as
+surrendered a will as he lived.
+
+“What we have lost who knew him,” writes Mr. Glover, “these lines may
+hint--I do not think we really know the extent of our loss. But we keep
+a great deal, a very great deal--_quidquid ex illo amavimus, quidquid
+mirati sumus, manet mansurumque est_. Yes, that is true; and from the
+first my sorrow (it may seem an odd confession) was for those who were
+not to know him, whose chance was lost, for the work he was not to do.
+For himself, if ever a man lived his life, it was he; twenty-five or
+twenty-six years is not much, perhaps, as a rule, but here it was life
+and it was lived to some purpose; it told and it is not lost.”
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAPTER PAGE
+
+ PREFACE xv
+
+ I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS 1
+
+ II. CUINCHY AND GIVENCHY 19
+
+ III. WORKING-PARTIES 42
+
+ IV. REST 64
+
+ V. ON THE MARCH 87
+
+ VI. THE BOIS FRANÇAIS TRENCHES 96
+
+ VII. MORE FIRST IMPRESSIONS 117
+
+ VIII. SNIPING 133
+
+ IX. ON PATROL 154
+
+ X. “WHOM THE GODS LOVE” 163
+
+ XI. “WHOM THE GODS LOVE”--(_continued_). 181
+
+ XII. OFFICERS’ SERVANTS 195
+
+ XIII. MINES 212
+
+ XIV. BILLETS 229
+
+ XV. “A CERTAIN MAN DREW A BOW AT A VENTURE” 256
+
+ XVI. WOUNDED 268
+
+ XVII. CONCLUSION 294
+
+
+
+
+MAPS
+
+
+ FACING PAGE
+
+ I. BÉTHUNE AND LA BASSÉE, NEIGHBOURHOOD OF 9
+
+ II. FRICOURT AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 97
+
+ III. THE TRENCHES NEAR FRICOURT 103
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATION
+
+
+ PORTRAIT OF AUTHOR Frontispiece
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+“Then,” said my friend, “what _is_ this war like? I ask you if it is
+this, or that; and you shake your head. But you will not satisfy me
+with negatives. I want to know the truth; what _is_ it like?”
+
+There was a long silence.
+
+“Express that silence; that is what we want to hear.”
+
+“The mask of glory,” I said, “has been stripped from the face of war.”
+
+“And we are fighting the better for that,” continued my friend.
+
+“You see that?” I exclaimed. “But of course you do. We know it, and you
+at home know it. And you want to know the truth?”
+
+“Of course,” was the reply.
+
+“I do not say that what you have read is not true,” said I; “but I do
+say that I have read nothing that gives a complete or proportioned
+picture. I have not yet found a perfect simile for this war, but the
+nearest I can think of is that of a pack of cards. Life in this war
+is a series of events so utterly different and disconnected, that the
+effect upon the actor in the midst of them is like receiving a hand
+of cards from an invisible dealer. There are four suits in the pack.
+Spades represent the dullness, mud, weariness, and sordidness. Clubs
+stand for another side, the humour, the cheerfulness, the jollity,
+and good-fellowship. In diamonds I see the glitter of excitement and
+adventure. Hearts are a tragic suit of agony, horror, and death. And to
+each man the invisible dealer gives a succession of cards; sometimes
+they seem all black; sometimes they are red and black alternately; and
+at times they come red, red, red; and at the end is the ace of hearts.”
+
+“I understand,” said my friend. “And now tell me your hand.”
+
+“It was a long hand,” I replied; “I think I had better try and write it
+down in a book. I have never written a book. I wonder how it would pan
+out? At first my hand was chiefly black with a sprinkling of diamonds;
+later I received more diamonds, but the hearts began to come as well;
+at last the hearts seemed to be squeezing out the clubs and diamonds.
+There were always plenty of spades.”
+
+There was another silence.
+
+“There was one phrase,” I resumed, “in the daily communiqués that used
+to strike us rather out there;” it was, “Nothing of importance to
+record on the rest of the front.” I believe that a hundred years hence
+this phrase will be repeated in the history books. There will be a
+passage like this: “Save for the gigantic effort of Germany to break
+through the French lines at Verdun, nothing of importance occurred
+on the western front between September, 1915, and the opening of the
+Somme offensive on the 1st of July, 1916.” And this will be believed,
+unless men have learnt to read history aright by then. For the river of
+history is full of waterfalls that attract the day excursionist--such
+as battles, and laws, and the deaths of kings; whereas the spirit of
+the river is not in the waterfalls. There are men who were wounded in
+the Somme battle, who had only seen a few weeks of war. I have yet to
+see a waterfall; but I have learned something of the spirit of the deep
+river in eight months of “nothing of importance.”
+
+This, then, is the book that I have written. It is the spirit of the
+war as it came to me, first in big incoherent impressions, later as a
+more intelligible whole. Perhaps it will seem that the first chapters
+are somewhat light in tone and inclined to gloss over the terrible
+side of War. But that is just what happens; at first, the interest and
+adventure are paramount, and it is only after a time, only after all
+the novelty has worn away, that one gets the real proportion. If the
+first chapters do not bite deep, remember that this was my experience.
+This book does not claim to be always sensational or thrilling. One
+claim only I make for it: from end to end it is the truth.
+
+The events recorded are real and true in every detail. I have nowhere
+exaggerated; for in this war there is nothing more terrible than the
+truth.
+
+All the persons mentioned are also real, though I have thought it
+better to give them pseudonyms.
+
+_January, 1917._
+
+
+
+
+NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE
+
+
+
+
+NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FIRST IMPRESSIONS
+
+
+“Good-bye!”
+
+“Good-bye. Don’t forget to send me that Hun helmet!”
+
+“All right! Good-bye!”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The train had long ago recovered from the shock of its initial jerk;
+a long steady grinding noise came up from the carriage wheels, as
+though they had recovered breath and were getting into their stride
+for Folkestone, regardless of the growing clatter of the South-Eastern
+rhythm;--if, indeed, so noble a word may be used for the noise made by
+the wheels as they passed over the rail-joints of this distinguished
+line.
+
+“Don’t believe it’s a good thing having one’s people to see you off,”
+said Terry, whose people had accompanied him in large numbers to
+Charing Cross.
+
+“They _will_ come, though,” remarked Crowley very wisely.
+
+“I tried to persuade my people not to come,” said I; “but they think
+you like it, I suppose. I would certainly rather say good-bye at home,
+and have no one come to the station.”
+
+And so I started off my experience of “the great adventure” with a “lie
+direct”: but it does not weigh very heavily upon my conscience.
+
+Six of us sat in a first-class carriage on the morning of the 5th of
+October, 1915: for months we had been together in a reserve battalion
+waiting to go out to the front, and now at last we had received
+marching orders, and were bound for Folkestone, and thence for France.
+For which battalion of our regiment any or all of us twelve officers
+were destined, we had no knowledge whatever; but even the most
+uncongenial pair of us would, I am sure, have preferred each other’s
+company to that of complete strangers. I, at any rate, have never in
+my life felt more shy and self-conscious and full of stupid qualms:
+unless, indeed, it was on the occasion, ten months before, when I had
+stood shaking in front of a platoon of twenty men!
+
+The last few days I had gone about feeling as though the news that I
+was going to the front were printed in large letters round my cap.
+I felt that people in the railway carriages, and in the streets,
+were looking at me with an electric interest; and the necessary (and
+unnecessary!) purchases, as well as the good-byes, were of the kind to
+make one feel placed upon a pedestal of importance! Now, in company
+with five other officers in like predicament, I felt already that I had
+climbed down a step from that pedestal; in fact, the whole experience
+of the first few days was one of a steady reduction from all-importance
+to complete insignificance!
+
+As soon as we had recovered from the silence that followed my remarks
+upon the disadvantages of prolonged valedictions, we commenced a
+critical survey of our various properties and accoutrements. Revolvers
+leapt from brand new holsters; feet were held up to show the ideal
+trench-nails; flash lamps and torches, compasses, map-cases, pocket
+medicine-cases, all were shown with an easy confidence of manner that
+screened a sinking dread of disapprobation. The prismatic compass was
+regarded rather as a joke by some of us; its use in trench warfare was
+a doubtful quantity; yet there were some of us who in the depths of
+our martial wisdom were half expecting that the Battle of Loos was the
+prelude of an autumn campaign of open-country warfare. There was only
+one man whose word we took for law in anything, and that was Barrett.
+He had spent five days in the trenches last December; he had then
+received his commission in our battalion. He was the “man from the
+front.” And I noticed with secret misgivings that he had not removed
+the badges of rank from his arm, or sewed his two stars upon his
+shoulder-straps; he had not removed his bright buttons, and substituted
+for them leather ones such as are worn on golfing-jackets; and in his
+valise, he told us, he had his Sam Browne belt.
+
+“But you never wear Sam Brownes out there,” I said: “all officers now
+dress as much as possible like the men.”
+
+That was so, we were informed; but officers used to wear them in
+billets, when they were out of the firing-line.
+
+“Well,” said Crowley, “we could get them sent out, I expect.”
+
+“Yes,” said I; “I expect they would arrive safely.”
+
+But this infantile conversation is not worthy of record! Suffice to say
+we knew nothing about war, and were just beginning to learn that fact!
+
+The first check to our enthusiasm was at Folkestone. We reported to
+the railway transport officer, whom we then regarded as a little
+demi-god; he told us to report in time for the boat at a certain hour.
+This we did, signed our names with a feeling of doing some awful and
+irrevocable deed, and then were told to wait another three hours: there
+was no room for us on this boat! We retired to an hotel with a feeling
+that perhaps after all there was no such imperious shouting for our
+help over in France, such as we had all, I think (save only Barrett,
+who was cynical and pessimistic!) secretly imagined.
+
+Darkness came ere we started. The crossing did not seem long, and I
+stood up on deck with Barrett most of the time. Two destroyers followed
+a little astern, one on either side; and there were lights right
+across the Channel. We were picked out by searchlights more than once,
+although all lights were forbidden on board. I felt that I was now fair
+game for the Germans; and it was exciting to think that they would give
+anything to sink me! At last I was in for “the great adventure.”
+
+At Boulogne we had to wait a long time on a dismal quay and in a
+drizzling rain to interview an irritated and sleepy railway transport
+officer. After a long, long queue had been safely negociated we were
+given tickets to ----; and then again we had to wait quite an hour on
+the platform. Some of our party were excited at their first visit to a
+foreign soil; but their enthusiasm abated when at the buffet they were
+charged exorbitant prices and their English money was rejected as “dam
+fool money.”
+
+Then there came a long jerky journey through the night in a crowded
+carriage. (As I am out for confessions, I will here state that I did
+not think this could be an ordinary passenger train, and I wondered
+vaguely who these men and women were who got in and out of other
+carriages!) At Étaples there was a still longer wait, and a still
+longer queue; but, fortunately, my signature had not lengthened. I
+remember sitting tired and dazed on the top of a valise, and asking
+Barrett what the time was.
+
+“Three forty-five!”
+
+“What a time to arrive!” I replied. But in war three forty-five is as
+good a time as any other, I was soon to discover.
+
+We walked to a camp a mile distant from the station; our arrival seemed
+quite unlooked for, and a quartermaster-sergeant had to be procured,
+by the officer who was our guide, in order to gain access to the tent
+that contained the blanket stores. Wearily, at close on five o’clock,
+we fell asleep on the boarded bottom of a bell-tent.
+
+It must have been about 10 a.m. on the 6th when we turned out and found
+ourselves in a sandy country; behind us was a small ridge, crowned by
+a belt of fir trees; the sun was well up and shone warm on the face as
+we washed and shaved in the open. The feeling of camp was exhilarating,
+and I was in good spirits.
+
+But two blows immediately damped my ardour most effectively. When
+I learned that I was posted to our first battalion, and I alone of
+all of us twelve, the thought of my arrival among the regulars, with
+no experience, and not even an acquaintance, far less a friend, was
+distinctly chilling! To add to my discomfiture there befell a second
+misfortune: my valise was nowhere to be seen!
+
+Indeed, the rest of the day was chiefly occupied in searching for my
+valise, but to no purpose whatever. I did not see it until ten days
+later, when by some miracle it appeared again! I can hardly convey the
+sense of depression these two facts cast over me the next few days;
+the interest and novelty of my experiences made me forget for short
+periods, but always there would return the thought of my arrival alone
+into a line regiment, and with the humiliating necessity of borrowing
+at once. Unknown and inexperienced I could not help being; but as
+a fool who lost all his property the first day, I should not cut a
+brilliant figure!
+
+We obtained breakfast at an _estaminet_ by the station; omelettes,
+rolls and butter, and _café noir_. I bought a French newspaper, and
+thought how finely my French would improve under this daily necessity;
+but I soon found that one could get the Paris edition of the _Daily
+Mail_, and my French is still as sketchy as ever! I remember watching
+the French children and the French women at the doors of the houses,
+and wondering what they thought of this war on their own soil; I knew
+that the wild enthusiasms of a year ago had died down; I did not expect
+the shouting and singing, the souvenir-hunting, and the generous
+impulses that greeted our troops a year ago; but I felt so vividly
+myself the fact that between me and the Germans lay only a living wall
+of my own countrymen, that I could not help thinking these urchins and
+women must feel it too! The very way in which they swept the doorsteps
+seemed to me worth noting at the moment.
+
+In the course of my wild peregrinations over the camp in search of my
+valise, I came upon a group of Tommies undergoing instruction in the
+machine-gun. Arrested by a familiar voice, I recognised as instructor
+a man I had known very well at Cambridge! He recognised me at the same
+moment, and in a few seconds we parted, after an invitation from him to
+dinner that evening; he was on “lines of communication” work, he told
+me.
+
+Sitting in his tent after Mess, I was amazed at the apparent permanence
+of his abode; shelves, made out of boxes; novels, an army list,
+magazines, maps; bed, washstand, candlesticks, a chair; baccy, and
+whisky and soda! It was all so snug and comfortable. I was soon to
+find myself accumulating a very similar collection in billets six
+miles behind the firing-line, and taking most of it into the trenches!
+I remember being impressed by the statement that the cannonade had
+been heard day after day since the 25th, and still more impressed by
+references to “the plans of the Staff!”
+
+I left Étaples early on the morning of the 7th, after receiving
+instructions, and a railway warrant for “Chocques,” from a one-armed
+major of the Gordons. Of our original twelve only Terry and Crowley
+remained with me; with a young Scot, we had a grey-upholstered
+first-class carriage to ourselves.
+
+In the train I commenced my first letter home; and I should here like
+to state that the reason for the inclusion in these first chapters of
+a good many extracts from letters is that they do really represent my
+first vague, rather disconnected, impressions, and are therefore truer
+than any more coherent account I might now give. First impressions
+of people, houses, places, are always interesting; I hope that the
+reader will not find these without interest, even though he may find
+them at times lacking in style.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+ _To face page 9_
+
+MAP I.]
+
+“I am now in the train. We are passing level-crossings guarded by
+horn-blowing women; the train is strolling leisurely along over
+grass-grown tracks, and stopping at platformless stations. It is
+very hot. At midday I shall be about ten miles from the firing-line,
+and I expect the cannonade will be pretty audible. I feel strangely
+indifferent to things now, though I have the feeling that all this will
+be stamped indelibly on my memory.” How well I remember the thrill of
+excitement when I found the name Chocques on my map, quite close to the
+firing-fine! And as we got nearer, and saw R.A.M.C. and cavalry camps,
+and talked to Tommies guarding the line, saw aeroplanes, and yes! a
+captive balloon, excitement grew still greater! At last we reached
+Chocques, and the railway transport officer calmly informed us that we
+had another four miles to go. He brilliantly suggested walking. But an
+A.S.C. lorry was there, and in we climbed, only to be ejected by the
+corporal! Eventually we tramped to Béthune with _very_ full packs in a
+hot sun.
+
+Walking gave us opportunity for observation; and that road was worth
+seeing to those who had not seen it before. There were convoys of
+A.S.C. lorries, drawn up (or “parked”) in twenties or thirties
+alongside the road, each with its mystical marking, a scarlet shell, a
+green shamrock, etc., painted on its side; Red Cross ambulances passed,
+impelling one to turn back and look in them, sometimes containing
+stretcher-cases (feet only visible), or sitting cases with bandaged
+head or arm in sling. Then there were motor-cars with Staff officers;
+motor-cars with youthful officers in immaculate Sam Brownes and
+“slacks”; and as we drew nearer Béthune, we saw canteens with Tommies
+standing and lounging outside, small squads of men, English notices,
+and boards with painted inscriptions,
+
+ +-------------+ +----------------+
+ | BILLETS. | | |
+ such as | Officers--2 | or | H.Q. |
+ | Men--30 | |117th Inf. Bde. |
+ +-------------+ +----------------+
+
+and in the distance loomed the square tower of the cathedral, which I
+thought then to be a decapitated spire.
+
+And so we came into the bustle of a French city.
+
+I had never heard of Béthune before. As the crow flies it is about five
+to six miles from the front trenches. The shops were doing a roaring
+trade, and I was amazed to see chemists flaunting auto-strop razors,
+stationers offering “Tommy’s writing-pad,” and tailors showing English
+officers’ uniforms in their windows, besides all the goods of a large
+and populous town. We were very hungry and tired, and fate directed
+us to the famous tea-shop, where, at dainty tables, amid crowds of
+officers, we obtained an English tea! I was astounded; so were we
+all. To think that I had treasured a toothbrush as a thing that I
+might not be able to replace for months! Here was everything to hand.
+Were we really within six miles of the Germans? Yet officers were
+discussing “the hot time we had yesterday”; while “we only came out
+this morning,” or “they whizz-banged us pretty badly last night,” were
+remarks from officers redolent of bath and the hairdresser! Buttons
+brilliantly polished, boots shining like advertisements, swagger-canes,
+and immaculate collars, gave the strangest first impression of “active
+service” to us, with our leather equipment, packs, leather buttons, and
+trench boots!
+
+“Old Barrett was right about the Sam Brownes,” I said to Terry, vainly
+trying to look at my ease.
+
+“Let’s look at your map,” he answered. Then, after a moment:
+
+“Oh, we’re not far from the La Bassée Canal. I’ve heard of that often
+enough!”
+
+“So have I,” I replied. “Is La Bassée ours or theirs?”
+
+“Ours, of course”; but he borrowed the map again to make sure!
+
+Refreshed, but feeling strangely “out” of everything, we eventually
+found our way to the town major. Here my letter continues:
+
+“I was told an orderly was coming in the evening to conduct me to
+the trenches, to my battalion! Suddenly, however, we were told to
+go off--seven of us in the same division--to our brigades in a
+motor-lorry. So we are packed off. I said good-bye to Crowley and
+Terry. This was about 7 p.m. We went rattling along till within a short
+distance of our front trenches. There was a lot of cannonading going
+on around and behind us, and star-shells bursting continuously, with
+Crystal-Palace-firework pops; we could hear rifles cracking too. At
+length we got to where the lorry could go no further, and we halted for
+a long time at a place where the houses were all ruins and the roofs
+like spiders’-webs, with the white glare of the shells silhouetting
+them against the sky. The houses had been shelled yesterday, but last
+night no shells were coming our way at all. My feelings were exactly
+like they are in a storm--the nearer and bigger the flashes and bangs
+the more I hoped the next would be really big and really near.” Of
+course, all this cannonade was _our_ artillery; at the time we were
+quite muddled up as to what it all was! The snarling bangs were the
+18-pounders quite close to us, about one thousand yards behind our
+front line; the cracking bullets were spent bullets, though it sounded
+to us as if they were from a trench about twenty yards in front of us!
+Nothing is more confusing at first than the different sounds of the
+different guns. I think several of us would have been ready to say
+we had been under shell-fire that night! The “star-shells” should be
+more accurately described as “flares” or “rockets.” But to continue my
+letter:
+
+“Well, the next few hours were a strange mixture of sensations. We
+could nowhere find our brigades, and after _ten hours_ in the lorry we
+landed here at a place sixteen miles back from the firing line; here
+our division had been located by a signaller, whom we had consulted
+when we stopped by the cross-roads! We were left by the lorry at
+5.0 a.m. at a field ambulance station ‘close to H.Q.,’ where we
+slept wearily till 8.0, to awake and find ourselves miles from our
+division, which is really, I believe, quite near where we had been
+in the firing-line! Now we are sitting in a big old château awaiting
+a telephone-message; we are in a dining-room, walls peeling, and
+arm-chairs reduced to legless deformities! It is a jolly day: sun, and
+the smell of autumn.” I shall not forget that long ride. I was at the
+back, and could see out; innumerable villages we passed; innumerable
+mistakes we made; innumerable stops, innumerable enquiries! But always
+there was the throbbing engine while we halted, and the bump and rattle
+as we plunged through the night. Eight officers and seven valises,
+I think we were; one or two were reduced to grumbling; several were
+asleep; a few, like myself, were awake, but all absolutely tired out.
+It was too uncomfortable to rest, cramped up among bulky valises and
+all sorts of sprawling limbs! Once, at about four o’clock, we halted at
+a house with a light in the window, and found a miner just going off
+to work. An old woman brewed some very black coffee, and we hungrily
+devoured bits of bread and butter, coffee, and cognac; while the old
+woman, fat and smiling, gabbled incessantly at us! A strange weird
+picture we must have made, some of us in kilts and bonnets, standing
+half-awake in the flickering candle-light.
+
+We were at the Château all the morning. “The R.A.M.C. fellows were
+very decent to us; gave us breakfast (eggs, bread and butter, and
+tinned jam) and also lunch (bully-beef, cheese, bread and butter,
+and beer). These were eaten off the dining-room table in style. I
+explored the Château during the morning; just a big ordinary empty
+house inside; outside, it is white plaster, with steep slate roofs,
+and a few ornamental turrets. The garden is mostly taken up with lines
+of picketed horses; outside the orchards and enclosures the country is
+bare and flat; it is a mining district, and pyramids of slag stand up
+all over the plain.”
+
+I cannot do better than continue quoting from these first letters of
+mine; of course, I did not mention places by name:
+
+“Well, at 2.0 p.m. the same old lorry and corporal turned up and took
+us back to Béthune. I gather he got considerable ‘strafing’ for last
+night’s performance, although I think he was not given clear enough
+instructions. Then, with seven other officers, we were sent off again
+in daylight, and dropped by twos and threes at our various Brigade
+Headquarters. Our “Brigade H.Q.” was in one of the few houses left
+standing. Here I reported, and was told that an orderly would take
+me to my battalion transport. In half an hour the orderly arrived on
+a bicycle, and by 6.0 p.m. I was only half a mile from our transport.
+We were walking along, when suddenly there was a scream like a rocket,
+followed by a big bang, and the sound of splinters falling all about. I
+expected to see people jump into ditches; but they stood calmly in the
+street, women and all, and watched, while several shells (whizz-bangs,
+I believe)”--No, dear innocence, HIGH-EXPLOSIVE SHRAPNEL--“burst just
+near the road about a hundred yards ahead. We were four miles back
+from the firing-line. It was just the ‘evening hate,’ I expect. It
+didn’t last long. Just near us was one of our own batteries firing
+intermittently.”
+
+This was my first experience of being under fire. I hadn’t the least
+idea what to do. The textbooks, I believe, said “Throw yourself on
+the ground.” I therefore looked at my orderly; but he was ducking
+behind his bicycle, which I am sure is not recommended by any manual
+of military training! I ducked behind nothing, copying him. This all
+took place in the middle of the road. But when I saw women opening
+the doors of their houses and standing calmly looking at the shells,
+ducking seemed out of the question; so we both stood and watched the
+bursting shells. Then the salvo ceased, and I, thinking I must show
+some sort of a lead, suggested that we should proceed. But my orderly,
+wiser by experience, suggested waiting to see if another salvo were
+forthcoming. After ten minutes, however, it was clear that the Germans
+had finished, and we resumed our journey in peace.
+
+My letter continues: “At the transport I had a very comfortable billet.
+The quartermaster and two other new officers and myself had supper in
+an upstairs room. The quartermaster seemed very pessimistic, and told
+us a lot about our losses. We turned in at ten o’clock, and I slept
+well. It was ‘very quiet’; that is to say, only intermittent bangs
+such as have continued ever since the beginning of the war, and will
+continue to the end thereof!
+
+“October 9th. This morning a cart took us at nine o’clock to within
+about a mile of the firing-line, putting us down at the corner of a
+street that has been renamed ‘H---- Street.’ The country was dead flat;
+the houses everywhere in ruins, though some were untouched and still
+inhabited. Thence an orderly conducted us to H.Q., where we reported to
+the Adjutant and the C.O. (who is quite young by the way); they were
+in the ground-floor room of a house, to which we came all the way from
+H---- Street along a communication trench about seven feet deep. These
+trenches were originally dug by the French, I believe. I was told I
+was posted to ‘D’ Company, so another orderly took me back practically
+to H---- Street, which must be six or seven hundred yards behind the
+firing-line. ‘D’ is in reserve; I am attached to it for the present.
+There are two other officers in it, Davidson and Symons. Both have only
+just joined.”
+
+So at last I was fairly lodged in my battalion. I had been directed,
+dumped, shaken, and carried, in a kindly, yet to me most amazingly
+haphazard, way to my destination, and there I found myself quite
+unexpected, but immediately attached somewhere until I should sort
+myself out a little and find my feet. I had a servant called Smith.
+In the afternoon I went with Davidson to supervise a working party,
+which was engaged in paving a communication trench with tiles from the
+neighbouring houses. In the evening I set to and wrote letters. I will
+close this chapter with yet one more quotation:
+
+“Now I am in the ground-room of one of the few standing houses in
+H---- Street. Next door is a big ‘École des filles,’ which I am quite
+surprised to find empty! Really the way the people go about their
+work here is amazing. Still, I suppose to carry on a girls’ school
+half a mile from the Boche is just beyond the capacity of even their
+indifference! I’ve already got quite used to the _noise_. There are two
+guns just about forty yards away, that keep on firing with a terrific
+bang! I can see the flashes just behind me. I think the noise would
+worry you, if you heard these blaring bangs at the end of the back
+garden, which is just about the distance this battery is from me! We
+are messing here in this room; half a table has been propped up, and
+three chairs discovered and patched up for us. All the windows facing
+the enemy have been blocked up with sand-bags. I sleep here to-night.
+If the house is shelled, I shall flee to the dug-out twenty yards away.
+Orders have not yet come, but I believe we go back to billets to-morrow.
+
+A free issue of ‘Glory Boys’ cigarettes has just arrived: two packets
+for each officer and man. Please don’t forget to send my Sam Browne
+belt.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CUINCHY AND GIVENCHY
+
+
+Throughout October and November our battalion was in the firing-line.
+This meant that we spent life in an everlasting alternation between the
+trenches and our billets behind, just far enough behind, that is, to be
+out of the range of the light artillery; always, though, liable to be
+called suddenly into the firing-line, and never out of the atmosphere
+of the trenches. Always before us was dangled a promised “rest,” and
+always it was being postponed. Rumours were spread, dissected, laughed
+at, and eventually treated with bored incredulity. The battalion had
+had no rest, I believe, since May. Men, and especially N.C.O.‘s, who
+had been out since October, 1914, were tired out in body and spirit.
+
+With the officers and certain new drafts of men, it was different. We
+came out enthusiastic and keen. On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed
+those first two months. I am surprised now to see how much detail I
+wrote in my letters home. Everything was fresh, everything new and
+interesting. And things were on the whole very quiet. We had a few
+casualties, but underwent no serious bombardment. And, most important
+to us, of course, we had no casualties among the officers.
+
+Givenchy and Cuinchy are two small villages, north and south,
+respectively, of the La Bassée Canal, which runs almost due east and
+west between La Bassée and Béthune. Givenchy stands on a slight rise in
+the flattest of flat countries. A church tower of red brick must have
+been the most noticeable feature as one walked in pre-war days from
+the suburbs of Béthune along the La Bassée road. Cuinchy is a village
+straggling along a road. Both are as completely reduced to ruins as
+villages can be, the firing-line running just east of them. Between
+them flows the great sluggish canal.
+
+During an afternoon in Béthune one could do all the shopping one
+required, and get a hair-cut and shampoo as well. Expensive cocktails
+were obtainable at the local bar; there was also a famous tea-shop. We
+were billeted in one of the small villages around. Sometimes we only
+stayed one night at a billet: there was always change, always movement.
+Sometimes I got a bed; often I did not; but a valise is comfortable
+enough, when once its tricks are mastered. Anyhow it is “billets”
+and not “trenches,” that is the point; a continuous night’s rest in
+pyjamas, the facilities of a bath, very often a free afternoon and
+evening, and no equipment and revolver to carry night and day! It was
+in billets the following letters were written, which are really the
+best description of my life at this period.
+
+“19th October, 1915. Our battalion went into the trenches on the 14th
+and came out on the 17th. Our company, ‘B,’ was in support. The front
+line was about 300 yards ahead, and we held the second line, everything
+prepared to meet an attack in case the enemy broke through the first
+line. Half-way between our first and second lines was a kind of
+redoubt, to be held at all costs. Here you are:
+
+[Illustration: The arrows indicate the direction in which the
+fire-trenches point.]
+
+The line here forms a big salient, so that we often used to get spent
+bullets dropping into the redoubt, from right behind, it seemed. Here,
+another drawing will show what I mean:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The dotted line is the German front trench. If the enemy A fires at the
+English B, the bullet will go on and fall at about C, who is facing in
+the direction of the arrow, in the support line. So C has to look out
+for _enfilading spent bullets_.
+
+For three days and nights I was in command of this redoubt, isolated,
+and ready with stores, ammunition, water, barbed wire and pickets,
+bombs, and tools, to hold out a little siege for several days if
+necessary. I used to leave it to get meals at Company H.Q. in the
+support line; otherwise, I had always to be there, ready for instant
+action. No one used to get more than two or three hours’ _consecutive_
+sleep, and I could never take off boots, equipment, or revolver.
+
+Here is a typical scene in the redoubt.
+
+_Scene._ A dug-out, 6´ × 4´ × 4´: smell, earthy.
+
+_Time._ 2.30 a.m.
+
+I awake and listen. Deathly stillness.
+
+_A voice._ ‘What’s the time, kid?’
+
+_Another voice._ ‘Dunno. About 2 o’clock, I reckon.’
+
+‘Past that.’
+
+Long silence.
+
+‘Rum job, this, ain’t it, kid?’
+
+‘Why?’
+
+‘Well, I reckon if the ---- Huns were coming over, we’d know it long
+afore they got ’ere. I reckon we’d ’ear the boys in front firing.’
+
+Long pause.
+
+‘I dunno. ’Spose there’s some sense in it, else we wouldn’t be ’ere.’
+
+Silence.
+
+‘---- cold on this ---- fire step. Guess it’s time they relieved us.’
+
+Long silence.
+
+‘Don’t them flares look funny in the mist?’
+
+‘Yus, I guess old Fritz uses some of them every night. Hullo, there
+they go again. ’Ear that machine-gun?’
+
+Long pause, during which machine-guns pop, and snipers snipe
+merrily, and flares light up the sky. Trench-mortars begin behind us
+‘whizz-sh-sh-sh-h-h’--silence--‘THUD.’ Then the Germans reply, sending
+two or three over which thud harmlessly behind. The invisible sentries
+have now become clearly visible to me as I look out of my dug-out. Two
+of them are about ten yards apart standing on the fire-platform. Theirs
+is the above dialogue.
+
+With a sudden _thud_, a trench-mortar shell drops fifteen yards behind
+us.
+
+‘Hullo, Fritz is getting the wind up.’
+
+‘Getting the wind up’ is slang for getting nervous: this stolid comment
+from a sentry is typical of the attitude adopted towards ‘Fritz’ (the
+German) when he starts shelling or finding. He is supposed to be a bit
+jumpy! It seems hard to realise that Fritz is really trying to kill
+these sentries: the whole thing seems a weird, strange play.
+
+I make an effort, and crawl out of the dug-out. The ‘strafing’ has died
+down. Only occasional flares climb up from the German lines, and ‘pop,’
+‘pop’ in the morning mist. I go round the sentries, standing up by them
+and looking over the parapet. It is cold and raw, and the sentries are
+looking forward to the next relief. Ah! there is the corporal on trench
+duty coming. I can hear him routing out the snoring relief.
+
+‘Ping-g-g-g’ goes a stray bullet singing by--a ricochet by its sound.
+
+‘A near one, sir.’
+
+‘Yes, Evans. Safer in the front line.’
+
+‘I guess it is, sir.’
+
+Then, the sentries changed, I turn back again to my dug-out. Sleeping
+with revolvers and equipment requires some care of position.
+
+‘Half-past four, sir,’ comes after a pause and some sleep.
+
+Out I get, and everybody ‘stands to’ arms for an hour, each man taking
+up the position allotted to him along the fire-platform. Gradually it
+gets light. Some brick-stacks grow out of the mist in front, and ruined
+cottages loom up in the rear, and what was a church. The fire-platform
+being here pretty high, one can look back over the parados over bare
+flat country, cut up by trenches and run to waste terribly. ‘Parados,’
+by the way, is the name given to the back of a trench; here is a
+drawing in section:
+
+[Illustration:
+
+A. Bottom of trench. C. Parapet. B. Fire-step. D. Parados.]
+
+At 5.30 ‘Stand down and clean rifles’ is the order given; and the
+cleaning commences--a process as oft-repeated as ‘washing up’ in
+civilised lands, and as monotonous and unsatisfactory, for a few hours
+later the rifles are a bit rusty and muddy again, and need another
+inspection.
+
+7.30. ‘Tell Sergeant Summers I’m going down to Company Headquarters.’
+
+‘Very good, sir.’ Then I take a long mazy journey down the
+communication trench, which is six feet deep at least, and mostly
+paved with bricks from a neighbouring brick-field. There are an
+amazing lot of mice about the trenches, and they fall in and can’t
+get out. Most of them get squashed. Frogs too, which make a green and
+worse mess than the mice. Our C.O. always stops and throws a frog
+out if he meets one. Tommy, needless to say, is not so sentimental.
+These trenches have been built a long time, and grass-stalks, dried
+scabious, and plantain-stalks grow over the edges, which must make them
+very invisible from above. ‘H----Street,’ ‘L---- Lane,’ ‘C----Road,’
+‘P----Lane’ are traversed, and so into ‘S---- Street,’ where, in
+the cellar of what was once a house, are two hungry officers already
+started on bacon and eggs, coffee (with condensed milk), and bread and
+tinned jam. We are lucky with three chairs and a table. A newspaper
+makes an admirable tablecloth, and a bottle a good candlestick, and
+there is room in a cellar to stand up. Breakfast done, a shave is
+manipulated, Meadows, my servant, getting ready my tackle and producing
+a mug of hot water.
+
+9.30 finds me back in the redoubt and starting a ‘working party’ on
+repairing a communication trench and generally improving the trenches.
+Working parties are unpopular; Tommy does not believe in improving
+trenches he may never see again. And so the day goes on. Sentries
+change and take their place, sitting gazing into a scrap of mirror.
+Ration parties come up with dixies carried on wooden pickets, and the
+pioneer generally cleans up, sprinkling chloride of lime about in white
+showers, which seems as plentiful as the sand of the seashore, and the
+odour of which clings to the trenches, as the smell of seaweed does to
+the beach.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The redoubt was in the Cuinchy trenches, and that old cellar was really
+a delightful headquarters. The first time we were in it we found a cat
+there; on the second occasion the same cat appeared with three lusty
+kittens! These used to keep the place clear of rats and get sat on
+every half-hour or so. I soon learned to get used to smoke; on one
+occasion the smoke from our brazier became so thick that Gray, the
+cook, threatened to resign. For all the smoke gathers at the top of a
+dug-out and seems impossibly suffocating to anyone first entering; yet
+it is often practically clear two or three feet from the ground, so
+that when lying or sitting one does not notice the smoke at all; but a
+new-comer gets his eyes so stung that it seems impossible that anyone
+can live in the dug-out at all! (Gray, by the way, was not allowed to
+resign.)”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Here follows a letter describing the front trenches at Givenchy:
+
+“7th November. On the 29th we marched off at 9.0 and halted at 11.0
+for dinner. Luckily it was fine, and the piled arms, the steaming
+dixies, and the groups of men sitting about eating and smoking formed
+a pleasant sight. Our grub was put by mistake on the mess-cart which
+went straight on to the trenches! Edwards, however, our Company
+mess-president, came up to the scratch with bread, butter, and eggs.
+Tea was easily procured from the cookers. Then off we went to our
+H.Q. There we got down into the communication trench, and in single
+file were taken by guides into our part of the trenches: these guides
+were sent by the battalion we were relieving. I told you that all the
+trenches have names (which are painted on boards hung up at the trench
+corners). The first thing done was to post sentries along our company
+front: until this was done the outgoing battalion could not ‘out-go.’
+Each man has his firing position allotted to him, and he always
+occupies it at ‘stand to’ and ‘stand down.’ We were three days and
+three nights in the trenches. Each officer was on duty for eight hours,
+during which he was responsible for a sector of firing-line and must be
+actually in the front trench. My watch was 12 to 4, a.m. and p.m. Work
+that out with ‘stand to’ in the morning and also in the evening and you
+will see that consecutive sleep is not easy! On paper 6-12 (midnight)
+looks good; but then, remember, dinner at 7.0 or 7.30 according to the
+fire, while you may have to turn out any time if you are being shelled
+at all. For instance, one night I was just turning in early at 7.0,
+when a mine went up on our right, and shelling and general ‘strafing’
+kept me out till 9.30, after which I couldn’t sleep! So at midnight I
+was tired when I started my four hours, turned in at 4.0, out again for
+‘stand to,’ 8.0 breakfast, 9.0 rifle inspection, and so it goes on!
+That is why you can appreciate _billets_, and bed from 9.0 to 7.0 if
+you want it.
+
+Imagine a cold November night--with a ground fog. What bliss to be
+roused from a snug dug-out at midnight, and patrol the Company’s line
+for four interminable hours. It is deathly quiet. Has the war stopped?
+I stand up on the fire-step beside the sentry and try to see through
+the fog. ‘Pip-pip-pip-pip-pip’ goes a machine-gun. So the war’s still
+on.
+
+‘Cold?’ I ask a sentry. ‘Only me feet, sir.’ ‘Why don’t you stamp your
+feet, then?’ This being equivalent to an order, Tommy stamps feebly
+a few times until made to do so energetically. Unless you _make_ him
+stamp, he will not stamp; would infinitely prefer to let his feet
+get cold as ice. Of course, when you have gone into the next bay, he
+immediately stops. Still, that is Tommy.
+
+I gaze across into No Man’s Land. I can just see our wire, and in front
+a collection of old tins--bully tins, jam tins, butter tins--paper, old
+bits of equipment. Other regiments always leave places so untidy. You
+clean up, but when you come into trenches you find the other fellows
+have left things about. You work hard repairing the trenches: the
+relieving regiment, you find on your return, has done ‘damn all,’ which
+is military slang for ‘nothing.’ And all other regiments, it seems,
+have the same complaint.
+
+‘Swish.’ A German flare rocket lights up everything. You see our
+trenches all along. Everything is as clear as day. You feel as
+conspicuous as a cromlech on a hill. But the enemy can’t see you, fog
+or no fog, if you only keep still. The light has fallen on the parapet
+this time, and lies sizzling on the sand-bags. A flicker, and it is
+gone; and in the fog you see black blobs, the size and shape of the
+dazzling light you’ve just been staring at.
+
+‘Crack--plop.’ ‘Crack--plop.’ A couple of bullets bury themselves in
+the sand-bags, or else with a long-drawn ‘ping’ go singing over the
+top. Why the sentries never get hit seems extraordinary. I suppose
+a mathematician would by combination and permutation tell you the
+chances against bullets aimed ‘at a venture’ hitting sentries exposing
+one-fourth of their persons at a given elevation at so many paces
+interval. Personally I won’t try, as my whole object is to keep awake
+till four o’clock. And then I shall be too sleepy. Only remember, it is
+night and the sentries are invisible.
+
+‘Tap--tap--tap.’ ‘There’s a wiring party out, sir. I’ve heard ’em these
+last five minutes.’ Undoubtedly there are a few men out in No Man’s
+Land, repairing their wire. I tell the sentries near to look out and
+be ready to fire, and then I send off a ‘Very’ flare, fired by a thick
+cartridge from a thick-barrelled brass pistol. It makes a good row, and
+has a fair kick, so it is best to rest the butt on the parapet and hold
+it at arm’s length. Even so it leaves your ears singing for hours. The
+first shot was a failure--only a miserable rocket tail which failed
+to burst. The second was a magnificent shot. It burst beautifully,
+and fell right behind the party, two Germans, and silhouetted them,
+falling and burning still incandescent on the ground behind. A volley
+of fire followed from our waiting sentries. I could not see if the
+party were hit; most of the shots were fired after the light had died
+out. Anyhow, the working party stopped. The two figures stood quite
+motionless while the flare burned.
+
+The Germans opposite us were very lively. One could often hear them
+whistling, and one night they were shouting to one another like
+anything. They were Saxons, who are always at that game. No one knows
+exactly what it means. It was quite cold, almost frosty, and the
+sound came across the 100 yards or so of No Man’s Land with a strange
+clearness in the night air. The voices seemed unnaturally near, like
+voices on the water heard from a cliff. ‘Tommee--Tommee. Allemands
+bon--Engleesh bon.’ ‘We hate ze _Kron_prinz.’ (I can hear now the
+nasal twang with which the ‘Kron’ was emphasised.) ‘D---- the Kaiser.’
+‘Deutschland _unter_ Alles.’ I could hear these shouts most distinctly:
+the same sentences were repeated again and again. They shouted to one
+another from one part of the line to another, generally preceding
+each sentence by ‘Kamerad.’ Often you heard loud hearty laughter. As
+‘Comic Cuts’ (the name given to the daily Intelligence Reports) sagely
+remarked, ‘Either this means that there is a spirit of dissatisfaction
+among the Saxons, or it is a ruse to try and catch us unawares, or it
+is mere foolery.’ Wisdom in high places!
+
+Really it was intensely interesting. ‘Come over,’ shouted Tommy.
+‘We--are--not--coming--over,’ came back. Loud clapping and laughter
+followed remarks like ‘We hate ze _Kron_prinz.’ Then they would yodel
+and sing like anything. Tommy replied with ‘Tipperary.’ They sang,
+‘God save the King,’ or rather their German equivalent of it, to the
+familiar tune. Then, ‘Abide with us’ rose into the night air and
+starlight. This went on for an hour and a half; though almost any night
+you can hear them shout something, and give a yodel--
+
+[Music]
+
+It is the strangest thing I have ever experienced. The authorities now
+try and stop our fellows answering. The _entente_ of last Christmas
+is not to be repeated! One of the officers in our battalion has shown
+me several German signatures on his pay-book (he was in the ranks
+then), given in friendly exchange in the middle of No Man’s Land last
+Christmas Day.
+
+I have had my baptism of mud now. It tires me to think of it, and
+I have not the effort to write fully about it! The second time we
+were in these trenches the mud was two feet deep. Even our Company
+Headquarters, a cellar, was covered with mud and slime. Paradoses and
+communication trenches had fallen in, and the going was terrible. The
+sticky mud yoicked one’s boots off nearly, and it felt as if one’s
+foot would be broken in extricating it. We all wore gum-boots, of
+blue-black rubber, that come right up to the waist like fishermen’s
+waders. But the mud is everywhere, and we get our arms all plastered
+with it as we literally “reel to and fro” along the trench, every now
+and again steadying ourselves against slimy sand-bags. One or two men
+actually got stuck, and had to be helped out with spades; one fellow
+lost heart and left one of his gum-boots stuck in the mud, and turned
+up in my platoon in a stockinged foot, of course plastered thick with
+clay! We worked day and night. Gradually the problem is being tackled.
+Trench-boards, or ‘mats,’ are the best, like this:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They are put along the bottom of the trench, the long ‘runners’ resting
+on bricks taken from ruined houses, so as to raise the board and allow
+drainage underneath. If possible, a deep sump-pit is dug under the
+centre of the board. (The shaded part represents the sump-pit: the
+dotted lines are the sides of the trench; the whole drawing in plan.)”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Weariness. Mud. The next experience (not mentioned in my letter) was
+Death. On our immediate right was “C” Company. Here our trench runs
+out like this __Ʌ_, more or less, and the opposite trenches are very
+close together. Consequently it is a great place for “mining activity.”
+One evening we put up a mine; the next afternoon the Germans put up a
+countermine, and accompanied it with a hail of trench-mortars. I was
+on trench duty at the time, and had ample opportunity of observing
+the genus trench-mortar and its habits. One can see them approaching
+some time before they actually fall, as they come from a great height
+(in military terms, “with a steep trajectory”), and one can see them
+revolving as they topple down. Then they fall with a _thud_, and black
+smoke comes up and mud spatters all about. Most of them were falling
+in our second line and support trenches. I was patrolling up and down
+our front trench. We were “standing to” after the mine, and for half an
+hour it was rather a “hot shop.” I was delighted to find that I rather
+enjoyed it: seeing one or two of the new draft with the “wind up” a
+bit steadied me at once. I have hardly ever since felt the slightest
+nervousness under fire. It is mainly temperament. Our company had four
+casualties: one in the front trench, the three others in the platoon
+in support. “C” Company suffered more heavily. At 6.0 Edwards came on
+duty, and I was able to go in quest of two bombers who were said to be
+wounded. Getting near the place I came on a man standing half-dazed in
+the trench. “Oh, sirrh,” he cried, in the burring speech of a true
+Welshman. “A terench-mohrterh hass fall-en ericht in-ter me duck-out.”
+For the moment I felt like laughing at the man’s curious speech and
+look, but I saw that he was greatly scared: and no wonder. A trench
+mortar had dropped right into the mouth of his dug-out, and had half
+buried two of his comrades. We were soon engaged in extricating them.
+Both had bad head wounds, and how he escaped is a miracle. I helped
+carry the two men out and over the debris of flattened trenches to
+Company Headquarters. So, for the first time I looked upon two dying
+men, and some of their blood was on my clothes. One died in half an
+hour--the other early next morning. It was really not my job to assist:
+the stretcher-bearers were better at it than I, yet in this first
+little bit of “strafe” I was carried away by my instinct, whereas later
+I should have been attending to the living members of my platoon,
+and the defence of my sector. I left the company sergeant-major in
+difficulties as to whether Randall, the man who had so miraculously
+escaped, and who was temporarily dazed, should be returned as “sick” or
+“wounded.”
+
+Another death that came into my close experience was that of a
+lance-corporal in my platoon. I had only spoken to him a quarter
+of an hour before, and on returning found him lying dead on the
+fire-platform. He had been killed instantaneously by a rifle grenade.
+I lifted the waterproof sheet and looked at him. I remember that I
+was moved, but there was nothing repulsive about his recumbent figure.
+I think the novelty and interest of these first casualties made them
+quite easy to bear. I was so busy noticing details: the silence that
+reigned for a few hours in my platoon; the details of removing the
+bodies, the collecting of kit, etc. These things at first blunted my
+perception of the vileness of the tragedy; nor did I feel the cruelty
+of war as I did later.
+
+Weariness. Mud. Death. So it was with great joy that we would return
+to billets, to get dry and clean, to eat, sleep, and write letters;
+to drill, and carry out inspections. Company drill, bayonet-fighting,
+gas-helmet drill, musketry, and lectures were usually confined to the
+morning and early afternoon. We thought that we had rather an overdose
+of lecturing from our medical officer (the M.O.) on sanitation and
+the care of the feet. “Trench feet,” one lecture always began, “is
+that state produced by excessive cold or long standing in water or
+liquid mud.” We soon got to know too much, we felt, about the use of
+whale-oil and anti-frostbite grease, the changing of socks and the
+rubbing and stamping of feet. We did get rather “fed up” with it; yet I
+believe we had only one case of trench feet in our battalion throughout
+the winter; so perhaps it was worth our discomfort of attending so
+many lectures! Our C.O.’s lectures on trench warfare were always
+worth hearing: he was so tremendously keen and such a perfect and
+whole-hearted soldier.
+
+A chapter might be written on billet-life. Here are a few more extracts
+from letters:
+
+“Oct. 13th. All day long this little inn has shaken from top to bottom:
+there is one battery about a hundred yards away that makes the whole
+house rattle like the inside of a motor-bus. The Germans might any
+time try and locate the battery, and a shell would reduce the house to
+ruins. Yet the old woman here declares she will not leave the house as
+long as she lives!
+
+It is a strange place, this belt of land behind the firing-line. The
+men are out of the trenches for three days, and it is their duty, after
+perhaps a running parade before breakfast and two or three hours’
+drill and inspection in the morning, to rest for the remainder of the
+day. In the morning you will see all the evolutions of company drill
+carried out in a small meadow behind a strip of woodland; in the next
+field an old man and woman are unconcernedly hoeing a cabbage-patch;
+then behind here are a battalion’s transport lines, with rows of horses
+picketed. Along the road an A.S.C. convoy is passing, each lorry at
+regulation distance from the next. In the afternoon you will see groups
+of Tommies doing nothing most religiously, smoking cigarettes, writing
+letters home. From six to eight the _estaminets_ are open, and everyone
+flocks to them to get bad beer. They are also open an hour at midday,
+and then the orderly officer, accompanied by the provost-sergeant,
+produces an electric silence with ‘Any complaints?’ It does not pay an
+_estaminet_-keeper to dilute his beer too much, or else he will lose
+his licence.
+
+I often wonder if these peasants think much. Think they must have done
+at the beginning, when their men were hastily called up. But now, after
+fifteen months of war? It is the children, chiefly, who are interested
+in the aeroplanes, shining like eagles silver-white against the blue
+sky; or in the boom from the battery across the street. But for their
+mothers and grandparents these things have settled into their lives;
+they are all one with the canal and the poplar trees. If a squad starts
+drilling on their lettuces, they are tremendously alert; but as for
+these other things, they are not interested, only unutterably tired of
+them. And after awhile you adopt the same attitude. The noise of the
+guns is boring and you hardly look up at an aeroplane, unless it is
+shrapnelled by the ‘Archies’ (anti-aircraft guns); then it is worth
+watching the pin-prick flashes dotting the sky all round it, leaving
+little white curls of smoke floating in the blue.”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+That billet was close to the firing-line. Here is a letter from a
+village, eight miles back:
+
+“20th Oct., 1915. We came out here on Monday. The whole division
+marched out together. It was really an impressive sight, over a mile
+of troops on the march. Perfect order, perfect arrangement. Where
+the road bent you could often see the column for a mile in front, a
+great snake curling along the right side of the road. Occasionally an
+adjutant would break out of the line to trot back and correct some
+straggling; or a C.O. would emerge for a gallop over the adjacent
+ploughland.
+
+Our company is billeted in a big prosperous farm. The men are in a
+roomy barn and look very comfortable. We are in a big room, on the
+right as you enter the front door of the farm: on a tiled floor stands
+a round table with an oilcloth cover, originally of a bright red
+pattern, but now subdued by constant scrubbings to the palest pink with
+occasional scarlet dottings. There are big tall windows, a wardrobe
+and sideboard, a big chimney-place fitted with a coke stove, and on
+the walls hang three very dirty old prints. The only war touch (beside
+our scattered possessions) is a picture from a French Illustrated of
+_L’Assaut de Vermelles_. Outside is a yard animated by cows, turkeys,
+geese, chicken, and ducks: also a donkey and a peacock, not to mention
+the usual dogs and cats. At 5 a.m. I am awakened by an amazing chorus.
+
+The ‘patron’ is a strong, competent man, with many fine buxom
+daughters, who do the farm work with great capacity and energy.
+Henriette with a pitchfork is strength and grace in action. Tommy is
+much in awe of her. She hustles the pigs relentlessly. The sons are
+at the war. Etienne and Marcelle, aged ten and eight respectively,
+complete the family; with Madame, of course, who makes inimitable
+coffee; and various grandparents who appear in white caps and cook and
+bake all day.
+
+I have just ‘paid out’--all in five and twenty-franc notes. ‘In the
+field’ every man has his own pay book which the officer must sign,
+while the company quartermaster-sergeant sees that his acquittance
+roll is also signed by Tommy. We had a small table and chair out in
+the yard, and in an atmosphere of pigs and poultry I dealt out the
+blue-and-white oblongs which have already in many cases been converted
+into bread. For that is where most of the pay money goes, there and in
+the _estaminets_. The bread ration is always small, the biscuit ration
+overflowing. Bully beef, by the way, is simply ordinary corned beef. I
+watched cooking operations yesterday, and saw some fifty tins cut in
+half with an axe, clean hewn asunder, and the meat deftly hoicked with
+a fork into the field-kitchen, or ‘cooker,’ which is a range and boiler
+on wheels. This was converted into a big stew, and served out into
+dixies (camp kettles) and so to the men’s canteens.
+
+This afternoon our company practised an attack over open country. I
+was surprised to find the men so well trained. I had imagined that
+prolonged trench-warfare would have made them stale. The country is
+_very_ flat. There are no hedges. The only un-English characteristics
+are the poplar rows, the dried beans tied round poles like mother-gamp
+umbrellas, and the wayside chapels and crucifixes.
+
+Yesterday afternoon Edwards and I got in a little revolver practice
+just near; and afterwards we had an energetic game of hockey, with
+sticks and an empty cartridge-case.”
+
+Altogether, billet life was very enjoyable. On November 1st Captain
+Dixon joined our battalion and took over “B” Company. For over four
+months I worked under the most good-natured and popular officer in the
+battalion. We were always in good spirits while he was with us. “I
+can’t think why it is,” he used to say, “I’m not at all a jolly person,
+yet you fellows are always laughing; and in my old regiment it was
+always the same!” He was a fearful pessimist, but a fine soldier. His
+delight used to be to get a good fire blazing in billets, sit in front
+of it with a novel, and then deliver a tirade against the discomfort
+of war! The great occasion used to be when the arch-pessimist, our
+quartermaster, was invited to dinner. Then Edwards, the Mess president,
+would produce endless courses, and the two pessimists would warm to
+a delightful duologue on the fatuity of the Staff, the Army, and the
+Government.
+
+“By Jove, we are the biggest fools on this earth!” Dixon would say at
+last.
+
+“We’re fools enough to be led by fools,” Jim Potter would reply.
+
+And somehow we were all more cheerful than ever!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+WORKING-PARTIES
+
+
+“Fall in the brick-party.”
+
+The six privates awoke from a state of inert dreaming, or lolling
+against the barn that flanked the gateway of battalion headquarters, to
+stand in two rows of three and await orders. At last the A.S.C. lorry
+had turned up, an hour late, and while it turned round I despatched
+one of the privates to our transport to get six sand-bags. By the time
+he returned the lorry had performed its about-wheel, and, all aboard,
+myself in front and the six behind, we are off for C----.
+
+We pass through Béthune. As we approach through the suburbs, we rattle
+past motor despatch riders, A.S.C. lorries, Red Cross carts, columns
+of transport horses being exercised, officers on horse-back, officers
+in motor-cars, small unarmed fatigue parties, battalions on the march;
+then there are carts carrying bricks, French postmen on bicycles,
+French navvies in blue uniforms repairing the road, innumerable peasant
+traps, coal waggons, women with baskets, and children of course
+everywhere. “Business as usual”--yet, but for a line of men not so
+many miles away the place would be a desolate ruin like the towns and
+villages that chance has doomed to be in the firing-line.
+
+So I moralise. Not so the Tommies, sprawling behind, inside the lorry,
+and caring not a jot for anything save that they are on a “cushy” or
+soft job, as the rest of the battalion are doing four hours’ digging
+under R.E. supervision. A good thing to be a Tommy, to be told to fall
+in here or there, and not to know whether it is for a bayonet-charge,
+or a job of carting earth!
+
+“Bang--Bang-bang.” We are nearing the firing-line, having left Béthune,
+where military police stand at every corner directing the traffic with
+flags, one road “up,” another “down”: we are once more within the
+noisy but invisible chain of batteries. “Lorries 6 miles per hour.”
+The shell-holes in the road, roughly filled with stones, would make
+quicker going impossible anyhow. We are entering C----, and I keep an
+eagle eye open for ruined houses, and soon stop by a house with two
+walls and half a roof. Out come the six Tommies and proceed to fill a
+sand-bag each with bricks and empty it into the lorry. The supply is
+inexhaustible, and in half an hour the A.S.C. corporal refuses to take
+more, declaring we have the regulation three-ton load, so I stop work
+and prepare to depart.
+
+The corporal, however, has heard of a sister-lorry near by, which has
+unfortunately slipped into a ditch and, so to speak, sprained its
+ankle. Though extraordinarily unromantic in appearance, the corporal
+shows himself imbued with a spirit of knight errantry, and, having
+obtained my permission to rescue the fair damsel, sets off for what he
+declares cannot take more than ten minutes. As I thought the process
+would take probably more like twenty minutes, I let the men repair
+to a house on the opposite side of the road, where was a rather more
+undamaged piece of roof than usual (it was now raining), and myself
+explored the place I happened to be in.
+
+Occasionally, at home one comes across a deserted cottage in the
+country; a most desolate spirit pervades the place. Imagine, then, what
+it is like in these villages half a mile or a mile behind what has been
+the firing-line for now twelve months. A few steps off the main road
+brought me into what had formerly been a small garden belonging to a
+farm. There had been a red-brick wall all along the north side with
+fruit trees trained along it. Now, the wall was mostly a rubble-heap,
+and the fruit trees dead. One sickly pear tree struggled to exist
+in a crumpled sort of heap, but its wilted leaves only added to the
+desolation of the scene. An iron gate, between red brick pillars,
+was still standing, strangely enough; but the little lawn was run to
+waste, and had a crater in the middle of it about five feet across,
+inside of which was some disintegrating animal, also empty tins, and
+other refuse. Trees were broken, weeds were everywhere. I tried to
+reconstruct the place in my imagination, but it was a chaotic tangle.
+I came across a few belated raspberries, and picked one or two; they
+were tasteless and watery. Rubbish and broken glass were strewn
+everywhere. It was a dreary sight in the grey rain; the only sign of
+life a few chattering blue-tits.
+
+The house was an utter ruin, only a ground-room wall left standing;
+some of the outhouses had not suffered so much, but all the roofs were
+gone. I saw a rusty mangle staring forlornly out of a heap of débris;
+and a manger and hayrack showed what had been a stable. The pond was
+just near, too, and gradually I could piece together the various
+elements of the farm. Who the owners were I vaguely wondered; perhaps
+they will return after the war; but I doubt if they could make much
+of the old ruins. These villages will most likely remain a blighted
+area for years, like the villages reclaimed by the jungle. Already the
+virginia creeper and woodbine are trying to cover the ugliness....
+
+The Tommies meanwhile had been smoking Gold Flakes, and one or two had
+also been exploring; one had discovered a child’s elementary botany
+book, and was studying the illustrations when I came up. Our combined
+view now was “Where is the lorry?” and this view held the field, with
+increasing curiosity, annoyance, and vituperation, for one solid hour
+and a half. It was dinner-time, and a common bond of hunger held us,
+until at last in exasperation I marched half the party in quest of our
+errant conveyance. I was thoroughly annoyed with the gallant corporal.
+Three-quarters of a mile away I found the two lorries. My little
+corporal had rescued his lorn princess, but she, being a buxom wench,
+had brought her rescuer into like predicament! And so we came up just
+in time to see the rescue of _our_ lorry from the treacherous ditch! I
+felt I could not curse, especially as the little corporal had winded
+himself somehow in the stomach during the last bout. It had been a
+feeble show; yet there was the lorry, and in it the bricks, on to which
+the fellows climbed deliberately as men who recover a lost prize. And
+so we arrived at our transport (the bricks were for a horse-stand in a
+muddy yard) at half-past two; after which I dismissed the party to its
+belated dinner.
+
+The above incident hardly deserves a place in a chapter headed
+“working-parties,” being in almost every respect different from any
+other I have ever conducted. I think the “working-party” is realised
+less than anything else in this war by those who have not been at the
+front. It does not appeal to the imagination. Yet it is essential to
+realise, if one wants to know what this war is like, the amount of
+sheer dogged labour performed by the infantry in digging, draining, and
+improving trenches.
+
+The “working-party” usually consists of seventy to a hundred men from a
+company, with either one or two officers. The Brigadier going round the
+trenches finds a communication trench falling in, and about a foot of
+mud at the bottom. “Get a working-party on to this at once,” he says to
+his Staff Captain. The Staff Captain consults one of the R.E. officers,
+and a note is sent to the Adjutant of one of the two battalions in
+billets: “Your battalion will provide a working party of ... officers
+... full ranks (sergeants and corporals) and ... other ranks to-morrow.
+Report to Lt. ..., R.E., at ... at 5.0 p.m. to-morrow for work on ...
+Trench. Tools will be provided.” The Staff Captain then dismisses the
+matter from his head. The Adjutant then sends the same note to one or
+more of the four company commanders, detailing the number of men to be
+sent by the companies specified by him. (He is scrupulously careful to
+divide work equally between the companies, by the way.) The company
+commander on receiving the note curses volubly, declares it a “d--d
+shame the hardest worked battalion in the brigade can’t be allowed
+a moment’s rest, feels sure the men will mutiny one of these days,”
+etc., summons the orderly, who is frowsting in the next room with the
+officers’ servants, and says, “Take this to the sergeant-major,” after
+scribbling on the note “Parade outside Company H.Q. 3.30 p.m.,” and
+adding, as the orderly departs, “Might tell the quartermaster-sergeant
+I want to see him.” Meanwhile the three subalterns are extraordinarily
+engrossed in their various occupations, until the company commander
+boldly states that it is “rotten luck, but he supposes as So-and-so
+took the last, it is So-and-so’s turn, isn’t it?” and details the
+officers; if they are new officers he tells them the sergeants will
+know exactly what to do, and if they are old hands he tells them
+nothing whatever. The “quarter” (company quartermaster-sergeant) then
+arrives, and is told the party will not be back, probably, till 10.0
+p.m., and will he make sure, please, that hot soup is ready for the men
+on return, and also dry socks if it turns out wet; he is then given a
+drink, and the company commander’s work is finished.
+
+Meanwhile the company sergeant-major has received the orders from
+the orderly, and summons unto him the orderly-sergeant, and from his
+“roster,” or roll, ticks off the men and N.C.O.’s to be warned for
+the working party. This the orderly-sergeant does by going round
+to the various barns and personally reading out each man’s name,
+and on getting the answer, saying, “You’re for working party, 3.15
+to-day.” The exact nature of the remarks when he is gone are beyond
+my province. Only, as an officer taking the party, one knows that
+at 3.25 p.m. the senior sergeant calls the two lines of waiting
+“other ranks” to attention, and with a slap on his rifle, announces
+“Working-party present, Sir,” as you stroll up. Working-parties are
+dressed in “musketry order” usually--that is to say, with equipment,
+but no packs; rifles and ammunition, of course, and waterproof sheets
+rolled and fastened to the webbing belt. The officer then tells the
+sergeant to “stand them easy,” while he asks one or two questions, and
+looks once more at “orders” which the senior sergeant has probably
+brought on parade, and at 3.30, with a “Company-Shern! Slo-o-ope hip!
+Right-in-fours: form-fórs! Right! By the right, Quick _march_!” leads
+off his party, giving “March at _ease_, march-easy!” almost in one
+breath as soon as he rounds the corner. Then there is a hitching of
+rifles to the favourite position, and a buzz of remarks and whistles
+and song behind, while the sergeant edges up to the officer or the
+officer edges back to the sergeant, according to their degree of
+intimacy, and the working-party is on its way.
+
+One working-party I remember very well. We were in billets at ----, and
+really tired out. It was Nov. 6th, and on looking up my letters I find
+our movements for the last week had been as follows:
+
+ Oct. 29th. 9.0 a.m. Moved off from billets.
+ 12.0 midday. Lunch.
+ 3.0 p.m. Arrived in front trenches.
+ Oct. 30th. Front trenches.
+ Oct. 31st. Front trenches.
+ Nov. 1st. Relieved at 3.0 p.m. (The Devons
+ were very late relieving us, owing to
+ bad rain and mud.)
+ 5.30 p.m. Reached billets.
+ Nov. 2nd. Rain all day. Morning spent by men
+ in trying to clean up. Afternoon,
+ baths.
+ Nov. 3rd. 9.0 a.m. Started off for trenches
+ again. It had rained incessantly.
+ Mud terrible.
+ 1.0 p.m. Arrived in front trenches.
+ Nov. 4th. Front trenches. Rained all day.
+ Nov. 5th. 2.30 p.m. Relieved late again. Mud
+ colossal. Billets 5.0 p.m.
+ Nov. 6th. Morning. Cleaning up. Inspection by
+ C.O.
+ Afternoon. SUDDEN AND UNEXPECTED
+ WORKING-PARTY. 3.0 p.m.--11.0
+ p.m.!!
+
+Yet I thoroughly enjoyed those eight hours, I remember. There were,
+I suppose, about eighty N.C.O.’s and men from “B” Company. I was in
+charge, with one other officer. We halted at a place whither the
+“cooker” had been previously despatched, and where the men had their
+tea. Luckily it was fine. The men sat about on lumps of trench-boards
+and coils of barbed wire, for the place was an “R.E. Dump,” where a
+large accumulation of R.E. stores of all description was to be found.
+I apologised to the R.E. officer for keeping him a few minutes while
+the men finished their tea; he, however, a second-lieutenant, was in
+no hurry whatever, it seemed, and waited about a quarter of an hour
+for us. Then I fell the men in, and they “drew tools,” so many men a
+pick, so many a shovel (the usual proportion is one pick, two shovels),
+and we splodged along through whitish clay of the stickiest calibre
+in the gathering twilight. An R.E. corporal and two R.E. privates had
+joined us mysteriously by now, as well as the second-lieutenant, and
+crossing H---- Street we plunged down into a communication trench, and
+started the long mazy grope. The R.E. corporal was guide. The trench
+was all paved with trench-mats, but these were not “laid,” only “shoved
+down” anyhow; consequently they wobbled, and one’s boot slipped off
+the side into squelch, rubbing the ankle. Continually came up the
+message from behind, “Lost touch, Sir!” This involved a wait--one, two
+minutes--until the “All-up” or “All-in” came up. (One hears it coming
+in a hoarse whisper, and starts before it actually arrives. Infinite
+patience is necessary. R.E. officers are sometimes eager to go ahead;
+but once lose the last ten men at night in an unknown trench, and it
+may take three hours to find them.) The other officer was bringing up
+the rear.
+
+At last we reached our destination, and the R.E. officer and myself
+told off the men to work along the trench. This particular work was
+clearing what is known as a “berm,” that is, the flat strip of ground
+between the edge of the trench and the thrown-up earth, each side of a
+C.T. (communication trench).
+
+When a trench is first dug, the earth is thrown up each side; the
+recent rains were, however, causing the trenches to crumble in
+everywhere, and the weight of the thrown-up earth was especially the
+cause of this. Consequently, if the earth were cleared away a yard on
+each side of the trench, and thrown further back, the trench would
+probably be saved from falling in to any serious extent, and the light
+labour of shovelling dry earth a yard or so back would be substituted
+for the heart-breaking toil of throwing sloppy mud or sticky clay out
+of a trench higher than yourself.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The work to be done had been explained to the sergeants before we left
+our starting-point. As we went along, the R.E. officer told off men
+at ten or five yards’ interval, according to the amount of earth to
+be moved. Each man stopped when told off, and the rest of the company
+passed him. Sergeants and corporals stopped with their section or
+platoon, and got the men started as soon as the last man of the company
+had passed. At last up came the last man, sergeant, and the other
+officer, and together we went back all along. The men were on top
+(that is why the working-party was a night one); sometimes they had
+not understood their orders and were doing something wrong (a slack
+sergeant would then probably have to be routed out and told off). The
+men worked like fun, of course, it being known, to every one’s joy,
+that this was a piece-job, and that we went home as soon as it was
+finished. There was absolute silence, except the sound of falling
+earth, and an occasional chink of iron against stone; or a swish, and
+muttered cursings, as a bit of trench fell in with a slide, dragging
+a man with it; for it is not always easy to clear a yard-wide “berm”
+without crumbling the trench-edge in. One would not think these men
+were “worn out,” to see them working as no other men in the world can
+work; for nearly every man was a miner. The novice will do only half
+the work a trained miner will do, with the same effort.
+
+Sometimes I was appealed to as to the “yard.” Was this wide enough? One
+man had had an unlucky bit given him with a lot of extra earth from a
+dug-out thrown on to the original lot. So I redivided the task. It is
+amazing the way the time passes while going along a line of workers,
+noticing, talking, correcting, praising. By the time I got to the first
+men of the company, they were half-way through the task.
+
+At last the job was finished. As many men as space allowed were put on
+to help one section that somehow was behind; whether it was bad luck
+in distribution or slack work no one knew or cared. The work must be
+finished. The men wanted to smoke, but I would not let them; it was
+too near the front trenches. And then I did a foolish thing, which
+might have been disastrous! The R.E. corporal had remained, though the
+officer had left long ago. The corporal was to act as guide back, and
+this he was quite ready to do if I was not quite sure of the way. I,
+however, felt sure of it, and as the corporal would be saved a long
+tramp if he could go off to his dug-out direct without coming with us,
+I foolishly said I had no need of him, and let him go. I then lost my
+way completely. We had never been in that section before, and none of
+the sergeants knew it. We had come from the “R.E. Dump,” and thither
+we must return, leaving our tools on the way. But I had been told to
+take the men to the Divisional Soup Kitchen first, which was about
+four hundred yards north of X, the spot where we entered the C.T. and
+which I was trying to find. For all I knew I was going miles in the
+wrong direction. My only guide was the flares behind, which assured
+me I was not walking to the Germans but away from them. The unknown
+trenches began to excite among the sergeants the suspicion that all
+was not well. But I took the most colossal risk of stating that I knew
+perfectly well what I was doing, and strode on ahead.
+
+There was silence behind after that, save for splashings and
+splodgings. My heart misgave me that I was coming to undrained trenches
+of the worst description, or to water-logged impasses! Still I
+strode on, or waited interminable waits for the “All up” signal. At
+last we reached houses, grim and black, new and awfully unknown. I
+nearly tumbled down a cellar as a sentry challenged. I was preparing
+for humble questions as to where we were, the nearest way to X, and
+a possible joke to the sergeant (this joke had not materialised, and
+seemed unlikely to be of the easiest), when I recovered myself from
+the cellar, mounted some steps, and found myself on a road beside a
+group of Tommies emerging from the Soup Kitchen! My star (the only one
+visible, I believe, that inky night) had led me there direct! I said
+nothing, as every one warmed up in spirits as well as bodies with that
+excellent soup; and no one ever knew of the quailings of my heart along
+those unknown trenches! To lead men wrong is always bad; but when they
+are tired out it is unpardonable, and not quickly forgotten. As it was,
+canteens were soon brimming with thick vegetable soup, filled from a
+bubbling cauldron with a mighty ladle. In the hot room men glistened
+and perspired, while a regular steam arose from muddied boots and
+puttees; every one, from officer to latest joined private, was sipping
+with dangerous avidity the boiling fluid. Many charges have been laid
+against divisional staffs, but never a complaint have I heard against a
+soup kitchen! So in good spirits we tramped along, and dumped our tools
+in the place where we had found them. “Clank-clank, clank,” as spade
+fell on spade. Then, “You may smoke” was passed down. The sergeant
+reported “All correct, Sir!” and we tramped along in file. Soon the
+bursts of song were swallowed up in a great whistling concert, and we
+were all merry. The fit passed, and there was silence; then came the
+singing again, which developed into hymns, and that took us into our
+billets. Here we were greeted with the most abominable news of réveillé
+at 5.0 a.m., but I think most of the men were too sleepy to hear it; we
+two officers deplored our fate while eating a supper set out for us in
+a greenhouse, our temporary mess-room!
+
+That is a working-party: interesting as a first experience to an
+officer; but when multiplied exceedingly, by day, by night, in rain,
+mud, sleet, and snow, carrying trench boards, filling sand-bags,
+digging clay, bailing out liquid mud, and returning cold and drenched,
+without soup--then, working-parties became a monotonous succession of
+discomforts that wore out the spirit as well as the body.
+
+The last six nights before the promised rest were spent in
+working-parties at Festubert. There the ground was low and wet, and it
+was decided to build a line of breastwork trenches a few hundred yards
+behind the existing line, so that we could retire on to dry ground
+in case of getting swamped out. For six nights in succession we left
+billets at 10.0 p.m. and returned by 4.0 a.m. The weather was the
+coldest, it turned out eventually, that winter. It started with snow;
+then followed hard frost for four nights; and, last but not least, a
+thaw and incessant sleet and rain. I have never before experienced
+such cold; but, on the other hand, I have never before had to stand
+about all night in a severe frost (it was actually, I believe, from
+10° to 15° below freezing point). At 2.0 a.m. the stars would glitter
+with relentless mirth, as the cold pierced through two cardigans and
+a sheepskin waistcoat. I have skated at night, but always to return
+by midnight to fire and bed. Bed! At home people were sleeping as
+comfortably as usual; a few extra blankets, perhaps, or more coals in
+the grate!
+
+I was out five nights of the six. Captain Dixon was on leave, so we
+only had three officers in “B,” and two had to go every night. Every
+night at 9.30 the company would be fallen in and marched off to the
+rendezvous, there, at 10.0, to join the rest of the battalion. There
+was no singing; very little talking. In parts the road was very bad,
+and we marched in file. The road was full of shell-holes, and bad
+generally; the ice crackled and tinkled in the ruts and puddles; the
+frozen mud inclined you to stumble over its ridges and bumps. It took
+us the best part of an hour to reach our destination. The first night
+we must have gone earlier than the other nights, as I distinctly
+remember viewing by daylight those most amazing ruins. There was a
+barrier across the road just before you entered the village; (a
+barrier is usually made like this--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+you can defend the road without blocking it to traffic; at the same
+time it cannot be rushed by motor-cycles or armoured cars); then just
+opposite were the few standing fragments of the church; bits of wall
+and mullion here and there; and all around tombstones leaning in every
+direction, rooted up, shattered, split. There was one of the crucifixes
+standing untouched in the middle of it all, about which so much has
+been written; whether it had fallen and been erected again I cannot
+say. The houses were more smashed, crumpled, and chaotic than even
+Cuinchy or Givenchy.
+
+I remember that corner very vividly, because at that spot came one of
+the few occasions on which I had the “wind up” a little. Why, I know
+not. We were halted a few moments, when two whizz-bangs shot suddenly
+into a garden about twenty yards to our right, with a vicious “Vee-bm
+... Vee-bm.” We moved on, and just as we got round the corner I saw
+two flashes on my left, and two more shells hissed right over us and
+fell with the same stinging snarl into the same spot, just twenty
+yards _over_ us this time. I was, luckily, marching at the rear of the
+company at the time, as I ducked and almost sprawled in alarm. For the
+next minute or two I was all quivery. I am glad to know what it feels
+like, as I have never experienced since such an abject windiness! I
+believe it was mainly due to being so exposed on the hard hedgeless
+road; or, perhaps that last pair did actually go particularly near me.
+At any rate, such was my experience, and so I record it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+At the entrance to the communication trench R.E. officers told us
+off: “A” Company, “carrying party”; “B” Company to draw shovels and
+picks and “follow me.” Then we started off along about a mile and a
+half of communication trenches. I have already said that Festubert is
+a very wet district, and it can easily be imagined that the drainage
+problem is none of the easiest. This long communication trench had
+been mastered by trench-mats fastened down on long pickets which were
+driven deep down into the mud. The result was that the trench floor was
+raised about two feet from the original bottom, and one walked along a
+hollow-sounding platform over stagnant water. The sound reminded me of
+walking along a wooden landing-stage off the end of a pier. Every few
+hundred yards were “passing points,” presumably to facilitate passing
+other troops coming in the other direction; but as I never had the good
+fortune to meet the other troops at these particular spots, though
+I did in many others, I cannot say they were particularly useful.
+Another disadvantage about these water-logged trenches was that the bad
+rains had made the water rise in several places even over the raised
+trench-board platform; others were fastened on top; but even these were
+often not enough. And when the frost came and froze the water on top of
+the boards, the procession became a veritable cake-walk, humorous no
+doubt to the stars and sky, but to the performers, feeling their way
+in the thick darkness and ever slipping and plunging a boot and puttee
+into the icy water at the side, a nightmare of painful and jarring
+experiences.
+
+There was one junction of trenches where one had to cross a dyke full
+of half-frozen water; there was always a congestion of troops here,
+ration-parties, relieving-parties, and ourselves. All relieving had to
+be done at night, as the trenches with their artificially raised floors
+were no longer deep enough to give cover from view. This crossing had
+to be negociated in a most gingerly fashion, and several men got wet to
+their waists when compelled to cross while carrying an awkward-shaped
+hurdle. After this, the trench was worse than ever; in parts it was
+built with fire-steps on one side, and one could scramble on to this
+and proceed on the dry for awhile; but even here the slippery sand-bags
+would often treacherously slide you back into the worst part of the
+iced platform, and so gave but a doubtful advantage. At last the open
+was gained; then came the crossing of the old German trench, full
+of all kinds of grim relics from the spring fighting. And so to our
+destination.
+
+On the open ground lay a tracing of white tape like this--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+forming a serpentine series of contacting squares; in the blackness
+only two white-bordered squares were visible from one position. Each
+man was given a square to dig. I forget the measurements; about two
+yards square, I think, and two feet deep. The earth had to be thrown
+about eight yards back against a breastwork of hurdles. These hurdles
+were being brought up by the “carrying-parties” and fastened by wires
+by the R.E’s; the R.E. officers had, of course, laid our white tapes
+for us previously. Eventually the sentries will stand behind the
+hurdle breastwork with a water-ditch ten yards in front of them, which
+obstacle will be suitably enhanced by strong wire entanglements.
+
+But all this vision of completion is hid from the eyes of Private
+Jones, who only knows he has his white-taped square to dig. Arms and
+equipment are laid carefully on the side of the trench furthest from
+the breastwork; and nothing can be heard but the hard breathing and
+the shovelling and scraping of the “other ranks.” For two hours those
+men worked their hardest; indeed, it was much the best job to have on
+those cold nights. I did more digging then than I have ever done before
+or since. “Come on, Davies, you’re all behind,” and for ten minutes
+I would do an abnormal amount of shovelling, until, out of breath, I
+would hand the boy back his shovel, and tell him to carry on, while all
+aglow I went along the line examining the progress of the work. We had
+quite a number of bullets singing and cracking across, and there were
+one or two casualties every night. Sometimes flares would pop over, and
+every one would freeze into static posture; but on the whole things
+were very quiet, the enemy doubtless as full of water as ourselves.
+
+That intense cold! Yet I did not know then that it is far worse being
+on sentry in the frost than marching and digging. And I am not sure
+that the last night, when it rained incessantly, was not worse than
+all the rest. We had a particularly bad piece of ground that night,
+pitted with shell-holes, full of frozen water: you were bound to fall
+in one at last, and get wet to the waist; but even if you did escape
+that sticky humiliation, the driving sleet and rain were bad enough in
+themselves. That was a night when I found certain sergeants sheltered
+together in a corner; and certain other sergeants in the middle of
+their men and the howling gale. I soon routed the former out, but did
+not forget; and have since discovered how valuable a test of the good
+and the useless N.C.O. is a working party in the rain.
+
+Never have I longed for 2.0 a.m. as I did that night! My feet were
+wet, my body tired, my whole frame shivering with an approaching
+cold. The men could do nothing any longer in that stinking slush
+(for these old shell-holes of stagnant water were, to say the least
+of it, unsavoury!). I was so heavy with sleep I could scarce keep my
+eyes open. But when at last the order came from our second-in-command
+“Cease work,” I was filled with a dogged energy that carried me back
+to billets in the best of spirits, though I actually fell asleep
+as I marched behind the company, and bumped into the last four,
+when they halted suddenly half-way home! And so at four o’clock the
+men tumbled upstairs to breakfast and braziers (thanks to a good
+quartermaster-sergeant). I drank Bovril down below, and then, in
+pyjamas, sweaters, and innumerable blankets, turned in till 11.0 a.m.
+Next afternoon we left Rue de l’Epinette and halted at a village on the
+road to Lillers, whence we were to train to “a more northern part of
+the line,” and enjoy at last our long-earned rest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+REST
+
+
+Rumours were rife again, and mostly right this time. “The C.O. knew the
+part we were going to: a chalk country ... rolling downs ... four or
+five weeks’ rest ... field training thirty miles from the firing-line.”
+Chalk downs! To a Kentish man the words were magic, after the dull
+sodden flats of Flanders. I longed for a map of France, but could not
+get hold of one. As we marched to Lillers I looked at the flat straight
+roads and the ditches, at the weary monotony, uninspired by hill or
+view, at the floods on the roads, and the uninteresting straightness of
+the villages; and I felt that I was at the end of a chapter. Any change
+must be better than this. And chalk! chalk! short dry turf, and slopes
+with purple woods! I had forgotten these things existed.
+
+I forget the name of the village where we halted for two nights. I
+had a little room to myself, reached by a rickety staircase from the
+yard. One shut the staircase door to keep out the yard. Here several
+new officers joined us, Clark being posted to our company, and soon I
+began to see my last two months as history. For we began to tell our
+adventures to Clark, who had never been in the firing-line! Think of
+it! He was envious of our experiences! So I listened in awe and heard a
+tale develop, a true tale, the tale of the night the mine went up. It
+was no longer a case of disputing how many trench-mortars came over,
+but telling an interested audience that trench-mortars _did_ come
+over! Clark had never seen one. And I listened agape to hear myself
+the hero of a humorous story. When the mine went up, I had come out of
+my dug-out rather late and asked if anything had happened. This tale
+became elaborated: I was putting my gloves on calmly, it seems, as
+I strolled out casually and asked if anyone had heard a rather loud
+noise! And so stories crystallised, a word altered here and there for
+effect, but true, and as past history quite interesting.
+
+The move was made the occasion, by our C.O., of very elaborate and
+careful operation orders. No details were left to chance, and a
+conference of officers was called to explain the procedure of getting
+a battalion on a train and getting it off again. As usual, the
+officers’ valises had to be ready at a very early hour, and the company
+mess-boxes packed correspondingly early. Edwards, I think, was detailed
+as O.C. loading-party. Everything like this was down in the operation
+orders. The adjutant had had a time of it.
+
+Certainly the entraining went like clockwork, and once more I was
+seated in a grey-upholstered corridor carriage; the men were in those
+useful adaptable carriages inscribed “Chevaux 10. Hommes 30.” Our
+Tommies were evidently a kind of centaur class, for they went in
+by twenties. As far as I can remember, we entrained at 10.0 a.m.;
+we arrived at a station a few miles from Amiens at 9.0 p.m. A slow
+journey, but I felt excited like a child. I must keep going to the
+corridor to put my head out of the window. It was a sparkling, nippy
+air; the smell of the steam, the grit of the engine--these were things
+I had forgotten; and soon there were rolling plains, hills, clustering
+villages. The route, through St. Pol, Doullens, and Canaples, is
+ordinary enough, no doubt; and so, too, the gleam of white chalk
+that came at last. But if you think that ordinary things cannot be
+wonderful beyond measure, then go and live above ground and underground
+in Flanders for two months on end in winter; then, perhaps, you will
+understand a little of my good spirits.
+
+It was quite dark when we arrived. Then for three and a half hours
+we waited in a meadow outside the station, arms piled, the men
+sitting about on their waterproof sheets. Meanwhile the transport
+detrained, a lengthy business. Tea was produced from those marvellous
+field-kitchens. The night was cold, though, and it was too damp to sit
+down. For hours we stood about, tired. Then came the news that our
+six-mile march would be more like double six; that the billets had
+been altered!... At half-past twelve we marched off. It was starlight,
+but pretty dark. Eighteen miles we marched, reaching Montagne at
+half-past seven; every man was in full marching kit, and most of them
+carried sandbagfuls of extras. It was a big effort, especially as
+the men had done nothing in the nature of a long march for months.
+Well I remember it--the tired silence, the steady tramp, along the
+interminable road. Sometimes the band would strike up for a little, but
+even bands tire, and cannot play continuously. Mile after mile of hard
+road, and then the hedges would spring up into houses, and from the
+opened windows would gaze down awakened women. Hardly ever was a light
+shown in any house. Then the village would be left behind, and men
+shifted their packs and exchanged a sand-bag, unslung a rifle from one
+shoulder to the other, and settled down to another stretch, wondering
+if the next village would be the last.
+
+So it went on interminably all through the winter night. Once we
+halted in a village, and I sat on a doorstep with O’Brien discussing
+methods of keeping our eyes open. Edwards had been riding the horse,
+and had nearly tumbled off asleep. At another halt, half-way up a hill,
+I discovered a box of beef lozenges and distributed it among No. 6
+platoon. All the last ten miles I was carrying a rifle and a sand-bag.
+Sergeant Callaghan had the same, besides all his own kit. Sergeant
+Andrews kept on as steady as a rock. There were falterers, but we kept
+them in; only in the last two miles did one or two drop out. And all
+the while I was elated beyond measure; partly at seeing men like Ginger
+Joe, with his dry wit flashing, and Tudor, with his stolid power; but
+partly, too, at the climb uphill, the swing down, mysterious woods, and
+the unmistakable trunks of pines. And all the time we were steadily
+climbing; we must be upon a regular tableland.
+
+Dawn broke, and it got lighter and lighter--and so we entered Montagne.
+The quartermaster had had a nice job billeting at 2.0 a.m., but he
+had done it, and the men dropped on to their straw, into outhouses,
+anywhere. The accommodation seemed small and bad, but that could be
+arranged later. To get the men in, that was the main thing. One old
+woman fussed terribly, and the men looked like bayoneting her! We soon
+got the men in somehow. Then for our own billets. We agreed to have a
+scratch breakfast as soon as it could be procured. Meanwhile I went to
+the end of the village and found myself on the edge of the tableland;
+before me was spread out a great valley, with a poplar-lined road flung
+right across it; villages were dotted about; there were woods, and
+white ribbon by-roads. And over it all glowed the slant morning sun. I
+was on the edge of a chalky plateau; it was all just as I had imagined.
+I slept from 11.0 a.m. to 7.0 p.m., when I got up for a meal at which
+we were all short-tempered! And at 9.0 p.m. I retired again to sleep
+till 7.0 next morning.
+
+Montagne--How shall I be able to create a picture of Montagne? As I
+look back at all those eight months, the whole adventure seems unreal,
+a dream; yet somehow those first few days in the little village had
+for me a dream-like quality, unlike any other time. I think that then
+I felt that I was living in an unreality; whereas at other times life
+was real enough; and it is only now, afterwards, that these days are
+gradually melting through distance into dreams. At any rate, if the
+next few pages are dull to the reader, let him try and weave into
+them a sort of fairy glamour, and imagine a kind of spell cast over
+everything in which people moved as in a dream.
+
+First, there was the country itself. The next day (after a day’s sleep
+and a night’s on top of it) was, if I remember right, rather wet, and
+we had kit inspection in billets, and tried to eke out the hours by
+gas-helmet drill, and arm-drill in squads distributed about the various
+farmyards and barns. Then Captain Dixon decided to take the company
+out on a short route march, and as it was raining very steadily we
+took half the company with _two_ waterproof sheets per man. One sheet
+was thrown round the shoulders in the usual way; the other was tied
+kilt-wise round the waist. The result was an effective rainproof, if
+unmilitary-looking dress! We set off and soon came to a large wood
+with a broad ride through it.
+
+Along this ride we marched, two-deep now, and I at the rear as
+second-in-command. Here I felt most strongly that strange glamour
+of unreality. It was but three months ago, and I was in the heart
+of Wales, yet such was the effect of a few months that I looked on
+everything with the most exuberant sense of novelty. The rain-beads on
+the red-brown birch trees; the ivy; the oaks; the strange stillness in
+the thick wood after the gusts of wind and slashes of rain; especially
+the sounds--chattering jays, invisible peeping birds, the squelching of
+boots on a wet grass track--everything reminded me of a past world that
+seemed immeasurably distant, of past winters that had been completely
+forgotten. Then we emerged into a wide clearing along the edge of
+the wood, full of stunted gorse and junipers. Long coarse grass grew
+in tussocks that matted under foot; and now I could see the whole
+company straggling along in front of me, slipping and sliding about
+on the wet grass in their curious kilt-like costumes, some of which
+were now showing signs of uneasiness and tending to slip in rings to
+the ground. Everyone was very pleased with life. A halt was called
+at length, and while officers discussed buying shot-guns at Amiens,
+or stalking the wily hare with a revolver, Tommy, I have reason to
+believe, was planning more effective means of snaring Brer rabbit. Next
+day in orders appeared an extract from corps orders _re_ prohibition
+of poaching and destruction of game. It was all part of the dream that
+we were surprised, almost shocked, at this unwarranted exhibition of
+property rights! Not that there was much game about, anyhow.
+
+The next day we did an advance guard scheme, down in the plain. It
+was a crisp winter day, and I remember the great view from the top of
+the hill, on the edge of the plateau as you leave Montagne. It was
+all mapped out, with its hedgeless fields, its curling white roads,
+and its few dark triangles and polygons of fir woods. But we had not
+long to see it, for we came into observation then (so this dream game
+pretended!) and were soon in extended order working our way along over
+the plain. It all came back to one, this “open warfare” business, the
+advancing in short rushes, the flurried messages from excited officers
+to stolid platoon-sergeants, the taking cover, the fire-orders, the
+rattling of the bolts, the lying on the belly in a ploughed field; and
+yes! the spectator, old man or woman, gazing in stupid amazement at the
+khaki figures rushing over his fields. Then came the assault, bayonets
+fixed, and the C.O.’s whistle, ending the game for that day. “Game,”
+that was it: it is all a game, and when you get tired you go home to a
+good meal, and discuss the humour of it, and probably have a pow-wow in
+the evening in which the O.C. “A” is asked why he went off to the left,
+the real answer being that he lost direction badly, but the actual
+answer given explaining the subtlety of a detour round a piece of dead
+ground! Which is the dream? this, or the mud-slogging in the trenches
+and the interminable nights?
+
+For, every night we went to bed! Think of it! Every night! Always that
+bed, that silence, that priceless privacy of sleep! I had a rather cold
+ground-floor billet with a door that would not shut; yet it was worth
+any of your beds at home! And I should be here for a month, perhaps
+six weeks! I wrote for my basin and stand, for books, for all sorts of
+things. I felt I could accumulate, and spread myself. It was like home
+after hotels! For always we had been moving, moving; even our six days
+out were often in two or even three different billets.
+
+So, too, with our mess. The dream here consisted of a jolly little
+parlour that was the envy of all the other company messes. As usual,
+the rooms led into one another, the kitchen into the parlour, the
+parlour into a bedroom; I might almost continue, and say the bedroom
+into a bed! For the four-poster, when curtained off, is a little room
+in itself. It was a good billet, but best of all was Madame herself.
+Suffice it to say she would not take a penny for use of crockery; and
+she would insist on us making full use of everything; she allowed
+all our cooking to be done in her kitchen; and on cold nights she
+would insist on our servants sitting in the kitchen, though that was
+her only sitting-room. Often have I come in about seven o’clock to
+find our dinner frizzling merrily on the fire under the supervision
+of Gray, the cook, while Madame sat humbly in the corner eating a
+frugal supper of bread and milk, before retiring to her little room
+upstairs. Ah, Madame! there are many who have done what you have done,
+but few, I think, more graciously. If we tried to thank her for some
+extra kindness, she had always the same reply “You are welcome, M.
+l’Officier. I have heard the guns, and the Germans passed through
+Amiens; if it were not for the English, where should we be to-day?”
+
+So we settled down for our “rest,” for long field days, lectures
+after tea, football matches, and week-ends; I wrote for my Field
+Service Regulations, and rubbed up my knowledge of outposts and visual
+training. But scarcely had I been a week at Montagne when off I went
+suddenly, on a Sunday morning, to the Third Army School. I had been
+told my name was down for it, a few days before, but I had forgotten
+all about it, when I received instructions to bicycle off with Sergeant
+Roberts; my kit and servant to follow in a limber. I had no idea
+what the “Third Army School” was, but with “note-book, pencil, and
+protractor” I cycled off at 11.0 a.m. “to fields and pastures new.”
+
+Most people, I imagine, have had the following experience. They have
+a great interest in some particular subject, yet they have somehow not
+got the key to it. They regret that they were never taught the elements
+of it at school; or it is some new science or interest that has arisen
+since their schooldays, such as flying or motoring. They are really
+ashamed of asking questions; and all books on the subject are technical
+and presuppose just that elementary knowledge that the interested
+amateur does not possess. Then suddenly he comes on a book with those
+delicious phrases in the preface promising “to avoid all technical
+details,” apologising for “what may seem almost childishly elementary,”
+and containing at the end an expert bibliography. These are the books
+written by very wise and very kind men, and because they are worth so
+much they usually cost least of all!
+
+Such was my delightful experience at the Army School. I will confess to
+a terrible ignorance of my profession--I did not know how many brigades
+made up a division; “the artillery” were to me vague people whom the
+company commander rang up on the telephone, and who appeared in gaiters
+in Béthune; a bomb was a thing I avoided with a peculiar aversion; and
+as to the general conduct of the war I was the most ignorant of pawns.
+The wildest things were said about Loos; the _Daily Mail_ had just
+heard of the Fokker, and I had not the remotest idea whether we were
+hopelessly outclassed in the air, or whether perhaps after all there
+were people “up top” who were not so surprised or disconcerted at the
+appearance of the Fokker as the Northcliffe Press. Moreover, I had been
+impressed with the reiteration of my C.O., that my battalion was the
+finest in the Army, and that my division was likewise the best. Yet I
+had always felt that there were other good battalions, and that “K.’s
+Army” was, to say the least of it, in a considerable majority when
+compared with the contemptible little original which I had had the luck
+to join!
+
+Imagine my delight, then, at finding myself one of over a hundred
+captains and senior subalterns representing their various battalions.
+Regulars, Territorials, and Kitcheners, we were all there together;
+one’s vision widened like that of a boy first going to school. Here
+at least was a great opportunity, if only the staff was good. And any
+doubt on that question was instantly set at rest by the Commandant’s
+opening address, explaining that the instructors were all picked men
+with a large experience in this war, that in the previous month’s
+course mostly subalterns had been sent and this time it had been
+the aim to secure captains only (oh! balm in Gilead this!) and that
+apologies were due if some of the lectures and instructions were
+elementary; that bombing experts, for instance, must not mind if the
+bombing course started right at the very beginning, as it had been
+found in the previous course that it was wrong to presume _any_
+military knowledge to be the common possession of all officers in the
+school. Those who understood my simile of the expert’s kind book to the
+amateur will understand that there were few of us who did not welcome
+such a promising bill of fare.
+
+I do not intend to say much about the instruction at the Army School--a
+good deal of what I learnt there is unconsciously embodied in the rest
+of this book--but it is the spirit of the place that I want to record.
+I can best describe it as the opposite of what is generally known as
+academic. Theories and text-books about the war were at a discount:
+here were men who had been through the fire, every phase of it. It was
+not a question of opinions, but of facts. This came out most clearly in
+discussions after the lectures; a point would be raised about advancing
+over the open: “We attacked at St. Julien over open ground under heavy
+fire, and such and such a thing was our experience” would at once come
+out from someone. And there was no scoring of debating points! We were
+all out to pool our knowledge and experience all the time.
+
+The Commandant inspired in everyone a most tremendous enthusiasm. His
+lectures on “Morale” were the finest I have ever heard anywhere. “Put
+yourself in your men’s position on every occasion; continually think
+for them, give them the best possible time, be in the best spirits
+always;” “long faces” were anathema! No one can forget his tale of the
+doctor who never laughed, and whom he put in a barn and taught him how
+to! “‘Hail fellow well met’ to all other officers and regiments” was
+another of his great points. “Give ’em a d--d good lunch--a _d--d_
+good lunch.” “Get a good mess going.” “Ask your Brigadier into lunch
+in the trenches: _make_ him come in.” “Concerts?--plenty of concerts
+in billets.” “An extra tot of rum to men coming off patrol.” All this
+was a “good show.” But long faces, inhospitality, men not cheerful
+and singing, officers not seeing that their men get their dinners,
+after getting into billets, before getting their own; officers
+supervising working-parties by sitting under haystacks instead of
+going about cheering the men; brigadiers not knowing their officers;
+poor lunches--all these things were a “bad show, a d--d bad show!”
+These lectures were full of the most delicious anecdotes and thrilling
+stories, and backed up by a huge enthusiasm and a most emphatic
+practice of his preaching. We had a concert every Wednesday, and every
+Saturday the four motor-buses took the officers into Amiens, and the
+sergeants on Sundays--week-ends were in fact “good shows.”
+
+Then there were the lectures. The second week, for instance, was a
+succession of lectures on the Battle of Loos. These lectures used to
+take place after tea, and the discussion usually lasted till dinner.
+First was a lecture by an infantry major of the Seventh Division (who
+needless to say had been very much in it!). Then followed one by an
+artillery officer, giving his version of it; then followed an R.E.
+officer. There was nothing hidden away in a corner. It was all facts,
+facts, facts. An enlarged map of our own and the German trenches was
+most fascinating to us who had for the most part never handled one
+before. I remember the Major’s description of the fighting in the
+Quarries; it was one of the most vivid bits of narrative I have ever
+heard. Then there were other fascinating lectures--Captain Jefferies,
+the big game hunter, on Sniping: the Commandant again on Patrol work
+and discipline, and Dealing with prisoners: two lectures from the Royal
+Flying Corps, perhaps most fascinating of all.
+
+We drilled hard with rifles: we took a bombing course and threw live
+bombs: we went through the gas, and had a big demonstration with smoke
+bombs: we went to a squadron of the R.F.C., inspected the sheds, saw
+the aeroplanes, and had anything we liked explained: we went out in
+motor-buses and carried out schemes of attack and defence: we did
+outpost schemes: drew maps: dug trenches and revetted them. In short,
+there was very little we did not do at the School.
+
+It was, in fact, a “good show.” The School was in a big white château
+on the main road--a new house built by the owner of a factory. The
+village really lies like a sediment at the bottom of a basin, with
+houses clustering and scrambling up the sides along the high road
+running out of it east and west, getting thinner and fewer up the hill,
+to disappear altogether on the tableland. The jute factory was working
+hard night and day: we used to have hot baths in the long wooden
+troughs that are used for dyeing long rolls of matting, and I know no
+hot baths to equal those forty-footers!
+
+Needless to say, we took advantage of our commandant’s arrangement for
+free ‘bus rides into Amiens every Saturday. Christmas Day falling on
+a Saturday, we all had a Christmas dinner at the Hôtel de l’Univers.
+This, needless to say, was a “good show.” It was a pity, though, that
+turkey had been insisted on, as turkey with salad, minus sausages,
+bread-sauce, and brussels sprouts did not seem somehow the real thing;
+the chef had jibbed at sausages especially! Better at Rome to have
+done completely as Rome does. After all we cannot give the French much
+advice in cooking or in war. Otherwise the dinner was good, and unlike
+our folk at home we had a merry Christmas.
+
+Of course I went to see the Cathedral that Ruskin has claimed to be
+the most perfect building in the world; indeed, each Saturday found me
+there; for like all true beauty the edifice does not attract merely
+by novelty but satisfies the far truer test of familiarity. Yet I
+confess to a thrill on first entering that dream in stone, which could
+not come a second time. For down in the mud I had forgotten, in the
+obsession of the present, man’s dreams and aspirations for the future.
+Now, here again I was in touch with eternal things that wars do not
+affect. I remember once at Malvern we had been groping and choking in
+a thick fog all day; then someone suggested a walk, and three of us
+ventured out and climbed the Beacon. Half-way up the fog began to thin,
+and soon we emerged into a clear sunshine. Below lay all the plain
+wrapped in a great level blanket of white fog; here and there the top
+of a tall tree or a small hill protruded its head out of the mist and
+seemed to be laughing at its poor hidden companions; and in a cloudless
+blue the sun was smiling at mankind below who had forgotten his very
+existence. So in Amiens Cathedral I used to get my head out of the
+thick fog of war for a time, and in that stately silence recover my
+vision of the sun.
+
+The cathedral is a building full of all the freshness of spring. I
+was at vespers there on Christmas afternoon, and was then impressed
+by the wonderful lightness of the building: so often there is gloom
+in a cathedral, that gives a heavy feeling. But Amiens Cathedral is
+perfectly lighted, and in the east window glows a blue that reminded
+me of viper’s bugloss in a Swiss meadow. My imagination flew back to
+the building of the cathedral, and to the brain that conceived it, and
+beyond that again to the tradition that through long years moulded
+the conception; and behind all to the idea, the ultimate birth of
+this perfect creation. And one seemed to be straining almost beyond
+humanity, to see the first spring flowers looking up in wonder at the
+sky. The stately pillars were man’s aspiration towards his Creator, the
+floating music his attempt at praise.
+
+Yet it was only as I left the building that I found the key to the
+full understanding of this perfect expression of an idea. Round the
+chancel is a set of bas-reliefs depicting a saint labouring among his
+people. But what people! They live, they speak! The relief is so deep,
+that some of the figures are almost in the round, and several come
+outside the slabs altogether. They are the people of mediæval Amiens;
+they are the very people who were living in the town while their great
+cathedral rose stone by stone to be the wonder of their city, the pride
+of all Picardy. Almost grotesque in their vivid humanity, they are the
+same people who walk outside the cathedral to-day. The master-artist,
+greater in his dreams than his fellow men, was yet blessed with that
+divine sense of humour that made him love them for their quaint
+smallnesses! So in Amiens I felt a double inspiration: there was
+man’s offering of his noblest and most beautiful to his Creator, and
+there was also the reminder, in the saint among the Amiens populace,
+that God’s answer was not a proud bend of the head as He deigned to
+accept the offering of poor little man, but a coming down among them,
+a claiming of equality with them, even though they refuse still to
+realise their divinity, and choose to live in a self-made suffering and
+to degrade themselves in a fog of war.
+
+All too quickly the month went by. The enthusiasm and interest of
+everybody grew in a steady crescendo, and no one, I am sure, will
+ever forget the impression left by the Major-General who was deputed
+to come and “tell us one or two things” from the General Staff. In a
+quiet voice, with a quiet smile, he compared our position with that of
+a year ago; told us facts about our numbers compared with the enemy’s;
+our guns compared with his; the real position in the air, the temporary
+superiority of the Fokker that would vanish completely and finally
+in a month or so; in everything we were now superior except heavy
+trench-mortars, and in a month or so we should have a big supply of
+them too, and a d--d sight heavier! And we could afford to wait. One
+got the impression that all our grousings and doubtings were completely
+out of date, that up at the top now was a unity of command that had
+thought everything out and could afford to wait. Later on I forgot
+this impression, but I remember it so well now. Even through Verdun we
+could afford to wait. We had all the cards now. There was a sort of
+breathless silence throughout this quiet speech. And when it ended with
+a “Good luck to you, gentlemen,” there was applause; but one’s chief
+desire was to go outside and shout. It was a bonfire mood: best of all
+would have been a bonfire of _Daily Mails_!
+
+We returned to our units on Sunday, 9th January, 1916, by motor-bus,
+which conveyed us some sixty or seventy miles, when we were dropped,
+Sergeant Roberts, myself, and Lewis, my servant. Leaving Lewis with
+my valise, we walked in the moonlight up to Montagne, where I got the
+transport officer to send a limber for my valise. “O’Brien on leave”
+was the first thing I grasped, as I tried to acclimatise myself to my
+surroundings. Leave! My three months was up, so I ought to get leave
+myself in a week or so; in a few days in fact. My first leave! The next
+week was rosy from the prospect. My second impression was like that of
+a poet full of a great sunset and trying to adjust himself to the dry
+unimaginative remarks of the rest of the community who have relegated
+sunsets to perdition during dinner. For every one was so dull! They
+groused, they maligned the Staff, they were pessimistic, they were
+ignorant, oh! profoundly ignorant; they were in fact in a state of not
+having seen a vision! I could not believe then that the time would come
+when I, too, should forget the vision, and fix my eyes on the mud!
+Still, for the moment, I was immensely surprised, though I was not such
+a fool as to start at once on a general reform of everyone, starting
+with the Brigadier. For under the Commandant’s influence one felt
+ready to tell off the Brigadier, if he didn’t get motor-’buses to take
+your men to a divisional concert instead of saying the men must march
+three miles to it. But, as I say, I restrained myself.
+
+A week of field days, of advance guards and attacks in open order, of
+battalion drill, company drill, arm-drill, gas-helmet drill; lectures
+in the school in the evening, and running drill before breakfast. Yet
+all the time I felt chafing to get back into the firing-line. I felt so
+much better equipped to command my men. I wanted to practise all my new
+ideas. Then my leave came through.
+
+Leave “comes through” in the following manner. The lucky man receives
+an envelope from the orderly room, in the corner of which is written
+“Leave.” Inside is an “A” Form (Army Form C 2121) with this magic
+inscription: “Please note you will take charge of ---- other ranks
+proceeding on leave to-morrow morning, 17th inst. They will parade
+outside orderly room at 7.0 a.m. sharp.” Then follow instructions as
+to where to meet the ’bus. “Take charge!” If you blind-folded those
+fellows they would find their way somehow by the quickest route to
+Blighty! The officer is then an impossible person to live with. He is
+continually jumping about, upsetting everybody, getting sandwiches, and
+discussing England, looking at the paper to see “What’s on” in town,
+talking, being unnecessarily bright and cheery. He is particularly
+offensive in the eyes of the man just come back from leave. Still, it
+is his day; abide with him until he clears off! So they abode with me
+until the evening, and next morning Oliver and I started off in the
+darkness with our four followers. As we left the village it was just
+beginning to lighten a little, and we met the drums just turning out,
+cold and sleepy. As we sprang down the hill, leaving Montagne behind
+us, faintly through the dawn we heard réveillé rousing our unfortunate
+comrades to another Monday morning!
+
+Then came the long, long journey that nobody minds really, though every
+one grumbles at it. At B---- an hour’s halt for omelettes and coffee
+and bread and jam, while the Y.M.C.A. stall supplied tea and buns
+innumerable. B---- will be a station known for all time to thousands.
+“Do you remember B----?” we shall ask each other. “Oh! yes. Good
+omelettes one got there.” Then the port, and fussy R.T.O’s again. Why
+make a fuss, when everyone is magnetised towards the boat? Under the
+light of a blazing gas-jet squirting from a pendant ball, we crossed
+the gangway.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+There were men of old time who fell on their native earth and kissed
+it, on returning after exile. We did not kiss the boards of Southampton
+pier-head, but we understood the spirit that inspired that action as
+we steamed quietly along the Solent over a grey and violet sea. There
+were mists that morning, and the Hampshire coast was grey and vague;
+but steadily the engine throbbed, and we glided nearer and nearer,
+entered Southampton Water, and at last were near enough to see houses
+and fields and people. People. English women.
+
+We disembarked. But what dull people to meet us! Officials and watermen
+who have seen hundreds of leave-boats arrive--every day in fact! The
+last people to be able to respond to your feelings. Still, what does it
+matter? There is the train, and an English First! Some one started to
+run for one, and in a moment we were all running!...
+
+But you have met us on leave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ON THE MARCH
+
+
+On this leave I most religiously visited relations and graciously
+received guests. For one thing, I felt it my duty to dispel all this
+ignorant pessimism that I found rolling about in large chunks, like the
+thunder in _Alice in Wonderland_. I exacted apologies, humble apologies
+from them. “How can we help it?” they pleaded. “We have no means of
+knowing anything except through the papers.”
+
+“No, I suppose you can’t help it,” I would reply, and forgive them from
+my throne of optimism. Eight days passed easily enough.
+
+After dinner sometimes comes indigestion: people enjoy the one and
+not the other. So after leave comes the return from leave, the one
+in Tommy-French _bon_, the other _no bon_. I hope I do not offend by
+calling the state of the latter a mental indigestion! It was with a
+kind of fierce joy that we threw out our bully and biscuits to the
+crowds of French children who lined the railway banks crying out,
+“Bullee-beef,” “Biskeet.” The custom of supplying these rations on the
+leave train has long since been discontinued now, but in those days
+the little beggars used to know the time of the train to a nicety, and
+must have made a good trade of it.
+
+As soon as I got back to Montagne I heard a “move” was in the air, and
+I was delighted. I was fearfully keen to get back into the firing-line
+again. I was full of life, and in the mood for adventure. I started a
+diary. Here are some extracts.
+
+“29th January, 1916. Lewis (my servant) brought in a bucket of water
+this morning which contained 10% of mud. As the mud dribbled on to the
+green canvas of my bath during the end of the pouring, he saw it for
+the first time. Apparently the well is running dry.... He managed to
+get some clean water at length and I had a great bath. Madame asked
+me as I went in to breakfast why I whistled getting up that morning.
+I tried to explain that I was in good spirits. It was an exhilarating
+morning; outside was a great cawing of rooks, and the slant sunlight
+lit up everything with a rich colour; the mouldy green on the twigs of
+the apple trees was a joy to see. Later in the day I noticed how all
+this delicious morning light had gone.
+
+“7 p.m. Orders have just come in for the move to-morrow. Loading party
+at 6.0 a.m. under Edwards, who is inwardly fed up but outwardly quite
+pleased. Valises to be ready by 6.45 a.m. Dixon grouses as usual at
+orders coming in late. These moves always try the tempers of all
+concerned. O’Brien and Edwards are now on the rustle, collecting kit.
+We have accumulated rather a lot of papers, books, tins of ration,
+tobacco, etc.”
+
+Madame was genuinely sorry to see us go. We gave her a large but
+beautiful ornament for her mantelpiece, suitably inscribed. The dear
+soul was overwhelmed, and drew cider from a cellar hitherto unknown to
+us, which she pressed on our servants as well as on us. We made the
+fellows drink it, though they were not very keen on it!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+“30 Jan., 1916. Montagne--Vaux-en-Amienois. I found myself suddenly
+detailed as O.C. rear party, in lieu of Edwards, who has to remain
+in Montagne and hand over to the incoming battalion. At 9.30 three
+A.S.C. lorries arrived, and we loaded up. I had about forty men for the
+job. It was good to see these boys heaving up rolls of many-coloured
+blankets, which filled nearly two lorries; the third was packed with
+a mixture of boilers, dixies, brooms, spades, lamps, etc. The leather
+and skin waistcoats had to be left behind for a second journey: I left
+the shoemaker-sergeant and four men with these to await the return of
+one of the lorries. As we worked a fog rolled up, which was to stay all
+day. Edwards meanwhile saw to it that all the odd coal and wood left
+at the transport was taken to our good Madame; this much annoyed the
+groups of women who peered like vultures from the doorways, ready to
+squabble over the pickings as soon as the last of us had departed.
+
+Farewell to Montagne. All the fellows were dull. Even Sawyer the
+smiling, who had been prominent with his cheery face in the loading-up,
+was silent and dull. No life. No spirit. A mournful lot, save for the
+plum-pudding dog that galloped ahead and on either flank, smelling and
+pouncing and tossing his mongrel ears in delight. He belonged to one of
+the men, a gift from a warm-hearted daughter of France.
+
+A dull lot, I say. I rallied them. I persuaded. I whistled, hoping
+to put a tune into their dull hearts; and as we swung downhill into
+Riencourt they began to sing. It was but a sorry thin sort of singing
+though, like a winter sunshine; there was no power behind it, no joy,
+no spontaneity. Suddenly, however, as we came into the village, there
+was a company of the Warwicks falling in, and everyone sang like fury.
+Baker, one of the last draft, was the moving spirit. But he is young to
+this life, and later on, when the fog had entered their souls again, he
+said he could not well sing with a pack on. Yet is not that the very
+time to sing, is not that the very virtue of singing, the conquest of
+the poor old body by the indomitable spirit?
+
+It was a fifteen-mile march. At the third halt I gave half an hour for
+the eating of bread and cheese. Then was the hour of the plum-pudding
+hound; also appeared a sort of Newfoundland collie, very big in the
+hind-quarters, and very dirty as well as ill-bred. Between them they
+made rich harvest of crusts and cheese. We sat on a bank along the
+road, but after half an hour we were all getting cold in the raw air,
+and I fell them in again, and we got on our way. Soon they warmed up
+and whistled and sang for a quarter of an hour; then silence returned,
+and eyes turned to the ground again. This march began to tell on the
+older men. Halford fell out, and I sent Corporal Dewey to bring him
+along, hastily scribbling the name of our destination on a slip torn
+from my field-message book, and giving it to him. Then Riley fell out,
+and Flynn. I began to dread the appearance of Sergeant Hayman from
+the rear, to tell me of some one else. They were men, these, who had
+been employed on various jobs; the older and weaker men. There was no
+skrim-shanking, for there was no Red Cross cart behind us. But no one
+else fell out; the pace was steady and they were as fit as anything,
+these fellows. Then happened an incident. We had just turned off the
+main Amiens road, and come to a forked road. I halted a moment to
+make sure of the way by the map, and while I did so apparently some
+sergeant from a regiment billeted in the village there told Sergeant
+Hayman that the battalion had taken the left road. The way was to the
+right, and as I struck up a steep hill, Sergeant Hayman ran up and told
+me the battalion (which had started nearly two hours before us) had
+gone to the left. ‘I’m going to the right, sergeant,’ said I. And the
+sergeant returned to the rear. Up, up, up. Grind, grind, grind. I began
+to hear signs of doubt behind. ‘Did you hear that? Said the battalion
+went t’other way,’ and so on. ‘Ain’t ’e got a map all right?’ from a
+believer. ‘Three kilos more,’ I said at the next stop. But some of the
+fellows had got it into their heads, I could see, that we were wrong.
+I studied the map; there was no doubt we were all right. Yet a mistake
+would be calamitous, as the men were very done. Ah! a kilo-stone! ‘Two
+kilos to ----,’ a place not named on the map at all. This gave me a
+qualm; and behind came the usual mispronunciations of this annoying
+village on the stone. But lo! on the left came a turning as per map.
+Round we swung, downhill, and suddenly we were in a village. Another
+qualm as I saw it full of Jocks. The doubters were just beginning to
+realise this fact, when we turned another corner, and almost fell on
+top of the C.O.! In five minutes we were in billets....”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The next day we marched to the village of Querrieux. There I heard the
+guns again after two months.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+“31st January. This evening was full of the walking tour spirit, the
+spirit of good company. We were billeted at a farmhouse, and the
+farmer showed Captain Dixon and me all round his farm. He was full of
+pride in everything; of his horses first of all. There were three in
+the first stable, sleek and strong; then we saw _la mère_, a beautiful
+mare in foal; then lastly there was ‘Piccaninny,’ a yearling. All the
+stables were spotlessly clean, and the animals well kept. But to see
+him with his lambs was best of all. The ewes were feeding from racks
+that ran all along both sides of the sheds, and his lantern showed
+two long rows of level backs, solid and uniform and dull; while in
+the middle of the shed was a jocund company of close-cropped lambs,
+frisking, pushing, jostling, or pulling at their dams; as lively and
+naughty a crew as you could imagine. ‘Ah! _voleur_,’ cried our friend,
+picking up a lamb that was stealing a drink from the wrong tap, and
+pointing to its dam at the other end of the shed; he fondled and
+stroked it like a puppy, making us hold it, and assuring us it was not
+_méchant_!
+
+At 7.0 we had our dinner in the kitchen. The farmer, his wife, and the
+_domestique_ (a manservant, whose history I will tell in a few minutes)
+had just finished, and were going to clear off; but we asked them to
+stay and let us drink their health in whiskey and soda. The farmer said
+this was wont to make the _domestique_ go ‘zigzag’; for himself, he
+would drink, not for the inherent pleasure of the whiskey, which was
+a strong drink to which he was unused, he being of the land of light
+wines, but to give us pleasure! So the usual healths were given in Old
+Orkney and Perrier. Then we were told the history of the _domestique_,
+which brought one very close to the spirit in which France is fighting.
+He had eight children in Peronne, barely ten miles the other side of
+the line. Called up in September, 1914, he was in the trenches until
+March, 1915, when he was released on account of his eight children.
+But by then the living line had set between them in steel and blood,
+and never a word yet has he heard of his wife and eight children, the
+youngest of whom he left nine days old! There are times when our cause
+seems clouded with false motives; but there seemed no doubt on this
+score to-night, as we watched this man in his own land, creeping up,
+as it were, as near as possible to his wife and children and home,
+and yet barred from his own village, and without the knowledge even
+that his own dear ones were alive. The farmer told us he had gone half
+crazed. Yet he had a fine face, though furrowed with deep lines down
+his forehead. ‘Ten minutes in the yard with the Germans--ah! what would
+he do!’ And vividly he drew his hand across his throat. But the Germans
+would never go back: that was another of his opinions. No wonder he
+told us he doubted the _bon Dieu_: no wonder he sometimes went zigzag.
+
+The farmer was well educated, and had very intelligent views on
+the war; one son was a captain; the other was also serving in some
+capacity. The wife made us good coffee, but got very sleepy. I learnt
+she rose every morning at 4.0 a.m. to milk the cows.
+
+To-night we can hear the guns. There seems a considerable liveliness at
+several parts of the line, and strange rumours of the Germans breaking
+through, which I do not believe. To-morrow we shall be within the
+shell-zone again.”
+
+“Feb. 1st. To-day we marched to Morlancourt and are spending the night
+in huts. It is very cold, and we have a brazier made out of a biscuit
+tin, but it smokes abominably. We are busy getting trench-kit ready
+for the next day. From outside the hut I can see star-lights, and hear
+machine-guns tapping. It thrills like the turning up of the footlights.”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+And it was a long act. The curtain did not fall till June.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE BOIS FRANÇAIS TRENCHES
+
+
+This is a chapter of maps, diagrams, and technicalities. There are
+people, I know, who do not want maps, to whom maps convey practically
+nothing. These people can skip this chapter, and (from their point of
+view) they will lose nothing. The main interest of life lies in what
+is done and thought, and it does not much matter exactly where these
+acts and thoughts take place. Maps are like anatomy: to some people it
+is of absorbing interest to know where our bones, muscles, arteries
+and all the rest of our interior lie; to others these things are of no
+account whatever. Yet all are alike interested in human people. And
+so, quite understanding (I think you are really very romantic in your
+dislike of maps: you associate them with the duller kind of history,
+and examination papers!), I bid you mapless ones farewell till page
+117, promising you (again) that you shall lose nothing.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Now to work. We understand each other, we map-lovers. The other folk
+have gone on to the next chapter, so we can take our time.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+ _To face page 97_
+
+MAP II.]
+
+Now look at Map II. The River Ancre runs down west of the Thiepval
+ridge, through Albert, and then in a south-westerly course through
+Méricourt-l’abbé down to Corbie, where it joins the Somme on its way to
+Amiens. On each side of the Ancre is high ground of about 100 metres.
+The high ground between the Ancre and the Somme forms a long tableland.
+There is no ridge, it is just high flat country, from three hundred and
+thirty to three hundred and forty feet, cultivated and hedgeless. Now
+look at Fricourt. It is a break in this high ground running on the left
+bank of the Ancre, and this break is caused by a nameless tributary of
+that river, that joins it just west of Méaulte. And now you will see
+that this little streamlet was for over a year and a half the cause of
+much thought and labour to very many men indeed: for this stream formed
+the valley in which Fricourt lies; and right across this valley, just
+south of that unimportant little village, ran for some twenty months or
+so the Franco-German and later the Anglo-German lines.
+
+Now look at the dotted line (--·--·) which represents the trenches.
+From Thiepval down to Fricourt they run almost due north and south;
+then they run up out of the valley on to the high ground at Bois
+Français (a small copse, I suppose, once; I have never discovered any
+vestige of a tree-stump among the shell-holes), and then abruptly run
+due east. It is as though someone had appeared suddenly on the corner
+of the shoulder at Bois Français, and pushed them off, compelling
+them to make a détour. After five miles they manage to regain their
+direction and run south again.
+
+It is these trenches at Bois Français that we held for over four
+months. I may fairly claim to know every inch of them, I think! It is
+obvious that if you are at Bois Français, and look north, you have
+an uninterrupted view not only of both front lines running down into
+Fricourt valley, but of both lines running up on to the high ground
+north of Fricourt, and a very fine view indeed of Fricourt itself,
+and Fricourt wood. It is also quite clear that from their front lines
+north of Fricourt the Germans had a good view of _our_ front lines and
+communications in the valley; but of Bois Français and our trenches
+east of it they had no enfilade view, as all our communications were
+on the reverse slope of this shoulder of high ground. So as regards
+observation we were best off. Moreover, whereas they could not possibly
+see our support lines and communications at Bois Français, we could get
+a certain amount of enfilade observation of their trenches opposite
+from point 87, where was a work called Boute Redoubt and an artillery
+observation post.
+
+The position of the artillery immediately becomes clear, when the
+lie of the ground is once grasped. For field artillery enfilade fire
+is far most effective, as the trajectory is lower than that of heavy
+artillery. That is to say, a whizz-bang (the name given to an 18-lb.
+shell) more or less skims along the ground and comes _at_ you; whereas
+howitzers fire up in the air, and the shell rushes down on top of you.
+To be explicit at the risk of boring:--
+
+If a battery of eighteen-pounders can fire up a trench like this:--
+
+[Illustration: (_a_)]
+
+it has far more effect against the nine men in that trench than if it
+fires like this:
+
+[Illustration: (_b_)]
+
+The same applies of course to howitzers, but as howitzers drop shells
+down almost perpendicularly, they can be used with great effect
+traversing along a trench, that is to say, getting the exact range of
+the trench in sketch (_b_), and dropping shells methodically from right
+to left, or left to right, so many to each fire-bay, and dodging about
+a bit, and going back on to a bit out of turn so that the enemy cannot
+tell where the next coal-box is coming. Oh! it is a great game this for
+the actors, but not for the unwilling audience.
+
+So you can see now why a battery of field artillery was stationed in
+the gully called Gibraltar, and another just west of Albert (at B):
+each of these batteries could bring excellent enfilade fire on to the
+German trenches. There was another battery that fired from the place
+I have marked C, and another at D. The howitzers lived in all sorts
+of secret places, as far back as Morlancourt some of them. One never
+worried about them. They knew their own business. Once, in June, on our
+way into the trenches we halted close by a battery at E, and I looked
+into one of the gun-pits and saw the terrible monster sitting with its
+long nose in the air. And I saw the great shells (it was a 9·6) waiting
+in rows. But I felt like an interloper, and fled at the approach of a
+gunner. All these howitzers you see firing on the Somme films, we never
+saw or thought about; only we loved to hear their shells whistling and
+“griding” (if there is no such word, I cannot help it: there is an “r”
+and a “d” in the sound anyway!) over our head, and falling “crump,”
+“crump,” “crump” along the German support trenches. There were a lot
+of batteries in the Bois des Tailles; the woods were full of them, and
+grew fuller and fuller. I do not know what they all were.
+
+As one brigade contains four battalions, we almost invariably had
+two battalions in the line, and two “in billets.” So it was usually
+“six days in and six days out.” During these six days out we also
+invariably supplied four working-parties per company, which lasted
+nine hours from the time of falling in outside company headquarters
+to dismissing after marching back. Still, it was “billets.” One
+slept uninterruptedly, and with equipment and boots off. Now we were
+undeniably lucky in being invariably (from February to June, 1916)
+billeted in Morlancourt, which, as you can see from the map, is
+situated in a regular cup with high ground all round it. I have put in
+the 50-metre contour line to show exactly how the roads all run down
+into it from every quarter. It was a cosy spot, and a very jolly thing
+after that long, long weary grind up from Méaulte at the end of a weary
+six days in, to look down on the snug little village waiting for you
+below. For once over the hill and “swinging” down into Morlancourt,
+one became, as it were, cut off from the war suddenly and completely.
+It was somewhat like shutting the door on a stormy night: everything
+outside was going on just the same, but with it was shut out also a
+wearing, straining tension of body and mind.
+
+Yes, we were very lucky in being billeted at Morlancourt. It was just
+too far off to be worth shelling, whereas Bray was shelled regularly
+almost every day. So was Méaulte. And there were brigades billeted
+in both Bray and Méaulte. There were troops in tents in the Bois des
+Tailles, and this too was sometimes shelled.
+
+Now just look, please, at the two thick lines, which represent
+alternative routes to the trenches. We were always able to relieve
+by day, thanks to the rolling nature of the country. (Where the line
+is dotted, this represents a trench.) We always used to go by the
+route through Méaulte at one time, until they took to shelling the
+road at the point I have marked Z; whether they could see us from
+an observation post up la-Boiselle way, or whether they spotted us
+by observation balloon or aeroplane, one cannot say. But latterly
+we always used the route by the Bois des Tailles and Gibraltar.
+In both cases we had to cross the high ground S.W. of point 71 by
+trench, but on arrival at that point we were again in a valley and
+out of observation. All along this road were a series of dug-outs,
+and here were companies in reserve, R.E. headquarters, R.A.M.C.
+dressing-station, field kitchens, stores, etc. And here the transport
+brought up rations every evening viâ Bray. One could walk about here,
+completely secure from view; but latterly they took to shelling it, and
+it was not a healthy spot then. It was also enfiladed occasionally by
+long-range machine-gun fire. But on the whole it was a good spot, and
+one had a curious sensation being able to walk about on an open road
+within a thousand yards of the Germans. The dug-outs called “71 North”
+were the best. The bank sloped up very steeply from the road, thus
+protecting the dug-outs along it from anything but shell-fire of very
+high trajectory. And this the Germans never used. However, one did not
+want to walk too far along the road, for it led round the corner
+into full view of Fricourt at X. There was a trench at the side of the
+road that ought to be hopped down into, but it could easily be missed,
+and there was no barrier across the road! I saw a motor-cyclist dash
+right along to the corner once, and return very speedily when he found
+himself gazing full view at Fricourt!
+
+[Illustration:
+
+ _To face page 103_
+
+MAP III.]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Map III is an enlargement of the area in Map II, and gives details of
+our trenches and the German trenches opposite. I wish I could convey
+the sense of intimacy with which I am filled when I look at this
+map. It is something like the feelings I should ascribe to a farmer
+looking at a map of his property, every inch of which he knows by
+heart; every field, every copse, every lane, every hollow and hill are
+intimate things to him. With every corner he has some association;
+every tree cut down, every fence repaired, every road made up, every
+few hundred yards of shaw grubbed up, every acre of orchard enclosed
+and planted--all these he can call back to memory at his will. So do
+I know every corner, every turning in these trenches; every traverse
+has its peculiar familiarity, very often its peculiar history. This
+traverse was built the night after P----’s death; this trench was dug
+because “75 Street” was so marked down by the enemy rifle-grenades;
+another was a terrible straight trench till we built those traverses
+in it; another was a morass until we boarded it. How well I remember
+being half buried by a canister at the corner of “78 Street”; and the
+night the mine blew in all the trench between the Fort and the Loop;
+what an awful dug-out that was at Trafalgar Square; how we loathed the
+straightness of Watling Street. And so on, _ad infinitum_. We were in
+those trenches for over four months, and I know them as one knows the
+creakings of the doors at home, the subtle smell of the bath-room,
+the dusty atmosphere of the box-room, or the lowness of the cellar
+door. Particularly intimate are the recollections of dug-outs, with
+their good or bad conveniences in the way of beds and tables, their
+beams that smote you on the head as regularly as clockwork, or their
+peculiarly musty smell. One dug-out invariably smelt of high rodent;
+another of sand-bag, nothing but sand-bag.
+
+From February, then, to June we kept on going into these trenches drawn
+on Map III, and then back to Morlancourt for rest and working-parties,
+all as regular as clockwork. Once or twice the actual front line held
+by our battalion was altered, so that I have been in the trenches all
+along from the Cemetery (down in the valley) to the end of the craters
+opposite Danube Trench. But every time except twice my company held
+part of the trench between 83 B (the end of the craters) and the Lewis
+gun position to the right of 76 Street. The usual distribution of the
+battalion was as follows:--
+
+ A Company. From 80 A to L. G. (Lewis gun)
+ on right of 76.
+
+ B ” Maple Redoubt.
+
+ C ” 71 North.
+
+ D ” L. G. on right of 76 to 73 Street.
+
+ (After three days A and B, and C and D,
+ relieved each other.)
+
+ Battalion Headquarters, }
+ Headquarter Bombers, } Maple
+ M.O. and H.Q. Stretcher-bearers} Redoubt.
+ R.S.M. }
+
+Maple Redoubt was what is known as a “strong point.” In case of an
+enemy attack piercing our front line, the company in Maple Redoubt held
+out at all costs to the last man, even if the enemy got right past and
+down the hill. There was a dug-out which was provisioned full up with
+bully-beef and water (in empty petrol cans) ready for this emergency.
+There was a certain amount of barbed-wire put out in front of the
+trenches to N., W., and E.; and there were two Lewis-gun positions at
+A and B. Really it was not a bad little place, although the “Defences
+of Maple Redoubt” were always looked on by us as rather more of a big
+joke than anything. No one ever really took seriously the thought of
+the enemy coming over and reaching Maple Redoubt. Raid the front line
+he was liable to do at any moment; but attack on such a big scale as
+to come right through, no, no one really ever (beneath the rank of
+battalion commander, anyway) worried about that. Still, if he did,
+there was the redoubt anyway; and there was another called “Redoubt
+A” on the hill facing us, as one looked from Maple Redoubt across the
+smoke rising from dug-outs which could just not be seen under the
+bank at 71 North. Here was rumoured to be bully-beef and water also,
+and the Machine-gun Corps had some positions in it which they visited
+occasionally; but even a notice “No one allowed this way,” failed to
+tempt me to explore its interior. One saw it, traced out on the hill,
+from Maple Redoubt, and there I have no doubt it still is, with its
+bully-beef intact and its water a little stale!
+
+So much for Maple Redoubt. In case of attack, as I have said, it was
+a strong point that must hold out at all costs, while the company
+at 71 North came up to Rue Albert, and would support either of the
+front companies as the C.O. directed. The front companies of course
+held the front line to the last man. Meanwhile, the two battalions
+in billets would be marching up from Morlancourt, to the high ground
+above Redoubt A (that is, just east of D on Map II). Up there were a
+series of entrenched “works,” known as the “intermediate line.” (The
+“second line” ran a little north of point 90, N.E. of Morlancourt. But
+no one took _that_ seriously, anyway.) The battalions marching up from
+billets might have to hold these positions, or, what was more likely,
+be ordered to counter-attack immediately. Such was the defence scheme.
+
+“Six days in billets: three days in support. Not particularly hard,
+that sounds,” I can hear someone say. I tried to disillusion people
+in an earlier chapter about the easiness of the “rest” in billets,
+owing to the incessant working-parties. These were even more incessant
+during these four months. Let me say a few words then, also, about life
+in support trenches. I admit that for officers it was not always an
+over-strenuous time; but look at Tommy’s ordinary programme:--
+
+This would be a typical day, say, in April.
+
+ 4 a.m. Stand to, until it got light enough to clean your rifle;
+ then clean it.
+
+ About 5 a.m. Get your rifle inspected, and turn in again.
+
+ 6.30 a.m. Turn out to carry breakfast up to company in front
+ line. (Old Kent Road very muddy after rain. A heavy dixie to be
+ carried from top of Weymouth Avenue, up viâ Trafalgar Square, and
+ 76 Street to the platoon holding the trench at the Loop.)
+
+ 7.45 a.m. Get your own breakfast.
+
+ 9 a.m. Turn out for working-party; spend morning filling sandbags
+ for building traverses in Maple Redoubt.
+
+ 11.30 a.m. Carry dinner up to front company. Same as 6.30 a.m.
+
+ 1 p.m. Get your own dinner.
+
+ 1 to 4 p.m. (With luck) rest.
+
+ 4 p.m. Carry tea up to front company.
+
+ 5 p.m. Get your own tea.
+
+ 5.15 to 7.15 p.m. (With luck) rest.
+
+ 7.15 p.m. Clean rifle.
+
+ 7.30 p.m. Stand to. Rifle inspected.
+
+ Jones puts his big ugly boot out suddenly, just after you have
+ finished cleaning rifle, and upsets it. Result--mud all over
+ barrel and nose-cap.
+
+ 8.30 p.m. Stand down. Have to clean rifle again and show platoon
+ sergeant.
+
+ 9 p.m. Turn out for working-party till 12 midnight in front line.
+
+ 12 midnight. Hot soup.
+
+ 12.15 a.m. Dug-out at last till
+
+ 4 a.m. Stand to.
+
+
+And so on for three days and nights. This is really quite a moderate
+programme: it is one that you would aim at for your men. But there are
+disturbing elements that sometimes compel you to dock a man’s afternoon
+rest, for instance. A couple of canisters block Watling Street; you
+_must_ send a party of ten men and an N.C.O. to clear it at once: or
+you suddenly have to supply a party to carry “footballs” up to Rue
+Albert for the trench-mortar man. The Adjutant is sorry; he could not
+let you know before; but they have just come up to the Citadel, and
+must be unloaded at once. So you have to find the men for this on the
+spur of the moment. And so it goes on night and day. Oh, it’s not all
+rum and sleep, is life in Maple Redoubt.
+
+Three days and nights in support, and then comes the three days in the
+front line.
+
+Now we will take it that “B” Company is holding from 80 A to the
+Lewis-gun position to the right of 76 Street. You will notice at once
+that almost the whole of No Man’s Land in front of this sector of
+trenches is a chain of mine craters. No one can have much idea of a
+crater until he actually sees one. I can best describe it as a hollow
+like a quarry or chalk hole about fifty yards in diameter and some
+forty or fifty feet deep. (They vary in size, of course, but that is
+about the average.) The sides, which are steepish, and vary in angle
+between thirty and sixty degrees, are composed of a very fine thin
+soil, which is, in point of fact, a thick sediment of powdered soil
+that has returned to earth after a tempestuous ascent into the sky. A
+large mine always causes a “lip” above the ground level, which appears
+in section somewhat like this:--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There is usually water in the bottom of the deeper craters. When a
+series of craters is formed, running into one another, you get a very
+uneven floor that appears in lengthwise section thus:--
+
+[Illustration:
+
+The dotted line is the ground level: the uneven line is the course
+that would be taken by a man walking along the bottom of the chain of
+craters, and keeping in the centre. Actually, of course, (on patrol)
+one would not keep in the centre where the crater contained water, but
+would skirt the water by going to one side of it. The “bridges” are
+important, as they are naturally the easiest way across the craters; a
+bombing patrol, for instance, could crawl over a bridge, without having
+to go right down to the bottom level, and (which is more important)
+will not have a steep climb up over very soft and spongy soil. These
+bridges are the “lips” of the larger craters where they join the
+smaller; looking at a crater-chain _in plan_ X is a “bridge,” whereas
+Y and Z are “lips” rising above ground level.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This crater-chain being understood, the system of sentries is easily
+grasped. Originally, before mining commenced, our front line ran
+(roughly) from left to right along Rue Albert up 80 A Street and along
+to the top of 76 Street in a straight line. Then began the great game
+of mining under the enemy parapet and blowing him up; and its corollary
+countermining, or blowing up the enemy’s mine galleries before he
+reached your parapet. Such is the game as played underground by the
+tunnelling companies, R.E. To the infantry belongs the work (if not
+blown up) of consolidating the crater, whether made by your or an enemy
+mine, that is to say, of seizing your side of the crater and guarding
+it by bombing-posts in such a way as to prevent the enemy from doing
+anything except hold his side of the crater.
+
+[Illustration: German front line
+
+Our front line]
+
+For instance, take a single crater, caused by us blowing up the German
+gallery before it reaches our parapet. If we do nothing, the enemy digs
+a trench into the crater at A, and can get into the crater any time he
+likes and bomb our front line, and return to his trench unseen. This,
+of course, never happens, as we dig a sap into the crater from our
+side, and the result is stale-mate; each side can see into the crater,
+so neither can go into it.
+
+That is all. 83 B, 81 A, the Matterhorn sap, the Loop, the Fort--they
+are all saps up to crater-edges, in some cases joined up along the edge
+(as between 83 B and 83 A, or at the Loop and the Fort.) And these saps
+are held by bombing-posts. Where there are no craters in front (as, for
+instance, between the Fort and the Loop), there the trench is held by
+sentry groups in the ordinary way. The most important bombing-posts are
+at the “bridges,” which are the points that most want guarding.
+
+Each platoon has so many posts to “find” men for. No. 5 Platoon has
+three posts between the Lewis-gun position and the top of 76 Street;
+No. 6 finds two in the Fort and one between the Fort and the Loop;
+there is another post before you reach the Loop, found by No. 7, who
+also finds two in the Loop itself; while No. 8 finds the Matterhorn
+post and the top of 80 A. All these posts are composed of one bomber,
+who has a box of bombs with him and his rifle without bayonet fixed,
+and one bayonet man. There is no special structure about a “post”: it
+is just the spot in the trench where the sentries are placed. Sometimes
+one or two posts could be dispensed with by day, if one post could with
+a periscope watch the ground in front of both. The sentry groups are
+relieved every two hours by the platoon N.C.O. on trench duty. There
+is always an N.C.O. on trench duty, going the rounds of his sentry
+groups, in every platoon; and one officer going round the groups in
+the company. Thus is secured the endless chain of unwinking eyes that
+stretches from Dunkirk to Switzerland.
+
+There were two Lewis guns to every company. One had a position at the
+Fort, covering the ground between the Fort and the Loop; the other was
+just to the right of 80 A, where it had a good position sweeping the
+craters. The Lewis-gun teams found their sentries independently of the
+platoons, and had their dug-outs. A nice compact little affair was a
+Lewis-gun team; always very snug and self-contained.
+
+Company Headquarters were at Trafalgar Square, though later we changed
+to a dug-out half-way up 76 Street. Each platoon had a dug-out about
+fifty yards behind the front line, and as far as possible one arranged
+to get the men a few hours’ sleep in them every day; but only a certain
+percentage at a time. There were four stretcher-bearers and two
+signallers also at Trafalgar Square. Also a permanent wiring-party had
+its quarters here, a corporal and five men; they made up “concertina”
+or “gooseberry” wire by day, and were out three or four hours every
+night putting it out. They were, of course, exempt from other platoon
+duties. Each platoon had a pioneer to attend to sanitary arrangements,
+and other odd jobs such as fetching up soup; and each platoon had an
+orderly ready to take messages. At Company Headquarters, besides the
+officers’ servants, were the company orderly, and company officers’
+cook. An officer on trench duty was accompanied by his servant as
+orderly.
+
+This was the distribution of the company in the front line. Every
+morning from 9 to 12 all men not on sentry worked at repairing and
+improving the trenches; and the same for four hours during the night.
+Work done to strengthen the parapet can only be done by night. Every
+night wire was put out. Every night a patrol went out. Every day one
+“stood to” arms for an hour before dawn, and an hour after dusk.
+And day and night there was an intermittent stinging and buzzing of
+black-winged instruments between the opposing trenches. Of shells I
+have already spoken; next in deadliness were rifle-grenades, which are
+bombs with a rod attachment that is put down the barrel of an ordinary
+rifle. Four of these rifles are stood in a rack fixed to the ground,
+and fired by a string from a few yards away, at a very high trajectory.
+They are a very deadly weapon, as you cannot see them dropping on to
+you. Then there is a multiform genus called “trench-mortar,” being
+projectiles of all kinds and shapes lobbed over from close range. The
+canister was the most loathed. It was simply a tin oil-can, the size
+of a lady’s muff (large); one heard a thud, and watched the beast
+rising, rising, then stationary, it seemed, in mid-air, and then come
+toppling down, down, down on top of one with a crash--three seconds’
+silence--and then a most colossal explosion, blowing everything in
+its vicinity to atoms. These canisters were loathed by the men with a
+most personal and intense aversion. Yet they were really not nearly so
+dangerous as rifle-grenades, as one had time to dodge them very often,
+unless enfiladed in a communication trench. They were, moreover, very
+local in their effects. A shell has splinters that spread far and wide;
+a trench-mortar is a clumsy monster with a thin skin, no splinters,
+and an abominable, noisy, vulgar way of making the most of itself.
+“Sausages” were another but milder form of the vulgar trench-mortar;
+aerial torpedoes were daintier people with wings, who looked so
+cherubic as they came sailing over, that one almost forgot their deadly
+stinging powers; they, too, were a species of trench-mortar.
+
+It is natural to write lightly of these things; yet they were no light
+matters. They were the instruments of death that took their daily toll
+of lives. In this chapter describing the system and routine of ordinary
+trench warfare, I have tried to prepare the canvas for several pictures
+I have drawn in bold bare lines; now I am putting in a wash of colour,
+the atmosphere of Death.
+
+Sometimes we forgot it in the interest of the present activity;
+sometimes we saw it face to face, without a qualm; but always it was
+there with its relentless overhanging presence, dulling our spirits,
+wearing out our lives. The papers are always full of Tommy smiling:
+Bairnsfather has immortalised his indomitable humour. Yes, it is true.
+We laugh, we smile. But for an hour of laughter, there are how many
+hours of weariness, strain, and grim agony! It is great that Tommy’s
+laughter has been immortalised; but do not forget that its greatness
+lies in this, that it was uttered beneath the canopy of ever-impending
+Death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+MORE FIRST IMPRESSIONS
+
+
+It must not be imagined that I at once grasped all the essential
+details of our trench system, as I have tried to put them concisely
+in the preceding chapter. On the contrary, it was only very gradually
+that I accumulated my intimate knowledge of our maze of trenches, only
+by degrees that I learnt the lie of the land, and only by personal
+patrolling that I learnt the interior economy of the craters. At
+first the front line, with its loops and bombing-posts, and portions
+“patrolled only,” its sand-bag dumps, its unexpected visions of R.E.’s
+scurrying like bolted rabbits from mine-shafts, its sudden jerk
+round a corner that brought you in full view of the German parapet
+across a crater that made you gaze fascinated several seconds before
+you realised that you should be stooping low, as here was a bad bit
+of trench that wanted deepening _at once_ and had not been cleared
+properly after being blown in last night--all this, I say, was at first
+a most perplexing labyrinth. It was only gradually that I solved its
+mysteries, and discovered an order in its complexity.
+
+I will give a few more extracts from my diary, some of which seem to me
+now delightfully naïve! Here they are, though.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+“2nd Feb., 1916. In the trenches. Everything very quiet. We are in
+support, in a place called Maple Redoubt, on the reverse slope of a big
+ridge. Good dug-outs (_sic_), and a view behind, over a big expanse
+of chalk-downs, which is most exhilarating. A day with blue sky and
+a tingle of frost. Being on the reverse slope, you can walk about
+anywhere, and so can see everything. Have just been up in the front
+trenches, which are over the ridge, and a regular, or rather very
+irregular, rabbit-warren. The Boche generally only about thirty to
+forty yards away. The trenches are _dry_, that is the glorious thing.
+DRY. Just off to pow-wow to the new members of my platoon.”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Here I will merely remark that the “good” dug-out in which we were
+living was blown in by a 4·2 shell exactly four days later, killing
+one officer and wounding the other two badly. With regard to the state
+of the trenches, it was dry weather, and “when they were dry they were
+dry, and when they were wet they were wet!”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+“3rd Feb. Another beautiful February morning. Slept quite well, despite
+rats overhead. O’Brien and Dixon awfully dull and heavy; can’t think
+why. Everything outside is full of life; there is a crispness in the
+air, and a delightful sharp shadow and light contrast as you look up
+Maple Redoubt.
+
+Meditations on coldness, and how it unmans--on hunger, and how it
+weakens--on the art of feeding and warming, and how women realise this,
+while men do not usually know there is any art in keeping house at all!
+
+Meditations, too, on the stupidity, slowness, and clumsiness of
+officers’ servants.”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Dixon’s snores make me bucked with life; so, too, this same clumsiness
+of the servants. Lewis came in just now. ‘Why are you waiting, Lewis?’
+I asked. ‘I thought Watson was waiting to-day.’ (This after a great
+strafing of servants for general stupidity and incompetence.) ‘None of
+the others dared come in, sir,’ he replied, in his high piping voice,
+and a broad grin on his face. Oh! they are good fellows! Why be fed
+up with life? Why long faces? Long faces, these are the bad things of
+life, the things to fight against....”
+
+So did my vision of the Third Army School bear fruit, I see now!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+“Philosophy from the trenches. Does it cover everything? Does it
+explain the fellows I passed this morning being carried to the Aid
+Post, one with blood and orange iodine all over his face, and the
+other wounded in both legs? It always comes as a surprise when the
+bombs and shells produce wounds and death....
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Watched a mine go up this evening--great yellow-brown mass of smoke,
+followed by a beautiful under-cloud of orange-pink that steamed up in
+a soft creamy way. No firing and shelling followed as at Givenchy....
+
+Take over from ‘A’ to-morrow morning.
+
+10 p.m. Great starlight. Jupiter and Venus both up, and the Great
+Bear and Orion glittering hard and clean in the steely sky. I wish I
+had a Homer. I am sure he has just one perfect epithet for Orion on a
+night like this. I shall read Homer in a new light after these times.
+I begin to understand the spirit of the Homeric heroes; it was all
+words, words, words before. Now I see. Billet life--where is that in
+the _Iliad_? In the tents, of course. And the eating and drinking, the
+‘word that puts heart into men,’ the cool stolid facing of death, all
+those gruesome details of wounds and weapons, all is being enacted here
+every day exactly as in the Homeric age. Human nature has not altered.
+
+And did not Homer tell, too, how utterly ‘fed up’ they were with it
+all? Can one not read between the lines and see, besides the glamour
+of physical courage, the strain, the weariness, the ‘fed-upness’ of
+them all! I think so. ‘Νόστος’ is a word I remember so well. They were
+all longing for the day of their return. As here, the big fights were
+few and far between; and as here, there were the months and years of
+waiting.
+
+And on them, too, the stars looked down, winking alike at Greeks and
+Trojans; just as to-night thousands of German and British faces,
+dull-witted or sharp, sour-faced or smiling, sad or happy, are gazing
+up and wondering if there is any wisdom in the world yet.
+
+Four thousand years ago? And all the time the stars in the Great Bear
+have been hurtling apart at thousands of miles an hour, and the human
+eye sees no difference. No wonder they wink at us....
+
+And our mothers, and wives ... the women-folk--Euripides understood
+their views on war. Ten years they waited....
+
+_Must_ go to bed. D---- these scuffling rats.”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Frequently I found my thoughts flying back through the years, and more
+especially on starlit nights, or on a breathless spring evening, to the
+Greeks and Romans. Life out here was so primitive; so much a matter
+of eating and drinking, and digging, and sleeping, and so full of the
+elements, of cold, and frost, and wind, and rain; there were so many
+definite and positive physical goods and bads, that the barrier of an
+unreal civilisation was completely swept away. Under the stars and in
+a trench you were as good as any Homeric warrior; but you were little
+better. And so you felt you understood him. And here I will add that
+it was especially at sunset that the passionate desire to live would
+sometimes surge up, so intense, so clamorous, that it swept every other
+feeling clean aside for the time.
+
+But to return to Maple Redoubt, or rather to Gibraltar, where the next
+entry in my diary was written.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+“6th Feb. Rather an uncomfortable dug-out in Gibraltar. Yesterday was
+a divine day. I sat up in ‘the Fort’ most of the day, watching the
+bombardment. Blue sky, on the top of a high chalk down; larks singing;
+and a real sunny dance in the air. We watched four aeroplanes sail
+over, amid white puffs of shrapnel; and a German ’plane came over. I
+could see the black crosses very plainly with my glasses. Most godlike
+it must have been up there on such a morning. I felt very pleased with
+life, and did two sketches, one of Sawyer, another of Richards....
+
+A dull thud, and then ‘there goes another,’ shouts someone. It reminds
+me of Bill the lizard coming out of the chimney-pot in _Alice in
+Wonderland_. Everyone gazes and waits for the crash! Toppling through
+the sky comes a big tin oil-can, followed immediately by another; both
+fall and explode with a tremendous din, sending up a fifty-foot spurt
+of black earth and flying débris, while down the wind comes the scud of
+sand-bag fluff and the smell of powder. This alternated with the 4·2’s,
+which come over with a scream and wait politely a second or two before
+bursting so inelegantly.” (I seem to have got mixed up a bit here: it
+was usually the canisters that “waited.”)
+
+ * * * * *
+
+“The mining is a great mystery to me at present. One part of the trench
+is only patrolled, as the Boche may ‘blow’ there at any moment. I must
+say it is an uncomfortable feeling, this liability to sudden projection
+skywards! The first night I had a sort of nightmare all the time, and
+kept waking up, and thinking about a mine going up under one. The
+second night I was too tired to have nightmares.
+
+The rats _swarm_. I woke up last night, and saw one sitting on Edwards,
+licking its whiskers. Then it ran on to the box by the candle. It was a
+pretty brown fellow, rather attractive, I thought. I felt no repulsion
+whatever at sight of it....
+
+The front trenches are a _maze_. I cannot disentangle all the loops
+and saps; and now we are cut off from ‘C,’ as the front trench is all
+blown in; one has to have a connecting patrol that goes viâ Rue Albert.
+A very weird affair. The only consolation is that the Boche would be
+_more_ lost if he got in!
+
+I cannot help feeling that ‘B’ company has been very lucky. We were in
+Maple Redoubt, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday; everything was quite
+quiet with us, but ‘D’ had seven casualties in the front trench. On
+Friday we relieved ‘A,’ and all Saturday the enemy bombarded a spot
+just behind our company’s left, putting over 4·2’s and canisters all
+day long from 9.0 a.m. onwards, and absolutely smashing up our trenches
+there. Then Trafalgar Square has been rather a hot shop: two of our own
+whizz-bangs fell short there, and several rifle grenades fell _very_
+close--also, splinters of the 4·2’s came humming round, ending with
+little plops quite close. O’Brien picked up a large splinter that fell
+in the trench right outside the dug-out. Again, at ‘stand-down,’ when
+Dixon, Clark, Edwards, and I were standing talking together at the
+top of 76 Street, two canisters fell most alarmingly near us, about
+ten yards behind, covering us with dirt. Yet we have not had a single
+casualty.
+
+To-day we were to have been relieved by the Manchesters at midday,
+but this morning at ‘stand to’ we heard the time had been altered to
+8.0 a.m. ‘B’ was duly relieved, and No. 5 Platoon had just changed
+gum-boots, while 6, 7, and 8 were sitting at the corner of Maple
+Redoubt enthralled in the same process, when over came two canisters,
+one smashing in Old Kent Road, down which we had just come, and the
+other falling right into an ‘A’ Company dug-out, twenty yards to
+my left, killing two men and wounding three others, one probably
+mortally. And now I have just had the news that the Manchester have had
+twenty-three casualties to-day, including three officers, their R.S.M.,
+and a company sergeant-major.”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+As I read some of these sentences, true in every detail as they are,
+I cannot help smiling. For it was no “bombardment” that took place
+on our left all day; it was merely the Germans potting one of our
+trench-mortar positions! And Trafalgar Square was really very quiet,
+that first time in. But what I notice most is the way in which I record
+the fall of _individual_ canisters and rifle grenades, even if they
+were twenty yards away! Never a six days in, latterly, that we did not
+have to clear Old Kent Road and Watling Street two or three times; and
+we used to fire off a hundred rifle grenades a day very often, and
+received as many in return always. And the record of casualties one
+did not keep. We _were_ lucky, it is true. Once, and once only, after,
+did “B” Company go in and come out without a casualty. Those first
+two days in Maple Redoubt, when “everything was quiet,” were the most
+deceitful harbingers of the future that could have been imagined. “Why
+long faces?” I could write. The Manchesters had a ruder but a truer
+introduction to the Bois Français trenches, and especially to Maple
+Redoubt. For the dug-outs were abominable; not one was shell-proof;
+and there was no parados or traverse for a hundred and fifty yards.
+The truth of the matter was that these trenches had been some of the
+quietest in the line; for some reason or other, when our Division
+took them over, they immediately changed face about, and took upon
+themselves the task of growing in a steady relentless crescendo into
+one of the hottest sectors in the line.
+
+On the 22nd of February the Germans raided our trenches on the left
+opposite Fricourt. They did not get much change out of it. I can
+remember at least four raids close on our left or right during those
+four months; they never actually came over on our front, but we usually
+came in for the bombardment. The plan is to isolate the sector to be
+raided by an intense bombardment on that sector, and on the sectors
+on each side; to “lift” the barrage, or curtain of fire, at a given
+moment off the front line of the sector raided “what time” (as the old
+phrase goes) they come over, enter the trench, if they can, make a few
+prisoners, and get back quickly. All the while the sectors to right and
+left are being bombarded heavily. It was this isolating bombardment
+that our front line was receiving, while we were left unmolested in 71
+North. All this I did not know at the time. Here is my record of it.
+
+“25 Feb., 1916. It is snowing hard. We are in a very comfortable
+tubular dug-out in 71 North. This dug-out is the latest pattern, being
+on the twopenny-tube model; very warm, and free from draughts. It is
+_not_ shell-proof, but then shells never seem to come near here.
+
+Let me try and record the raid on our left on the 22nd, before I forget
+it.
+
+The Manchesters were in the front line and Maple Redoubt. During the
+afternoon the Boche started putting heavies on to Maple Redoubt, and
+the corner of Canterbury Avenue. ‘Bad luck on the Manchesters again,’
+we all agreed--and turned in for tea. There was a wonderful good fire
+going.
+
+‘By Jove, they are going it,’ I said, as we sat down and Gray brought
+in the teapot. Thud! Thud! Thud--thud! We simply had to go out and
+watch. Regular coal-boxes, sending up great columns of mud, and
+splinters humming and splashing right over us, a good hundred yards or
+more. ‘Better keep inside,’ from Dixon.
+
+We had tea, and things seemed to quiet down.
+
+Then about six o’clock the bombardment got louder, and our guns woke
+up like fun. ‘Vee-bm ... vee-bm’ from our whizz-bangs going over,
+and then the machine-guns began on our left. Simultaneously, in came
+Richards (Dixon’s servant) with an excited air. ‘Gas,’ he exclaimed.
+Instinctively, I felt for my gas helmet. Meanwhile Dixon had gone
+outside. ‘Absurd,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘The wind’s wrong. Who
+brought that message?’
+
+Then up came a telephone orderly. I heard him running on the hard
+road. ‘Stand to,’ he said breathlessly, and Dixon went off to the
+’phone with him. Nicolson appeared in a gas helmet. I was looking for
+my pipe, but could not find it. Then at last I went out without it.
+
+Outside it was getting dark. It was a fairly nippy air. The bombardment
+was going strong. All the sky was flickering, and our guns were
+screaming over. ‘Crump, crump,’ the Boche shells were bursting up by
+Maple Redoubt. ‘Scream, scream,’ went our guns back; and right overhead
+our big guns went griding.
+
+All this I noticed gradually. My first impression was the strong smell
+of gas helmets in the cold air. The gas alarm had spread, and some
+of the men had their helmets on. I felt undecided. I simply did not
+_know_, whether the men should wear them or not. What was happening? I
+wished Dixon would come back. Ah! there he was. What news?
+
+‘I can’t get through,’ he said, ‘but we shall get a message all right
+if necessary.’
+
+‘What’s happening?’ I asked. ‘Do you think they are coming over.’
+
+‘No. It won’t last long, I expect. Still, just let’s see if the men
+have got their emergency rations with them.’
+
+A few had not, and were sent into the dug-outs for them. Gas helmets
+were ordered back into their satchels.
+
+‘No possibility of gas,’ said Dixon; ‘wind’s dead south.’
+
+I was immensely bucked now. There was a feeling of tenseness and
+bracing-up. I felt the importance of essentials--rifles and bayonets
+in good order--the men fit, and able to run. This was the real thing,
+somehow.
+
+I made Lewis go in and get my pipe. I found I had no pouch, and stuffed
+loose baccy in my pocket.
+
+I realised I had not thought out what I would do in case of attack. I
+did not know what was happening. I was glad Dixon was there....
+
+It was great, though, to hear the continuous roar of the cannonade,
+and the machine-guns rapping, not for five minutes, but all the time.
+That I think was the most novel sound of all. No news. That was a new
+feature. A Manchester officer came up and said all their communications
+were cut with the left.
+
+I was immensely bucked, especially with my pipe. Our servants were good
+friends to have behind us, and Dixon was a man in his element. The men
+were all cool. ‘Germans have broken through,’ I heard one man say.
+‘Where?’ said someone rather excitedly. ‘In the North Sea,’ was the
+stolid reply.
+
+At last the cannonade developed into a roar on our left, and we
+realised that any show was there, and not on our sector. Then up came
+the quartermaster with some boots for Dixon and me, and we all went
+into the dug-out, where was a splendid fire. And we stayed there, and
+certain humorous remarks from the quartermaster suddenly turned my
+feelings, and I felt that the tension was gone, the thing was over; and
+that outside the bombardment was slackening. In half an hour it was
+‘stand down’ at 7.40.
+
+I was immensely bucked. I knew I should be all right now in an attack.
+And the cannonade at night was a magnificent sight. Of course we had
+not been shelled, though some whizz-bangs had been fired fifty yards
+behind us just above ‘Redoubt A,’ trying for the battery just over the
+hill.
+
+My chief impression was, ‘This is the real thing.’ You must know your
+men. They await clear orders, that is all. It was dark. I remember
+thinking of Brigade and Division behind, invisible, seeing nothing,
+yet alone knowing what was happening. No news, that was interesting.
+An entirely false rumour came along, ‘All dug-outs blown in in Maple
+Redoubt.’
+
+I had sent Evans to Bray to try and buy coal: he returned in the middle
+of the bombardment with a long explanation of why he had been unable to
+get it.
+
+‘Afterwards,’ I said. Somehow coal could wait.
+
+All the while I have been writing this, there is a regular blizzard
+outside.”
+
+Such is my record of my first bombardment. The Manchesters, who were
+in the front line, suffered rather heavily, but not in Maple Redoubt.
+No dug-outs were smashed in at all there, though Canterbury Avenue was
+blocked in two places, and Old Kent Road in one. The Germans came over
+from just north of Fricourt, but only a very few reached our trenches,
+and of them about a dozen were made prisoners, and the rest killed. It
+was a “bad show” from the enemy point of view.
+
+And now I will leave my diary. These first impressions are interesting
+enough, but later the entries became more and more spasmodic, and
+usually introspective. The remaining chapters are not exactly, though
+very nearly, chronological. From February 6th to March 8th I was
+Sniping and Intelligence officer to the battalion. Chapters VIII, IX,
+and XII describe incidents in that period. Then on March 8th Captain
+Dixon was transferred as Second-in-Command to our ----th Battalion, and
+on that date I took over the command of “B” Company, which I held until
+I was wounded on the 7th of June. These were the three months in which
+I learnt the strain of responsibility as well as the true tragedy of
+this war.
+
+During all these four months I was fortunate in having as a commanding
+officer a really great soldier. The C.O. had inaugurated his arrival
+by a vigorous emphasis of the following principle: “No Man’s Land
+belongs to _US_; if the Boche dare show his face in it, he’s going to
+be d--d sorry for it. We are top-dogs, and if there is any strafing,
+the last word must always be ours.” Such was the policy of the man
+behind me during those four months. Meanwhile, from eight to midnight
+every night, trenches were being deepened, the parapet thickened,
+and fire-steps and traverses being put in the front line, which had
+hitherto been a maze of hasty improvisations; barbed wire was put out
+at an unprecedented pace, and patrols were going out every night. If
+things went wrong, there was the devil to pay; but if things went well,
+one was left entirely unmolested; and if there was a bombardment on,
+the orders came quick and clear. And any company commander will know
+that those three qualities in a commanding officer are worth almost
+anything.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+SNIPING
+
+
+I
+
+The snow was coming down in big white flakes, whirling and dancing
+against a grey sky. I shivered as I looked out from the top of the
+dug-out steps in Maple Redoubt. It was half-past seven, a good hour
+since the snipers had reported to me before going to their posts. It
+was quite dark then, for a sniper must always be up on his post a good
+hour before dawn to catch the enemy working a few minutes too late.
+It is so easy to miss those first faint glimmerings of twilight when
+you are just finishing off an interesting piece of wiring in “No Man’s
+Land.” I speak from experience. For so a sniper got me.
+
+“U--u--u--gh,” I shuddered, “it’s no good keeping the men on in this”;
+so, putting my whiskey-bottle full of rum in my haversack, I set off
+up Old Kent Road to visit my posts and withdraw the men _pro tem_.
+I expected to find the fellows unutterably cold, shrivelled up, and
+bored. To my surprise, at No. 1 post Thomas and Everton were in a state
+of huge excitement, eyes glowing, and faces full of life. There seemed
+to be a great rivalry, too, for the possession of the rifle. For the
+snipers always worked in pairs: a man cannot gaze out at the opposing
+lines with acute interest for more than about half an hour on end; so
+I used to work them by pairs, and give them shifts according to the
+weather. In summer you could put a pair on for four hours, and they
+would work well, taking half-hour shifts; but in cold weather two hours
+was quite enough.
+
+“We’ve got them, sir,” from 75 Thomas; “they was working in the trench
+over there--by all them blue sand-bags, sir--four of them, sir----”
+
+“Yes, and I saw him throw up his arms, sir,” put in Everton, excited
+for the first time I have ever seen him, and trying to push Thomas out
+of the box, and have another look. But Thomas would not be pushed.
+
+“Splendid,” I said: “by Jove, that’s good work. Can I see?” But it
+was snowing hard, and I could see very little. I tried the telescope.
+“Put it right up to your eye, sir,” said Thomas, forgetting that I had
+myself taught him this in billets as he vainly tried to see through it
+holding it about four inches from his face, and declaring that he could
+see everything just as well with his own eyes!
+
+“Yes, I think I see where you mean,” said I; “up by that sand-bag dump.
+There’s a mine-shaft there, and they were probably some of their R.E.’s
+piling up sand-bags, or emptying them out. I believe that is what they
+usually do now, fill the sand-bags below in their galleries, bring them
+up, empty them, and use the same ones again.”
+
+Thomas and Everton gaped at this. It had not occurred to them to
+consider that the Boche had R.E.’s. They were of the unimaginative
+class of snipers, who “saw, did, and reported,” and on the whole I
+preferred them to those who saw, and immediately “concluded.” For their
+conclusions were usually wrong. To men like Thomas I was, I think,
+looked upon as one who had some slightly supernatural knowledge of
+the German lines; he did not realise that by careful compass-bearings
+I knew the exact ground visible from his post, and that my map of
+the German lines, showing every trench as revealed by aeroplane
+photographs, was accurate to a yard. He was like a retriever, who keeps
+to heel, noses out his bird with unerring skill, and brings it in with
+the softest of mouths; yet the cunning and strategy he leaves to his
+master, who is decidedly his inferior in nose and mouth. So 75 Thomas
+could see and shoot far better than I; but it was I who thought out the
+strategy of the shoot.
+
+“Well,” said I, as I doled out a rather more liberal rum ration than
+usual, “that’s d---- good work, anyway. Two you got, you say? Not sure
+about the second? Anyway you had two good shots, and remember what
+I told you, a sniper only shoots to kill. So two it’s going to be,
+anyhow.” (They both grinned at this, which was the nearest they could
+get to a wink.) “I’m very pleased about it. Now it’s not much good
+staying up here in this thick snow, so you can go off till I send word
+to your dug-out for you to go on again.”
+
+I turned to go away, thinking that the other posts, rumless, and in all
+probability quarryless, must be in a state of exasperating coldness by
+now. But Thomas and Everton did not move. There was something wanted.
+
+“Well, what is it?”
+
+“Please sir, can we stay on here a bit? P’raps one of those R.E.
+fellows may come back for something.”
+
+“Good heavens, yes,” I said, “stay on as long as you like,” and smiled
+as I made off to my other posts. (Later I used to get the snipers to
+report to me coming off their posts, and get their rum ration then;
+as I found it gave a bad appearance and damaged the reputation of the
+snipers when people saw me going about with the nose of a bottle of
+“O.V.H.” whiskey sticking out of my haversack!) There, as I expected,
+I found the men blue and bored.
+
+“You can’t see nothing to-day, sir, at all,” was the sentence with
+which I was immediately greeted. Even the rum seemed to inspire very
+little outward enthusiasm.
+
+“You can go off to your dug-outs till I send for you,” I replied,
+carefully corking the bottle and not looking at them while I spoke: “if
+you like,” I added after a pause, looking up. But the post was empty.
+
+That afternoon I was up on No. 1 post, with a sniper who was new to
+the work. It was still freezing, but the snow-clouds had cleared
+right away, and the wind had dropped. There was a tingle in the air;
+everything was as still as death; the sun was shining from a very
+blue sky, and throwing longer and longer shadows in the snow as the
+afternoon wore on. It was a valuable afternoon, the enemy’s wire
+showing up very clearly against the white ground, and I was showing the
+new sniper how to search the trench systematically from left to right,
+noting the exact position of anything that looked like a loophole,
+or steel-plate, and especially the thickness of the wire, what kind,
+whether it was grey and new, or rusty-red and old; whether there were
+any gaps in it, and where. All these things a sniper should note every
+morning when he comes on to his post. Gaps are important, as patrols
+must come out through gaps, and the Lewis gunners should know these,
+and be ready to fire at them if a patrol is heard thereabouts in No
+Man’s Land. Similarly, old gaps closed up must be reported.
+
+It was very still. “Has the war stopped?” one felt inclined to ask. No,
+there is the sound of shells exploding far away on the right somewhere;
+in the French lines it must be, somewhere about Frise. Then a “phut”
+from just opposite, and a long whining “we’oo--we’oo--we’oo--we’-oo
+... bzung,” and a rifle-grenade burst with a snarl about a hundred
+yards behind. Then another, and another, and another. “They’re trying
+for Trafalgar Square,” said I. No. 1 post was a little to the right
+of the top of 76 Street. I waited. There were no more. It was just
+about touch and go whether we replied. If they went on up to about a
+dozen, the chances were that the bombing-corporal in charge of our
+rifle-grenade battery would rouse himself, and loose off twenty in
+retaliation. But, no. Perhaps the German had repented him of the evil
+of desecrating the peace of such an afternoon; or perhaps he was just
+ranging, and had an observer away on the flank somewhere to watch the
+effect of his shooting. Anyway he did not fire again, and the afternoon
+slumber was resumed, till the evening “strafe” came on in due course.
+
+“I can see something over on the left, sir. It is a man’s head, sir!
+Look!”
+
+I looked. Yes!
+
+“No,” I almost shouted. “It’s a dummy head. Just have a look. And
+don’t, whatever you do, fire.”
+
+Sure enough, a cardboard head appeared over the front parapet opposite,
+with a grey cap on. Slowly it disappeared. Without the telescope it
+would have been next to impossible to see it was not a man. Again it
+appeared, then slowly sank out of view. It was well away on the left,
+just in front of where the “R.E.’s” had been hit at dawn. For this
+post was well-sited, having an oblique field of vision, as all good
+sniping-posts should. That is to say, they should be sited something
+like this:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The ideal is to have all your posts in the supports, and _not_ in the
+front line, and at about three hundred yards from the enemy front
+line. Of course if the ground slopes _away_ behind you, you cannot get
+positions in the supports unless there are buildings to make posts in.
+By getting an _oblique_ view, you gain two advantages:
+
+(_a_) If A gets a shot at C, C’s friends look out for “that d----d
+sniper opposite,” and look in the direction of B, who is carefully
+concealed from direct view.
+
+(_b_) A’s loophole is invisible from direct observation by D, as it is
+pointing slantwise at C.
+
+All this I now explained to my new sniper.
+
+“But why not smash up his old dummy, sir? Might put the wind up the
+fellow working it.”
+
+“No,” I explained. “Look at the paper again. (I had drawn it out for
+him, as I have on the previous page.) Thomas shot at those R.E.’s this
+morning, don’t you see? He was here (B), and they’re at D. Now they’re
+trying to find _you_, or the man who shot their pal; and you can bet
+anything you like they’ve got a man watching either at C or right
+away on the left to spot you if you fire at the dummy. No. Lie doggo,
+and see if you can spot that man on the flank. He’s probably got a
+periscope.”
+
+“Can’t see him, sir,” at length.
+
+“No. Never mind; he’s probably far too well concealed. Always remember
+the Boche is as clever as you, and sometimes cleverer.”
+
+“Ah, but he wants me to shoot, sir, and I won’t,” came the cheery
+answer. “What about smashing up his old dummy?” I reminded him. His
+face fell. He had forgotten his old un-sniper-like self already. “Never
+mind,” said I. “Now when Thomas and Everton come up here, mind you
+tell them all about the dummy; and tell Thomas from me that the Boche
+doesn’t spend his time dummy-wagging for nothing. Probably it was an
+R.E. sergeant.”
+
+
+II
+
+“Swis-s-sh--báng. Swis-s-sh--báng.”
+
+“That settles it,” said I, as I scrambled hastily down into the trench,
+preceded by the sniper I had with me that day as orderly. I more or
+less pushed him along for ten yards--then halted; we faced each other
+both very much out of breath and “blowy.” The whole place was reeking
+with the smell of powder, and the air full of sand-bag fluff.
+
+“That settles it,” I repeated: “I always thought that was a rotten
+post; and I object to being whizz-banged. ‘A sniper’s job is to see and
+not be seen.’ Isn’t that right, Morris?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” replied Morris, adding with a sad lack of humour “They must
+have seen us, sir!”
+
+“Exactly: they did. And they weren’t very far off hitting one of us
+into the bargain. As I say, that settles it. We’ll leave that post for
+ever and ever; and to-night we’ll build a new one that they _won’t_
+see.”
+
+At ten o’clock that night we were well at work. Just on the one hundred
+metre contour line there was a small quarry, at the west end of which
+had been the too conspicuous post where the Boche had spotted us. Every
+loophole must by its very nature be “spottable”; but when the natural
+ground is so little disturbed that it looks exactly the same as it
+did before the post was made, then indeed this “spottability” is so
+much reduced that it verges on invisibility. So, leaving the old post
+exactly as before, we were building a new one about twenty yards to the
+west of it.
+
+There was a disused support trench running west from the Quarry,
+and this suited my purpose admirably. It ran just along the crest
+of the hill, and commanded even a better view of Fricourt than the
+Quarry itself. Moreover, there was enough earth thrown up in front
+of the trench to enable us to fix in the steel-plate (at an angle of
+45°: this increases its impenetrability) on ground level, without
+the top protruding above the top of the earth. The soil in front was
+not touched at all until the plate was fixed in, and then enough
+was carefully scooped away from the front of the actual loophole to
+secure a fair field of view. The earth in front of the loophole is
+then exactly like a castle wall, with a splay window. If you think
+of a Norman castle you will know exactly what I mean. The loophole
+represents the inch-wide aperture in the inner side of the splay.
+Similarly an embrasure is built behind the loophole, with room for one
+man to stand and fire, and the second man to sit by him. A rainproof
+shelter of corrugated iron is placed over this embrasure, and covered
+over with earth; this prevents it being spotted by aeroplane; also it
+makes the place habitable in the rain. Here is a section of a typical
+sniper’s post:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+“Click, click click” went the pick into the chalk, cutting room for the
+embrasure; there was a tinny sound as some of the loose surface soil
+came away with a spurt, spilling on to the two sheets of corrugated
+iron waiting to go on to the roof. Added to this were the few quiet
+whispers, such as “Where’s that sand-bag?” or “Is this low enough,
+sir?”, and the heavy breathing of Private Evans as he returned from the
+Quarry after emptying his sand-bag. For all the chalk cut away had to
+be carried to the Quarry and emptied there; new earth on the top there
+would not give any clue to those gentlemen in Fricourt Wood who put the
+smell of powder in my nostrils a few hours back.
+
+It was a darkish night, but not so dark but what you could see the top
+of the trench. There are very few nights when the sky does not show
+lighter than the trench-sides. There are a few, though, especially when
+it is raining; and they are bad, very bad. But that night I could just
+distinguish the outline of the big crater-top, half-right, and follow
+the near skyline along the German parapet down into Fricourt valley.
+I was gazing down into that silent blackness, when a machine-gun
+started popping; I could see the flashes very clearly from my position.
+Somewhere in Fricourt they must be.
+
+Meanwhile the post was nearly finished; the corrugated iron was being
+fixed to the wooden upright, and Jones was on the parapet sprinkling
+earth over it. The others were deepening the trench from the Quarry to
+the post.
+
+“That’s the machine-gun that goes every night, sir,” said Jones.
+“Enfilading, that’s what it is.”
+
+“Pop--pop--pop,” answered the machine-gun.
+
+“Look here, Jones,” said I. “You know No. 5 post, opposite Aeroplane
+Trench?”
+
+“Yes, sir!”
+
+“Well, go down there, and see if you can see the flashes from there;
+and if you can, mark it down. See?”
+
+“Yes, sir!” and he had his equipment on in no time, and was starting
+off when I called him back.
+
+“Be very careful to mark your own position,” I warned him. “You know
+what I mean.”
+
+He knew, and I knew that he knew.
+
+Meanwhile, I stuck an empty cartridge case in the parados behind my
+head and waited.
+
+Five flashes spat out again, and “pop--pop--pop--pop--pop” came up out
+of the valley: and between me and them in the parapet I stuck a second
+cartridge case----
+
+I looked at my watch. It was half-past twelve. The post was finished,
+and the trench deep enough to get along, crawling anyway.
+
+“Cease work.”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The next day was so misty that you could see practically nothing over
+five hundred yards, and the new post was useless. The following day
+it had frozen again, and an inch of snow lay on the ground. It was
+a sunny morning, and from the new post all Fricourt lay in full view
+before me. How well I remember every detail of that city of the dead!
+In the centre stood the white ruin of the church, still higher than the
+houses around it, though a stubby stump compared to what it must have
+been before thousands of shells reduced it to its present state. All
+around were houses; roofless, wall-less skeletons all of them, save in
+a few cases, where a red roof still remained, or a house seemed by some
+magic to be still untouched. On the extreme right was Rose Cottage, a
+well-known artillery mark; just to its left were some large park-gates,
+with stone pillars, leading into Fricourt Wood; and just inside the
+wood was a small cottage--a lodge, I suppose. The extreme northern part
+of the village was invisible, as the ground fell away north of the
+church. I could see where the road disappeared from view; then beyond,
+clear of the houses, the road reappeared and ran straight up to the
+skyline, a mile further on. A communication trench crossed this road:
+(I remember we saw some men digging there one morning). With my glasses
+I could see every detail; beyond the communication trench were various
+small copses, and tracks running over the field; and on the skyline,
+about three thousand yards away, was a long row of bushes.
+
+And just to the left of it all ran the two white lace-borders of
+chalk trenches, winding and wobbling along, up, up, up until they
+disappeared over the hill to La Boiselle. Sometimes they diverged as
+much as three hundred yards, but only to come in together again, so
+close that it was hard to see which was ours and which the German. Due
+west of Fricourt church they touched in a small crater chain.
+
+It was a fascinating view. I could not realise that there lay a
+_French_ village; I think we often forgot that we were on French soil,
+and not on a sort of unreal earth that would disappear when the war was
+over; especially was No Man’s Land a kind of neutral stage, whereon
+was played the great game. To a Frenchman, of course, Fricourt was as
+French as ever it had been. But I often forgot, when I watched the
+shells demolishing a few more houses, that these were not German houses
+deserving of their fate. Perhaps people will not understand this: it is
+true, anyway.
+
+I was drawing a sketch of the village, when lo! and behold! coolly
+walking down the road into Fricourt came a solitary man. I had to
+think rapidly, and decide it must be a German, because the thing was
+so unexpected; I could not for the moment get out of my head the
+unreasonable idea that it might be one of our own men! However, I soon
+got over that.
+
+“Sight your rifle at two thousand yards,” said I to Morgan, who was
+with me. “Now, give it to me.”
+
+Carefully I took aim. I seemed to be holding the rifle up at an absurd
+angle. I squeezed, and squeezed----
+
+The German jumped to one side, on to the grass at the side of the road,
+and doubled for all he was worth out of sight into Fricourt! Needless
+to say, I did not see him again to get another shot!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+“They’ve been using that road last night, sir,” said 58 Morgan, while I
+was taking a careful bearing on my empty cartridge case. (A prismatic
+compass is invaluable for taking accurate cross-bearings.)
+
+“Yes,” I said. “Why yes, of course, they must have used it last night.
+I never thought of that. Good. We’ll get the artillery on there
+to-night, and upset their ration-carts.”
+
+This pleased the fancy of Sniper 58 Morgan, and a broad grin came over
+his face at the thought of the Boche losing his breakfast.
+
+“Maybe, sir, we’ll see the sausages on the road to-morrow morning.”
+
+For which thought I commended him not a little: a sense of humour is
+one of the attributes of a good sniper, just as rash conclusions are
+not.
+
+I then went down to No. 5 Post, where Jones was awaiting me, according
+to arrangement. There I took a second bearing, and retired to my
+dug-out to work out the two angles on the map. “From map to compass
+add: from compass to map subtract” I repeated to myself, and disposed
+of the magnetic variation summarily. Then with the protractor I
+plotted out the angles. “Exactly. The small house with the grey roof
+standing out by itself on the left. So that’s where you live, my
+friend, is it?”
+
+Once more I was up at the new post, scrutinising the grey-roofed house
+with the telescope. After a long gaze, I almost jumped. I gave the
+telescope to Morgan. He gazed intently for a moment.
+
+Then, “Is that a hole, sir, over the door, in the shadow, like ...?”
+
+“It is,” I answered
+
+That night the machine-gun started popping as usual, when suddenly a
+salvo of whizz-bangs screamed over, and H.E.’s joined in the game. All
+round and about the little grey-roofed house flickered the flashes of
+bursting shells. Then the enemy retaliated, and for a quarter of an
+hour “a certain liveliness prevailed.” Then came peace. But there was
+no sound all night of a machine-gun popping from Fricourt village; on
+the other hand, our machine-guns had taken up the tune, with short
+bursts of overhead fire, searching for those Boche ration carts. And
+in the morning the grey-roofed cottage appeared with two tiles left on
+the right-hand bottom corner of the roof, and the front wall had a huge
+gap in it big enough to act as a mouth for fifty machine-guns. Only
+Morgan was disappointed: all marks of the sausages had been cleared
+away before dawn! After all, are not the Germans pre-eminently a tidy
+people?
+
+
+III
+
+Private Ellis had hard blue eyes that looked at you, and looked, and
+went on looking; they always reminded me of the colour of the sea when
+a north wind is blowing and the blue is hard and bright. I have seen
+two other pairs of eyes like them. One belonged to Captain Jefferies,
+the big game shooter, who lectured on Sniping at the Third Army School.
+The other pair were the property of a sergeant I met this week for the
+first time. “Are you a marksman?” I asked him. “Yes, sir! Always a
+marksman, sir.”
+
+There is no mistaking those eyes. They are the eyes of a man who has
+used them all his life, and found them grow steadier and surer every
+year. They are essentially the eyes of a man who can watch, watch,
+watch all day, and not get tired of watching; and they were the eyes of
+my best sniper.
+
+For Private Ellis had all the instincts of a cunning hunter. I had no
+need to tell him to keep his telescope well inside the loophole, lest
+the sun should catch on the glass; no need to remind him to stuff a
+bit of sand-bag in the loophole when he left the post unoccupied. He
+never forgot to let the sand-bag curtain drop behind him as he entered
+the box, to prevent light coming into it and showing white through
+a loophole set in dark earth. There was no need either to make sure
+that he understood the telescopic sights on his rifle; and there
+was no need to tell him that the Boches were clever people. He never
+under-estimated his foe.
+
+It was a warm day in early March. Private Ellis was in No. 5 Box,
+opposite Aeroplane Trench. This post was very cunningly concealed. Our
+front trench ran along a road, immediately behind which was a steep
+chalk bank, the road having originally been cut out of a rather steep
+slope. You will see the lie of the ground clearly enough on Map III.
+Just about five yards behind this bank was cut a deep narrow trench,
+and in this trench were built several snipers’ posts, with loopholes
+looking out of the chalk bank. These loopholes were almost impossible
+to see, as they were very nearly indistinguishable from the shadows in
+the bank. Anyone who has hunted for oyster-catchers’ eggs on a pebbly
+beach knows that black and white is the most protective colour scheme
+existing. And so these little black loopholes were almost invisible in
+the black and white of the chalk bank.
+
+All the morning Private Ellis had been watching out of the corner
+of his eye a little bit of glass shining in Aeroplane Trench. Now
+Aeroplane Trench (as you will also see from the map) was a sap running
+out from the German front trench into a sunken road. From the centre
+sap two little branch saps ran up and down the road, and then slightly
+forward; the whole plan of it rather resembled an aeroplane and gave
+it its name. In it to-day was a Boche with a periscopic rifle; and
+it was this little bit of glass at the top of the periscope, and the
+nose of the rifle-barrel that Private Ellis was watching. Every now
+and again the glass and nose-cap would give a little jump, and “plop”
+a bullet would bury itself in our front parapet. One of our sentries
+had had his periscope smashed during the morning, I was informed by a
+company commander with rather the air of “What’s the use of you and
+your snipers, if you can’t stop them sniping us?” I told Ellis about
+the periscope, to which he replied: “It won’t break us, I guess,
+sir--twopenn’orth of new glass for a periscope. It’s heads that count.”
+In which remark was no little wisdom.
+
+“Crack--plop,” and after a long interval another “Crack--zin--n--n--g,”
+as a bullet ricocheted off a stone, and went away over the ridge and
+fell with a little sigh somewhere in the ground right away beyond
+Redoubt A. So it went on all the afternoon, while the sun was warming
+everyone up and one dreamed of the summer, and warm days, dry trenches,
+and short nights. Ellis had gone off rather reluctantly at midday,
+and the other relief was there. There was a slumbrous sensation about
+that brought on the feeling that there was no one really in the enemy
+trenches at all. Yet there was the little glass eye looking at us: it
+reminded one of a snake in the grass. It glittered, unblinking.
+
+At about six o’clock I again visited the post. Ellis was back there,
+and watching as keenly as ever.
+
+“No luck?” I remarked. “I’m afraid your friend is too wily for you;
+he’s not going to put his head over, when he can see through a
+periscope as well.”
+
+Still Private Ellis said little, but his eye was as clear and keen as
+ever; and still the periscope remained.
+
+“We must shell him out to-morrow,” I said, and went off.
+
+At half-past seven we had “stood down,” and I was messing with “B”
+Company, when I heard a voice at the top of the dug-out, and the
+servant who was waiting--Lewis, I think it was--said a sniper wanted to
+see me.
+
+“Tell him to come down.”
+
+Private Ellis appeared at the door. Not a muscle in his body or face
+moved, but his eyes were glowing and glittering. “Got him, sir,” was
+all he said.
+
+“What?” I cried. “Got that Boche in Aeroplane Trench? By Jove, tell us
+all about it.”
+
+And so to the accompaniment of a whiskey and Perrier he told us exactly
+what happened. It was not till well after “stand-to,” it appeared, that
+any change had occurred in Aeroplane Trench. Then the periscope had
+wobbled and disappeared below ground. Then there had been another long
+wait, and the outline of the sunken road had begun to get faint. Then
+slowly, very slowly, a pink forehead had appeared over the top, and as
+slowly disappeared. I wish I had been there to watch Ellis then. I can
+imagine him coolly, methodically sighting his rifle on the trench-edge,
+and waiting. “I had to wait another minute, sir; then it appeared
+again, the whole head this time. He thought it was too dark to be seen
+... Oh, he won’t worry us any more, sir! I saw one of his arms go up,
+and I thought I could see him fall against the back of the trench. But
+it was getting so dark, I couldn’t have seen him five minutes later at
+all.”
+
+And if Ellis couldn’t, who could?
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Next day, and for many days, there was no sniping from Aeroplane
+Trench.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+ON PATROL
+
+
+“Hullo, Bill!” from Will Todd, as he passed me going up 76 Street.
+
+“Hullo,” I answered, “where are you off to?”
+
+“Going on patrol,” was the reply. “Oh, by the way, you probably know
+something about this rotten sap opposite the Quarry. I’m going out to
+find out if it’s occupied at night or not.”
+
+“Opposite the Quarry?” said I. “Oh, yes, I know it. We get rather a
+good view of it from No. 1 Post.”
+
+“That post up on the right here? Yes, I was up there this afternoon,
+but you can’t see much from anywhere here. The worst of it is I was
+going with 52 Jones; only his leave has just come through. You see,
+I’ve never been out before. I’m trying a fellow called Edwards, but I
+don’t know him.”
+
+“If you can’t get Edwards,” I said suddenly, “I’ve a good mind to come
+out with you. Meet me at Trafalgar Square, and let me know.”
+
+As Will disappeared, I immediately repented of my offer, repented
+heartily, repented abjectly. I had never been on patrol, and a great
+sinking feeling came over me. I hoped with all my might that Edwards
+would be bubbling over with enthusiasm for patrolling. I was afraid.
+With all the indifference to shells and canisters that was gradually
+growing upon me, I had never been out into No Man’s Land. And yet I had
+volunteered to go out, and at the time of doing so I felt quite excited
+at the prospect. “Fool,” I said to myself.
+
+“Edwards doesn’t seem at all enthusiastic about it,” said Will. “Will
+you really come out?”
+
+“Yes, rather. I’m awfully keen to go. I’ve never been before, either.
+How are you going?”
+
+We exchanged views on how best to dress and carry our revolvers, which
+instantly assumed a new interest.
+
+“What time are you going out?”
+
+“Eight o’clock.”
+
+It was a quarter to already.
+
+In the dug-out I was emptying my pockets, taking off my equipment, and
+putting on a cap-comforter. I had my compass with me, and put it in
+my pocket. I looked on the map and saw that the sap was practically
+due north of the Quarry. And I took a nip of brandy out of my flask.
+Will had gone to arrange with Captain Robertson about warning the
+sentries. I was alone, and still cursing myself for this unnecessary
+adventure. When I was ready, I stodged up 76 Street to the Quarry. It
+was certainly a good night, very black.
+
+When I saw Will and Captain Robertson together on the fire-step peering
+over, I felt rather bucked with myself. Hitherto I had felt like an
+enthusiastic bather undressing, nearly everyone else having decided it
+was not warm enough to bathe; now it was as if I suddenly found that
+they were watching me as I ran down the beach, and I no longer repented
+of my resolution. Next moment I was climbing up on to the slimy sandbag
+wall, and dropping over the other side. I was surprised to find there
+was very little drop at all. There was an old ditch to be crossed, and
+then we came to our wire, which was very thin at this point. While
+Will was cursing, and making, it seemed to me, rather an unnecessary
+rattling and shaking of the wire (you know how wire reverberates if you
+hit a fence by the road), I looked back at our own parapet. I felt it
+would be a good thing to see on one’s return; again, it struck me how
+low it was, regarded from this side; I saw a head move along the top of
+it. This made me jump. Already our trench seemed immeasurably far off.
+
+I looked in front again, as the noise of Will’s wire-rattling had
+ceased. In fact he was clean out of sight. This made me jump again, and
+I hurried on. It was “knife-rest” wire (see next page).
+
+I stepped over it, and my foot came down on to more wire, which rattled
+with a noise that made me stand stock still awaiting something to
+happen. I felt like a cat who has upset a tablecloth and all the tea
+things. I stood appalled at the unexpected clatter. But really it was
+hardly audible to _our_ sentries, much less to the Germans at least a
+hundred and twenty yards away.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+At last I got through and flopped down. Immediately Will’s form showed
+up dark in front of me. When I was standing up, I had been unable to
+see him against the black ground. We lay about a minute absolutely
+quiet, according to arrangement.
+
+I had fairly made the plunge now, and I felt like the bather shaking
+his hair as he comes up for the first time, and shouting out how
+glorious it is. I was elated. The feel of the wet grass was good under
+my hands; the silence was good; the immense loneliness, save for Will’s
+black form, was good; and a slight rustle of wind in the grass was good
+also. I just wanted to lie, and enjoy it. I hoped Will would not go on
+for another minute. But soon he began to crawl.
+
+Have you done much crawling? It is slow work. You take knee-steps, and
+they are not like footsteps: they are not a hundred and twenty to the
+hundred yards They are more like fifty to ten yards, I should think.
+Anyway it seemed endless. The end of the sap was, to be precise, just
+one hundred and twenty-five yards from our front trench. Yet when I had
+gone, I suppose, forty yards, I expected to be on it any minute. Will
+must be going wrong. I thought of the map. Could we be going north-east
+instead of north? Will halted. I nearly bumped into his right foot,
+which raised itself twice, signalling a halt. I took out my compass,
+and looked at it. I shaded it with my hand, the luminous arrow seemed
+so bright: “rather absurd,” I thought immediately, “as if the Boches
+could possibly see it from the trench.” But we were going straight
+enough. Then the figure in front moved on, and I came up to where he
+had halted. It was the edge of a big shell-hole, full of water; I put
+my left hand in up to the wrist, I don’t know why.
+
+Still the figure crawled on, with a sort of hump-backed sidle that I
+had got to know by now. It was interminable this crawling....
+
+“Swis--s--sh.” A German flare shot up from ever so close. It seemed to
+be falling right over us. Then it burst with a “pop.” I had my head
+down on my arms, but I could squint out sideways. It seemed impossible
+we should not be seen; for there, hardly twenty yards away, was the
+German wire, as clear as anything. Meanwhile the flare had fallen
+behind us. Would it never go out? I noticed the way the blades of grass
+were lit up by it; and there was an old tin or something.... I started
+as a rat ran across the grass past me. I wondered if it were a German
+rat, or one of ours.
+
+Then at last the flare went out, and the blackness was intense. For a
+while longer we lay still as death; then I saw Will’s foot move again.
+I listened intently, and on my right I heard a metallic sound. Quite
+close it was; it sounded like the clank of a dixie. I peered hard in
+the direction of the sound. Faintly I could distinguish earth above the
+ground-line. I had not looked to my right when the flare went up, and
+realised, as Will already had done, that we were out as far as the end
+of the sap. It was perhaps ten yards off, due right. I lay with my ear
+cocked sideways to catch the faintest sound. Clearly there was someone
+in the sap. But there was a wind swishing in the grass, and I could not
+hear anything more. Then my tense attitude relaxed, and I gradually
+sank my chin on my arm. I felt very comfortable. I did not want to
+move....
+
+“Bang!!” and then a flame spat out; then came that gritty metallic
+sound I had heard before, and another “Bang!” I kept my head down and
+waited for the next, but it did not come. Then I heard a most human
+scroopy cough, which also sounded _very_ near. The “bangs” were
+objectionably near; I literally shrank from them. To tell the truth, I
+had the “wind up” a bit. Those bullets seemed to me vicious personal
+spits that were distinctly unpleasant and near; and I wanted to get
+away from so close a proximity to them. I remembered a maxim of some
+famous General to the intent that if you are afraid of the enemy, the
+best thing was to remember that in all probability he was just as
+afraid of you. The maxim did not seem to apply somehow here. At the
+first “bang” I had thought we were seen; but I now realised that the
+sentry was merely blazing off occasional shots, and that the bullets
+had just plopped into our parapet.
+
+Then Will turned round, and I did the same. Our business was certainly
+ended, for there was no doubt about the sap being occupied. Then I
+heard a thud behind us, and looking up saw the slow climbing trail of a
+canister blazing up into the sky; up it mounted, up, up, up, hovered a
+moment, then turned, and with a gathering impetus blazed down somewhere
+well behind our front trench.
+
+“Trafalgar Square,” I thought, as I lay doggo, for the blaze lit up the
+sky somewhat.
+
+“Bomp.” The earth shook as the canister exploded.
+
+“Thud,” and the process was repeated exactly as before, ending in
+another quaking “Bomp!”
+
+I enjoyed this. It was rather a novel way of seeing canisters, and
+moreover a very safe way.
+
+Two more streamed over.
+
+Then our footballs answered, and burst with a bang in the air not so
+_very_ far over into the German lines. The trench-mortar fellow was
+evidently trying short fuses, for usually our trench-mortar shells
+burst on percussion.
+
+Then in the distance I heard four bangs, and the Boche 4·2’s started,
+screaming over at Maple Redoubt. I determined to move on.
+
+Then suddenly came four distant bangs from the right of our lines (as
+we faced them), and with “wang--wang ... wang--wang” four whizz-bangs
+burst right around us, with most appalling flickers. “Bang--bang ...
+bang--bang” in the distance again, and I braced every muscle tightly,
+as you do when you prepare to meet a shock. Behind us, and just in
+front, the beastly things burst. I lay with every fibre in my body
+strained to the uttermost. And yet I confess I enjoyed the sensation!
+
+There was a lull, and I began crawling as fast as I could. I stopped to
+see if Will was following. “By God,” I heard, “let’s get out of this.”
+So I was thinking! Then as I went on I saw the edge of a crater. Where
+on earth?
+
+I halted and pulled out my compass. Due south I wanted. I found I
+was bearing off to the right far too much, so with compass in hand I
+corrected my course. Some crawling this time! It was not long before
+we could see wire in the distance. Then I got up and ran. How I got
+through that wire I don’t know; I tore my puttees badly, and must have
+made a most unnecessary rattling. After which I fell into the ditch.
+
+“Thank heaven you’re all right,” was the greeting from Captain
+Robertson. “I was just coming out after you. Those d--d artillery
+fellows. I sent down at once to ’phone to them to stop....”
+
+And so on. I hardly heard a word. I was so elated, I could not listen.
+As we went back to Trafalgar Square for dinner, I heard them warning
+the sentries “The patrol’s in.” I looked up at the sandbag parapet.
+“In,” I thought. “One does not realise what ‘in’ is, till one’s been
+out.”
+
+I have been out several times later. I never had any adventures much.
+But always, before going out, I felt the shivers of the bather; and
+always, after I came in, a most splendid glow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+“WHOM THE GODS LOVE”
+
+
+“No officer wounded since we came out in October,” said Edwards: “we’re
+really awfully lucky, you know.”
+
+“For heaven’s sake, touch wood,” I cried.
+
+We laughed, for the whole of our establishment was wood. We were
+sitting on a wooden seat, leaning our hands against wooden uprights,
+eating off a wooden table, and resting our feet on a wooden floor.
+Sometimes, too, we found splinters of wood in the soup--but it was
+more often straw. For this dining-room in Trafalgar Square was known
+sometimes as the “Summer-house” and sometimes as the “Straw Palace.”
+It was really the maddest so-called “dug-out” in the British lines,
+I should think; I might further add, “in any trench in Europe.” For
+the French, although they presumably built it in the summer days of
+1915 when the Bois Français trenches were a sort of summer-rest for
+tired-out soldiers, would never have tolerated the “Summer-house” since
+the advent of the canister-age. As for the Boche, he would have merely
+stared if anyone had suggested him using it as a Company Headquarters.
+“But,” he would have said, “it is not shell-proof.”
+
+Exactly. It would not have stood even a whizz-bang. A rifle-grenade
+would almost certainly have come right through it. As for a canister
+or H.E., it would have gone through like a stone piercing wet paper.
+But it had been Company Headquarters for so long--it was so light and,
+being next door to the servants’ dug-out, so convenient--that we always
+lived in it still; though we slept in a dug-out a little way down Old
+Kent Road, which was certainly whizz-bang--if not canister--proof.
+
+At any rate, here were Edwards and myself, drinking rather watery
+ox-tail soup out of very dinted tin-plates--the spoons were scraping
+noisily on the metal; overhead, a rat appeared out of the straw thatch,
+looked at me, blinked, turned about, and disappeared again, sending a
+little spill of earth on to the table.
+
+“Hang these rats,” I exclaimed, for the tenth time that day.
+
+Outside, it was brilliant moonlight: whenever the door opened, I saw
+it. It was very quiet. Then I heard voices, the sound of a lot of men,
+moving in the shuffling sort of way that men do move at night in a
+communication trench.
+
+The door flew open, and Captain Robertson looked in.
+
+“Hullo, Robertson; you’re early!”
+
+It was not much past half-past seven.
+
+“You’ve got those sand-bags up by 78 Street?” he said, sitting down.
+
+“Yes, 250 there, and 250 right up in the Loop. The rest I shall use on
+the Fort. Oh! by the way, you know we are strafing at 12.5? We just had
+a message up from Dale. I shall knock off at 11.45 to-night!”
+
+“I’ll see how we get on. I want to finish that traverse. Righto. I’m
+just drawing tools and going up now.”
+
+“See you up there in a few minutes.”
+
+And the muttering stream of “A” Company filed past the dug-out, going
+up to the front line. The door swung open suddenly, and each man looked
+in as he went by.
+
+“Shut the door,” I shouted. Our plates themselves somehow suddenly
+looked epicurean.
+
+Soon after eight I was up in the front line. It was the brightest
+night we had had, and ideal for sand-bag work. The men were already at
+it. There was a certain amount of inevitable talking going on, before
+everyone got really started. We were working on the Fort, completing
+two box dug-outs that we had half put in the night before; also,
+we were thickening the parapet, between the Fort and the Loop, and
+building a new fire-step.
+
+“Can’t see any b---- sand-bags here,” came from one man.
+
+“We’ll have to pick this, sir,” from another.
+
+“Where’s Mullens gone off to?” sharply from a sergeant.
+
+[Illustration: Good sand-bag work.]
+
+But for the most part the moonlight made everything straightforward,
+and there was only the spitting sound of picks, the heavy, smothered
+noise of men lifting sand-bags, or the “slap, slap” of others patting
+them into a wall with the back of a shovel, that broke the stillness.
+On the left “A” Company were working full steam ahead, heightening the
+parapet and building a big traverse at the entrance to the Matterhorn
+sap. “Robertson’s traverse” we always called it afterwards. He got his
+men working in a long chain, passing filled sand-bags along from a
+big miners’ sand-bag dump, the accumulation of months of patient R.E.
+tunnelling. These huge dumps rose up in gigantic piles where-ever there
+was a shaft-head; and they were a windfall to us if they were anywhere
+near where we were working. On this occasion quite a thousand must have
+been passed along and built into that traverse, and the parapet there,
+by the Matterhorn. It was fascinating work, passing these dry, small
+sacks as big as medium-sized babies, only as knobby and angular under
+their outer cover as a baby is soft and rounded. Meanwhile the builders
+laid them, like bricks, alternate “headers” and “stretchers.”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+And so the work went on under the moon.
+
+“Davies,” I cried, in that low questioning tone that might well be
+called “trench voice.” It is not a whisper; yet it is not a full,
+confident sound. If a man speaks loudly in the front trench, you tell
+him to remember the Boche is a hundred yards away; if he whispers in a
+hoarse voice that sounds a little nervy, you tell him that the Boche’s
+ears are not a hundred yards long. The result is a restrained and
+serious-toned medium.
+
+“Sirr,” answered a voice close beside me, in a pitch rather louder than
+the usual trench-voice. Davies always spoke clear and loud. He was my
+orderly.
+
+“Oh! there you are.” Like a dog he had got tired of standing, and
+while I stood watching the fascinating progress of the erection of a
+box dug-out under Sergeant Hayman’s direction, he was sitting on the
+fire-step immediately behind me. Had he been a collie, his tongue would
+have been out, and he would have yawned occasionally; or his nose might
+even have been between his paws. Now he jumped up, giving a hitch to
+his rifle that was slung over his left shoulder.
+
+“I’m going round the sentries,” I said.
+
+Davies said nothing, but followed about two paces behind, stopping when
+I stopped, and gazing at me silently when I got up on the fire-step to
+look over.
+
+The low-ground in the quarry was very wet, and the trench there two
+feet deep in water, so it was temporarily abandoned, and the little
+trench out of 76 Street by No. 1 Sniping Post was my way to No. 5
+Platoon. It was a very narrow bit of trench, and on a dark night
+one kept knocking one’s thighs and elbows against hard corners of
+chalk-filled sand-bags. To-night it was easy in the white moonlight.
+It was really not a trench at all, but a path behind a sand-bag dump.
+Behind was the open field. There was no parados.
+
+All correct on the two posts in No. 5. It seemed almost unnecessary
+to have two posts on such a bright night. The outline of the German
+parapet looked clear enough. Surely the sentries must be almost visible
+to-night? Right opposite was the dark earth of a sap-head. Our wire
+looked very near and thin.
+
+“Everything all right?”
+
+“Yes, sir!”
+
+I saw the bombs lying ready in the crease between two sand-bags that
+formed the parapet top. The pins were bent straight, ready for quick
+drawing. The bomber was all right; and there was not much wrong with
+his pal’s bayonet, that glistened in the moonlight.
+
+As usual, I went beyond our right post, until I was met by a peering,
+suspicious head from the left-hand sentry of “C” Company.
+
+“Who’s that?” in a hoarse low voice, as the figure bent down off the
+fire-step.
+
+“All right. Officer. ‘B’ Company.”
+
+Then I passed back along the trench to the top of 76 Street; and so on,
+visiting all the sentries up to 80 A trench, and disturbing all the
+working-parties.
+
+“Way, please,” I would say to the hindquarters of an energetic wielder
+of the pick.
+
+“Hi! make way there!” Davies would say in a higher and louder voice
+when necessary. Then the figure would straighten itself, and flatten
+itself against the trench, while I squeezed past between perspiring
+man and slimy sand-bag. This “passing” was an eternal business. It was
+unavoidable. No one ever said anything, or apologised. No one ever
+grumbled. It was like passing strap-hangers in the crowded carriage of
+a Tube. Only it went on day and night.
+
+Craters by moonlight are really beautiful; the white chalk-dust gives
+them the appearance of snow-mountains. And they look much larger than
+they really are. On this occasion, as I looked into them from the
+various bombing-posts, it needed little imagination to suppose I was up
+in the snows of the Welsh hills. There was such a death-like stillness
+over it all, too. The view from the Matterhorn was across the widest
+and deepest of all the craters, and I stood a long time peering across
+that yawning chasm at the dark, irregular rim of German sand-bags. I
+gazed fascinated. What was it all about? The sentry beside me came
+from a village near Dolgelly: was a farmer’s boy. He, too, was gazing
+across, hardly liking to shuffle his feet lest he broke the silence.
+
+“Good God!” I felt inclined to exclaim. “Has there ever been anything
+more idiotic than this? What in the name of goodness are you and I
+doing here?”
+
+So I thought, and so I believe he was thinking.
+
+“Everything all right?” was all I said, as I jumped back into the
+trench.
+
+“Yes, sir,” was all the answer.
+
+About ten o’clock I went back to Trafalgar Square. There I heard that
+Thompson of “C” Company had been wounded. From what I could gather he
+had been able to walk down to the dressing-station, so I concluded he
+was only slightly hit. But it came as rather a shock, and I wondered
+whether he would go to “Blighty.”
+
+At eleven I started off for the front trench again, viâ Rue Albert and
+78 Street. There was a bit of a “strafe” on. It started with canisters;
+it had now reached the stage of whizz-bangs as well. I thought
+little of it, when “woo--woo--woo--woo,” and the Boche turned on his
+howitzers. They screamed over to Maple Redoubt.
+
+A pause. Then again, and they screamed down just in front of us,
+evidently after the corner of 78 Street. I did not hesitate, but pushed
+on. The trench was completely blocked. Rue Albert was revetted with
+wood and brushwood, and it was all over the place. Davies and I climbed
+over with great difficulty, the whole place reeking with powder.
+
+“Look out, sir!” came from Davies, and we crouched down. There was a
+colossal din while shells seemed all round us.
+
+“All right, Davies?” And we pushed on. At last here was 78 Street, and
+we turned up to find another complete block in the trench. We again
+scrambled over, and met “A” Company wiring-party, returning for more
+wire.
+
+“The trench is blocked,” said I, “but you can get over all right.”
+
+We passed in the darkness.
+
+Again “Look out!” from Davies, and we cowered. Again the shells
+screamed down on us, and burst just behind.
+
+“Good God!” I exclaimed, “those wirers!”
+
+Davies ran back.
+
+There was another block in the trench, but no sign of any men. They
+were well away by now! But the shell had fallen between us and them
+before they reached the block in 78 Street!
+
+Out of breath we arrived at the top of 78 Street, to find “A” Company
+just getting going again after a hot quarter of an hour. Luckily they
+had had no casualties. All was quiet now, and the moon looked down
+upon the workers as before. A quarter past eleven.
+
+I worked my way along to the Fort and found there a sentry rather
+excited because, he said, he had seen exactly the spot from which they
+had fired rifle-grenades in the strafing just now. I got him to point
+out the place. It was half-left, and as I looked, sure enough I saw
+a flash, and a rifle-grenade whined through the air, and fell with a
+snarl behind our trench.
+
+“Davies,” I said, “get Lance-Corporal Allan to come here with the Lewis
+gun.”
+
+Davies was gone like a flash.
+
+The Lewis guns had only recently become company weapons, and were still
+somewhat of a novelty. The Lewis gunners were rather envied, and also
+rather “downed” by the sergeant-major for being specialists. But this
+they could not help; and they were, as a matter of fact, the best men
+in my company.
+
+Allan arrived, with one of the team carrying two spare drums of
+ammunition. We pointed out the spot, and he laid his gun on the
+parapet, with the butt against his shoulder, and his finger on the
+trigger, and waited.
+
+“Flash!”
+
+“There he is, sir!” from the sentry.
+
+“Drrrrrr-r-r-r” purred the Lewis gun, then stopped. Then again, ending
+with another jerk. There was a silence. We waited five minutes.
+
+“I’ll just empty the magazine, sir.”
+
+“Dr-r-r-r-r.”
+
+Lance-Corporal Allan took off the drum, and handed it to the other
+Lewis gunner. Then he handed down the gun, and we talked a few minutes.
+He was very proud of his gun. After a time I sent him back, and made my
+way along to “A” Company.
+
+There I found Robertson. We talked. A tremendous lot of work had been
+done, and the big traverse was practically finished.
+
+“I’m knocking off now,” said I. It was a quarter to twelve, and I went
+along with the “Cease work” message.
+
+“All right,” said Robertson, “I’m just going to have another look at my
+wirers. I’ll look in as I go down.”
+
+By the time I had reached the top of 76 Street, the trench was full of
+the clank of the thermos dixies, and the men were drinking hot soup.
+The pioneers had just brought it up. I stopped and had a taste. It was
+good stuff. As I turned off down the trench, I heard the Germans start
+shelling again on our left, but they stopped almost directly. I thought
+nothing of it at the time.
+
+It was just midnight when I reached Trafalgar Square and bumped into
+Davidson coming round the corner.
+
+“I was looking for you,” said he. “You’ve heard about Tommy?”
+
+“Yes,” I answered. “But he’s not badly hit, is he?”
+
+“Oh, you haven’t heard. He died at eleven o’clock.”
+
+Died! My God! this was something new. Briefly, tersely, Davidson
+told me the details. He had been hit in the mouth while working on
+the parapet, and had died down at the dressing station. I looked
+hard at Davidson, as we stood together in the moonlight by the big
+island traverse at Trafalgar Square. Somehow I felt my body tense; my
+teeth were pressed together; my eyes did not want to blink. Here was
+something new. I had seen death often: _it_ was nothing new. But it was
+the first time it had taken one of us. I wondered what Davidson felt;
+he knew Thompson much better than I. Yet I knew him well enough--only a
+day or so ago he had come to our billet in the butcher’s shop, and we
+had talked of him afterwards--and now--dead----
+
+All this flashed through my brain in a second. Meanwhile Davidson was
+saying,
+
+“Well, I’m just going off for this strafe,” when I heard men running
+down a trench.
+
+“Quick! Stretcher-bearers. The Captain’s hit,” came from someone in a
+low voice. The stretcher-bearers’ dug-out was just by where we were
+standing, and immediately I heard a stir inside, and a head looked out
+from the waterproof sheet that acted as curtain in front of it.
+
+“Is it a stretcher-case?” a voice asked.
+
+“Yes,” was the reply, and without more ado two stretcher-bearers turned
+out and ran up 76 Street after the orderly. At that moment there was a
+thud, and a blazing trail climbed up the sky from the left.
+
+“D----,” I muttered. “We must postpone this strafe. Davidson, we’ll
+fix up later, see? Only no firing now.” As Davidson disappeared to his
+gun-position, I ran to the telephone.
+
+“Trench-mortar officer,” I said. “Quick!”
+
+But there is no “quick” about a signaller. He is always there, and
+methodically, without haste or flurry, he takes down and sends
+messages. There is no “quickness”; yet there is no delay. If the world
+outside pulses and rocks under a storm of shells, in the signallers’
+dug-out is always a deep-sea calm. So impatiently I watched the
+operator beat his little tattoo on the buzzer; looked at his face,
+as the candle-light shone on it, with its ears hidden beneath the
+receiver-drums, and its head swathed by the band that holds them over
+the ears. In the corner, the second signaller sat up and peered out of
+his blanket, and then lay down again.
+
+“Zx? Is there an officer there? Hold on a minute, please. The officer’s
+at the gun, sir; will you speak to the corporal?”
+
+“Yes.” I already had the receiver to my ear.
+
+“Is that the trench-mortar corporal? Well, go and tell Mr. Macfarlane,
+will you, to stop firing at once, and not to start again till he hears
+from Mr. Adams. Right. Right. Thanks.” This last to the signaller as
+I left the dug-out.
+
+“Thud!” and another football blazed through the sky.
+
+Macfarlane was the officer in charge of the trench-mortar guns of our
+sector. I knew him well. Davidson was in charge of the Stokes gun,
+which is a quick-firing trench-mortar gun. Macfarlane’s shells were
+known as “footballs,” but as they had a handle attached they looked
+more like hammers as they slowly curved through the air.
+
+We had arranged to “strafe” a certain position in the German support
+line at five minutes after midnight. But I wanted to stop it before
+retaliation started. The doctor had gone up the front line, and
+Robertson would be brought down any minute.
+
+Outside I met Brock. He said little, but it was good to have him there.
+A long while it seemed, waiting. I started up 76 Street. No sooner had
+I started than I heard footsteps coming down, and to make room I went
+back. I was preparing to say some cheery word to Robertson, but when I
+saw him he was lying quite still and unconscious. I stopped the little
+doctor.
+
+“Is he bad, Doc?”
+
+“Well, old man, I can hardly say. He’s got a fighting chance,” and
+he went on. Slowly I heard the stretcher-bearers’ footsteps growing
+fainter and fainter, and there was silence. Thank God! those footballs
+had stopped now!
+
+Did I guess that Robertson too was mortally wounded? I cannot say--only
+my teeth were set, and I felt very wideawake. In a minute both Davidson
+and Macfarlane came up, Davidson down 76 Street, and Macfarlane from
+Rue Albert. I told Macfarlane all about it, and as I did so my blood
+was up. I swore hard at the devils that had done this; and we agreed on
+a “strafe” at a quarter to one.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I stood alone at Trafalgar Square. There was a great calm sky, and the
+moon looked down at me. Then with a “thud” the first football went up.
+Then the Stokes answered.
+
+“Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!” Up they sailed into the air all
+together, and exploded with a deafening din.
+
+“Thud--thud!”
+
+“Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!”
+
+Then the Boche woke up. Two canisters rose, streamed, and fell,
+dropping slightly to my right.
+
+But still our trench-mortars went on. Two more canisters tried for
+Davidson’s gun.
+
+I was elated. “This for Thompson and Robertson,” I said, as our
+footballs went on methodically.
+
+Then the whizz-bangs began on Trafalgar Square.
+
+I went to the telephone.
+
+“Artillery,” I said briefly. “Retaliate C 1 Sector.”
+
+And then our guns began.
+
+“Scream, scream, scream” they went over.
+
+“Swish--swish” answered the Boche whizz-bangs.
+
+“Phew,” said Sergeant Tallis, the bombing-sergeant, as he looked out of
+his dug-out.
+
+“More retaliation,” I said to the signaller, and stepped out again.
+
+A grim exaltation filled me. We were getting our own back. I did not
+care a straw for their canisters or whizz-bangs. It pleased me to hear
+Sergeant Tallis say “Phew.” My blood was up, and I did not feel like
+saying “Phew.”
+
+“The officer wants to know if that is enough,” said the telephone
+orderly, who had come out to find me.
+
+“No,” I answered; “I want more.”
+
+The Boche was sending “heavies” over on to Maple Redoubt. I would go on
+until he stopped. My will should be master. Again our shells screamed
+over. There was no reply.
+
+Gradually quiet came back.
+
+Then I heard footsteps, and there was Davidson. His face was glowing
+too.
+
+“How was that?” he asked.
+
+How was that? He had fired magnificently, though the Boche had sent
+stuff all round him. How was that?
+
+“Magnificent! We’ve shut them up.”
+
+“I’ve got six shells left. Shall I blaze them off?”
+
+“Oh, no!” said I; “I think we’ve avenged Tommy.”
+
+His face hardened.
+
+“Good night, Bill!”
+
+But I did not feel like sleep. I still stood at the corner, waiting for
+I knew not what.
+
+“Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!” went the Stokes gun. There was a pause,
+and “bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!” came the sound of them bursting.
+There was a longer pause.
+
+“Bang!” I watched the spark floating through the sky.
+
+“Bang!” came the sound back from the German trench.
+
+I waited. There was no answer. And for the first time that night I
+fancied the moon smiled.
+
+
+[_Copy_]
+
+DAILY SUMMARY. C 1. (LEFT COMPANY)
+
+6 p.m. 18.3.16--3.30 p.m. 19.3.16
+
+
+(a) _Operations._
+
+ 11.0 p.m. Enemy fired six rifle-grenades from F10/5. The
+ approximate position of the battery was visible from the FORT,
+ and Lewis gun fire was brought to bear on it, which immediately
+ silenced it.
+
+ 11.30 p.m. Enemy fired several trench-mortar shells and H.E.
+ shells on junction of 78 Street and RUE ALBERT (F10/6), a few
+ falling in our front line trench by the MATTERHORN. No damage was
+ done to our trenches.
+
+ 12.45 p.m. Our T.M. Battery fired 12 footballs, and our Stokes
+ gun 32 shells at enemy’s front line trench in F10/5. The enemy
+ sent a few canisters over, but then resorted to H.E.’s. Our
+ artillery retaliated. Our Stokes gun continued to fire until
+ enemy was silent, no reply being sent to our last 6 shells.
+
+ 7.45 a.m. Enemy fired several rifle-grenades and bombs. Our
+ R.G.’s retaliated with 24 R.G.’s.
+
+(b) _Progress of Work._
+
+ { 30 yards of parapet thickened two feet.
+ F 10/6 { 25 yards of fire-step built.
+ {20 coils of wire put out.
+
+ { 20 yards of parapet thickened two feet.
+ F 10/5 { 2 dug-outs completed.
+ {20 yards of fire-step built.
+
+ J. B. P. ADAMS, Lt.,
+
+ O.C. “B” Coy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+“WHOM THE GODS LOVE”--(_continued_)
+
+
+As I write I feel inclined to throw the whole book in the fire. It
+seems a desecration to tell of these things. Do I not seem to be
+exulting in the tragedy? Should not he who feels deeply keep silent?
+Sometimes I think so. And yet it is the truth, word for word the truth;
+so I must write it.
+
+In the Straw Palace next morning Davidson and I were sitting discussing
+last night, when the doctor looked in. He started talking about
+Vermorel sprayers (the portable tins shaped like large oval milk-cans,
+filled with a solution useful for clearing dug-outs after a gas
+attack). One of these was damaged, and I had sent down a note to the
+M.O. about it.
+
+“How’s Robertson?” I asked at once.
+
+“He died this morning, Bill--three o’clock this morning.”
+
+“Good God,” I said.
+
+“Pretty ghastly, isn’t it? Two officers like that in one night. The
+C.O. is awfully cut up about it.”
+
+“Robertson dead?” said Davidson.
+
+And so we talked for some minutes. The old doctor was used to these
+things. He had seen so many officers fall out of line. But to us this
+was new, and we had not gauged it yet. You might have thought from his
+quiet jerky sentences that the doctor was almost callous. You would
+have been wrong.
+
+“Well, I must get on,” he said at last. “So long, Bill. Send that
+Vermorel sprayer down, will you, and I’ll see to it, and you’ll have it
+back to-night, probably.”
+
+“Righto.” And the doctor and his orderly disappeared down the Old Kent
+Road.
+
+Davidson and I talked alone.
+
+“It must be pretty rotten being an M.O.,” he remarked.
+
+Then the “F.L.O.” came in. He is the “Forward liaison officer,” an
+artillery officer who lives up with the infantry and facilitates
+co-operation between the two. At the same moment came a cheery Scotch
+voice outside, and Macfarlane, the “football” officer, looked in.
+
+“Come oot a’ that!” he cried. “Sittin’ indoors on a fine mornin’.”
+
+“Come in,” we said.
+
+But his will prevailed, and we all came out into the sunshine. I had
+not seen him since last night’s little show. Now he was being relieved
+by another officer for six days, and I was anxious to know what sort
+of a man was his successor. But Macfarlane did not know much about him
+yet.
+
+“Anyway,” said I, “if he’ll only fire like you, we don’t mind.”
+
+“Och!” grunted Macfarlane. “What’s the use of havin’ a gun, and no
+firin’ it? So long as I get ma footballs up, I’ll plunk them over aw
+recht.”
+
+“Yes,” I added. “The Boche doesn’t approve of your sort.”
+
+For there were other sorts. There was the trench-mortar officer who
+was never to be found, but who left a sergeant with instructions not
+to fire without his orders; there was the trench-mortar officer who
+“could not fire except by Brigade orders”; there was the trench-mortar
+officer who was “afraid of giving his position away”; there was the
+trench-mortar officer who “couldn’t get any ammunition up, you know;
+they won’t give it me; only too pleased to fire, if only ...”; there
+was the trench-mortar officer who started firing on his own, without
+consulting the company commander, just when you had a big working-party
+in the front trenches; and lastly there were trench-mortar officers
+like Davidson and Macfarlane.
+
+“Cheero, then,” we said, as Macfarlane went off. “Look us up. You know
+our billet? We’ll be out to-morrow.”
+
+Then we finished our consultation and divided off to our different jobs.
+
+All that day I felt that there was in me something which by all
+rights should have “given”: these two deaths should have made me feel
+different: and yet I was just the same. As I went round the trench,
+with Davies at my heels, talking to platoon-sergeants, examining wire
+through my periscope, all in the ordinary way exactly as before, I
+forgot all about Tommy and Robertson. Even when I came to the place
+where Robertson had been hit, and saw the blood on the fire-step, and
+some scraps of cotton wool lying about, I looked at it as you might
+look at a smashed egg on the pavement, curiously, and then passed on.
+“Am I indifferent to these things, then?” I asked myself. I had not
+realised yet that violent emotion very rarely comes close upon the
+heels of death, that there is a numbness, a blunting of the spirit,
+that is an anodyne to pain. I was ashamed of my indifference; yet I
+soon saw that it was no uncommon thing. Besides, one had to “carry on”
+just the same. There was always a silence among the men, when a pal
+“goes west”; so now Edwards and I did not talk much, except to discuss
+the ordinary routine.
+
+I did not get much rest that day. In the afternoon came up a message
+from the adjutant that we were exploding a mine opposite the Matterhorn
+at 6.30; our trench was to be cleared from 80 A to the bombing-post on
+the left of the Loop inclusive. Edwards and I were the only officers in
+the company, so while he arranged matters with the Lewis-gun teams, I
+went off to see about getting the trench cleared. I had just sent off
+the “daily summary,” my copy of which is reproduced on page 179. As I
+came back along 78 Street, I met Davidson again. He was looking for a
+new site for his gun, so as to be able to get a good fire to bear on
+the German lines opposite the Matterhorn. I went with him, and together
+we found a place behind the big mine-dump to the left of 78 Street, and
+close to one of our rifle-grenade batteries. As he went off to get his
+corporal and team to bring the gun over and fix it in position, he said
+something in a rather low voice.
+
+“What?” I shouted. “Couldn’t hear.”
+
+He came back and repeated it.
+
+“Oh,” I said. “Sorry. Yes, all right. I expect I’ll hear from the
+Adjutant. Thanks.”
+
+What he said was that there would be a funeral that night at nine
+o’clock. Thompson and Robertson were being buried together. He thought
+I would like to know.
+
+It was close on half-past six, and getting dark. The trenches were
+cleared, and I was waiting at the head of two platoons that strung out
+along 78 Street and behind the Loop. Rifles had been inspected; the men
+had the S.A.A. (small arms ammunition) and bomb boxes with them, ready
+to take back into the trench as soon as the mine had gone up. I looked
+at my watch.
+
+“Another minute,” I said.
+
+Then, as I spoke, the earth shook; there was a pause, and a great black
+cloud burst into the air, followed by a roar of flames. I got up on the
+fire-step to see it better. It is a good show, a mine. There was the
+sound of falling earth, and then silence.
+
+“Come on,” I said, and we hurried back into the trench. Weird and
+eerie it looked in the half-light; its emptiness might have been years
+old. It was undamaged, as we had expected; only there was loose earth
+scattered all over the parapet and fire-step.
+
+Then hell broke loose, a crashing, banging, flashing hell that
+concentrated on the German front line directly opposite. It seemed like
+stirring up an ant’s nest, and then spraying them with boiling water as
+they ran about in confusion!
+
+“Bang--bang--bang--bang--bang,” barked Davidson’s gun.
+
+“Thud,” muttered the football-thrower.
+
+“Wheep! Wee-oo, wee-oo, wee-oo,” went the rifle grenades. And all this
+splendid rain burst with a glorious splash just over the new crater.
+It was magnificent shooting, and half of us were up on the fire-step
+watching the fireworks.
+
+Then the Boche retaliated, with canisters and whizz-bangs, and
+“heavies” for Maple Redoubt; and then our guns joined the concert. It
+was “hot shop” for half an hour, but at last it died down and there was
+a great calm. Some of the men were in the trenches for the first time,
+and had not relished the proceedings overmuch! They were relieved to
+get the order “Stand down!”
+
+There were several things to be done, working-parties to be arranged,
+final instructions given to a patrol, Lewis gunners to be detailed to
+rake the German parapet opposite the Matterhorn all night. A platoon
+sergeant was worried about his sentries; he had not enough men, having
+had one or two casualties; and I had to lend him men from a more
+fortunate platoon. It was quite dark, and nearly half-past seven by the
+time I got back to Trafalgar Square. Edwards had started dinner, as he
+was on trench duty at eight o’clock. The sergeant-major was on duty
+until then.
+
+Davidson looked in on his way down to Maple Redoubt.
+
+“I say, your Stokes were bursting top-hole. We had a splendid view.”
+
+“They weren’t going short, were they?” he asked.
+
+“No. Just right. The fellows were awfully bucked with it.”
+
+“Oh, good. You can’t see a bit from where we are, and the corporal said
+he thought they were going short. But I’d worked out the range and was
+firing well over 120, so I carried on. I’m going down to have dinner
+with O’Brien. I think we’ve done enough to-night.”
+
+Then I saw that he was tired out.
+
+“Rather a hot shop?” I asked.
+
+“Yes,” he said in his casual way. “They were all round us. Well,
+cheero! I shan’t be up till about ten, I expect, unless there’s
+anything wanted.”
+
+“Cheero!”
+
+“It’s no joke firing that gun with the Boche potting at you hard with
+canisters,” I said to Edwards, as Davidson’s footsteps died away.
+
+“He’s the bravest fellow in the regiment,” said Edwards, and we talked
+of the time when the gun burst in his face as he was firing it, and
+he told his men that it had been hit by a canister, to prevent their
+losing confidence in it. I saw him just afterwards: his face was
+bleeding. It was no joke being Stokes officer; the Germans hated those
+vicious snapping bolts that spat upon them “One, two, three, four,
+five,” and always concentrated their fire against his gun. But they had
+not got him.
+
+“No, he’s inside,” I heard Edwards saying. “Bill. Telephone message.”
+
+The telephone orderly handed me a pink form. Edwards was outside, just
+about to go on trench duty. It was eight. I went outside. It was bright
+moonlight again. Grimly, I thought of last night.
+
+“Look here,” I said. “There’s this funeral at nine o’clock. I’ve just
+got this message. One officer from each company may go. Will you go? I
+can’t very well go as O.C. Company.” And I handed him the pink form to
+see.
+
+So we rearranged the night duties, and Edwards went off till half-past
+eight, while I finished my dinner. Lewis was hovering about with
+toasted cheese and _café au lait_. As I swallowed these glutinous
+concoctions, the candle flickered and went out. I pushed open the door:
+the moonlight flooded in, and I did not trouble to call for another
+candle. Then I heard the sergeant-major’s voice, and went out. We stood
+talking at Trafalgar Square.
+
+“Shan’t be sorry to get relieved to-morrow,” I said. I was tired, and
+I wondered how long the night would take to pass.
+
+Suddenly, up the Old Kent Road I heard a man running. My heart stopped.
+I hate the sound of running in a trench, and last night they had
+run for stretcher-bearers when Robertson was hit. I looked at the
+sergeant-major, who was biting his lip, his ears cocked. Round the
+corner a man bolted, out of breath, excited. I stopped him; he nearly
+knocked into us.
+
+“Hang you,” said I. “Stop! Where the devil...?”
+
+“Mr. Davidson, sir ... Mr. Davidson is killed.”
+
+“Rot!” I said, impatiently. “Pull yourself together, man. He’s all
+right. I saw him only half an hour ago.”
+
+But as I spoke, something broke inside me. It was as if I were
+straining, beating against something relentless. As though by words, by
+the cry “impossible” I could beat back the flood of conviction that the
+man’s words brought over me. Dead! I _knew_ he was dead.
+
+“Impossible, corporal,” I said. “What do you mean?” For I saw now that
+it was Davidson’s corporal who stood gazing at me with fright in his
+eyes.
+
+He pulled himself together at last.
+
+“Killed, sir. It came between us as we were talking. A whizz-bang, sir.”
+
+“My God!” I cried. “Where?”
+
+“Just at the bottom, sir”--the man jerked his hand back down Old Kent
+Road. “We were just talking, sir. My leave has come through, and he was
+joking, and saying his would be through soon, when ... oh, Jesus ... I
+was half blinded.... I’ve not got over it yet, sir.” And the man was
+all trembling as he spoke.
+
+“He was killed instantly?”
+
+“Ach!” said the man. He made a gesture with his hands. “It burst right
+on him.”
+
+“Poor fellow,” I said. God knows what I meant. “Send a man with him,
+sergeant-major,” I added, and plunged up 76 Street.
+
+“Davidson,” I cried. “Davidson dead!”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It was close on midnight, as I stood outside the Straw Palace. Lewis
+brought me a cup of cocoa. I drank it in silence, and ate a piece of
+cake. I told the man to go to bed. Then, when he had disappeared, I
+climbed up out of the trench, and sat, my legs dangling down into it.
+Down in the trench the moon cast deep black shadows. I looked around.
+All was bathed in pale, shimmery moonlight. There was a great silence,
+save for distant machine-gun popping down in the Fricourt valley, and
+the very distant sound of guns, guns, guns--the sound that never stops
+day and night. I pressed on my right hand and with a quick turn was up
+on my feet out of the trench, on the hill-side; for I was just over the
+brow, on the reverse slope, and out of sight of the enemy lines. I took
+off my steel helmet and put it on the ground, while I stretched out my
+arms and clenched my hands.
+
+“So this is War,” I thought. I realised that my teeth were set, and
+my mouth hard, and my eyes, though full of sleep, wide open: silently
+I took in the great experience, the death of those well-loved. For of
+all men in the battalion I loved Davidson best. Not that I knew him so
+wonderfully well--but ... well, one always had to smile when he came
+in; he was so good-natured, so young, so delightfully imperturbable. He
+used to come in and stroke your hair if you were bad-tempered. Somehow
+he reminded me of a cat purring; and perhaps his hair and his smile had
+something to do with it? Oh, who can define what they love in those
+they love?
+
+And then my mind went back over all the incidents of the last few
+hours. Together we had been through it all: together we had discussed
+death: and last of all I thought how he had told me of the funeral that
+was to be at 9 o’clock. And now he lay beside them. All three had been
+buried at nine o’clock.
+
+“Dead. Dead,” said a voice within me. And still I did not move. Still
+that numbness, that dulness, that tightening across the brain and
+senses. This, too, was something new. Then I looked around me, across
+the moorland. I walked along until I could see down over Maple Redoubt
+and across the valley, where there seemed a slight white mist; or was
+it only moonshine?
+
+Suddenly, “Strength.” I answered the voice. “Strong. I am strong.”
+Every muscle in my body was tingling at my bidding. I felt an iron
+strength. All this tautness, this numbness, was strength. I remembered
+last night, the feeling of irresistible will-power, and my eyes glowed.
+I thought of Davidson, and my eyes glistened: the very pain was the
+birth of new strength.
+
+Then, even as the strength came, I heard a thud, and away on the left
+a canister blazed into the air, climbed, swooped, and rushed. And the
+vulgar din of its bursting rent all the stillness of the night. A
+second followed suit. And as it, too, burst, it seemed a clumsy mocking
+at me, a mocking that ran in echoes all along the still valley.
+
+“Strength,” it sneered. “Strength.”
+
+And all my iron will seemed beating against a wall of steel, that must
+in the end wear me down in a useless battering.
+
+“War,” I cried. “How can my will batter against war?” I thought
+of Davidson’s smiling face; and then I thought of the blind clumsy
+canister. And I felt unutterably weak and powerless. What did it
+matter what I thought or did, whether I was weak or strong? What power
+had I against this irresistible impersonal machine; this war? And I
+remembered how an hour or so ago the trench-mortar officer had asked me
+whether I wanted him to fire or not, and I had answered, “Good God! Do
+as you d--d well like.” What did it matter what he did? Yet, last night
+it had seemed to matter everything.
+
+Slowly there came into my mind that picture that later has come to
+mean to me the true expression of war. Only slowly it came now, a
+half-formed image of what my spirit alone understood.
+
+“A certain man drew a bow at a venture,” I thought. What of those
+shells that I had called down last night at my bidding, standing like a
+god, intoxicated with power, and crying “Retaliate. More retaliation.”
+Where did they fall? Were other men lying as Davidson lay to-night? Had
+I called down death? Had I stricken families? Probably. Nay, more than
+probably. Certainly. Death. Blind death. That was it. Blind death.
+
+And all the time above me was the white moon. I looked at the shadows
+of my arms as I held them out. Such shadows belonged to summer nights
+in England ... in Kent.... Oh! why was everything so silent? Could
+nothing stop this utter folly, this cruel madness, this clumsy death?
+
+And then, at last, the strain gave a little, and my muscles relaxed. I
+went back and took up my helmet.
+
+“Dead,” the voice repeated within me. And this time my spirit found
+utterance:
+
+“Damn!” I said. “Oh damn! damn! Damn!”
+
+
+[_Copy_]
+
+SPECIAL REPORT--C 1 SECTION (LEFT COMPANY)
+
+The mine exploded by us opposite 80 A at 6.30 p.m. last night has
+exposed about 20 yards of German parapet. A working-party attempting
+to work there about 12.30 a.m. and again at 2 a.m. was dispersed at
+once by our rifle and Lewis-gun fire. The parapet has been built up
+sufficiently to prevent our seeing over it, sand-bags having been put
+up from inside the trench. Our snipers are closely watching this spot.
+
+ J. B. P. ADAMS, Lieut.
+
+ O.C. “B” Coy.
+
+6.30 a.m. 20.3.16.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+OFFICERS’ SERVANTS
+
+
+“Poor devils on sentry,” said Dixon. He shut the door quickly and came
+over to the fire. Outside was a thick blizzard, and it was biting cold.
+He sat down on the bed nearest the fire and got warm again.
+
+“Look here, Bill, can’t we possibly get any coal?”
+
+“We sent a fellow into Bray,” I answered, “but it’s very doubtful if
+he’ll get any. Anyway we’ll see.”
+
+Tea was finished. The great problem was fuel. There were no trees or
+houses anywhere near 71 North. We had burnt two solid planks during
+the day; these had been procured by the simple expedient of getting a
+lance-corporal to march four men to the R.E. dump, select two planks,
+and march them back again. But by now the planks had surely been
+missed, and it would be extremely risky to repeat the experiment, even
+after dark. So a man had been despatched to Bray to try and purchase
+a sack of coal; also, I had told the Mess-sergeant to try and buy one
+for us, and bring it up with the rations. This also was a doubtful
+quantity. Meanwhile, we had a great blaze going, and were making the
+most of it.
+
+I was writing letters; Dixon was reading; Nicolson was seeing to
+the rum ration; Clark was singing, “Now Neville was a devil,” and
+showing his servant Brady how to “make” a hammock. Brady was a patient
+disciple, but his master had slept in a hammock for the first time
+in his life the night before and consequently was not a very clear
+exponent of the art. Apparently certain things that happened last night
+must be avoided to-night; _how_ they were to be avoided was left to
+Brady’s ingenuity. Every attempt on his part to solve the problems put
+before him was carefully tested by Clark, and accepted or condemned
+according to its merit under the strain of Clark’s body. At such
+times of testing the strains of “Neville was a devil” would cease. At
+last Brady hit on some lucky adjustment, and the occupant pronounced
+his position to be first rate. Then Brady disappeared behind the
+curtain that screened the servants’ quarters, and the song proceeded
+uninterruptedly,
+
+ “Now Neville was a devil
+ A perfect little devil”;
+
+and Clark rocked himself contentedly into a state of restful slumber.
+
+Meanwhile, behind the arras the retainers prepared their masters’ meal.
+This dug-out was of the “tubular” pattern, a succession of quarter
+circles of black iron riveted together at the top, and so forming a
+long tube, one end of which was bricked up and had a brick chimney
+with two panes of glass on each side of it; the other led into a small
+wooden dug-out curtained off. Here abode five servants and an orderly.
+I should here state that this dug-out was the most comfortable I have
+ever lived in; as a matter of fact it was not a dug-out at all, but
+being placed right under the steep bank at 71 North it was practically
+immune from shelling. The brick chimney and the glass window-panes
+were certainly almost unique: one imagined it must have been built
+originally by the R.E.’s for their own abode! Along the sides were four
+beds of wire-netting stretched over a wooden frame with a layer of
+empty sand-bags for mattress. In the centre was a wooden table. Over
+this table, in air suspended, floated Clark.
+
+Meanwhile, as above stated, behind the arras the retainers prepared
+their masters’ meal, with such-like comments--
+
+“Who’s going for rations to-night?”
+
+“It’s Lewis’s turn to-night, and Smith’s.”
+
+“All right, sergeant.”
+
+“Gr-r-r” (unintelligible).
+
+“Where’s Dodger?”
+
+“Out chasing them hares. Didn’t you hear the Captain say he’d be for
+it, if he didn’t get one?”
+
+“Gr-r-r. He won’t get any ---- hares.”
+
+Here followed a pause, and a lot of noise of plates and boxes being
+moved. Then there was a continued crackling of wood, as the fire was
+made up. Followed a lot of coughing, and muttering, and “Phew!” as the
+smoke got too thick even for that smoke-hardened crew.
+
+“Phew! Stop it. Jesus Christ.”
+
+More coughing, the door was opened, and soon a cold draught sped into
+our dug-out. There was but one door for both.
+
+“Shut that door!” I shouted.
+
+“Hi, Lewis, your bloke’s calling. Said, ‘Shut that door.’”
+
+Then the door shut. More coughing ensued, but the smoke was better,
+apparently, for it soon ceased. We were each, by the way, “my bloke” to
+our respective retainers.
+
+The conversation remained for some time at an inaudible level, until I
+heard the door open again, and a shout of “Hullo! Dodger. Coo! Jesus
+Christ! He’s all right, isn’t he? There’s a job for you, sergeant,
+cooking that bloke. Has the Captain seen him? Hey! Look out of that!
+You’ll have the blood all over the place. Get a bit of paper.”
+
+The “sergeant” (Private Gray) made no comments on the prospect of
+cooking the “Dodger’s” quarry, and the next minute Private Davies,
+orderly, appeared with glowing though rather dirty face holding up a
+large hare, that dripped gore from its mouth into a scrunched-up ball
+of _Daily Mail_ held to its nose like a pocket-handkerchief.
+
+“Look here, Dixon,” I said.
+
+“Devil’s alive,” exclaimed Dixon. “Then you’ve got one. By Jove!
+Splendid! I say, isn’t he a beauty?” And we all went up and examined
+him. He was a hare of the first order. To-morrow he should be the _chef
+d’œuvre_ in “B” Company mess at Morlancourt. For we went out of reserve
+into billets the next morning.
+
+“How did you get him, Davies?”
+
+“Oh! easy enough, sir. I’ll get another if you like. There’s a lot of
+them sitting out in the snow there. I was only about fifty yards off.
+He don’t get much chance with a rifle, sir.” (Here his voice broke into
+a laugh.) “It’s not what you call much sport for him, sir! I got this
+too, sir!”
+
+And lo! and behold! a plump partridge!
+
+“Oh! they’re as tame as anything, and you can’t help getting them in
+this snow,” he said.
+
+At last the dripping hare was removed from the stage to behind the
+scenes, and Davies joined the smothered babel behind the arras.
+
+“Wonderful fellow, old Davies,” said Dixon.
+
+“By the way, Bill,” he added. “How about getting the little doctor in
+to-night for a hand of vingt-et-un? Can we manage it all right?”
+
+I was Mess-president for the time, Edwards being away on a course.
+
+“Oh! yes,” I answered. “Rather. I’ll send a note.”
+
+As I was writing a rather elaborate note (having nothing better to do)
+requesting the pleasure of the distinguished presence of the medical
+officer, the man who had been to Bray for coal came and reported a
+fruitless errand. He seemed very depressed at his failure, but cheered
+up when we gave him a tot of rum to warm him up. (All rum, by the way,
+is kept in the company officer’s dug-out; it is the only way.)
+
+Meanwhile, the problem of fuel must be faced. A log was crackling away
+merrily enough, but it was the very last. Something must be done.
+
+“Davies,” I called out.
+
+“Sir?” came back in that higher key of his.
+
+He appeared at the door.
+
+“Are you going down for rations?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Well, look here. There’s a sack of coal _ordered_ from Sergeant
+Johnson, but I’m none too sure it’ll come up to-night. I only ordered
+it yesterday. But I want you to make sure you get it if it is there; in
+fact you _must_ bring it, whether it’s there or not. See? If you don’t,
+you’ll be for it.”
+
+This threat Davies took for what it was worth. But he answered:
+
+“I’ll get it, sir. I’ll bring something along somehow.”
+
+And Davies never failed of his word.
+
+“Good! Do what you can.”
+
+Half an hour later he staggered in with a sack of coal, and plumped
+it down, all covered with snow. The fire was burning very low, and
+we were looking at it anxiously. The sight of this new supply of fuel
+was wonderful good to the eyes. So busy were we in stoking up, that we
+forgot to ask Davies if he had had any trouble in getting it. After
+all, it did not matter much. There was the coal; that was the point.
+
+Behind the curtain there was a great business. Lewis and Brady had
+brought up the rations; Gray was busy with a big stew, and Richards
+was apparently engaged in getting out plates and knives and forks from
+a box; Davies was reading aloud, in the middle of the chaos, from the
+_Daily Mail_. Sometimes the Mess-president took it into his head to
+inspect the servants’ dug-out; but it was an unwise procedure, for
+it took away the relish of the meal, if you saw the details of its
+preparation. So long as it was served up tolerably clean, one should be
+satisfied.
+
+At half-past seven came in Richards to lay the table. The procedure
+of this was first to take all articles on the table and dump them on
+the nearest bed. Then a knife, fork, and spoon were put to each place,
+and a varied collection of tin mugs and glasses arranged likewise;
+then came salt and mustard in glass potted-meat jars; bread sitting
+bareback on the newspaper tablecloth; and a bottle of O.V.H. and two
+bottles of Perrier to crown the feast. All this was arranged with a
+deliberate smile, as by one who knew the exact value of things, and
+defied instruction in any detail of laying a table. Richards was an old
+soldier, and he had won from Dixon at first unbounded praise; but he
+had been found to possess a lot too much talk at present, and had been
+sat on once or twice fairly heavily of late. So now he wore the face of
+one who was politely amused, yet, knowing his own worth, could forbear
+from malice. He gave the table a last look with his head on one side,
+and then departed in silence.
+
+Suddenly the door flew open, and the doctor burst in, shuddering, and
+knocking the snow off his cap.
+
+“By Jove, Dicker,” he cried. “A bad night to go about paying joy
+visits. But, by Jove, I’m jolly glad you asked me. There’s the devil to
+pay up at headquarters. The C.O.’s raving, simply. Some blighter has
+pinched our coal, and there’s none to be got anywhere. Good Lord, it’s
+too hot altogether. I couldn’t stand Mess there to-night at any price.
+I pity old Dale. The C.O.’s been swearing like a trooper! He’s fair
+mad.”
+
+“Never mind,” he added after a pause. “I think we’ve raised enough wood
+to cook the dinner all right. See you’ve got coal all right.”
+
+I hoped to goodness Dixon wouldn’t put his foot in it. But he rose to
+the occasion and said:
+
+“Oh, yes. We ordered some coal from Sergeant Johnson. Come on, let’s
+start. Hi! Richards!”
+
+And Richards came in with the stew in a tin jug such as is used in
+civilised lands to hold hot water of a morning. And so the doctor
+forgot the Colonel’s rage.
+
+Late that night, after the doctor had gone, I called Davies.
+
+“Davies,” I said, “where did you get that coal?”
+
+“Off the ration cart, sir.”
+
+“Was it ours, do you think?”
+
+“Well, sir, I don’t somehow think it was. You see, the ration cart came
+up, and the man driving it was up by the horse--and I saw the bag o’
+coal there, like. So I said to Lewis, ‘Lewis, you see to the rations.
+I’ll take the coal up quick!’ Then I heard the man up by the horse say,
+‘There’s coal there for headquarters.’ ‘Oh, yes,’ I said, ‘that’s all
+right, but this here was ordered off Sergeant Johnson yesterday,’ I
+said. And I made off quick.”
+
+“Good Lord!” I exclaimed. “Was Sergeant Johnson there?”
+
+“No,” answered Davies. “He came later. I said to Lewis just now, ‘What
+about that coal?’ And he said Sergeant Johnson came just after and
+started kicking up some bit of a row, sir, about some coal; but Lewis,
+he said he didn’t know nothing about any coal, and the man at the horse
+he didn’t know who I was, sir; it was quite dark, you see, sir. Lewis
+said Sergeant Johnson got the wind up a bit, sir, about losing the
+coal....”
+
+“Look here Davies,” I remarked solemnly, “do you realise that that coal
+was for headquarters ...”
+
+“I couldn’t say, sir,” began Davies.
+
+“But I can,” said I. “Look here, you must just set a limit somewhere. I
+know I said you _must_ get some coal, somewhere. But I wasn’t exactly
+thinking of bagging the C.O.’s coal. As a matter of fact he was
+slightly annoyed, though doubtless if he knew it was No. 14 Davies,
+“B” Company orderly, he would abate his wrath. Do you realise this is
+a very serious offence?”
+
+Davies’ mouth wavered. He could never quite understand this method of
+procedure. He looked at the blazing fire, and his eyes twinkled. Then
+he understood.
+
+“Yes, sir,” he said.
+
+“All right,” I replied. “Don’t let it occur again.”
+
+And it never did--at least, not headquarters coal.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We did not get back to Morlancourt till nearly half-past three the
+next day. Things were not going well in our billet at the butcher’s
+shop. Gray, the cook, and two of the servants had been sent on early
+to get the valises from the quartermaster’s stores, and to have a meal
+ready. We arrived to find no meal ready, and what was worse, the stove
+not lit. Coal could not be had from the stores, was the statement that
+greeted us.
+
+“What the blazes do you mean?” shouted Dixon. We were really angry as
+well as ravenous; for it was freezing hard, and the tiles on the floor
+seemed to radiate ice-waves.
+
+“Have you asked Madame if she can lend us a little to go on with?” I
+queried.
+
+No, they had not asked Madame.
+
+Then followed a blaze of vituperation, and Richards was sent at the
+double into the kitchen. Soon Madame appeared, with sticks and coal,
+and lit the fire. We watched the crackles, too cold to do anything
+else. The adjoining room, where Dixon and I slept, was an ice-house,
+also tiled. It was too cold to talk even.
+
+“C’est froid dans les tranchés,” said I in execrable French.
+
+“Mais oui, m’sieur l’officier,” said Madame, deeply sympathising.
+
+I thought of the blazing fire in 71 North, but it was too cold to say
+anything more. What matter if Madame imagined us standing in a foot of
+snow? So we should have been for the most part had we been in the line
+the last two days, instead of in reserve.
+
+Soon it began to get less icy, and the stove looked a little less of
+the blacklead order. It was a kitchen-range really, with a boiler and
+oven; but the boiler was rather leaky. Now, as the coal blazed up, life
+began to ebb back again.
+
+Confound it! The stove was smoking like fury. Pah! The flues were all
+full of soot. Dixon was rather an expert on stoves, and said that all
+that was needed was a brush. Where had all the servants disappeared to?
+Why wasn’t someone there? I opened the door into our bedroom--a cold
+blast struck me in the face. In the middle of the room, unopened, sat
+our two valises, like desert islands in a sea of red tiles.
+
+“Hang it all, this is the limit,” I said, and ran out into the street,
+and into the next house, where the servants’ quarters were. And there,
+in the middle of a pile of half-packed boxes, stood Gray, eating a
+piece of bread. Now I discovered afterwards that the boxes had just
+been brought in by Cody and Lewis, that Davies and Richards had gone
+after the coal, and were at that moment staggering under the weight of
+it on their way from the stores, and that Gray could not do anything
+more, having unpacked the boxes, until the coal came. But I did not
+grasp these subtle details of the interior economy of the servants’
+hall, and I broke out into a real hot strafe. Why should Gray be
+standing there eating, while the officers shivered and starved?
+
+I returned to Dixon, and found Clark and Nicolson there; and together
+we all fumed. Then in came the post-corporal with an accumulation of
+parcels, and we stopped fuming.
+
+“By Jove,” I exclaimed, a few minutes later. “The hare. I had forgotten
+le--what is it, lièvre, lèvre? I forget. Never mind. Lewis, bring the
+hare along, and ask Madame in your best manner if she would do us the
+honour of cooking it for us. To-night, now.”
+
+Presently Madame came in, with Lewis standing rather sheepishly
+behind. She delivered a tornado of very fluent French: “eau-de-vie,”
+“eau-de-vie,” was all I could disentangle.
+
+“Eau-de-vie?” I asked her. “Pourquoi eau-de-vie?”
+
+“Brandy,” explained Dixon.
+
+“I know that,” said I (who did not know that eau-de-vie was brandy?)
+
+“Brandy,” said Dixon, “to cook the hare with. That’s all she wants.
+Oui, oui, Madame. Eau-de-vie. Tout de suite. The doctor’s got brandy.
+Send Lewis along to the doctor to ask him to dinner, and borrow a
+little brandy.”
+
+So Lewis was despatched, and returned with a little brandy, but the
+doctor could not come.
+
+“Never mind,” we said.
+
+Meanwhile some tea was on the table, and bully and bread and butter;
+there was no sugar, however. Richards smiled and said the rats had
+eaten it all in 71 North, but Davies was buying some. Whenever anything
+was missing, these rats had eaten it, just as they were responsible for
+men’s equipment and packs getting torn, and their emergency rations
+lost. In many cases the excuse was quite a just one; but when it came
+to rats running off with canteen lids, our sympathy for the rat-ridden
+Tommy was not always very strong.
+
+To-day, a new reason was found for the loss of three teaspoons.
+
+“Lost in the scuffle, sir, the night of the raid,” was the answer given
+to the demand for an explanation.
+
+“What scuffle?” I asked.
+
+“Why, the box got upset, sir, the night of the raid when we all stood
+to in a bit of a hurry, sir.”
+
+I remembered there had been some confusion and noise behind the arras
+that night when the Germans raided on the left; apparently all the
+knives and forks had fallen to the ground and several had snapped under
+the martial trampling of feet when our retainers stood to arms. For
+many days afterwards when anything was lost, one’s anger was appeased
+by “Lost in the scuffle, sir.” At last it got too much of a good thing.
+
+“Why this new teapot, Davies?” I said a few days later.
+
+“The old one was lost in the scuffle, sir.”
+
+“Look here,” I said. “We had the old one yesterday, and this morning
+I saw it broken on Madame’s manure heap. Here endeth ‘lost in the
+scuffle.’ See? Go back to rats.”
+
+“Very good, sir.”
+
+That night, about ten o’clock, when Clark, Nicolson, and Brownlow (who
+had been our guest) had gone back to their respective billets, Dixon
+and I were sitting in front of the stove, our feet up on the brass
+bar that ran along the top-front of it, on a comfortable red-plush
+settee. This settee made amends for very many things, such as: a tile
+floor; four doors, one of which scraped most excruciatingly over the
+tiles, and another being glass-panelled allowed in much cold air from
+the butcher’s shop; no entry for the servants save either through the
+butcher’s shop or through the bedroom viâ the open window; very little
+room to turn round in, when we were all there; a smell of stale lard
+that permeated the whole establishment; and finally, the necessity
+of moving the settee every time Madame or Mam’selle wanted to get to
+either the cellar or the stairs.
+
+But now all these disabilities were removed, everyone else having gone
+off to bed, and Dixon and I were talking lazily before turning in also.
+I had a large pan of boiling water waiting on the top of the range, and
+my canvas bath was all ready in the next room.
+
+“Ah! the discomfort of it!” ejaculated Dixon. “The terrible discomfort
+of it all!”
+
+“How they are pitying us at home,” I replied. “‘Those rabbit holes! I
+can’t think how you keep the water out of them at all!’ Can’t you hear
+them? ‘And isn’t that bully beef most horribly tough and hard! Ugh! I
+couldn’t bear it.’” I tried to imitate a lady’s voice, but it was not
+a great success. I was out of practice.
+
+“Yes,” said Dixon, thinking of the extraordinarily good jugged hare
+produced by Madame. Then his thoughts turned to Davies, the hunter who
+was responsible for the feast.
+
+“Wonderful fellow, old Davies,” he added. “In fact they’re all good
+fellows.”
+
+“He’s a shepherd boy,” I said. “Comes from Blaenau Festiniog, a little
+village right up in the Welsh mountains. I know the place. A few years
+ago he was a boy looking after sheep out on the hills all day; a
+wide-eyed Welsh boy, with a sheepdog trotting behind him. He’s rather
+like a sheepdog himself, isn’t he?”
+
+“Gad, he’s a wonderful fellow. But they all are, you know, Bill. Look
+at your chap, Lewis; great clumsy red-faced fellow, with his piping
+voice, that sometimes gets on your nerves.”
+
+“He’s too lazy at times,” I broke in; “but he’s honest, dead honest.
+He was a farm hand! Good heavens, fancy choosing a fellow out of the
+farmyard to act as valet and waiter! I remember the first time he
+waited! He was so nervous he nearly dropped everything, and his face
+like that fire! O’Brien said he was tight!”
+
+“Richards talks a jolly sight too much, sometimes--but after all what
+does it matter? They try their best; and think how we curse them!
+Look at the way I cursed about that stove this afternoon: as soon as
+anything goes wrong, we strafe like blazes, whether it’s their fault
+or not. A fellow in England would resign on the spot. But they don’t
+care a damn, and just carry on. This cursing’s no good, Bill. Hang it
+all, they’re doing their bit same as we are, and they have a d--d sight
+harder time.”
+
+“I don’t think they worry much about the strafing,” I said. “It’s
+part of the ordinary routine. Still, I agree, we do strafe them for
+thousands of things that aren’t their fault.”
+
+“They’re a sort of safety-valve,” he answered with a laugh. “I don’t
+know how it is, one would never dream of cursing the men like we do
+these fellows. You know as well as I do, Bill, the only way to run a
+company is by love. It’s no earthly use trying to get the men behind
+you, by cursing them day and night. I really must try and stop cursing
+these servants. After all, they’re the best fellows in the world.”
+
+“The men curse all right,” I said, “when they don’t get their food
+right. I guess we’re all animal, after all. It’s merely a method of
+getting things done quickly. Besides, you know perfectly well you won’t
+be able to stop blazing away when there’s no fire or food. It creates
+an artificial warmth.”
+
+“D--d artificial,” laughed he.
+
+There was a silence.
+
+“By Jove, Bill,” he said at last, getting up to go to bed. “When’s this
+war going to end?”
+
+To which I made no reply, but moved my bath out of the icy bedroom and
+dragged it in front of the fire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+MINES
+
+
+I
+
+“The Colonel wants to speak to O.C. ‘B,’ sir.” It was midday.
+
+“It’s about that wire,” said Edwards. “But we couldn’t get any more out
+without stakes.”
+
+“Oh, I don’t expect it’s about the wire,” I said, as I hurried out of
+the Straw Palace. “The C.O. knows we can’t get the stakes.”
+
+No, it was nothing to do with the wire.
+
+“Just a minute, sir,” said the telephone orderly. “Hi! Headquarters. Is
+that you, George? O.C. ‘B’s’ here now. Just a minute, sir.”
+
+A pause, followed by:
+
+“Commanding Officer, sir,” and I was handed the receiver.
+
+“Yes, sir,” I said. “This is Adams.”
+
+“Oh! that you, Adams? Well, look here--about this mine going up
+to-night. Got your map there? Well, the mining officer is here now, and
+he says.... Look here, you’d better come down here now. Yes, come here
+now.”
+
+“Very good, sir,” but the C.O. had rung off with a jerk, and only a
+singing remained in my ears.
+
+“Got to go down and explain in person why the officer in charge of ‘B’
+Company wirers did not get out twenty coils last night,” I said to
+Edwards as I hurried off down Old Kent Road. “The C.O.’s in an ‘I gave
+a distinct order’ mood. Cheero!”
+
+On entering the Headquarters’ dug-out in Maple Redoubt, I found the
+C.O. engaged in conversation with an artillery officer: there had been
+another raid last night on the left, and our artillery had sent a lot
+of stuff over. This was the subject under discussion.
+
+“I think you did d--d well,” said the C.O. as the officer left. “Well,
+Adams, I thought it would be easiest if you came down. Here’s our
+friend from the underworld, and he’ll explain exactly what he’s going
+to do”; and I saw the R.E. officer for the first time. He had been
+standing in the gloom of the further end of the dug-out.
+
+“Look here,” began the Colonel, as he laid out the trench map on the
+table. “_Here_ is where we blow to-night at 6.0” (and he made a pencil
+dot in the middle of the grass of No Man’s Land midway between the
+craters opposite the Loop and the Fort. See Map III). “And here, all
+round here” (he drew his pencil round and round in a blacker and yet
+blacker circle) “is roughly where the edge of the crater will come.
+Isn’t that right, Armstrong?”
+
+“Yes,” was the reply, “the crater edge won’t come right up to the
+front trench, but I don’t want anyone in the front trench, as it will
+probably be squeezed up in one or two places.”
+
+“Exactly,” said the Colonel. “Do you think this blow will completely
+connect up the two craters on either side?”
+
+“Oh, certainly,” was the answer. “There’s no question of it. You see,
+we’ve put in” (here followed figures and explosives incomprehensible
+to the lay mind). “It’ll be the biggest mine we’ve ever blown in this
+sector.”
+
+“A surface mine, I suppose?” I asked.
+
+“Almost certainly,” said the R.E. officer. “You see, their gallery is
+only ten feet above ours, and they might blow any minute. But they’re
+still working. We wanted to get another twenty feet out before blowing,
+but it isn’t safe. Anyway, we are bound to smash up all their galleries
+there completely, though I doubt if we touch their parapet at all.” He
+spoke almost impatiently, as one who talks of things that have been his
+main interest for weeks, and tries to explain the whole thing in a few
+words. “But,” he added, “I don’t want any men in that trench.”
+
+The mining officers always presumed that the infantry clung tenaciously
+like limpets to their trench, and had to be very carefully removed in
+case a mine was going up. As a matter of fact, the infantry always made
+a rule of clearing the trench half as far again as the mining officer
+enjoined, and were always inclined to want to depart from the abhorred
+spot long before the time decided upon!
+
+“That’s clear enough,” said the Colonel. “Then from _here_ to _here_
+(and he made pencil blobs where I have marked A and B on Map III) we
+will clear the trench. Get your Lewis guns placed at these two points
+(A and B), ready to open fire as soon as the mine has gone up. And
+get your bombers ready to seize the crater edge as soon as it’s dark
+enough. You’ll want to have some tools and sand-bags ready, and your
+wirers should have plenty of gooseberries and all the stakes we can get
+you. Right.”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+As I went up 76 Street at half-past five, I realised that I had been
+rushing about too much, and had forgotten tea. So I sent Davies back
+and told him to bring up a mug of tea and something to eat. No sooner
+had he disappeared than I met a party of six R.E.’s, the two leading
+men carrying canaries in cages. They held them out in front, like you
+hold out a lantern on a muddy road, and they were covered from head to
+foot in white chalk-dust. They were doing a sort of half-run down the
+trench, known among the men as the “R.E. step.” It is always adopted
+by them if there is any “strafing” going on, or on such occasions as
+the present, when the charge has been laid, the match lit, and the
+mine-shaft and galleries, canaries and all, evacuated. (The canaries
+are used to detect gas fumes, not as pets.)
+
+When I reached the Fort, I found No. 7 Platoon already filing out of
+the trench area that had been condemned as dangerous.
+
+“You’re very early, Sergeant Hayman,” I said.
+
+I looked at my watch.
+
+“Oh, all right,” I added, “it’s twenty to six; very well. Have you got
+all the bomb boxes and S.A.A. out?”
+
+“Yes, sir. Everything’s clear.”
+
+“Very well, then. All those men not detailed as tool and sand-bag party
+can get in dug-outs, ready to come back as soon as I give orders. There
+will probably be a bit of ‘strafing.’”
+
+“Very good, sir.”
+
+The Lewis-gun team emerged from its dug-out twenty yards behind the
+Fort, in rather a snail-like fashion. I arranged where the N.C.O. and
+two men should stand, just at the corner of the Fort, but in the main
+trench (at B in map). The rest of the team I sent back to its burrow.
+Edwards had made all arrangements for the other team.
+
+Ten to six. It was a warm evening early in April, and there was a
+deathly calm. These hushes are hateful and unnatural, especially at
+“stand to” in the evening. In the afternoon an after-dinner slumber
+is right and proper, but as dusk creeps down it is well known that
+everyone is alive and alert, and a certain visible expression is
+natural and welcome. This evening silence is like the pause between
+the lightning and the thunder; worst of all is the stillness after the
+enemy has blown a mine at “stand to,” for ten to one he is going to
+blow another at “stand down.”
+
+The sun set in a blaze of red, and in the south the evening star glowed
+in a deepening blue. What will have happened by the time the day has
+returned with its full light and sense of security?
+
+“Here you are, sir,” I heard suddenly at my elbow, and found my mug of
+tea, two large pieces of bread and butter and cake, presented by Davies
+on a box-lid salver.
+
+“I don’t know if this is enough, sir. Lewis he wanted me to bring along
+a pot o’ jam, sir. But I said Mr. Adams he won’t have time for all
+that.”
+
+“I should think not. Far too much as it is. Here, put the cake on the
+fire-step, and take hold of this notebook, will you?” And so, with
+the mug in one hand, and a piece of bread and butter in the other,
+Scott found me as he came along at that moment, looking, as he told me
+afterwards, exactly like the Mad Hatter in _Alice in Wonderland_.
+
+“What’s the time?” I enquired, munching hard.
+
+“I make it two minutes to six,” said Scott.
+
+“Go up a shixo’-clock,” I said, taking a very big mouthful indeed.
+
+“Who put the sugar in this tea?” I asked Davies a minute later.
+
+“I did,” said Davies.
+
+“Far too much. I shall never get you fellows to understand ...”
+
+But the sentence was not finished. There was a faint “Bomp” from
+goodness knows where, and a horrid shudder. The earth shook and
+staggered, and I set my legs apart to keep my balance. It felt as if
+the whole ground were going to be tilted up. The tea splashed all over
+the fire-step as I hastily put it down. Then I looked up. There was
+nothing. What had happened? Was it a camouflet after all? Then, over
+the sandbags appeared a great green meadow, slowly, taking its time,
+not hurrying, a smooth curved dome of grass, heaving up, up, up, like
+a rising cake; then, like a cake, it cracked; cracked visibly with
+bursting brown seams; still the dome rose, towering ten, twenty feet
+up above the surrounding level; and then with a roar the black smoke
+hurtled into the air, followed by masses of pink flame creaming up into
+the sky, giving out a bonfire heat and lighting up the twilight with a
+lurid glare! Then we all ducked to avoid the shower of mud and dirt and
+chalk that pattered down like hail.
+
+“Magnificent,” I said to Scott.
+
+“Wonderful,” he answered.
+
+“The mud’s all in your tea, sir,” said Davies.
+
+“Dr--r-r-r-r-r,” rattled the Lewis guns. The Lewis gunners with me
+had been amazed rather than thrilled by the awful spectacle, but were
+now recovered from the shock, and emptying two or three drums into the
+twilight void. I was peering over into a vast chasm, where two minutes
+ago had been a smooth meadow full of buttercups and toadstools.
+
+Suddenly I found Sergeant Hayman at my elbow.
+
+“The trench is all fallen in, sir. You can’t get along at all.” And so
+the night’s work began.
+
+At 1.0 a.m. I was lying flat down on soft spongy grass atop of a large
+crater-lip quite eight feet higher than the ground level. Beside me lay
+two bombers and a box of bombs: we were all peering out into a space
+that seemed enormous. Suddenly a German starlight rocketed up, and as
+it burst the great white bowl of the crater jumped into view. Then a
+few rifle-shots sang across the gulf. There followed a deeper darkness
+than before. Behind me was a wiring-party not quite finished; also the
+sound of earth being shovelled by tired men. A strong working-party
+of “A” Company had been engaged for four hours clearing the trench
+that had been squeezed up; all available men of “B” Company not on
+sentry had been digging a zigzag sap from the trench to the post on
+the crater-lip where I lay. Two other pairs of bombers lay out on the
+crater edge to right and left; behind me the wirers had run out a
+thin line of stakes and barbed wire behind the new crater; this wire
+passed over the sap, which would not be held by day. One wirer had had
+a bullet through the leg, but we had suffered no other casualties.
+Another hour, and I should be off duty. Altogether, a good show.
+
+
+II
+
+I was reading _Blackwood’s_ in a dug-out in Maple Redoubt. It was just
+after four, and I was lying on my bed. Suddenly the candle flickered
+and went out. I had to get up to ring the bell, and when I did get up,
+the bell did not ring, so I went out and called Lewis. The bell, by the
+way, was an arrangement of string from our dug-out to the servants’
+next door.
+
+“Bring me a candle,” I said, as Lewis appeared, evidently flushed and
+blear-eyed from sleep. “I don’t know where you keep them. I can’t find
+one anywhere.”
+
+Lewis fished under the bed and discovered a paper packet of candles,
+and lit one. “By the by,” I added, “tell the pioneer servant (this was
+Private Davies, my orderly) to fix up that bell, will you? And I think
+we’ll be ready for tea as soon as you can get it. What do you say,
+Teddy? Hullo, Clark! What are you doing here? Come in and have tea.”
+
+“Thanks, I will,” said Clark, who had just come down Park Lane. “I was
+coming to invite myself, as a matter of fact.”
+
+“Good man,” we said. Clark was no longer of “B” Company, having passed
+from Lewis-gun officer to the Brigade Machine-gun Corps. So we did not
+see very much of him.
+
+At that moment Sergeant-Major Brown arrived and stood at the door. He
+saluted.
+
+“Come in, sergeant-major.”
+
+“The tea’s up, sir.”
+
+“Oh, all right,” I said. “I’ll go. Don’t wait if tea comes in, Edwards.
+But I shan’t be a minute.”
+
+As I went along with that tower of strength, the company
+sergeant-major, followed by an orderly carrying two rum jars produced
+from under my bed, I discussed the subject of working-parties for the
+night, and other such dull details of routine. Also we discussed leave.
+His dug-out was at the corner of Old Kent Road and Park Lane, and there
+I found the “Quarter” (Company Sergeant-Major Roberts) waiting with the
+five dixies of hot tea, just brought up on the ration trolley from the
+Citadel.
+
+Sergeant Roberts saluted, and informed me that all was correct. Then
+the sergeant-major spilled the contents of the two jars into the five
+dixies, and as he did so the ten orderlies, two from each platoon,
+and two Lewis gunners, made off with the dixies. Then I made off, but
+followed by Sergeant Roberts with several papers to sign, and five pay
+books in which entries had to be made for men going on leave. One
+signed the pay-book, and also a paper to the quartermaster authorising
+him to pay 125 francs (the usual sum) to the undermentioned men, out of
+the company balance which was deposited with him on leaving billets.
+I signed everything Sergeant Roberts put before me, almost without
+question.
+
+“Well, Clark,” I said, as we sat down to a tea of hot buttered toast,
+jam and cake. “How goes it?”
+
+“I’ve just been down a mine-shaft with that R.E. officer, I forget his
+name--the fellow with the glasses.”
+
+“I know,” I replied; “I don’t know his name either, but it doesn’t
+matter. Did you go right down, and along the galleries? How frightfully
+interesting. I always mean to go, but somehow don’t. Well, what about
+it?”
+
+“By Jove,” said Clark. “It’s wonderful. It’s all as white as snow,
+dazzling white. I never realised that before, although you see these
+R.E.’s coming out all covered with white chalk-dust. First of all you
+go down three or four ladders; it’s awfully tricky work at the sort
+of halts on the way down, because there’s a little platform, and very
+often the ladder goes down a different side of the shaft after one of
+these halts; and if you don’t notice, you lower your foot to go on down
+the same side as you were going before, and there’s nothing there. The
+first time I did this and looked down and saw a dim light miles below,
+it quite gave me a turn. It’s a terrible long way down, and of course
+you go alone; the R.E. officer went first, and got ahead of me.”
+
+“Have some more tea, and go on.”
+
+“Well, down there it’s fearfully interesting. I didn’t go far up the
+gallery where they’re working, because you can’t easily pass along; but
+the R.E. officer took me along a gallery that is not being worked, and
+there, all alone, at the end of it was a man sitting. He was simply
+sitting, listening. Then I listened through his stethoscope thing ...”
+
+“I know,” I interposed. It is an instrument like a doctor’s
+stethoscope, and by it you can hear underground sounds a hundred yards
+away as clearly as if they were five yards off.
+
+“... and I could hear the Boche working as plainly as anything. Good
+heavens, it sounded about a yard off. Yet they told me it was forty
+yards. By Jove, it was weird. ‘Pick ... pick ... pick.’ I thought it
+must be our fellows really, but theirs made a different sound, and not
+a bit the same. But, you know, that fellow sitting there alone ... as
+we went away and left him, he looked round at us with staring eyes just
+like a hunted animal. To sit there for hours on end, listening. Of
+course, while you hear them working, it’s all right, they won’t blow.
+But if you _don’t_ hear them! My God, I wouldn’t like to be an R.E.
+It’s an awful game.”
+
+“By Jove,” said Edwards. “How fearfully interesting! Is it cold down
+there?”
+
+“Fairly. I really didn’t notice.”
+
+“I must go down,” I said. “We always laugh at these R.E.’s for looking
+like navvies, and for going about without gas-helmets or rifles. But
+really they are wonderful men. It’s awful being liable to be buried
+alive any moment. Somehow death in the open is far less terrible. Ugh!
+Do you remember that R.E., Teddy, we saw running down the Old Kent
+Road? It was that night the Boche blew the mine in the Quarry. Jove,
+Clark, that was a sight. I was just going up from Trafalgar Square,
+when I heard a running, and there was a fellow, great big brawny
+fellow, naked to the waist, and _grey_ all over; and someone had given
+him his equipment and rifle in a hurry, and he’d got his equipment
+over his bare skin! The men were fearfully amused. ‘R.E.,’ they said,
+and smiled. But, by God, there was a death look in that man’s eyes.
+He’d been down when the Boche blew their mine, and as near as possible
+buried alive. No, it’s a rotten game.”
+
+As I spoke, the ground shuddered, and the tea-things shook.
+
+“There _is_ a mine,” we all exclaimed together.
+
+“I wonder if it’s ours, or theirs,” said Edwards.
+
+“I saw Hills, this afternoon,” I answered, “and he said nothing about
+a mine. I’m sure he would have, if we had been going to send one up.
+No, I bet that’s a Boche mine. Good thing you’re out of it, Clark. Oh,
+don’t go. Well, cheero! if you must. Look us up oftener. Good luck!”
+
+Clark departed, and I resumed _Blackwood’s_.
+
+“I say, Edwards,” said I, after a while. “This stuff of Ian Hay’s is
+awfully good. This about the signallers is _top-hole_. You can simply
+smell it!”
+
+“After you with it,” was the reply.
+
+“There you are,” I said at last. “It’s called ‘Carry On’; there have
+been several others in the same series. You know the ‘First Hundred
+Thousand’?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Good stuff,” said I. “Good readable stuff; the sort you’d give to your
+people at home. But it leaves out bits.”
+
+“Such as ...?”
+
+“Oh, well, the utter fed-upness, and the dullness--and--well, oh, I
+don’t know. You read it and see.”
+
+That was a bad night. The Boche mine had caught our R.E.’s this time.
+All the night through they were rescuing fellows from our mine gallery.
+Seven or eight were killed, most of them “gassed”; two of “A” Company
+were badly gassed too while aiding in the rescue work. This mine gas
+is, I suppose, very like that encountered in coal mines; and the
+explosion of big charges of cordite must create cracks and fissures
+underground that release these gases in all directions. I do not
+profess to write as an expert on this. At any rate they were all night
+working to get the fellows out. One man when rescued disobeyed the
+doctor’s strict injunctions to lie still for half an hour before moving
+away from where he was put, just outside the mine shaft; and this cost
+him his life. He hurried down the Old Kent Road, and dropped dead with
+heart failure at the bottom of it. Hills told me he felt the pulses of
+two men who had been gassed and were waiting the prescribed half-hour;
+and they were going like a watch ticking. Yes, it was a bad night. I
+got snatches of sleep, but always there was the sound of stretchers
+being carried past our dug-out to the doctor’s dressing-station;
+several times I went out to investigate how things were going. But
+there was nothing I could do. It was my duty to sleep: we were going up
+in the line to-morrow. But sleep does not always come to order.
+
+Before dawn we “stood to,” and it was quite light as I inspected the
+last rifle of No. 6 Platoon. They were just bringing the last of the
+gassed miners down to the dressing-station. I stood at the corner of
+Park Lane, and watched. The stretcher-bearers came and looked at two
+forms lying on stretchers close by me; then they asked me if I thought
+it would be all right to take those stretchers, and leave the dead men
+there another hour. I said if they wanted the stretchers, yes. So
+they lifted the bodies off, and went away with the stretchers. There
+were several men standing about, silent, as usual, in the presence of
+death. I looked at those two R.E.’s as they lay quite uncovered; grim
+their faces were, grim and severe. I told a man to get something and
+cover them up, until the stretcher-bearers came and removed them. And
+as I strode away in silence between my men, I felt that my face was
+grim too. I thought of Clark’s description, a few hours back, of the
+man sitting alone in the white chalk gallery, listening, listening,
+listening. And now!
+
+Once more I thought of “blind death.” The Germans who had set light to
+the fuse at tea-time were doubtless sleeping the sleep of men who have
+worked well and earned their rest. And here.... They knew nothing of
+it, would never know whom they had slain. And I remembered the night
+Scott and I had watched our big mine go up. “Wonderful,” we had said,
+“magnificent.” And in the morning the R.E. officer had told us that we
+had smashed all their galleries up, and that they would not trouble
+us there for a fortnight at least. “A certain man drew a bow at a
+venture,” I said again, vaguely remembering something, but stiffening
+myself suddenly, and stifling my imagination.
+
+I met Edwards by the dug-out as he returned from inspecting the Lewis
+guns.
+
+“Remember,” I said, “I told you the ‘First Hundred Thousand’ leaves
+out bits? Did you see those R.E.’s who were gassed?”
+
+Edwards nodded.
+
+“Well,” I added, “that’s a thing it leaves out.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+BILLETS
+
+
+I. MORNING
+
+“Two hours’ pack drill, and pay for a new handle,” I said.
+
+“Right--Turn!” said the sergeant-major. “Right--Wheel--Quick--March!
+Get your equipment on and join your platoon at once.”
+
+This last sentence was spoken in a quick undertone, as the prisoner
+stepped out of the door into the road. I was filling up the column
+headed “Punishment awarded” on a buff-coloured Army Form, to which I
+appended my signature. The case just dealt with was a very dull and
+commonplace one, a man having “lost” his entrenching tool handle. Most
+of these “losses” occurred in trenches, and were dealt with the first
+morning in billets at company orderly-room. This man had been engaged
+on special fatigue work the last few days; hence the reason why the
+loss had not been checked before, and came up on this last morning in
+billets.
+
+“No more prisoners?” I asked the company sergeant-major.
+
+“No more prisoners, sir,” he answered. I then rather hurriedly
+signed several returns made out by Sergeant Roberts, the company
+quartermaster-sergeant, and promised to come in later and sign the
+acquittance rolls. These are the pay-lists, made out in triplicate,
+which are signed by each man as he draws his pay. The original goes to
+the Paymaster in England, one carbon copy to the adjutant, and one is
+retained by the company-commander. We had paid out the first day in
+billets. This time “working-parties” had been tolerable. We had arrived
+back in billets about half-past three in the afternoon; the next
+morning had been spent in a march to the divisional baths at Treux (two
+miles away), in cleaning up, kit-inspection, and a little arm-drill and
+musketry practice; in the afternoon we paid out. Then followed three
+days of working-parties, up on the support line at Crawley Ridge; and
+now, we had this last day in which to do a little company work. There
+had been running parade at seven-thirty. Owen had taken this, and I
+confess that I had not yet breakfasted. So I hurried off now at 9.10 to
+gulp something down and be at battalion orderly-room at 9.30 sharp.
+
+The company office was a house of two rooms; one was the “office”
+itself, with a blanket-clad table and a couple of chairs in the middle,
+and all around were strewn strange boxes, and bundles of papers and
+equipment. On the walls were pictures from illustrated English papers;
+one of Nurse Cavell, another of howitzers firing; and several graphic
+bayonet-charges at Verdun, pictured by an artist who must have “glowed”
+as he drew them in his room in Chelsea. In the other room slept the
+C.S.M. and C.Q.M.S. (more familiar as the “sergeant-major” and the
+“quartermaster”).
+
+From this house, then, I stepped out into the glaring street. It was
+the end of May, and the day promised to be really quite hot. I have
+already explained how completely shut off from the trenches one felt in
+Morlancourt, sheltered as it was in a cup of the hills and immune from
+shelling. Now as I walked quickly along the street, past our battalion
+“orderly-room,” and returned the immaculate salute of Sergeant-Major
+Shandon, the regimental sergeant-major, who was already marshalling the
+prisoners ready for the Colonel at half-past nine, I felt a lightness
+and freshness of body that almost made me think I was free of the war
+at last. My Sam Browne belt, my best tunic with its polished buttons,
+and most of all, I suppose, the effect of a good sleep and a cold bath,
+all contributed to this feeling, as well as the scent from the laburnum
+and lilac that looked over the garden wall opposite the billet that was
+our “Mess.”
+
+I found Edwards just going off to inspect “B” Company Lewis gunners,
+whom he was taking on the range the first part of the morning.
+
+“Hullo!” he said, “you’ve not got much time.”
+
+“No,” said I. “My own fault for getting up late. Got a case for the
+C.O. too. Is my watch right? I make it seventeen minutes past.”
+
+“Nineteen, I make it.”
+
+“Wish I hadn’t asked you,” I laughed. “No porridge, Lewis. Bring the
+eggs and bacon in at once. This tea’ll do. There’s no milk, though.
+What?”
+
+Edwards had asked something. He repeated his question, which was
+whether I wanted Jim, the company horse, this afternoon. I thought
+rapidly, and the scent of the lilac decided me.
+
+“Yes,” I answered. “Sorry, but I do.”
+
+“Oh, all right; I expect I can get old Muskett to let me have one.”
+
+Muskett was the transport officer.
+
+“Righto,” said I. “Go teach thy Lewis gunners how to drill little holes
+in the chalk-bank.”
+
+He clattered off over the cobbles of the garden path, and in a few
+minutes I followed suit, running until I rounded a corner and came into
+view of the orderly-room, when I altered my gait to a dignified walk
+and arrived just as the Colonel appeared from the opposite direction.
+
+“Parade! Tchern!!” shouted Sergeant-Major Shandon; and a moment later
+the four company commanders came to attention and saluted as the
+Colonel passed in, sprinkling “Good mornings” to right and left.
+
+I had one very uninteresting case of drunkenness; “A” had a couple
+of men who had overstayed their pass in England; “C” had a case held
+over from the day before for further evidence, and was now dismissed as
+not proven; while “D” had an unsatisfactory sergeant who was “severely
+reprimanded.” All these cases were quickly and unerringly disposed of,
+and we company commanders saluted again and clattered down the winding
+staircase out into the sunshine.
+
+I had to pass from one end of the village to the other. The
+orderly-room was not far from our company “Mess” and was at a
+cross-roads. Opposite, in one of the angles made by the junction of
+the four roads, was a deep and usually muddy horse-pond. But even here
+the mud was getting hard under this spell of warm May weather, and the
+innumerable ruts and hoof-marks were crystallising into a permanent
+pattern. As I walked along the streets I passed sundry Tommies acting
+as road-scavengers; “permanent road fatigue” they were called, although
+they were anything but permanent, being changed every day. Formerly
+they had seemed to be engaged in a Herculean, though unromantic,
+task of scraping great rolling puddings of mud to the side of the
+road, in the vain hope that the mud would find an automatic exit into
+neighbouring gardens and ponds; for Morlancourt did not boast such
+modern things as gutters. To-day there were large pats of mud lining
+the street, but these were now caked and hard, and even crumbling into
+dust, that whisked about among the sparrows. The permanent road fatigue
+was gathering waste-paper and tins in large quantities, but otherwise
+was having a holiday.
+
+Women were working, or gossiping at the doorsteps. The _estaminet_
+doors were flung wide open, and the floors were being scrubbed and
+sprinkled with sawdust. A little bare-legged girl, in a black cotton
+dress, was hugging a great wide loaf; an old man sat blinking in the
+sunshine; cats were basking, dogs nosing about lazily. A party of about
+thirty bombers passed me, the sergeant giving “eyes right” and waking
+me from meditations on the eternal calm of cats. Then I reached the
+headquarter guard, and the sentry saluted with a rattling clap upon his
+butt, and I did my best to emulate his smartness. So I passed along all
+the length of the shuttered houses of Morlancourt.
+
+“A great day, this,” I thought, as I came to the small field where
+“B” Company was paraded; not two hundred and fifty men, as you will
+doubtless assume from the text-books, but some thirty or forty men
+only; one was lucky if one mustered forty. Where were the rest, you
+ask? Well, bombers bombing; Lewis gunners under Edwards; some on
+“permanent mining fatigue,” that is, carrying the sand-bags from the
+mine-shafts to the dumps; transport, pioneers, stretcher-bearers, men
+under bombing instruction, officers’ servants, headquarter orderlies,
+men on leave, etc. etc. The company sergeant-major will make out a
+parade slate for you if you want it, showing exactly where every man
+is. But here are forty men. Let’s drill them.
+
+Half were engaged in arm-drill under my best drill-sergeant; the other
+half were doing musketry in gas-helmets, an unpleasant practice which
+nothing would induce me to do on a sunny May morning. They lay on
+their fronts, legs well apart, and were working the bolts of their
+rifles fifteen times a minute. After a while they changed over and
+did arm-drill, while the other half took over the gas-helmets, the
+mouthpieces having first been dipped in a solution of carbolic brought
+by one of the stretcher-bearers in a canteen. These gas-helmets were
+marked D.P. (drill purposes), and each company had so many with which
+to practise.
+
+When both parties were duly exercised, I gave a short lecture on the
+measures to be adopted against the use of _Flammenwerfer_, which is
+the “Liquid Fire” of the official _communiqués_. I had just been to
+a demonstration of this atrocity in the form of a captured German
+apparatus, and my chief object in lecturing the men about it was to
+make it quite clear that the flaming jets of burning gas cannot sink
+into a trench, but, as a matter of fact, only keep level so long as
+they are propelled by the driving power of the hose apparatus; as water
+from a hose goes straight, and then curves down to the ground, so gas,
+even though it be incandescent, goes straight and then rises. In the
+trench you are unscathed, as we proved in the demonstration, when they
+sprayed the flaming gas over a trench full of men. Indeed, the chief
+effect of this _flammenwerfer_ is one of frightfulness, as the Germans
+cannot come over until the flames have ceased. The men were rather
+inclined to gape at all this, but I found the words had sunk in when
+I asked what should be done if the enemy used this diabolical stuff
+against us. “Get down at the bottom of the trench, sir, and as soon as
+they stop it, give the ----’s ’ell!”
+
+The rest of the morning we spent “on the range,” which meant firing
+into a steep chalk bank at a hundred yards. Targets and paste-pot had
+been procured from the pioneers’ shop, and after posting a couple
+of “look-out” men on either side, we started range practice. The
+men are always keen about firing on the range, and it is really the
+most interesting and pleasant part of the infantryman’s training. I
+watched these fellows, hugging their rifle-butt into their shoulder,
+and feeling the smooth wood against their cheeks; they wriggled their
+bodies about to get a comfortable position; sometimes they flinched as
+they fired and jerked the rifle; sometimes they pressed the trigger as
+softly, as softly.... And gradually, carefully, we tried to detect and
+eliminate the faults. Then we ended up with fifteen rounds rapid in a
+minute. The “mad minute” it used to be called at home. After which we
+fell the men in, and Paul marched them back to the company “alarm post”
+outside the company office, where “B” Company always fell in; while
+Owen, Nicolson, and I walked back together.
+
+
+II. AFTERNOON
+
+“I still maintain,” said I, an hour later, as we finished lunch,
+“that bully-beef, some sort of sauce or pickle, and salad, followed
+by cheese, and ending with a cup of tea, is the proper lunch for an
+officer. I don’t mind other officers having tinned fruit, though, if
+they like it,” I added with a laugh.
+
+Owen and Syme were newly joined officers for whom the sight of tinned
+pears or apricots had not yet lost a certain glamour that disappeared
+after months and months. They were just finishing the pear course.
+Hence my last remark.
+
+“I bet if we allowed you to have bully every day,” came from Edwards,
+our Mess president, “you’d soon get sick of it.”
+
+“Try,” said I, knowing that he never would. I always used to eat of the
+hot things that would appear at lunch, to the detriment of a proper
+appreciation of dinner; but I always maintained the position laid down
+in the first sentence of this section.
+
+I lit a pipe and strolled out into the garden. This was undoubtedly an
+ideal billet, and a great improvement on the butcher’s shop, where they
+used always to be killing pigs in the yard and letting the blood run
+all over the place. It was a long, one-storied house, set back about
+fifty yards from the road; this fifty yards was all garden, and, at
+the end, completely shutting off the road, was a high brick wall. On
+each side of the garden were also high walls formed by the sides of
+stables and outhouses; the garden was thus completely walled round, and
+the seclusion and peace thus entrapped were a very priceless possession
+to us.
+
+The garden itself was full of life. There were box-bordered paths up
+both sides and down the centre, and on the inner side of the paths was
+an herbaceous border smelling very sweet of wallflowers and primulas of
+every variety. Although it was still May, there were already one or two
+pink cabbage-roses out; later, the house itself would be covered with
+them; already the buds were showing yellow streaks as they tried to
+burst open their tight green sheaths. In the centre of the garden ran a
+cross path with a summer-house of bamboo canes completely covered with
+honeysuckle; that, too, was budding already. The rest of the garden
+was filled with rows of young green things, peas, and cabbages, and I
+know not what, suitably protected against the ravages of sparrows and
+finches by the usual miniature telegraph system of sticks connected by
+cotton decorated with feathers and bits of rag. Every bit of digging,
+hoeing, weeding and sowing were performed by Madame and her two
+black-dressed daughters in whose house we were now living, and who were
+themselves putting up in the adjoining farmhouse, which belonged to
+them.
+
+I said that they had done all the digging in the garden. I should make
+one reservation. All the potato-patch had been dug by our servants,
+with the assistance of Gray, the cook. Nor did they do it in gratitude
+to Madame, as, doubtless, ideal Tommies would have done. A quarter of
+it was done by Lewis, for carelessness in losing my valise; nearly half
+by the joint effort of the whole crew for a thoroughly dirty turn-out
+on commanding officer’s inspection; and the rest for various other
+defalcations! We never told Madame the reasons for their welcome help;
+and I am quite sure they never did!
+
+“The worst of this war,” said I to Edwards, puffing contentedly at a
+pipeful of Chairman, “is this: it’s too comfortable. You could carry on
+like this for years, and years, and years.”
+
+“Wasn’t so jolly last time in,” muttered the wise Edwards.
+
+“That’s exactly the point,” I answered; “life in the trenches we
+all loathe, and no one makes any bones about it or pretends to like
+it--except for a few rare exciting minutes, which are very few and far
+between. But you come out into billets, and recover; and so you can
+carry on. It’s not concentrated enough.”
+
+“It’s more concentrated for the men than for us.”
+
+“Well, yes, very often; but they haven’t the strain of responsibility.
+Yes, you are right though; and it’s less concentrated for the
+C.O., still less for the Brigadier, and so on back to the
+Commander-in-Chief; and still further to men who have never seen a
+trench at all.”
+
+“I dare say,” said Edwards; “but, as the phrase goes, ‘What are you
+going to do abaht it?’ Here’s Jim. Old Muskett’s going to send me a nag
+at five, so I’m going out after tea. Will you be in to tea?”
+
+“Don’t know.”
+
+As I tightened my puttees preparatory to mounting the great Jim,
+Edwards started his gramophone; so leaving them to the strains of
+Tannhäuser, I bestrode my charger and steered him gracefully down the
+garden path, under the brick archway, and out into the street.
+
+Myself on a horse always amused me, especially when it was called an
+“officer’s charger.” Jim was not fiery, yet he was not by any means
+sluggish, and he went fast at a gallop. He suited me very well indeed
+when I wanted to go for an afternoon’s ride; for he was quite content
+to walk when I wanted to muse, and to gallop hard when I wanted
+exhilaration. I hate a horse that will always be trotting. I know it is
+best style to trot; but my rides were not for style, but for pleasure,
+exercise, and solitude. And Jim fell in admirably with my requirements.
+But, as I say, the idea that I was a company-commander on his charger
+always amused me.
+
+I rode, as I generally did, in a south-easterly direction, climbing at
+a walk one of the many roads that led out of Morlancourt towards the
+Bois des Tailles. When I reached the high ground I made Jim gallop
+along the grass-border right up to the edge of the woods. There is
+nothing like the exhilaration of flying along, you cannot imagine how,
+with the great brown animal lengthening out under you for all he is
+worth! I pulled him up and turned his head to the right, leaving the
+road, and skirting the edge of the wood. At last I was alone.
+
+In the clearings of the wood the ground was a sheet of blue hyacinths,
+whose sweet scent came along on the breeze; their fragrance lifted my
+spirit, and I drank in deep breaths of the early summer air. I took off
+my cap to feel the sun full on my face. On the ground outside the wood
+were still a few late primroses interspersed with cowslips, stubborn
+and jolly; and as I rounded a bend in the wood-edge, I found myself
+looking across a tiny valley, the opposite face of which was a wooded
+slope, with all the trees banked up on it as gardeners bank geraniums
+in tiers to give a good massed effect. So, climbing the hill-side, were
+all these shimmering patches of green, yellow-green, pea-green, yellow,
+massed together in delightful variety; and dotted about in the middle
+of them were solitary patches of white cherry-blossom, like white foam
+breaking over a reef, in the midst of a great green sea. And across
+this perfect softness from time to time the bold black and white of
+magpies cut with that vivid contrast with which Nature loves to baffle
+the poor artist.
+
+“Come on, old boy,” I said, as I reached the bottom of this little
+valley; and trotting up the other side, and through a ride in the
+wood, I came out on the edge of the Valley of the Somme. I then skirted
+the south side of the wood until I reached a secluded corner with a
+view across the valley: here I dismounted, fastened Jim to a tree,
+loosened his girths, and left him pulling greedily at the grass at his
+feet. Then I threw myself down on the grass to dream.
+
+My thoughts ran back to my conversation with Edwards. Perhaps it was
+best not to think too hard, but I could no more stifle my thoughts than
+can a man his appetite. Responsibility. Responsibility. And those with
+the greatest responsibility endure and see the least; no one has more
+to endure than the private soldier in the infantry, and no one has less
+responsibility or power of choice. I thought of our last six days in
+the trenches. When “A” Company were in the line, the first three days,
+we had been bombarded heavily at “stand-to” in the evening. In Maple
+Redoubt it had been bad enough. There was one sentry-post a little way
+up Old Kent Road; by some mistake a bomber had been put on duty there,
+whereas it was a bayonet-man’s post, the bombers having a special rôle
+in case of the enemy attacking. I found this mistake had been made, but
+did not think it was worth altering. And that man was killed outright
+by a shell.
+
+In the front line “A” Company had had several killed and wounded, and I
+had had to lend them half my bombers; as I had placed two men on one
+post, a canister had burst quite a long way off, but the men cowered
+down into the trench. I cursed them as hard as I could, and then I
+saw that in the post were the two former occupants lying dead, killed
+half an hour ago where they lay, and where I was placing my two men.
+I stopped my curses, and inwardly directed them against myself. And
+there I had to leave these fellows, looking after me and thinking,
+“_He’s_ going back to his dug-out.” Ah! no, they knew me better than
+to think like that. Yet I had to go back, leaving them there. I should
+never forget that awful weight of responsibility that suddenly seemed
+visualised before me. Could I not see their scared faces peering at me,
+even as now I seemed to smell the scent of pear-drops with which the
+trench was permeated, the Germans having sent over a few lachrymatory
+shells along with the others that night?
+
+Ah! Why was I living all this over again, just when I had come away to
+get free of all this awhile, and dream? I had come out to enjoy the
+sunshine and the peace, just as Jim was enjoying the grass behind me.
+I listened. There was a slight jingle of the bit now and again, and a
+creaking of leather, and always that drawing sound, with an occasional
+purr, as the grass was torn up. I could not help looking round at
+last. “You pig,” I said; but my tone did not altogether disapprove of
+complacent piggishness.
+
+In front of me lay the blue water of the Somme Canal, and the pools
+between it and the river; long parallel rows of pale green poplars
+stretched along either bank of the canal; and at my feet, half hidden
+by the slope of the ground, lay the sleepy little village of Etinehem.
+There was a Sunday afternoon slumber over everything. Was it Sunday? I
+thought for a moment. No, it was Thursday, and to-morrow we went “in”
+again. I deliberately switched my thoughts away from the trenches, and
+they flew to the events of the morning. I could see my fellows lying,
+so keen--I might almost say so happy--blazing away on the range. One I
+remembered especially. Private Benjamin, a boy with a delicate eager
+face, who came out with the last draft: he came from a village close up
+to Snowdon; he was shooting badly, and very concerned about it. I lay
+down beside him and showed him how to squeeze the trigger, gradually,
+ever so gradually. Oh! these boys! Responsibility. Responsibility.
+
+“This is no good,” I said to myself at last, and untied Jim and rode
+again. I went down into the valley, and along the green track between
+an avenue of poplars south of the canal until at last I came to
+Sailly-Laurette, and so back and in to Morlancourt from the south-west.
+It was six o’clock by the time I stooped my head under the gateway into
+our garden, and for the last hour or so I had almost forgotten war at
+last.
+
+“Hullo,” was the greeting I received from Owen. “There’s no tea left.”
+
+“I don’t want any tea,” I answered. “Has the post come?”
+
+There were three letters for me. As I slept at a house a little
+distance away, I took the letters along with me.
+
+“I’m going over to my room to clean up,” I shouted to Owen, who was
+reading inside the Mess-room. “What time’s old Jim coming in?”
+
+“Seven o’clock!”
+
+“All right,” I answered. “I’ll be over by seven.”
+
+
+III. EVENING
+
+As I walked up the garden path a few minutes before seven, I had to
+pass the kitchen door, where the servants slept, lived, and cooked
+our meals. I had a vision of Private Watson, the cook, busy at the
+oven; he was in his shirt-sleeves, hair untidy, trousers very grimy,
+and altogether a very unmartial figure. There seemed to be a dispute
+in progress, to judge from the high pitch to which the voices had
+attained. On these occasions Lewis’ piping voice reached an incredible
+falsetto, while his face flushed redder than ever.
+
+Watson, Owen’s servant, had superseded Gray as officers’ mess cook;
+the latter had, unfortunately, drunk one or two glasses of beer last
+time in billets, and, to give his own version, he “somehow felt very
+sleepy, and went down and lay under a bank,” and could remember nothing
+more until about ten o’clock, when he humbly reported his return to
+me. Meanwhile Watson had cooked the dinner, which was, of course,
+very late; and as he did it very well, and as Gray’s explanation
+seemed somewhat vague, we decided to make Watson cook, let Gray try a
+little work in the company for a change, and get the sergeant-major
+to send Owen another man for servant. Watson had signalised the entry
+to his new appointment by a quarrel with Madame (the Warwicks had
+managed to “bag” this ideal billet of ours temporarily, and we were in
+a much less comfortable one the last two occasions out of trenches);
+eventually Madame had hurled the frying-pan at him, amid a torrent of
+unintelligible French; neither could understand a word the other was
+saying, of course. Gray had been wont, I believe, to “lie low and say
+nuffin,” like Brer Fox, when Madame, who was old and half-crazed, came
+up and threw water on the fire in a fit of unknown anger. But Watson’s
+blood boiled at such insults from a Frenchwoman, and hence had followed
+a sharp contention ending in the projection of the frying-pan. Luckily,
+we were unmolested here: Watson could manage the dinner, anyway.
+
+I entered our mess-room, which was large, light, and boasted a boarded
+floor; it was a splendid summer-room, though it would have been very
+cold in winter. There I found a pile of literature awaiting me;
+operation orders for to-morrow, giving the hour at which each company
+was to leave Morlancourt, and which company of the Manchesters it was
+to relieve, and when, and where, and the route to be taken; there were
+two typed documents “for your information and retention, please,” one
+relating to prevention of fly-trouble in billets, the other giving a
+new code of signals and marked “Secret” on the top, and lastly there
+was _Comic Cuts_. Leaving the rest, I hastily skimmed through the
+latter, which contained detailed information of operations carried out,
+and intelligence gathered on the corps front during the last few days.
+At first these were intensely interesting, but after seven months they
+began to pall, and I grew expert at skimming through them rapidly.
+
+Then Jim Potter came in, and _Comic Cuts_ faded into insignificance.
+
+“Here, Owen,” said I, and threw them over to him.
+
+Captain and Quartermaster Jim Potter was the Father of the battalion.
+He had been in the battalion sixteen years, and had come out with them
+in 1914; twice the battalion had been decimated, new officers had come
+and disappeared, commanding officers had become brigadiers and new ones
+taken their place, but “Old Jim” remained, calm, unaltered, steady
+as a rock, good-natured, and an utter pessimist. I first introduced
+him in Chapter I, when I spent the night in his billet prior to my
+first advent into the trenches. I was a little perturbed then by his
+pessimism. Now I should have been very alarmed if he had suddenly burst
+into a fit of optimism.
+
+“Well, Jim,” we said, “how are things going? When’s the war going to
+end?”
+
+“Oh! not so very long now.” We gaped at this unexpected reply.
+“Because,” he added, “you know, Bill, it’s the unexpected that always
+happens in this war. Hullo! You’ve got some pretty pictures, I see.”
+
+We had been decorating the walls with the few unwarlike pictures that
+were still to be found in the illustrated papers.
+
+“Not a bad place, Blighty,” he resumed, gazing at a picture entitled
+“Home, Sweet Home!” There had been a little dispute as to whether it
+should go up, owing to its sentimental nature. At last “The Warwicks
+will like it,” we had said, and up it had gone. The Warwicks had our
+billet, when we were “in.”
+
+“Tell us about your leave,” we said, and Jim began a series of
+delightful sarcastic jerks about the way people in England seemed to
+be getting now a faint glimmering conception that somewhere there was
+a war on.
+
+The joint was not quite ready, Edwards explained to me, drawing me
+aside a minute; would old Jim mind? The idea of old Jim minding being
+quite absurd, we decided on having a cooked joint a quarter of an hour
+hence, rather than a semi-raw one now; and we told Jim our decision.
+It seemed to suit him exactly, as he had had tea late. There never was
+such an unruffled fellow as he; had we wanted to begin before the time
+appointed, he would have been ravenous. So he continued the description
+of his adventures on leave. Meanwhile I rescued _Comic Cuts_ from the
+hands of Paul, and despatched them, duly initialled, by the trusty
+Davies to “C” Company. Just as I had done so the sergeant-major
+appeared at the door.
+
+“You know the time we move off to-morrow?” I said.
+
+Yes, he had known that long before I did, by means of the regimental
+sergeant-major and the orderly sergeant.
+
+“Fall in at 8.15,” I said. “Everything the same as usual. All the
+officers’ servants, and Watson, are to fall in with the company; this
+straggling in independently, before or after the company, will stop
+once and for all.” Lewis’ face, as he laid the soup-plates, turned half
+a degree redder than usual.
+
+“There’s nothing more?” I said.
+
+“No, that’s all, sir.”
+
+The sergeant-major drained off his whiskey with a dash of Perrier, and
+prepared to go. Now was the psychological moment when one learnt any
+news there was to learn about the battalion.
+
+“No news, I suppose?” I asked.
+
+“The fellows are still talking about this ‘rest,’ sir. No news about
+that, I suppose?” said the sergeant-major.
+
+“Only that it’s slightly overdue,” I answered, with a laugh. “What do
+you think, Jim? Any likelihood of this three weeks’ rest coming off?”
+
+“Oh, yes; I should think so,” said the quartermaster. “Any time next
+year.”
+
+“Good night, sir,” said Sergeant-Major Brown, with a grin.
+
+“Good night, Sergeant-Major,” came in a chorus as he disappeared into
+the garden.
+
+“Soup’s ready, sir,” said Lewis. And we sat down to dine.
+
+The extraordinary thing about having Jim Potter in to dinner was that
+an extra elaborate menu was always provided, and yet old Jim himself
+always ate less than anyone else; still, he did his share nobly with
+the whiskey, so that made up for it, I suppose. To-night Edwards
+planned “sausages and mash” as an entrée; but, whether through superior
+knowledge or a mere misunderstanding, the sausages arrived seated
+carefully on the top of the round of beef, like _marrons-glacés_ stuck
+on an iced cake. As the dish was placed, amid howls of execration, on
+the table, one of the unsteadier sausages staggered and fell with a
+splash into the gravy, much to everyone’s delight; Edwards, wiping the
+gravy spots off his best tunic, seemed the only member of the party who
+did not greet with approbation this novel dish.
+
+After soup, sausages and beef, and rice-pudding and tinned fruit,
+came Watson’s special dish--cheese _au gratin_ on toast. This was a
+glutinous concoction, and a little went a long way. Then followed _café
+au lait_ made in the teapot, which was the signal for cigarettes to
+be lit up, and chairs to be moved a little to allow of a comfortable
+expansion of legs. Owen proposed sitting out in the summer-house,
+but on going outside reported that it was a little too chilly. So we
+remained where we were.
+
+Edwards was talking of Amiens: he had been there for the day yesterday,
+and incidentally discovered that there was a cathedral there.
+
+“I know it,” said I. “I used to go there every Saturday when I was at
+the Army School.”
+
+“You had a good time at the Army School, didn’t you?” asked Jim.
+
+“Tip-top time,” said I. “It’s a really good show. The Commandant was
+the most wonderful man we ever met. By the way, that concert Tuesday
+night was a really good show.”
+
+Jim Potter and Edwards had got it up; it had been an _al fresco_
+affair, and the night had been ideally warm for it. Edwards had trained
+a Welsh choir with some success. Several outsiders had contributed,
+the star of the evening being Basil Hallam, the well-known music-hall
+artist, whose dainty manner, reminding one of the art of Vesta Tilley,
+and impeccable evening clothes had produced an unforgettably bizarre
+effect in the middle of such an audience and within sound of the guns.
+He was well known to most of the men as “the bloke that sits up in
+the sausage.” For any fine day, coming out of trenches or going in,
+you could see high suspended the “sausage,” whose home and “base”
+was between Treux and Mericourt, and whose occupant and eye was Basil
+Hallam. And so the “sausage bloke” was received enthusiastically at our
+concert.
+
+As we talked about the concert, Owen began singing “Now Florrie was a
+Flapper,” which had been Basil Hallam’s most popular song, and as he
+sang he rose from his chair and walked about the room; he was evidently
+enjoying himself, though his imitation of Basil Hallam was very bad
+indeed. As he sang, we went on talking.
+
+“A good entry in _Comic Cuts_ to-night,” I remarked. “‘A dog was heard
+barking in Fricourt at 11 p.m.’ Someone must have been hard up for
+intelligence to put that in.”
+
+“A dog barking in Fricourt,” said old Jim, warming up. “‘A dog barking
+in Fricourt.’ What’s that--Corps stuff? I never read the thing;
+good Lord, no! That’s what it is to have a Staff--‘A dog barking in
+Fricourt!’”
+
+“The Corps officer didn’t hear it,” said I. “It was some battalion
+intelligence officer that was such a fool as to report it.”
+
+“Fool?” said old Jim. “I’d like to meet the fellow. He’s the first
+fellow I’ve ever met yet who has a just appreciation of the brain
+capacity of the Staff. You or I might have thought of reporting a dog’s
+mew, or roar, or bellow; but a dog’s bark we should have thought of no
+interest whatever to the--er--fellows up there, you know, who plan our
+destinies.” And he gave an obsequious flick of his hand to an imaginary
+person too high up to see him at all.
+
+“He’s a good fellow,” he repeated, “that intelligence officer. Ought to
+get a D.S.O.”
+
+Old Jim had two South African medals, a D.C.M. and a D.S.O.
+
+“The Staff,” he went on, with the greatest contempt he could put into
+his voice. “I saw three of them in a car to-day. I stood to attention:
+saluted. A young fellow waved his hand, you know; graciously accepted
+my salute, you know, and passed on leaning back in his limousin. The
+‘Brains of the British Army,’ I thought. Pah!”
+
+We waited. Jim on the Staff was the greatest entertainment the
+battalion could offer. We tried to draw him out further, but he would
+not be drawn. We tried cunningly, by indirect methods, enquiring his
+views on whether there would be a push this year.
+
+“Push!” he said. “Of course there will be a push. The Staff must have
+something to show for themselves. ‘Shove ’em in,’ they say; ‘rather a
+bigger front than last time.’ Strategy? Oh, no! That’s out of date, you
+know. Five-mile front--frontal attack. Get a few hundred thousand mown
+down, and then discover the Boche has got a second line. The Staff.
+Pah!!” And no more would he say.
+
+Then Clark came in, and the Manchester Stokes gun officer. Clark
+immediately joined Owen in a duet on “Florrie.” Then we went through
+the whole gamut of popular songs, with appropriate actions and
+stamping of feet upon the floor. Meanwhile the table was cleared,
+only the whiskey and Perrier remaining. Soon there were cries of
+“Napoleon--Napoleon,” and Owen, who bears a remarkable resemblance
+to that great personage, posed tragically again and again amid great
+applause. And then, in natural sequence, I, as “Bill, the man wot
+won the Battle of Waterloo,” attacked him with every species of
+trench-mortar I could lay hands on, my head swathed in a remarkable
+turban of _Daily Mail_. At last I drove him into a corner behind
+a table, and bombarded him relentlessly with oranges until he
+capitulated! All the time Edwards had been in fear and trembling for
+the safety of his gramophone.
+
+At length peace was signed, and we grew quiet again beneath the
+soothing strains of the gramophone, until at last Jim Potter said he
+must really go. Everyone reminding everyone else that breakfast was at
+seven, we broke up the party, and Owen, Paul, Jim Potter and I departed
+together. But anyone who knows the psychology of conviviality will
+understand that we had first to pay a visit to a neighbouring Mess for
+one last whiskey-and-soda before turning in.
+
+As I opened the door of my billet, I heard a “strafe” getting up. There
+was a lively cannonade up in the line; for several minutes I listened,
+until it diminished a little, and began to die away. “In” to-morrow,
+I thought. My valise was laid out on the floor, and my trench kit all
+ready for packing first thing next morning. I lost no time in getting
+into bed. And yet I could not sleep.
+
+I could not help thinking of the jollity of the last few hours, the
+humour, the apparently spontaneous outburst of good spirits; and most
+of all I thought of old Jim, the mainspring somehow of it all. And
+again I saw the picture of the concert a few nights ago, the bright
+lights of the stage, the crowds of our fellows, all their bodies and
+spirits for the moment relaxed, good-natured, happy, as they stood
+laughing in the warm night air. And lastly I thought again of Private
+Benjamin, that refined eager face, that rather delicate body, and
+that warm hand as I placed mine over his, squeezing the trigger. He
+was no more than a child really, a simple-minded child of Wales.
+Somehow it was more terrible that these young boys should see this
+war, than for the older men. Yet were we not all children wondering,
+wondering, wondering?... Yes, we were like children faced by a wild
+beast. “Sometimes I dislike you almost,” I thought; “your dulness, your
+coarseness, your lack of romance, your unattractiveness. Yet that is
+only physical. You, I love really. Oh, the dear, dear world!”
+
+And in the darkness I buried my face in the pillow, and sobbed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+“A CERTAIN MAN DREW A BOW AT A VENTURE”
+
+
+It was ten o’clock as I came in from the wiring-party in front of Rue
+Albert, and at that moment our guns began. We were in Maple Redoubt.
+The moon had just set, and it was a still summer night in early June.
+
+“Come and have a look,” I called to Owen, who had just entered the
+dug-out. I could see him standing with his back to the candlelight
+reading a letter or something.
+
+He came out, and together we looked across the valley at the shoulder
+of down that was silhouetted by the continuous light of gun-flickers.
+Our guns had commenced a two hours’ bombardment.
+
+“No answer from the Boche yet,” I said.
+
+“They’re firing on C 2, down by the cemetery.”
+
+“Yes, I hardly noticed it; our guns make such a row. By Jove, it’s
+magnificent.”
+
+We gazed fascinated for a long time, and then went into the dug-out
+where Edwards and Paul were snoring rhythmically. I read for half an
+hour, but the dug-out was stuffy, and the smell of sand-bags and the
+flickering of the candle annoyed me for some reason or other. Somehow
+“Derelicts” by W. J. Locke failed to grip my attention. Owing to our
+bombardment, there were no working-parties, in case the Germans should
+take it into their head to retaliate vigorously. But at present there
+was no sign of that.
+
+I went outside again, and walked along Park Lane until I came to the
+Lewis-gun position just this side of the corner of Watling Street. The
+sentry was standing up, with his elbows on the ground level (there was
+no parapet) gazing alert and interested at the continuous flicker of
+our shells bursting along the enemy’s trenches. Lance-Corporal Allan
+looked out of the dug-out, and, seeing me, came out and stood by us.
+And together we watched, all three of us, in silence. Overhead was the
+continual griding, screeching, whistling of the shells as they passed
+over, without pause or cessation; behind was a chain of gun-flickers
+the other side of the ridge; and in front was another chain of flashes,
+and a succession of bump, bump, bumps, as the shells burst relentlessly
+in the German trenches. And where we stood, under the noisy arch, was
+a steady calm.
+
+“This is all right, sir,” said Lance-Corporal Allan. He was the N.C.O.
+in charge of this Lewis-gun team.
+
+“Yes,” said I. “The artillery are not on short rations to-night.”
+
+For always, through the last four months, the artillery had been more
+or less confined to so many shells a day. The officers used to tell us
+they had any amount of ammunition, yet no sooner were they given a free
+hand to retaliate as much as we wanted, than an order came cancelling
+this privilege. To-night at any rate there was no curtailment.
+
+“I believe this is the beginning of a new order of things,” I said,
+half musing, to myself; “that is, I believe the Boche is going to get
+lots and lots of this now.”
+
+“About time, sir,” said the sentry.
+
+“Is there a push coming off?” said Lance-Corporal Allan.
+
+“I don’t know,” I replied. “But I expect we shall be doing something
+soon. It’s quite certain we’re going to get our three weeks’ rest after
+this turn in. The Brigade Major told me so.”
+
+Corporal Allan smiled, and as he did so the flashes lit up his face.
+He was quite a boy, only eighteen, I believe, but an excellent N.C.O.
+He had a very beautiful though sensuous face that used to remind
+me sometimes of the “Satyr” of Praxiteles. His only fault was an
+inclination to sulkiness at times, which was perhaps due to a little
+streak of vanity. It was no wonder the maidens of Morlancourt made eyes
+at him, and a little girl who lived next door to the Lewis-gunner’s
+billet was said to have lost her heart long ago. To-night I felt a pang
+as I saw him smile.
+
+“We’ll see,” I said. “Anyway it’s going to be a good show giving the
+Boche these sort of pleasant dreams. Better than those one-minute
+stunts.”
+
+I was referring to a one-minute bombardment of Fricourt Wood, that had
+taken place last time we were in the line. It was a good spectacle to
+see the wood alive with flames, hear our Vickers’ guns rattling hard
+behind us from the supports, and see the Germans firing excited green
+and red rockets into the air. But the retaliation had been unpleasant,
+and the whole business seemed not worth while. This continuous pounding
+was quite different.
+
+I went back and visited the other gun position, and spent a few minutes
+there also. At last I turned in reluctantly. I went out again at
+half-past eleven, and still the shells were screaming over. It seemed
+the token of an irresistible power. And there was no reply at all now
+from the German lines.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The short summer nights made life easier in some respects. We “stood
+to” earlier, and it was quite light by three. As I turned in again,
+I paused for a moment to take in the scene. Davies had retired to a
+small dug-out, that looked exactly like a dog-kennel, and was not much
+larger. As Davies himself frequently reminded me of a very intelligent
+sheepdog, the dog-kennel seemed most suitable. I heard him turning
+about inside, as I stood at the door of our own dug-out.
+
+The scene was one of the most perfect peace. The sun was not up, but
+by now the light was firm and strong; night had melted away. I went
+back and walked a little way along Park Lane until I came to a gap in
+the newly erected sand-bag parados. I went through the gap and into a
+little graveyard that had not been used now for several months. And
+there I stood in the open, completely hidden from the enemy, on the
+reverse slope of the hill. Below me were the dug-outs of 71 North,
+and away to the left those of the Citadel. Already I could see smoke
+curling up from the cookers. There was a faint mist still hanging about
+over the road there, that the strong light would soon dispel. On the
+hill-side opposite lay the familiar tracery of Redoubt A, and the white
+zigzag mark of Maidstone Avenue climbing up well to the left of it,
+until it disappeared over the ridge. Close to my feet the meadow was
+full of buttercups and blue veronica, with occasional daisies starring
+the grass. And below, above, everywhere, it seemed, was the tremulous
+song of countless larks, rising, growing, swelling, till the air seemed
+full to breaking-point.
+
+And there was not a sound of war. Who could desecrate such a perfect
+June morning? I felt a mad impulse to run up and across into No Man’s
+Land and cry out that such a day was made for lovers; that we were all
+enmeshed in a mad nightmare, that needed but a bold man’s laugh to free
+us from its clutches! Surely this most exquisite morning could not be
+the birth of another day of pain? Yet I felt how vain and hopeless
+was the longing, as I turned at last and saw the first slant rays of
+sunlight touch the white sand-bags into life.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+“What time’s this working-party?” asked Paul at four o’clock that
+afternoon.
+
+“I told the sergeant-major to get the men out as soon as they’d
+finished tea,” I replied. “About a quarter to five they ought to be
+ready. He will let you know all right.”
+
+“Hullo!” said Paul.
+
+“What are you ‘hulloing’ about?” I asked.
+
+Paul did not answer. Faintly I heard a “wheeoo, wheeoo, wheeoo,” that
+grew louder and louder and ended in a swishing roar like a big wave
+breaking against an esplanade--and then “wump--wump--wump--wump” four
+4·2’s exploded beyond the parados of Park Lane.
+
+“Well over,” said Edwards.
+
+“I expected this,” I answered. “They’ve been too d--d quiet all
+day--especially after the pounding we gave them last night.”
+
+“There they are again,” I added. This time I had heard the four distant
+thuds, and we all waited.
+
+“Wump, wump--CRUMP.” There was a colossal din, the two candles went
+out, and there was a shaking and jarring in the blackness. Then
+followed the sound of falling stuff, and I felt a few patters of earth
+all over me. Gradually it got lighter, and through the smoke-filled
+doorway the square of daylight reappeared.
+
+“Je ne l’aime pas,” said I, as we all waited, without speaking. Then
+Edwards struck a match and lit the candles; all the table, floor, and
+beds were sprinkled with dust and earth. Then Davies burst in.
+
+“Are you all right?” we asked.
+
+“Yessir. Are you?”
+
+“Oh, we’re all right, Davies,” said I. “But there’s a job for Lewis
+cleaning this butter up.”
+
+At length we went outside, stepping over a heap of loose yielding
+earth, mixed up with lumps of chalk and bits of frayed sand-bags.
+Outside, the trench was blocked with débris of a similar kind. Already
+two men had crossed it, and several men were about to do so. It was old
+already. There was still a smell of gunpowder in the air, and a lot of
+chalk dust that irritated your nose.
+
+“I think I’ll tell the sergeant-major not to get the working-party out
+just yet,” I said to Paul. “They often start like that and then put
+lots more over about a quarter of an hour later.” And I sped along Park
+Lane quickly.
+
+As I returned I heard footsteps behind me. I looked round, but the men
+were hidden by a traverse. And then came tragedy, sudden, and terrible.
+I have seen many bad sights--every man killed is a tragedy--but one
+avoids and hides away the hideousness as soon as possible. But never,
+save once perhaps, have I seen the thing so vile as now.
+
+“Look out!” I heard a voice from behind. And as I heard the shell
+screaming down, I tumbled into the nearest dug-out. The shell burst
+with a huge “crump,” but not so close as the one that had darkened
+our dug-out ten minutes before. Then again another four shells burst
+together, but some forty or fifty yards away. I waited one, two
+minutes. _And then I heard men running in the trench._
+
+As I sprang up the dug-out steps, I saw two stretcher-bearers standing
+looking round the traverse. And then there was the faint whistling
+overhead and they pushed me back as they almost fell down the dug-out
+steps.
+
+“Is there a man hurt?” I asked. “We can’t leave him.”
+
+“He’s dead,” said one. And as he spoke there were three more explosions
+a little to the left.
+
+“Are you sure?”
+
+“Aye,” said the stretcher-bearer and closed his eyes tight.
+
+“He’s past our help,” said the other man.
+
+At last, after a minute’s calm, we stepped out into the sunshine. I
+went round the traverse, following the two stretcher-bearers. And
+looking between them, as they stood gazing, this is what I saw.
+
+In the trench, half buried in rags of sand-bag and loose chalk, lay
+what had been a man. His head was nearest to me, and at that I gazed
+fascinated; for the shell had cut it clean in half, and the face lay
+like a mask, its features unmarred at all, a full foot away from the
+rest of the head. The flesh was grey, that was all; the open eyes, the
+nose, the mouth were not even twisted awry. It was like the fragment of
+a sculpture. All the rest of the body was a mangled mass of flesh and
+khaki.
+
+“Who is it?” whispered a stretcher-bearer, bending his head down to
+look sideways at that mask.
+
+“Find his identity-disc,” said the other.
+
+“It is Lance-Corporal Allan,” said I.
+
+Then up came the regimental sergeant-major, and Owen followed him. They
+too gazed in horror for a moment. The sergeant-major was the first to
+recover.
+
+“Hi! you fellows,” he called to two men. “Get a waterproof sheet.”
+
+“Come away, old man,” said I to Owen.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+In silence we walked back to the dug-out. But my brain was whirling. “A
+certain man drew a bow at a venture,” I thought again. That was how it
+was possible. No man could keep on killing, if he could see the men he
+killed. Who had fired that howitzer shell? A German gunner somewhere
+right away in Mametz Wood probably. He would never see his handiwork,
+never know what he had done to-day. He would never _see_; that was
+the point. Had he known, he would have rejoiced that there was one
+Englishman less in the world. It was not his fault. We were just the
+same. What of last night’s bombardment? (The memory of Lance-Corporal
+Allan up by his gun-position gave me a quick sharp pang.) Had we not
+watched with glittering eyes the magnificent shooting of our own
+gunners? This afternoon’s strafe was but a puny retaliation.
+
+Slowly it came back to me, the half-formed picture that had arisen in
+my mind the night of Davidson’s death. “A certain man drew a bow at a
+venture,” expressed it perfectly. It was splendid twanging the bow,
+feeling the fingers grip the polished wood, watching the bow-string
+stretch and strain, and then letting the arrow fly. That was the
+fascinating, the deadly fascinating side of war. That was what made it
+possible to “carry on.” I remembered my joy in calling up the artillery
+in revenge for Thompson’s death. And then again, whenever we put a mine
+up, how exhilarating was the spectacle! Throwing a bomb, firing a Lewis
+gun, all these things were pleasant. It was like the joy of throwing
+stones over a barn and hearing them splash into a pond; like driving a
+cricket ball out of the field.
+
+But the arrows fell somewhere. That was the other side of war. The
+dying king leant on his chariot, propped up until the sun went down.
+The man who had fired the bolt never knew he had killed a king. That
+was the other side of war; that was the side that counted. What I had
+just seen was war.
+
+I leaned my face on my arm against the parados. Oh, this unutterable
+tragedy! Had there ever been such a thing before? Why was this thing
+so terrible? Why did I have this feeling of battering against some
+relentless power? Death. There were worse things than death. There were
+sights, such as I had just come from, as terrible in everyday life, in
+any factory explosion or railway accident. There was nothing new in
+death. Vaguely my mind felt out for something to express this thing so
+far more terrible than mere death. And then I saw it. Vividly I saw the
+secret of war.
+
+What made war so cruel, was the force that compelled you to go on.
+After a factory explosion you cleared up things and then took every
+precaution to prevent its recurrence; but in war you did the opposite,
+you used all your energies to make more explosions. You killed and went
+on killing; you saw men die around you, and you deliberately went on
+with the thing that would cause more of your friends to die. You were
+placed in an arena, and made to fight the beasts; and if you killed one
+beast, there were more waiting, and more and more. And above the arena,
+out of it, secure, looked down the glittering eyes of the men who had
+placed you there; cruel, relentless eyes, that went on glittering
+while the mouths expressed admiration for your impossible struggles,
+and pity for your fate!
+
+“Oh God! I shall go mad!” I thought, in the agony of my mind. I saw
+into that strange empty chamber which is called madness: I knew what it
+would be like to go mad. And even as I saw, came the thought again of
+those glittering eyes, and the ruthless answer to my soul’s cry: “The
+war is utterly indifferent whether you go mad or not.”
+
+Owen was standing waiting for me. I grew calm again, and turned and put
+my hand on his shoulder. Together we reached the door of the dug-out.
+
+“Oh, Bill,” he said, “have you ever seen anything more awful?”
+
+“Only once. No, not more awful: more beastly. Nothing could be more
+awful.”
+
+We told the others.
+
+“Not Allan?” said Edwards. He was Lewis-gun officer, and Allan was his
+best man.
+
+“Not Allan?” he repeated. “Oh, how will they tell his little girl in
+Morlancourt? What will she say when she learns she will never see him
+again?”
+
+“Thank God she never saw him as we saw him just now,” I said, “and
+thank God his mother never saw him.”
+
+“If women were in this war, there would be no war,” said Edwards.
+
+“I wonder,” said I.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+WOUNDED
+
+
+Lance-Corporal Allan was killed on Tuesday the 6th of June. For the
+rest of that day I was all “on edge.” I wondered sometimes how I could
+go on: even in billets I dreamed of rifle-grenades; and though I had
+only returned from leave a fortnight ago, I felt as tired out in body
+and mind as I did before I went. And this last horror did not add to
+my peace of mind. I very nearly quarrelled with Captain Wetherell, the
+battalion Lewis-gun officer, over the position of a Lewis gun. There
+had been a change of company front, and some readjustments had to be
+made. I believe I told him he had not got the remotest idea of our
+defence scheme, or something of the sort! My nerves were all jangled,
+and my brain would not rest a second. We were nearly all like that at
+times.
+
+I decided therefore to go out again to-night with our wires. I had
+been out last night, and Owen was going to-night, but I wanted to be
+doing something to occupy my thoughts. I knew I should not sleep. At
+a quarter to ten I sent word to Corporal Dyson, the wiring-corporal,
+to take his men up at eleven instead of ten, as the moon had not quite
+set. At eleven o’clock Owen and I were out in No Man’s Land putting out
+concertina wire between 80A and 81A bombing posts, which had recently
+been connected up by a deep narrow trench. There was what might be
+called a concertina craze on: innumerable coils of barbed wire were
+converted into concertinas by the simple process of winding them round
+and round seven upright stakes in the ground; every new lap of wire
+was fastened to the one below it at every other stake by a twist of
+plain wire; the result, when you came to the end of a coil and lifted
+the whole up off the stakes was a heavy ring of barbed wire that
+concertina’d out into ten-yard lengths. They were easily made up in the
+trench, quickly put up, and when put out in two parallel rows, about a
+yard apart, and joined together with plenty of barbed wire tangled in
+loosely, were as good an obstacle as could be made. We had some thirty
+of these to put out to-night.
+
+When you are out wiring you forget all about being in No Man’s Land,
+unless the Germans are sniping across. The work is one that absorbs
+all your interest, and your one concern is to get the job done quickly
+and well. I really cannot remember whether the enemy had been sniping
+or not (I use the word “sniping” to denote firing occasional shots
+across with fixed rifles sited by day). I remember that I forgot all
+about Captain Wetherell and his Lewis-gun positions, as soon as I was
+outside the bombing post at 80A. There were about fifteen yards between
+this post and the crater-edge, where I had a couple of “A” Company
+bombers out as a covering party. But in this fifteen yards were several
+huge shell-holes, and we were concealing the wire in these as much
+as possible. It was fascinating work, and I felt we could not get on
+fast enough with it. After a time I went along to Owen, whose party
+was working on my left. Here Corporal Dyson and four men were doing
+well also. All this strip of land between the trench and the crater
+edge was an extraordinary tangle of shell-holes, old beams and planks,
+and scraps of old wire. Every square yard of it had been churned and
+pounded to bits at different times by canisters and “sausages” and
+such-like. Months ago there had been a trench along the crater edges;
+but new mines had altered these, and until we had dug the deep, narrow
+trench between 80A and 81A about a fortnight ago, there had been no
+trench there for at least five months. The result was a chaotic jumble,
+and this jumble we were converting into an obstacle by judiciously
+placed concertina wiring.
+
+I repeat that I cannot remember if there had been much sniping across.
+I had just looked at my luminous watch, which reported ten past one,
+when I noticed that the sky in the east began to show up a little
+paler than the German parapet across the crater. “Dawn,” I thought,
+“already. There is no night at all, really. We must knock off in a
+quarter of an hour. The light will not be behind us, but half-past one
+will be time to stop.” I was lying out by the bombers, gazing into the
+black of the crater. It was a warm night, and jolly lying out like
+this, though a bit damp and muddy round the shell-holes. Then I got up,
+told Corporal Evans to come in after fixing the coil he was putting up,
+and was walking towards 80A post, when “Bang” I heard from across the
+crater, and I felt a big sting in my left elbow, and a jar that numbed
+my whole arm.
+
+“Ow,” I cried out involuntarily, and doubled the remaining few yards,
+and scrambled down into the trench.
+
+Corporal Dyson was there.
+
+“Are you hit, sir?”
+
+“Yes. Nothing much--here in the arm. Get the wirers in. It’ll be light
+soon.”
+
+Then somehow I found my equipment and tunic off; there seemed a lot
+of men round me; and I tried to realise that I was really hit. My arm
+hung numb and stiff, with the after-taste of a sting in it. I felt this
+could not be a proper wound, as there was no real throbbing pain such
+as I expected. I was surprised when I saw a lot of blood in the half
+light. Corporal Dyson asked me if I had a field-dressing, and I said
+he would find one in the bottom right-hand corner of my tunic. To my
+annoyance he did not seem to hear, and used one of the men’s. Then Owen
+appeared, with a serious peering face.
+
+“Are all the wirers in?” I asked.
+
+“Yes,” he answered. “How are you feeling?”
+
+His serious tone amused me. I wanted to say, “Good heavens, man, I’m as
+fit as anything. I shall be back to-morrow, I expect.” But I felt very
+tired and rather out of breath as I answered “Oh! all right.”
+
+By this time my arm was bandaged and I started walking back to Maple
+Redoubt, leaning on Corporal Dyson. I wanted to joke, but felt too
+tired. It seemed an interminable way down, especially along Watling
+Street.
+
+I had only once looked into the dressing-station, although I must have
+passed it several hundred times. I was surprised at its size: there
+were two compartments. As I stepped down inside, I wondered if it were
+shell-proof. In the inner chamber I could hear the doctor’s quick low
+voice, telling a man to move the lamp: and it seemed to flash across
+me for the first time that there ought to be some kind of guarantee
+against dressing-stations being blown in like any ordinary dug-out. And
+yet I knew there was no possibility of any such guarantee.
+
+“Hullo, Bill, old man,” said the little doctor, coming out quickly.
+“Where’s this thing of yours? In the arm, isn’t it? Let’s have a look.
+Oh yes, I see. (He examined the bandage, and the arm above it.) Well,
+I won’t be long. You won’t mind waiting a few minutes, will you? I’ve
+got a bad case in here. Hall, get him to sit down, and give him some
+Bovril.”
+
+And he was gone. No man could move or make men move quicker than the
+doctor.
+
+I felt apologetic: I had chosen a bad time to come, just when the
+doctor was busy with this other man. I asked who the fellow was, and
+learned he was a private from “D” Company. I was very grateful for the
+Bovril. A good idea, this, I thought, having Bovril ready for you.
+
+I waited about ten minutes, sitting on a chair. I listened to the
+movements and low voices inside. “Turn him over. Here. No, those longer
+ones. Good heavens, didn’t I tell you to get this changed yesterday?
+Now. That’ll do,” and so on. I turned my head round in silence,
+observing acutely every detail in this antechamber, as one does in
+a dentist’s waiting-room. All the time in my arm I felt this numb
+wasp-sting; I wondered when the real pain would start; there was no
+motion in this still smart.
+
+“Now then, Bill,” said the doctor. “So sorry to keep you. Let’s have a
+look at it. Oh, that’s nothing very bad.”
+
+It smarted as he undid the bandage. I don’t know what he did. I never
+looked at it.
+
+“What sort of a one is it?” I asked.
+
+“I could just do with one like this myself,” said the doctor.
+
+“Is it a Blighty one?”
+
+“I’d give you a fiver for it any minute,” answered the doctor. “I’m
+not certain whether the bone’s broken or not, but I rather think it is
+touched. I can’t say, though. A bullet, did you say? Are you sure?”
+
+“Very sure,” I laughed.
+
+“Well, it must be one of these explosive bullets, an ordinary bullet
+doesn’t make a wound like yours. That’s it. That’ll do.”
+
+“I can’t make out why there’s not more pain,” said I.
+
+“Oh, that’ll come later. You see the shock paralyses you at first.
+Here, take one of these.” And he gave me a morphia tabloid.
+
+“Cheero, Bill,” he said, and I went out of the dug-out leaning on a
+stretcher-bearer. Round my neck hung a label, the first of a long
+series. “Gun-shot wound in left forearm” it contained. I found later “?
+fracture. 1.15 a.m., 7.6.16.”
+
+Outside Lewis was waiting with my trench kit. He had appeared a quarter
+of an hour back at the door of the dressing-station, and had been told
+by the doctor so rapidly and forcibly that he ought to know that he
+would go with me to the clearing station, and that he had five minutes
+in which to get my kit together, that he had fairly sprinted away.
+Poor fellow! How should he know, seeing that he had been my servant
+over six months, and I had never got wounded before? But the doctor
+always made men double.
+
+As I passed our dug-out, Edwards, Owen, Paul, and Nicholson were all
+standing outside.
+
+“Cheero,” I shouted. “Good luck. The doctor says it’s nothing much.
+I’ll be back soon.”
+
+“What about that Lewis-gun position?” asked Edwards.
+
+“Oh,” I said, “I want to keep that position on the left.” Then I felt
+my decision waver. “Still, if Wetherell wants the other ... I don’t
+know.”
+
+“All right. I’ll fix up with Wetherell. Good luck. Hope you get to
+Blighty.”
+
+I wanted to say such a lot. I wanted to say that I was sure to be back
+in a week or so. I wanted to think hard, and decide about that Lewis
+gun. I wanted to send a message to Wetherell apologising for what I
+had said.... I wanted to talk to Sergeant Andrews, who was standing
+there too. But the stretcher-bearer was walking on, and I must go as he
+pleased.
+
+“Good-bye, Sergeant Andrews,” I shouted.
+
+Last of all I saw Davies, standing solemn and dumb.
+
+“Good-bye, Davies. Off to Blighty.”
+
+I could not see if he answered. The relentless stretcher-bearer led me
+on. Was I O.C. stretcher-bearers or was I not? Why didn’t I stop him?
+I had not decided about that Lewis gun. At the corner of Old Kent Road,
+I was told I might as well sit on the ration trolley and go down on
+that. And in the full light of dawn, about half-past two, I was rolled
+serenely down the hill to the Citadel.
+
+“Don’t let go,” I said to the stretcher-bearer, who was holding the
+trolley back. I still thought of sending up a message about that
+Lewis-gun position. Why could not I make up my mind? I looked back and
+saw Maple Redoubt receding further and further in the distance.
+
+“By Jove,” I thought, “I may not see it again for weeks.” And suddenly
+I realised that whether I made up my mind about the Lewis-gun position
+or not, would not make the slightest difference!
+
+“Where do I go to now?” said I.
+
+“There’s an ambulance at the Citadel,” said the stretcher-bearer.
+“You’re quite right. You’ll be in Heilly in a little over an hour.”
+
+Heilly? Why, this would be interesting, I thought. And I should just
+go, and have nothing to decide. I should be passive. I was going right
+out of the arena!
+
+And the events of yesterday seemed a dream already.
+
+
+WEDNESDAY
+
+I lay in bed, at the clearing station at Heilly. It was just after nine
+o’clock the same morning, and the orderlies were out of sight, but not
+out of hearing, washing up the breakfast things. Half the dark blue
+blinds were drawn, as the June sun was blazing outside. I could see the
+glare of it on the cobbles in the courtyard, as the door opened and a
+cool, tall nurse entered. I closed my eyes, and pretended to be asleep.
+I felt she might come and talk, and one thing I did not want to do, I
+did not want to talk.
+
+My body was most extraordinarily comfortable. I moved my feet toes-up
+for the sheer joy of feeling the smooth sheets fall cool on my feet
+when I turned them sideways again. The pillow was comfortable; the
+whole bed was comfortable; even my arm, that was throbbing violently
+now, and felt boiling hot, was very comfortably rested on another
+pillow. I just wanted to lie, and lie: only my mind was working so fast
+and hard that it seemed to make the skin tight over my forehead. And
+all the time there was that buzz, buzzing. If I left off thinking, the
+buzzing took complete mastery of my brain. That was intolerable: so I
+had to keep on thinking.
+
+At the Citadel an R.A.M.C. doctor had given me tea and a second label.
+He had also given me an injection against tetanus. This he did in the
+chest. Why didn’t he do it in my right arm, I had thought: I would have
+rather had it there. Again, I had had to wait quite a quarter of an
+hour, while he attended to the “D” Company private. I had learned from
+an orderly that this poor fellow was bound to lose a leg, and again I
+had felt that I was in the way here, that I was a bother. I had then
+watched the poor fellow carried out on a stretcher, and the stretcher
+slid into the ambulance. There was a seat inside, into which I was
+helped. Lewis had gone in front, very red-faced and awkward. And an
+R.A.M.C. orderly had got in behind with me. Sitting, I had felt that he
+must think I was shamming! Then I remembered the first ambulance I had
+seen, when I first walked from Chocques to Béthune in early October!
+Was there really any connection between me then and me now?
+
+Then there had been a rather pleasant journey through unknown country,
+it seemed. After a few miles, we halted and changed into another
+ambulance. As I had stood in the sunshine a moment, I had tried to make
+out where we were. But I could not recognise anything, and felt very
+tired. There was a white chalk road, a grass bank, and a house close
+by: that is all I could remember. And then there was another long ride,
+in which my one paramount idea was to rest my arm (which was in a white
+sling) and prevent it shaking and jarring.
+
+Then at last we had reached a village and pulled up in a big sunlit
+courtyard. Again as I walked into a big room I felt that people must
+think I was shamming. A matron had come in, and a doctor. Did I mind
+sitting and waiting a minute or so? Would I like some tea? I had
+refused tea. Then the doctor and an orderly came in, and the doctor
+asked some questions and took off my label. The orderly was taking
+off my boots, and the doctor had started helping! I had apologised
+profusely, for they were trench boots thick with mud. And then the
+doctor had asked me whether I could wait until about eleven before they
+looked at my arm: meanwhile it would be better, as I should be more
+rested after a few hours in bed. Bed! I had never thought of going to
+bed for an arm at all! What a delicious idea! I felt so tired, too.
+I had not been to bed all night. Then I had been helped into this
+delightful bed, and after scrawling a letter home to go away by the
+eight o’clock post (I was glad I had remembered that), I had been left
+in peace at about half-past four. And here I was! I had had a cup of
+tea for breakfast, but did not want to eat anything.
+
+I wished I could go to sleep. Yet it was not much good now, if they
+were going to look at my arm at eleven. I opened my eyes whenever I
+was sure there was no one near me. Then I thought I might as well keep
+them open, otherwise they would think I had slept, and not know how
+tired out I felt. There was a man in the next bed with his head all
+bandaged; and round the bed in the corner was a screen. Opposite was an
+R.A.M.C. doctor, as far as I could gather; he was talking to the nurse,
+and looked perfectly well. I thought perhaps he might be the sort who
+would talk late when I wanted to sleep--he looked so well and lively;
+suppose he had a gramophone and wanted to play it this afternoon. I
+should really have to complain, if he did. Yet perhaps they would
+understand, and make him give it up because of us who were not so well.
+On my right, up at the other end of the room (was it a “ward”? yes, I
+suppose it was) were several voices, but I could not turn over and look
+at their owners, with my arm like this. How it throbbed and pulsed! Or
+was it aching? Supposing I got pins and needles in it....
+
+A khaki-clad padre came in. He just came over and asked me if I wanted
+anything, and did not worry me with talking. He had a very quiet voice
+and bald head. I liked both. I felt I ought to have wanted something:
+had I been discourteous?
+
+The door opened, and the doctor entered, with another nurse and another
+doctor. Somehow this last person electrified everyone and everything.
+Who was he? His very walk was somehow different from the ordinary. My
+attention was riveted on him; somehow I felt that he knew I was there,
+and yet he did not look at me. They wheeled a little table up from the
+other end of the room, laden with glasses and bottles and glittering
+little silver forks and things. I could not see clearly. An orderly
+was reprimanded by the nurse for something, in a subdued voice. There
+was a hush and a tenseness in this man’s presence. Yet he was calmly
+looking at a newspaper, and sitting on an empty bed as he did so!
+Apparently Kitchener was reported drowned in the North Sea: he spoke
+in a rich, almost drawling voice. He was immensely casual! And yet one
+did not mind. He walked over and washed his hands, and put on some
+yellowy-brown india-rubber gloves that scrooped and squelched in the
+basins. And then he turned round, and the other doctor (whom I had seen
+at four o’clock and who already seemed a sort of confidential friend
+of mine in the presence of this master-man) asked him, which case he
+wanted to see first. And as he jerked his hand casually to one of the
+beds, I was filled with a strange elation. This was a surgeon, I felt;
+and one in whom I had immense confidence. He would do the best for my
+arm: he would make no mistakes. I almost laughed for sheer joy!
+
+He came at last to my bed and glanced at me. He never smiled. He asked
+me one or two questions. I said I was “? fracture,” that my arm was
+throbbing but felt numb more than anything.
+
+“I suppose we may presume there is a fracture,” said he; “at any rate
+there is no point in looking at it here. I’ll look at it under an
+anæsthetic,” he said to me, not unkindly, but still without a smile.
+And a little later, as he went out, he half looked back at my bed.
+
+“Eleven o’clock,” he said to the nurse as he went out.
+
+The tension relaxed. An orderly spoke in a bold ordinary voice. The
+spell was gone out with the man.
+
+“Who is that?” I asked the nurse.
+
+“Oh! that’s Mr. Bevan; he’s a very good surgeon indeed.”
+
+“I know,” said I, “I can feel that.”
+
+About an hour later, two orderlies whom I had not seen before came in
+with a stretcher, and laid it on the floor by the bed. The tall nurse
+asked me if I had any false teeth, and said I had better put socks on,
+as my feet might get cold. The orderly did this, and then they helped
+me on to the stretcher. My head went back, and I felt a strain on my
+neck. The next second my head was lifted and a pillow put under it.
+And they had moved me without altering the position of my arm. I was
+surprised and pleased at that. Then a blanket was put over me, and one
+of the orderlies said “Ready?”
+
+“Yes,” I said, but suddenly realised he was talking to the other
+orderly. I was lifted up, and carried across the room out into the
+courtyard. What a blazing sun! I closed my eyes.
+
+“Dump, dump, dump.” The stretcher seemed to bob along, with a regular
+rhythmic swaying. Then they turned a corner, and I felt a slight
+nausea. I opened my eyes. The stretcher was put on a table. I felt very
+high up.
+
+The matron-person appeared. She was older than the nurses, and had a
+chain with scissors dangling on the end of it. She smiled, and asked
+what kind of a wound it was. Then the orderlies looked at each other,
+at some signal that I could not see, and lifted me up and into the next
+room. They held the stretcher up level with the operating table, and
+helped me on to it. I did some good right elbow-work and got on easily.
+As I did so, I saw Mr. Bevan sitting on a chair in his white overall,
+his gloved hands quietly folded in his lap. He said and did nothing.
+Again I felt immensely impressed by his competence, reserving every
+ounce of energy, waiting, until these less masterful beings had got
+everything ready.
+
+They took off the blanket, and moved things behind. Then they put the
+rubber cup over my mouth and nose.
+
+“Just breathe quite naturally,” said the doctor. I shut my eyes.
+
+“Just ordinary breaths. That is very good,” said the voice, quietly and
+reassuringly.
+
+I felt a sort of sweet shudder all down my body. I wanted to laugh.
+Then I let my body go a little. It was no good bracing myself.... I
+opened my right hand and shut it, just to show them I was not “off” yet
+...
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The process of “coming to” was unpleasant and uninteresting. I do not
+think I distinguished myself by any originality, so will not attempt
+to describe it. That was a long interminable day, and my arm hurt a
+good deal. In the afternoon I was told that I should be pleased to hear
+that there was no bone broken. I was anything but pleased. I wanted the
+bone to be broken, as I wanted to go to “Blighty.” This worried me all
+day. I wondered if I should get to England or not. Then in the evening
+the sister (I found that the nurses should be called sisters) dressed
+the wound. That was distinctly unpleasant. It took hours and hours and
+hours before it began to get even twilight. I have never known so long
+a day. And then I could not sleep. They injected morphia at last, but
+I awoke after three or four hours feeling more tired than ever.
+
+
+THURSDAY
+
+I can hardly disentangle these days; night and day ran into one
+another. I can remember little about Thursday. I could not sleep
+however much I wanted to; and all the time my brain was working so
+hard, thinking. I worried about the company: they must be in the
+line now. Would Edwards remember this, and that? Had I left him the
+map, or was it among those maps in my valise which Lewis had gone to
+Morlancourt to fetch?
+
+And all the time there were rifle-grenades about; I daren’t let the
+buzzing come, because it was all rifle-grenades really; and always I
+kept seeing Lance-Corporal Allan lying there. Why could I not get rid
+of the picture of him? Yet I was afraid I might forget; and it was
+important that I should remember....
+
+I remember the waiting to have my arm dressed. It was like waiting
+before the dentist takes up the drill again. I watched the man next to
+me out of the corner of my eye, and felt it intensely if he seemed to
+wince, or drew in his breath. And I remember in the morning Mr. Bevan
+dressed my wound. I looked the other way. For a week I thought the
+wound was above instead of just below the elbow. “This will hurt,” he
+said once.
+
+Some time in the day the man behind the screen died. I had heard him
+groaning all day; and there was the rhythmic sound of pumping--oxygen,
+I suppose.... I heard a lot of moving behind the screen, and at last
+it was taken away and I saw the corner for the first time and in it an
+empty bed with clean sheets.
+
+The man next to me, with the bandaged head, kept talking deliriously to
+the orderly about his being on a submarine. Once the orderly smiled at
+me as he answered the absurd questions.
+
+There was one good incident I remember. After the surgeon had dressed
+my arm, I said, “Is there any chance of this getting me to Blighty?”
+And I thought he did not hear; he was looking the other way. But
+suddenly I heard that calm deliberate voice:
+
+“Yes, that is a Blighty one. There is enough damage to those muscles
+to keep you in Blighty several months.” And this made all the rest
+bearable somehow.
+
+
+FRIDAY
+
+Again the only sleep I could get was by morphia. In the morning they
+told me I should go by a hospital train leaving at three o’clock. I
+scrawled a note or two and gave them to Lewis, and instructed him about
+my kit. I believe they made an inventory of it. I gave him some maps
+for Edwards. And then he said good-bye. And I thought of him going
+back, and I going to England. And I felt ashamed of myself again. I
+wondered if the Colonel was annoyed with me.
+
+They gave me gas in the morning. It seemed such a bother going through
+all that again: it was not worth trying to get better. Still I was
+glad, it was one dressing less! Then in the afternoon I was carried on
+a stretcher to the train. I hardly saw anyone to say good-bye to. I
+thought of writing later.
+
+It seemed an interminable journey. By some mistake I had been put in
+with the Tommies. There was no difference in the structure or comfort
+of the officers’ or Tommies’ quarters; but I knew they were taking me
+wrong. However, I was entirely passive, and did not mind what they
+did. The carriage had a corridor all the way down the centre, and on
+each side was a succession of berths in three tiers. On the top tier
+you must have felt very high and close up to the roof; on the centre
+one you got a good view out of the windows; on the third and lowest
+tier (which was my lot) you felt that if there were an accident, you
+would not have far to roll; on the other hand, you were out of view of
+orderlies passing along the corridor.
+
+A great thirst consumed me as I lay waiting. I could see two orderlies
+in the space by the door cutting up large pieces of bread and butter.
+This made my mouth still drier. Then they brought in cans of hot tea,
+and gave it out in white enamel bowls. I longed for the sting of the
+tea on my dry palate, but the orderly was startled when I said, “I
+suppose this is all right; I am an officer.” He said he would tell
+them, and gave the bowl to the next man. The bowls were taken away
+and washed up, before a cup of tea was at last brought me. A corporal
+brought it; he poured it out of a little teapot; but I could not drink
+it out of a cup. My left arm lay like a log beside me, and I could not
+hold my right arm steady _and_ raise my head. So the corporal went off
+for a feeding cup. I felt rather nervy and like a man with a grievance!
+And when I got the tea it was nearly cold.
+
+I say it seemed an interminable journey, and my arm was so frightfully
+uncomfortable. I had it across my body, and felt I could not breathe
+for the weight of it. At last I felt I _must_ get its position altered.
+I called “orderly” every time an orderly went past: sometimes they
+paused and looked round; but they could not see me, and went on.
+Sometimes they did not hear anything. I felt as self-conscious and
+irritated as a man who calls “waiter” and the waiter does not hear. At
+last one heard, and a sister came and fixed me up with a small pillow
+under the elbow. I immediately felt apologetic, and I wondered if she
+thought me fussy.
+
+The train made a long, slow grind over the rails; and it kept stopping
+with a griding sound and a jolt. Why did it go so slowly? At ten
+o’clock I begged and obtained another morphia dose, and got four hours’
+sleep from it again.
+
+
+SATURDAY
+
+I suppose it was about 7.0 a.m. when we arrived at Étretat. I was taken
+and laid in the middle of rows and rows of Tommies in a big sunny
+courtyard. I thought how well the bearers carried the stretchers: I did
+not at all feel that I was likely to be dropped or tilted off on to my
+arm. There were a lot of men in blue hospital dress on the steps of a
+big house. I wondered where I was: in Havre probably. It was a queer
+sensation lying on my back gazing up at the sun; we were tightly packed
+in together, like cards laid in order, face upwards. How high everyone
+looked standing up. Then they discovered one or two officers, and I
+said that I too was an officer. I felt that they rather dared me to
+repeat this statement. Then a man looked at my label, and said: “Yes,
+he is an officer.” And I was taken up and carried off.
+
+I found myself put to bed in a spacious room in which were only two
+beds. The house had only recently been finished, and was in use as a
+hospital. As soon as I was in bed, I felt a great relief again. No
+more motion for a time, I thought. There was a man in the other bed,
+threatened with consumption. We were talking, when a pretty V.A.D.
+nurse came in and asked what we wanted for breakfast. I felt quite
+hungry, and enjoyed tea and fish. I began to think that life was going
+to be good. I saw Cecil Todd, who had been slightly wounded a fortnight
+ago. I condoled with him on not getting to England. He asked me if I
+wanted to read. No, I did not feel like reading. I wrote a letter. Then
+two V.A.D. nurses came and dressed my wound. They seemed surprised to
+find so big a one, and sent for the doctor to see it. They dressed it
+very well, and gave me no unnecessary pain.
+
+In the afternoon, I was again moved to a motor ambulance, which took me
+to Havre. It jolted and shook horribly. “This man does not know what it
+is like up here,” I thought. All the time I was straining my body to
+keep the left arm from touching the jolting stretcher. (The stretchers
+slide in the ambulance.) I was a top-berth passenger; I could touch the
+white roof with my right hand; and there was a stuffy smell of white
+paint.
+
+At last it stopped, and after a wait I was carried amid a sea of heads,
+along a quay. I could smell sea and the stale oily smell of a steamer.
+Then I was taken over the gangway with that firm, steady, nodding
+motion with which I was getting so familiar, along the deck, through
+doorways, and into a big room, all green and white. All round the edge
+were beds, into one of which I was helped. In the centre of the room
+were beds that somehow reminded me of cots. I dare say there was a low
+railing round the beds that gave me this impression. A Scotch nurse
+looked after me. These nurses were all in grey and red; the others had
+been in blue. I wondered what was the difference. I asked the name of
+the ship and they said it was the _Asturias_.
+
+Later on a steward brought a menu, and I chose my own dinner.
+Apparently I could eat what I liked. The doctor looked at my wound, and
+said it could wait until morning before being dressed; he pleased me. I
+was more comfortable than I had been yet. The boat was not due out till
+about 1.0 a.m. At eleven o’clock I again asked for morphia, and so got
+sleep for another four hours or so.
+
+
+SUNDAY
+
+“I represent Messrs. Cox and Co. Is there anything I can do for any of
+you gentlemen this morning?”
+
+A short, squarely built man, with a black suit, a bowler hat, and a
+small brown bag, stepped briskly into the room. He gave me intense
+pleasure: as he talked to a Scotch officer who wanted some ready cash,
+I felt that I was indeed back in England. It was a hot sunny day; and
+a bowler hat on such a day made me feel sure that this was _really_
+Southampton, and not all a dream. Sir, whoever you are, I thank you for
+your most appropriate appearance.
+
+The hospital ship had been alongside nearly an hour, I believe. It
+was three o’clock in the afternoon. Breakfast, the dressing of my
+wound again, lunch; all had followed in an uneventful succession. The
+throbbing of the engines as the boat steamed quietly along had been
+hardly noticeable at all. At last there was a bustle, and we were
+carried out of the room, out into the sunshine again, and along the
+quay to the train. Here I was given a berth in the middle tier this
+time, for which I was very thankful. I felt so utterly tired; and the
+weight of my arm across my body was intolerable.
+
+That seemed a long, long journey too; but I got tea without delay this
+time, and it was hot. At Farnborough the train stopped and a few men
+were taken out. The rest came on to London.
+
+“Is there any special hospital in London you want to go to?” said a
+brisk R.A.M.C. official, when we reached Waterloo.
+
+“No,” I answered.
+
+He wrote on a label, and put that round my neck also.
+
+“Lady Carnarvon’s,” he said.
+
+I lay for some time on the platform of Waterloo station, gazing up at
+the vault in the roof. Porters and stretcher-bearers stood about, and
+gazed down at one in silence. Then I was moved into a motor ambulance,
+and a Red Cross lady took her seat in the back. My head was in the
+front, so that I could see nothing. Just before the car went off, a
+policeman put his head in.
+
+“Any milk or anything?”
+
+“Would you like any milk or beef tea?” the lady said.
+
+“Milk, please.”
+
+“He says he would like a little milk,” said the lady.
+
+And then we drove off.
+
+
+MONDAY
+
+It was somewhere about ten o’clock Monday morning. The sister had just
+finished dressing my arm; the doctor had poked it about; now it lay
+cool and quiet along by my side. I had not slept that night again,
+except with morphia. I still felt extraordinarily tired, but was very
+comfortable. I watched the tall sister in blue with the white headdress
+that reminded me of a nun’s cap. She was so strong and quiet, and
+seemed to know that my hand always wanted support at the wrist when
+she lifted my arm. I did not want to talk, just to lie.
+
+Suddenly I realised that my head was no longer buzzing. I knew that I
+should sleep to-night--at last! My body relaxed: the tension suddenly
+melted away.
+
+“Hurrah!” I thought, “I have not got to move, or think, or decide--and
+I can just lie for hours, for days.”
+
+At last I was out of the grip of war.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+It was a slumbrous afternoon in September. My wound had healed up a
+month ago, and I was lazily convalescent at my aunt’s house in one
+of the most beautiful parts of Kent. The six soldiers who were also
+convalescent there were down in the hop-garden. For hop-picking was
+in full swing. I was sitting in a deck-chair with _Don Quixote_ on my
+knees; but I was not reading. I had apparently broken the offensive
+power of the army of midges by making a brilliant counter-attack with
+a pipe of Chairman. The sun blazed mercilessly on the croquet-lawn;
+the balls were lying all together round one hoop: for there was a
+golf-croquet tournament in progress, and the mallets stood about
+against various hoops; one very tidy and proper mallet was standing
+primly in the stand at one corner. My chair was well sited under the
+cool shade of a large mulberry tree, in whose thick lofty branches
+the wind rustled with a delicious little sigh; sometimes a regular
+little gust would send the boughs swishing, and then a little rain of
+red and white mulberries would plop on to the grass, and strike the
+summer-house roof with a smart patter. On the grass-bank at the side
+of the lawn, by a blazing border of orange and red nasturtiums, a
+black cat was squatting with tail slowly waving to and fro, watching a
+fine large tabby that was sniffing at the nasturtiums in a nonchalant
+manner. They were the best of friends, playing that most interesting of
+all games, war.
+
+I was not reading: I was listening to the incessant murmur that came
+from far away across the Medway, across the garden of England, and
+across the Channel and the flats of Flanders. That sound came from
+Picardy. All day the insistent throb had been in the air; sometimes
+faint bumps were clearly distinguishable, at other times it was nothing
+but one steady vibration. But always it was there, that distant growl,
+that insistent mutter. Even in this perfect peace, I could not escape
+the War.
+
+To-day I felt completely well; the lassitude and inertness of
+convalescence were gone--at any rate, for the moment. My mind was very
+clear, and I could think surely and rapidly. The cats reminded me of
+the lusty family that lived in the cellar in the Cuinchy trenches,
+and the murmur of the guns drew my thoughts across the Channel. I
+tried to imagine trenches running across the lawn, with communication
+trenches running back to a support line through the meadow; a few feet
+of brick wall would be all that would be left of the house, and this
+would conceal my snipers; the mulberry tree would long ago have been
+razed to the ground, and every scrap of it used as firewood in our
+dug-outs; this deck chair of mine might possibly be in use in Company
+Headquarters in one of the cellars. No, it was not easy to imagine war
+without seeing it.
+
+I picked up the paper that had fallen at my side. There had been more
+terrible fighting on the Somme, and it had seemed very marvellous to a
+journalist as he lay on a hill some two miles back, and watched through
+his field-glasses: it was wonderful that the men advancing (if indeed
+he could really see them at all in the smoke of a heavy artillery
+barrage) still went on, although their comrades dropped all round them.
+Yet I wondered what else anyone could do but go on? Run back, with just
+as much likelihood of being shot in doing so? Or, even if he did get
+back, to certain death as a deserter? Everyone knows the safest place
+is in a trench; and it is a trench you are making for. Lower down on
+the page came a description of the wounded; he had talked to so many of
+them, and they were all smiling, all so cheerful; smoking cigarettes
+and laughing. They shook their fists, and shouted that the only thing
+they wanted to do was to get back into it! Pah! I threw the paper down
+in disgust. Surely no one wants to read such stuff, I thought. Of
+course the men who were not silent, in a dull stupefied agony, were
+smiling: what need to say that a man with a slight wound was laughing
+at his luck, just as I had smiled that early morning when the trolley
+took me down from Maple Redoubt? And who does not volunteer for an
+unpleasant task, when he knows he cannot possibly get it? Want to get
+back into it, indeed! Ask Tommy ten years hence whether he wants to be
+back in the middle of it again!
+
+I wondered why people endured such cheap journalism. What right had
+men who have never seen war at all, who creep up on bicycles to get a
+glimpse of it through telescopes, who pester wounded men, and then out
+of their pictorial imagination work up a vivid description--what right
+have they to insult heroes by saying that “their wonderful spirit makes
+up for it all,” that “the paramount impression is one of glory”? Are
+not our people able to bear the truth, that war is utterly hellish,
+that we do _not_ enjoy it, that we hate it, hate it, hate it all? And
+then it struck me how ignorant people still were; how uncertainly they
+spoke, these people at home: it was as though they dared not think
+things out, lest what they held most dear should be an image shattered
+by another point of view.
+
+Somehow people were amazed at the cheerfulness, the doggedness, the
+endurance under pain, the indifference to death, shown every minute
+during this war. I thought of the men whom I had seen in hospital. One
+man had had his right foot amputated; it used to give me agony to see
+his stump dressed every day. Another man had both legs amputated above
+the knees. Yet they were so wonderfully cheerful, so apparently content
+with life! As though alone in the blackness of night they did not long
+for the activity denied them for the rest of their life. As though
+their cheerfulness--(do not think I belittle its heroism)--_as though
+their cheerfulness justified the thing_!
+
+Another thing I had noticed. An old man told me he was so struck with
+the heroism, the courage, the indifference to death, shown by the
+ordinary unromantic man. Some men had been converted, too, their whole
+lives changed, their vices eradicated, by this war. So much good was
+coming from it. People, too, at home were so changed, so sobered; they
+were looking into the selfishness of their lives at last. Again I
+thought, _as though all that justified the thing_!
+
+Oh! you men and women who did not know before the capabilities of human
+nature, I thought, please take note of it now; and after the war do not
+underestimate the quality of mankind. Did it need a war to tell you
+that a man can be heroic, resolute, courageous, cheerful, and capable
+of sacrifice? There were those who could have told you that before this
+war.
+
+There was a lull in the vibration. I turned in my chair, and listened.
+Then it began again.
+
+“People are afraid to think it out,” I said. “I have not seen the
+Somme fighting, but I know what war is. Its quality is not altered by
+multiplication or intensity. The colour of life-blood is a constant
+red. Let us look into this business; let us face all the facts. Let us
+not flinch from any aspect of the truth.”
+
+And my thoughts ran somewhat as follows:
+
+First of all, War is evil--utterly evil. Let us be sure of that first.
+It is an evil instrument, even if it be used for motives that are good.
+I, who have been through war and know it, say that it is evil. I knew
+it before the war; instinct, reason, religion told me that war was
+evil; now experience has told me also.
+
+It is a strange synthesis, this war: it is a synthesis of adventure,
+dulness, good spirits, and tragedy; but none of these things are new to
+human experience; nor is human nature altered by war. It is at war as
+a whole that we must look in order to appreciate its quality. And what
+is war seen as a whole, or rather seen in the light of my eight months’
+experience? For no one man can truly appraise war.
+
+I have seen and felt the adventure of war, its deadly fascination and
+excitement: it is the greatest game on earth: that is its terrible
+power: there is such a wild temptation to paint up its interest and
+glamour: it gives such scope to daring, to physical courage, to high
+spirits: it makes so many prove themselves heroic, that were it not
+for the fall of the arrow men would call the drawing of the bow good.
+I have seen the dulness, the endless monotony, the dogged labour, the
+sheer power of will conquering the body and “carrying on”: there is
+good in that, too. In the jollity, the humour, the good-fellowship, is
+nothing but good also. There is good in all these things; for these are
+qualities of human nature triumphing in spite of war. These things are
+not war; they are the good in man prostituted to a vile thing.
+
+For I have seen the real face of war: I have seen men killed,
+mutilated, blown to little pieces; I have seen men crippled for life;
+I have looked in the face of madness, and I know that many have gone
+mad under its grip. I have seen fine natures break and crumble under
+the strain. I have seen men grow brutalised, and coarsened in this
+war. (God will judge justly in the end; meanwhile, there are thousands
+among us--yes, and among our enemy too--brutalised through no fault of
+theirs.) I have lost friends killed (and shall lose more yet), friends
+with whom I have lived and suffered so long.
+
+Who is for war now? Its adventure, its heroism? Bah! Yet this is not
+all.
+
+For war spares none. It desecrates the beauty of the earth; it ruins,
+it destroys, it wastes; it starves children; it drives out old men,
+and women, homeless. And most terrible of all, it brings agony to
+every household: it is like a plague of the firstborn. Do not think I
+have forgotten you, O women, and old men. You, too, have to endure the
+agony of the arena; you are compelled to sit and watch us fight the
+beasts. Every mother is there in agony, watching her baby, and unable
+to stretch a finger to help. This, too, is war--the anguish of mothers
+whose sons perish, of wives who lose their husbands, of girls robbed
+for all time of marriage and motherhood.
+
+And this vile thing is still perpetrated upon the earth among peoples
+who have long ago declared human sacrifice impossible and barbaric.
+
+This then is a basal fact. We have faced it fairly. The instrument is
+vile. What then of the motive? What is the motive which drives us to
+use this evil instrument? And I see you fathers and mothers waiting to
+hear what I shall say. For there are people who whisper that we who are
+fighting are vindictive, that we lust for the blood of our enemies,
+that we are coarse and brutal, that we are unholy champions of what we
+call a just cause. Again let us face the facts. And to these whisperers
+I answer boldly: “Yes! we are coarse, some of us; we are vindictive;
+we hate; we do not deny it.” For war in its vileness taints its human
+instruments too. When Davidson died I cried death upon his murderers.
+I called them devils, and worse. I am not ashamed.
+
+That is not the point. What I or Tommy may be at a given moment is
+not the point. The question is, with what motives did we enter this
+war, agree to take up this vile instrument? We cannot help if it soils
+our hands. What is our motive in fighting in the arena? What provokes
+the dumb heroism of our soldiers? Why did men flock to the colours,
+volunteer in millions for the arena? You know. I who have lived with
+them eight months in France, I also know. It was because a people took
+up this vile instrument and used it from desire of power. Because they
+trampled on justice, and challenged us to thwart them. Because they
+willed war for the sake of wrong; because they said that force was
+master of the world, and they set out to prove it.
+
+Yet, it is sometimes said, war is unchristian. If men were Christian
+there would be no war. You cannot conquer evil by evil. I agree, if men
+were Christian there would be no war. I agree that you cannot conquer
+evil by evil; but it is war that is evil, not our motive in going to
+war. We are conquering an evil spirit by a good spirit, even if we are
+using an evil instrument. And if you say that Christ would not fight, I
+say that none of us would fight if the world had attained the Christian
+plane towards which we are slowly rising: but we are still on a lower
+plane, and in it there is a big war raging; and in the arena there are
+many who have felt Christ by their side.
+
+That, then, is the second point. I knew that war was vile, before I
+went into it. I have seen it: I do not alter my opinion. I went into
+this war prepared to sacrifice my life to prove that right is stronger
+than wrong; I have stood again and again with a traverse between me
+and death; I have faced the possibility of madness. I foresaw all this
+before I went into this war. What difference does it make that I have
+experienced it? It makes no difference. Let no one fear that our
+sacrifice has been in vain. We have already won what we are fighting
+for. The will for war, that aggressive power, with all the cards on its
+side prepared, striking at its own moment, has already failed against
+a spirit, weaker, unprepared, taken unawares. And so I am clear on my
+second point. We are fighting from just motives, and we have already
+baulked injustice. Aggressive force, the power that took up the cruel
+weapon of war, has failed. No one can ever say that his countrymen have
+laid down their lives in vain.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I got up from the chair, and started walking about the garden.
+Everything was so clear. Before going out to the war I had thought
+these things; but the thoughts were fluid, they ran about in mazy
+patterns, they were elusive, and always I was frightened of meeting
+unanswerable contradictions to my theorising from men who had actually
+seen war. Now my conclusions seemed crystallised by irrefutable
+experience into solid truth.
+
+After a while I sat down again and resumed my train of thought:
+
+War is evil. Justice is stronger than Force. Yet, was there need of all
+this bloodshed to prove this? For this war is not as past wars; this
+is every man’s war, a war of civilians, a war of men who hate war, of
+men who fight for a cause, who are compelled to kill and hate it. That
+is another thing that people will not face. Men whisper that Tommy
+does not hate Fritz. Again I say, away with this whispering. Let us
+speak it out plain and bold. Private Davies, my orderly, formerly a
+shepherd of Blaenau Festiniog, has no quarrel with one Fritz Schneider
+of Hamburg who is sitting in the trench opposite the Matterhorn sap;
+yet he will bayonet him certainly if he comes over the top, or if we
+go over into the German trenches; ay, he will perform this action with
+a certain amount of brutality too, for I have watched him jabbing at
+rats with a bayonet through the wires of a rat trap, and I know that he
+has in him a savage vein of cruelty. But when peace is declared, he and
+Fritz will light a bonfire of trench stores in No Man’s Land, and there
+will be the end of their quarrel. I say boldly, I know. For indeed I
+know Davies very well indeed.
+
+Again I say, was there need of all this bloodshed? Who is responsible?
+Who is responsible for Lance-Corporal Allan lying in the trench in
+Maple Redoubt? Again I see yon glittering eyes looking down upon me in
+the arena. And Davies, too, in his slow simple way, is beginning to
+take you in, and to ask you why he is put there to fight? Is it for
+your pleasure? Is it for your expediency? Is it a necessary part of
+your great game? Necessary? Necessary for whom? Davies and Fritz alike
+are awaiting your answer.
+
+It is hard to trace ultimate causes. It is hard to fix absolute
+responsibility. There were many seeds sown, scattered, and secretly
+fostered before they produced this harvest of blood. The seeds of
+cruelty, selfishness, ambition, avarice, and indifference, are always
+liable to swell, grow, and bud, and blossom suddenly into the red
+flower of war. Let every man look into his heart, and if the seeds are
+there let him make quick to root them out while there is time; unless
+he wishes to join those glittering eyes that look down upon the arena.
+
+These are the seeds of war. And it is because they know that we, too,
+are not free from them, that certain men have stood out from the arena
+as a protest against war. These men are real heroes, who for their
+conscience’s sake are enduring taunts, ignominy, misunderstanding, and
+worse. Most men and women in the arena are cursing them, and, as they
+struggle in agony and anguish, they beat their hands at them and cry
+“You do not care.” I, too, have cursed them, when I was mad with pain.
+But I know them, and I know that they are true men. I would not have
+one less. They are witnesses against war. And I, too, am fighting war.
+Men do not understand them now, but one day they will.
+
+I know that there are among us, too, the seeds of war: no cause has yet
+been perfect. But I look at the facts. We did not start, we did not
+want this war. We have gone into it, fighting for the better cause.
+Whether, had we been more Christian, we might have prevented the war,
+is not the point. We did not want this war: we are fighting against
+it. It was the seeds of war in Germany that were responsible. And so
+history will judge.
+
+But what of the future? How are we to save future generations from
+going down into the arena? We will rearrange the map of Europe: we
+will secure the independence of small states: we will give the power
+to the people: there shall be an end of tyrannies. So men speak easily
+of an international spirit, of a world conference for peace. There is
+so great a will-power against war, they say, that we will secure the
+world for the future. Millions of men know the vileness of war; they
+will devise ways and means to prevent its recurrence. I agree. Let us
+try all ways. Yet I see no guarantee in all this against the glittering
+eyes: I see no power in all this knowledge against a new generation
+fostering and harvesting the seeds of war. Men have long known that
+war is evil. Did that knowledge prevent this war? Will that knowledge
+secure India or China from the power of the glittering eyes?
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I walked up and down the lawn, my eyes glowing, my brain working
+hard. Here around me was all the beauty of an old garden, its long
+borders full of phloxes, delphiniums, stocks, and all the old familiar
+flowers; the apples glowed red in the trees; the swallows were skimming
+across the lawn. In the distance I could hear the rumble of the waggon
+bringing up the afternoon load of hop-pokes to the oasthouse. Yet what
+I had seen of war was as true, had as really happened, as all this. It
+would be so easy to forget, after the war. And yet to forget might mean
+a seed of war. I must never forget Lance-Corporal Allan.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+There is only one sure way, I said at last. And again a clear
+conviction filled me. There is only one way to put an end to the arena.
+Pledges and treaties have failed; and force will fail. These things
+may bring peace for a time, but they cannot crush those glittering
+eyes. There is only one Man whose eyes have never glittered. Look
+at the palms of your hands, you, who have had a bullet through the
+middle of it! Did they not give you morphia to ease the pain? And did
+you not often cry out alone in the darkness in the terrible agony,
+that you did not care who won the war if only the pain would cease?
+Yet one Man there was who held out His hand upon the wood, while
+they knocked, knocked, knocked in the nail, every knock bringing a
+jarring, excruciating pain, every bit as bad as yours. And any moment
+His will-power could have weakened, and He could have saved Himself
+that awful pain. And then they nailed through the other hand: and then
+the feet. And as they lifted the Cross, all the weight came upon the
+pierced hands. And when He had tasted the vinegar He would not drink.
+And any moment He could have come down from the Cross: yet He so cared
+that love should win the war against evil, that He never wavered, His
+eyes never glittered. Do you want to put an end to the arena? Here is
+a Man to follow. _In hoc signo vinces._
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I stood up again, and stretched out my hands. And as I did so a memory
+came back vivid and strong. I remembered the night when I stood out on
+the hillside by Trafalgar Square, under the moon. And I remembered how
+I had felt a strength out of the pain, and even as the strength came a
+more unutterable weakness, the weakness of a man battering against a
+wall of steel. The sound of the relentless guns had mocked at me. Now
+as I stood on the lawn, I heard the long continuous vibration of the
+guns upon the Somme.
+
+“You are War,” I said aloud. “This is your hour, the power of darkness.
+But the time will come when we shall follow the Man who has conquered
+your last weapon, death: and then your walls of steel will waver,
+cringe, and fall, melted away before the fire of LOVE.”
+
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND
+
+
+[Transcriber’s Note:
+
+Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Nothing of Importance, by John Bernard Pye Adams
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+ Nothing of Importance: a record of eight months at the front with a Welsh battalion, October, 1915, to June, 1916, by John Bernard Pye Adams.--a Project Gutenberg eBook
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Nothing of Importance, by John Bernard Pye Adams
+
+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/license
+
+
+Title: Nothing of Importance
+ A record of eight months at the front with a Welsh
+ battalion, October, 1915, to June, 1916
+
+Author: John Bernard Pye Adams
+
+Release Date: August 4, 2017 [EBook #55261]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by MWS, Wayne Hammond and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img id="cover" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">i</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii">ii</span></p>
+
+<h1>NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE</h1>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img id="i_frontis" src="images/i_frontis.jpg" alt="" />
+<p class="caption">J B P Adams</p>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">iii</span></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 class="xx-large">
+NOTHING<br />
+OF IMPORTANCE<br />
+<br />
+<span class="large table">A RECORD OF EIGHT MONTHS AT THE<br />
+FRONT WITH A WELSH BATTALION<br />
+OCTOBER, 1915, TO JUNE, 1916</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="medium">BY</span><br />
+<span class="x-large">BERNARD ADAMS</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="small">WITH A PORTRAIT AND THREE MAPS</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="large table">METHUEN & CO. LTD.<br />
+36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br />
+LONDON</span>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">iv</span></h2>
+
+<p class="copy"><i>First Published in 1917</i>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">v</span></p>
+
+<p class="caption">
+TO<br />
+<span class="large">T. R. G.</span><br />
+WHO TAUGHT ME HOW TO THINK<br />
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">vi</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">vii</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="IN_MEMORIAM"><span class="smcap"><i>IN MEMORIAM</i></span><br />
+
+BERNARD ADAMS</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">John Bernard Pye Adams</span> was born on
+November 15th, 1890, at Beckenham, Kent.
+From his first school at Clare House, Beckenham,
+he obtained an entrance scholarship to
+Malvern, where he gained many Classical and
+English prizes and became House Prefect. In
+December, 1908, he won an open Classical scholarship
+at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he
+went into residence in October, 1909. He was
+awarded in 1911 Sir William Browne’s gold medals
+(open to the University) for a Greek epigram and
+a Latin ode, and in 1912 he won the medal for the
+Greek epigram again, and graduated with a First
+Class in the Classical Tripos. In his fourth year he
+read Economics.</p>
+
+<p>On leaving Cambridge he was appointed by the
+India Office to be Warden and Assistant Educational
+Adviser at the Hostel for Indian Students at
+Cromwell Road, South Kensington. “He threw
+himself,” writes Dr. T. W. Arnold, <small>C.I.E.</small>, Secretary
+of Indian Students, “with the enthusiasm of his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">viii</span>
+ardent nature into the various activities connected
+with 21 Cromwell Road, and endeared himself both
+to the Indian students and to his colleagues.”
+Adams was always a quiet man, but his high
+abilities, despite his unobtrusiveness, could not be
+altogether hidden; and in London, as in Cambridge,
+his intellect and his gift for friendship had their
+natural outcome. Mr. E. W. Mallet, of the India
+Office, bears testimony to “the very high value
+which we all set on his work. He had great gifts
+of sympathy and character, strength as well as
+kindliness, influence as well as understanding;
+and these qualities won him—in the rather difficult
+work in which he helped so loyally and well—a
+rare and noticeable measure of esteem.” On
+his side, he felt that the choice had been a right
+one; he liked his work, and he learned a great deal
+from it.</p>
+
+<p>His ultimate purpose was missionary work in
+India, and the London experience brought him
+into close touch with Indians from every part of
+India and of every religion.</p>
+
+<p>In November, 1914, he joined up as lieutenant
+in the Welsh regiment with which these pages
+deal, and he obtained a temporary captaincy in the
+following spring. When he went out to the front
+in October, 1915, he resumed his lieutenancy, but
+was very shortly given charge of a company, a
+position which he retained until he was wounded
+in June, 1916, when he returned to England. He
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">ix</span>
+only went out to the front again on January 31st
+of this year. In the afternoon of February 26th he
+was wounded while leading his men in an attack
+and died the following day in the field hospital.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>These few sentences record the bare landmarks
+of a career which, in the judgment of his friends,
+would have been noteworthy had it not been so
+prematurely cut short. For instance, here is what
+his friend, T. R. Glover, of St John’s, wrote in
+<i>The Eagle</i> (the St John’s College magazine) and
+elsewhere:</p>
+
+<p>“Bernard Adams was my pupil during his
+Classical days at St John’s, and we were brought
+into very close relations. He remains in my mind
+as one of the very best men I have ever had to teach—best
+every way, in mind and soul and all his
+nature. He had a natural gift for writing—a
+natural habit of style; he wrote without artifice,
+and achieved the expression of what he thought
+and what he felt in language that was simple and
+direct and pleasing. (A College Prize Essay of his
+of those days was printed in <i>The Eagle</i> (vol. xxvii,
+47-60)—on Wordsworth’s <i>Prelude</i>.) He was a
+man of the quiet and reserved kind, who did not
+talk much, for whom, perhaps, writing was a more
+obvious form of utterance than speech.</p>
+
+<p>It was clear to those who knew him that he
+put conscience into his thinking—he was serious,
+above all about religion, and he was honest with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">x</span>
+himself. Other people will take religion at secondhand;
+he was of another type. He thought things
+out quietly and clearly, and then decided. His
+choice of Economics as a second subject at Cambridge
+was dictated by the feeling that it would
+prepare him for his life’s work in the Christian
+ministry. There was little hope in it of much
+academic distinction—but that was not his object.
+A man who had thought more of himself would have
+gone on with Classics, in the hope (a very reasonable
+one) of a Fellowship. Adams was not working
+for his own advancement. The quiet simple way
+in which, without referring to it, he dismissed
+academic distinction, gives the measure of the
+man—clear, definite, unselfish, and devoted. His
+ideal was service, and he prepared for it—at Cambridge,
+and with his Indian students in London.</p>
+
+<p>When the war came he had difficulties of decision
+as to the course he should pursue. Like others
+who had no gust for war, and no animosity against
+the enemy, he took a commission, not so much to
+fight <i>against</i> as to fight <i>for</i>; the principles at stake
+appealed to him, and with an inner reluctance
+against the whole business he went into it—once
+again the quiet, thought-out sacrifice.”</p>
+
+<p>In this phase of his career his characteristic conscientiousness
+was shown by the thoroughness and
+success with which he performed his military duties
+“He is a real loss to the regiment,” wrote a senior
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">xi</span>
+officer; “everybody who knew him had a very high
+opinion of his military efficiency.”</p>
+
+<p>As is so often the case, a quiet and reserved
+manner hid a brave heart. When it came to personal
+danger he impressed men as being unconscious
+of it. “I never met a man who displayed
+coolly more utter disregard for danger.” And in
+this spirit he led his men against the enemy—and
+fell. From the last message that he gave the nurse
+for his people, “Tell them I’m all right,” it is clear
+that he died with as quiet a mind and as surrendered
+a will as he lived.</p>
+
+<p>“What we have lost who knew him,” writes Mr.
+Glover, “these lines may hint—I do not think we
+really know the extent of our loss. But we keep
+a great deal, a very great deal—<i>quidquid ex illo
+amavimus, quidquid mirati sumus, manet mansurumque
+est</i>. Yes, that is true; and from the first
+my sorrow (it may seem an odd confession) was for
+those who were not to know him, whose chance was
+lost, for the work he was not to do. For himself, if
+ever a man lived his life, it was he; twenty-five or
+twenty-six years is not much, perhaps, as a rule,
+but here it was life and it was lived to some purpose;
+it told and it is not lost.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">xii</span>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">xiii</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table class="toc3col">
+ <tr>
+ <td><small>CHAPTER</small></td>
+ <td />
+ <td class="tdr small">PAGE</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td />
+ <td><a href="#PREFACE"><span class="smcap">Preface</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">xv</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>I.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><span class="smcap">First Impressions</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">1</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>II.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><span class="smcap">Cuinchy and Givenchy</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">19</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>III.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><span class="smcap">Working-Parties</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">42</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>IV.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><span class="smcap">Rest</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">64</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>V.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><span class="smcap">On the March</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">87</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>VI.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><span class="smcap">The Bois Français Trenches</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">96</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>VII.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><span class="smcap">More First Impressions</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">117</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>VIII.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><span class="smcap">Sniping</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">133</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>IX.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><span class="smcap">On Patrol</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">154</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>X.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">“<span class="smcap">Whom the gods love</span>”</a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">163</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>XI.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">“<span class="smcap">Whom the gods love</span>”—(<i>continued</i>).</a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">181</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>XII.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><span class="smcap">Officers’ Servants</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">195</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>XIII.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><span class="smcap">Mines</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">212</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>XIV.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><span class="smcap">Billets</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">229</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>XV.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">“<span class="smcap">A certain Man drew a Bow at a Venture</span>”</a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">256</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>XVI.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><span class="smcap">Wounded</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">268</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>XVII.</td>
+ <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><span class="smcap">Conclusion</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">294</td>
+ </tr></table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">xiv</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="MAPS">MAPS</h2>
+
+<table class="toc3col">
+ <tr>
+ <td />
+ <td />
+ <td class="tdr small">FACING PAGE</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>I.</td>
+ <td><a href="#i_009"><span class="smcap">Béthune and La Bassée, Neighbourhood of</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">9</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>II.</td>
+ <td><a href="#i_097"><span class="smcap">Fricourt and Neighbourhood</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">97</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>III.</td>
+ <td><a href="#i_103a"><span class="smcap">The Trenches near Fricourt</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">103</td>
+ </tr></table>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="ILLUSTRATION">ILLUSTRATION</h2>
+
+<table>
+ <tr>
+ <td><a href="#i_frontis"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Author</span></a></td>
+ <td class="tdr">Frontispiece</td>
+ </tr></table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">xv</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="PREFACE">PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">“Then</span>,” said my friend, “what <i>is</i> this war
+like? I ask you if it is this, or that; and
+you shake your head. But you will not
+satisfy me with negatives. I want to know the
+truth; what <i>is</i> it like?”</p>
+
+<p>There was a long silence.</p>
+
+<p>“Express that silence; that is what we want to
+hear.”</p>
+
+<p>“The mask of glory,” I said, “has been stripped
+from the face of war.”</p>
+
+<p>“And we are fighting the better for that,” continued
+my friend.</p>
+
+<p>“You see that?” I exclaimed. “But of course
+you do. We know it, and you at home know it.
+And you want to know the truth?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course,” was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not say that what you have read is not
+true,” said I; “but I do say that I have read
+nothing that gives a complete or proportioned
+picture. I have not yet found a perfect simile for
+this war, but the nearest I can think of is that of a
+pack of cards. Life in this war is a series of events so
+utterly different and disconnected, that the effect
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvi">xvi</span>
+upon the actor in the midst of them is like receiving
+a hand of cards from an invisible dealer. There are
+four suits in the pack. Spades represent the dullness,
+mud, weariness, and sordidness. Clubs stand
+for another side, the humour, the cheerfulness, the
+jollity, and good-fellowship. In diamonds I see the
+glitter of excitement and adventure. Hearts are
+a tragic suit of agony, horror, and death. And to
+each man the invisible dealer gives a succession of
+cards; sometimes they seem all black; sometimes
+they are red and black alternately; and at times
+they come red, red, red; and at the end is the ace
+of hearts.”</p>
+
+<p>“I understand,” said my friend. “And now tell
+me your hand.”</p>
+
+<p>“It was a long hand,” I replied; “I think I had
+better try and write it down in a book. I have never
+written a book. I wonder how it would pan out?
+At first my hand was chiefly black with a sprinkling
+of diamonds; later I received more diamonds, but
+the hearts began to come as well; at last the
+hearts seemed to be squeezing out the clubs and
+diamonds. There were always plenty of spades.”</p>
+
+<p>There was another silence.</p>
+
+<p>“There was one phrase,” I resumed, “in the
+daily communiqués that used to strike us rather
+out there;” it was, “Nothing of importance to
+record on the rest of the front.” I believe that a
+hundred years hence this phrase will be repeated in
+the history books. There will be a passage like
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvii">xvii</span>
+this: “Save for the gigantic effort of Germany
+to break through the French lines at Verdun,
+nothing of importance occurred on the western
+front between September, 1915, and the opening
+of the Somme offensive on the 1st of July, 1916.”
+And this will be believed, unless men have learnt
+to read history aright by then. For the river of
+history is full of waterfalls that attract the day
+excursionist—such as battles, and laws, and the
+deaths of kings; whereas the spirit of the river is
+not in the waterfalls. There are men who were
+wounded in the Somme battle, who had only seen
+a few weeks of war. I have yet to see a waterfall;
+but I have learned something of the spirit of the
+deep river in eight months of “nothing of importance.”</p>
+
+<p>This, then, is the book that I have written. It
+is the spirit of the war as it came to me, first in big
+incoherent impressions, later as a more intelligible
+whole. Perhaps it will seem that the first chapters
+are somewhat light in tone and inclined to gloss
+over the terrible side of War. But that is just
+what happens; at first, the interest and adventure
+are paramount, and it is only after a time, only after
+all the novelty has worn away, that one gets the
+real proportion. If the first chapters do not bite
+deep, remember that this was my experience.
+This book does not claim to be always sensational
+or thrilling. One claim only I make for it: from
+end to end it is the truth.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xviii">xviii</span></p>
+
+<p>The events recorded are real and true in every
+detail. I have nowhere exaggerated; for in this
+war there is nothing more terrible than the truth.</p>
+
+<p>All the persons mentioned are also real, though
+I have thought it better to give them pseudonyms.</p>
+
+<p><i>January, 1917.</i>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xix">xix</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xx">xx</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">1</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 class="xx-large">NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE</h2>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_I"><span class="xx-large">NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE</span><br />
+
+<img src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /><br />
+
+CHAPTER I<br />
+
+FIRST IMPRESSIONS</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">“Good-bye!”</span></p>
+
+<p>“Good-bye. Don’t forget to send me
+that Hun helmet!”</p>
+
+<p>“All right! Good-bye!”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The train had long ago recovered from the shock
+of its initial jerk; a long steady grinding noise came
+up from the carriage wheels, as though they had
+recovered breath and were getting into their stride
+for Folkestone, regardless of the growing clatter of
+the South-Eastern rhythm;—if, indeed, so noble a
+word may be used for the noise made by the wheels
+as they passed over the rail-joints of this distinguished
+line.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t believe it’s a good thing having one’s
+people to see you off,” said Terry, whose people had
+accompanied him in large numbers to Charing Cross.</p>
+
+<p>“They <i>will</i> come, though,” remarked Crowley
+very wisely.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">2</span></p>
+
+<p>“I tried to persuade my people not to come,” said
+I; “but they think you like it, I suppose. I would
+certainly rather say good-bye at home, and have no
+one come to the station.”</p>
+
+<p>And so I started off my experience of “the great
+adventure” with a “lie direct”: but it does not
+weigh very heavily upon my conscience.</p>
+
+<p>Six of us sat in a first-class carriage on the morning
+of the 5th of October, 1915: for months we
+had been together in a reserve battalion waiting to
+go out to the front, and now at last we had received
+marching orders, and were bound for Folkestone,
+and thence for France. For which battalion of our
+regiment any or all of us twelve officers were
+destined, we had no knowledge whatever; but even
+the most uncongenial pair of us would, I am sure,
+have preferred each other’s company to that of
+complete strangers. I, at any rate, have never in
+my life felt more shy and self-conscious and full of
+stupid qualms: unless, indeed, it was on the occasion,
+ten months before, when I had stood shaking
+in front of a platoon of twenty men!</p>
+
+<p>The last few days I had gone about feeling as
+though the news that I was going to the front were
+printed in large letters round my cap. I felt that
+people in the railway carriages, and in the streets,
+were looking at me with an electric interest; and
+the necessary (and unnecessary!) purchases, as well
+as the good-byes, were of the kind to make one feel
+placed upon a pedestal of importance! Now, in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span>
+company with five other officers in like predicament,
+I felt already that I had climbed down a step from
+that pedestal; in fact, the whole experience of the
+first few days was one of a steady reduction from
+all-importance to complete insignificance!</p>
+
+<p>As soon as we had recovered from the silence that
+followed my remarks upon the disadvantages of
+prolonged valedictions, we commenced a critical
+survey of our various properties and accoutrements.
+Revolvers leapt from brand new holsters; feet were
+held up to show the ideal trench-nails; flash lamps
+and torches, compasses, map-cases, pocket medicine-cases,
+all were shown with an easy confidence of
+manner that screened a sinking dread of disapprobation.
+The prismatic compass was regarded rather
+as a joke by some of us; its use in trench warfare
+was a doubtful quantity; yet there were some of us
+who in the depths of our martial wisdom were half
+expecting that the Battle of Loos was the prelude
+of an autumn campaign of open-country warfare.
+There was only one man whose word we took for
+law in anything, and that was Barrett. He had
+spent five days in the trenches last December; he
+had then received his commission in our battalion.
+He was the “man from the front.” And I noticed
+with secret misgivings that he had not removed the
+badges of rank from his arm, or sewed his two stars
+upon his shoulder-straps; he had not removed his
+bright buttons, and substituted for them leather
+ones such as are worn on golfing-jackets; and in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</span>
+his valise, he told us, he had his Sam Browne
+belt.</p>
+
+<p>“But you never wear Sam Brownes out there,”
+I said: “all officers now dress as much as possible
+like the men.”</p>
+
+<p>That was so, we were informed; but officers used
+to wear them in billets, when they were out of the
+firing-line.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said Crowley, “we could get them sent
+out, I expect.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said I; “I expect they would arrive
+safely.”</p>
+
+<p>But this infantile conversation is not worthy of
+record! Suffice to say we knew nothing about war,
+and were just beginning to learn that fact!</p>
+
+<p>The first check to our enthusiasm was at Folkestone.
+We reported to the railway transport officer,
+whom we then regarded as a little demi-god; he
+told us to report in time for the boat at a certain
+hour. This we did, signed our names with a feeling
+of doing some awful and irrevocable deed, and then
+were told to wait another three hours: there was
+no room for us on this boat! We retired to an hotel
+with a feeling that perhaps after all there was no
+such imperious shouting for our help over in France,
+such as we had all, I think (save only Barrett, who
+was cynical and pessimistic!) secretly imagined.</p>
+
+<p>Darkness came ere we started. The crossing did
+not seem long, and I stood up on deck with Barrett
+most of the time. Two destroyers followed a little
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span>
+astern, one on either side; and there were lights
+right across the Channel. We were picked out by
+searchlights more than once, although all lights were
+forbidden on board. I felt that I was now fair game
+for the Germans; and it was exciting to think that
+they would give anything to sink me! At last I was
+in for “the great adventure.”</p>
+
+<p>At Boulogne we had to wait a long time on a
+dismal quay and in a drizzling rain to interview an
+irritated and sleepy railway transport officer.
+After a long, long queue had been safely negociated
+we were given tickets to ——; and then again we
+had to wait quite an hour on the platform. Some of
+our party were excited at their first visit to a foreign
+soil; but their enthusiasm abated when at the
+buffet they were charged exorbitant prices and
+their English money was rejected as “dam fool
+money.”</p>
+
+<p>Then there came a long jerky journey through
+the night in a crowded carriage. (As I am out for
+confessions, I will here state that I did not think
+this could be an ordinary passenger train, and I
+wondered vaguely who these men and women were
+who got in and out of other carriages!) At Étaples
+there was a still longer wait, and a still longer queue;
+but, fortunately, my signature had not lengthened.
+I remember sitting tired and dazed on the top of a
+valise, and asking Barrett what the time was.</p>
+
+<p>“Three forty-five!”</p>
+
+<p>“What a time to arrive!” I replied. But in war
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">6</span>
+three forty-five is as good a time as any other, I
+was soon to discover.</p>
+
+<p>We walked to a camp a mile distant from the
+station; our arrival seemed quite unlooked for, and
+a quartermaster-sergeant had to be procured, by
+the officer who was our guide, in order to gain access
+to the tent that contained the blanket stores.
+Wearily, at close on five o’clock, we fell asleep on
+the boarded bottom of a bell-tent.</p>
+
+<p>It must have been about 10 a.m. on the 6th when
+we turned out and found ourselves in a sandy
+country; behind us was a small ridge, crowned by
+a belt of fir trees; the sun was well up and shone
+warm on the face as we washed and shaved in the
+open. The feeling of camp was exhilarating, and I
+was in good spirits.</p>
+
+<p>But two blows immediately damped my ardour
+most effectively. When I learned that I was posted
+to our first battalion, and I alone of all of us twelve,
+the thought of my arrival among the regulars, with
+no experience, and not even an acquaintance, far
+less a friend, was distinctly chilling! To add to my
+discomfiture there befell a second misfortune: my
+valise was nowhere to be seen!</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the rest of the day was chiefly occupied
+in searching for my valise, but to no purpose whatever.
+I did not see it until ten days later, when by
+some miracle it appeared again! I can hardly
+convey the sense of depression these two facts cast
+over me the next few days; the interest and novelty
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span>
+of my experiences made me forget for short periods,
+but always there would return the thought of my
+arrival alone into a line regiment, and with the
+humiliating necessity of borrowing at once. Unknown
+and inexperienced I could not help being;
+but as a fool who lost all his property the first day,
+I should not cut a brilliant figure!</p>
+
+<p>We obtained breakfast at an <i>estaminet</i> by the
+station; omelettes, rolls and butter, and <i>café noir</i>.
+I bought a French newspaper, and thought how
+finely my French would improve under this daily
+necessity; but I soon found that one could get the
+Paris edition of the <i>Daily Mail</i>, and my French is
+still as sketchy as ever! I remember watching the
+French children and the French women at the doors
+of the houses, and wondering what they thought of
+this war on their own soil; I knew that the wild
+enthusiasms of a year ago had died down; I did not
+expect the shouting and singing, the souvenir-hunting,
+and the generous impulses that greeted our
+troops a year ago; but I felt so vividly myself the
+fact that between me and the Germans lay only a
+living wall of my own countrymen, that I could not
+help thinking these urchins and women must feel it
+too! The very way in which they swept the doorsteps
+seemed to me worth noting at the moment.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of my wild peregrinations over the
+camp in search of my valise, I came upon a group of
+Tommies undergoing instruction in the machine-gun.
+Arrested by a familiar voice, I recognised as instructor
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span>
+a man I had known very well at Cambridge!
+He recognised me at the same moment, and in a few
+seconds we parted, after an invitation from him to
+dinner that evening; he was on “lines of communication”
+work, he told me.</p>
+
+<p>Sitting in his tent after Mess, I was amazed at the
+apparent permanence of his abode; shelves, made
+out of boxes; novels, an army list, magazines, maps;
+bed, washstand, candlesticks, a chair; baccy, and
+whisky and soda! It was all so snug and comfortable.
+I was soon to find myself accumulating a very
+similar collection in billets six miles behind the firing-line,
+and taking most of it into the trenches! I
+remember being impressed by the statement that
+the cannonade had been heard day after day since
+the 25th, and still more impressed by references to
+“the plans of the Staff!”</p>
+
+<p>I left Étaples early on the morning of the 7th,
+after receiving instructions, and a railway warrant
+for “Chocques,” from a one-armed major of the
+Gordons. Of our original twelve only Terry and
+Crowley remained with me; with a young Scot,
+we had a grey-upholstered first-class carriage to
+ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>In the train I commenced my first letter home;
+and I should here like to state that the reason for
+the inclusion in these first chapters of a good many
+extracts from letters is that they do really represent
+my first vague, rather disconnected, impressions,
+and are therefore truer than any more coherent
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span>
+account I might now give. First impressions of
+people, houses, places, are always interesting; I
+hope that the reader will not find these without
+interest, even though he may find them at times
+lacking in style.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p class="author small"><i>To face page 9</i></p>
+<img id="i_009" src="images/i_009.jpg" alt="" />
+<p class="caption">MAP I.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>“I am now in the train. We are passing level-crossings
+guarded by horn-blowing women; the
+train is strolling leisurely along over grass-grown
+tracks, and stopping at platformless stations. It is
+very hot. At midday I shall be about ten miles from
+the firing-line, and I expect the cannonade will be
+pretty audible. I feel strangely indifferent to things
+now, though I have the feeling that all this will be
+stamped indelibly on my memory.” How well I
+remember the thrill of excitement when I found the
+name Chocques on my map, quite close to the
+firing-fine! And as we got nearer, and saw R.A.M.C.
+and cavalry camps, and talked to Tommies guarding
+the line, saw aeroplanes, and yes! a captive balloon,
+excitement grew still greater! At last we reached
+Chocques, and the railway transport officer calmly
+informed us that we had another four miles to go.
+He brilliantly suggested walking. But an A.S.C.
+lorry was there, and in we climbed, only to be ejected
+by the corporal! Eventually we tramped to Béthune
+with <i>very</i> full packs in a hot sun.</p>
+
+<p>Walking gave us opportunity for observation;
+and that road was worth seeing to those who had
+not seen it before. There were convoys of A.S.C.
+lorries, drawn up (or “parked”) in twenties or
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span>
+thirties alongside the road, each with its mystical
+marking, a scarlet shell, a green shamrock, etc.,
+painted on its side; Red Cross ambulances passed,
+impelling one to turn back and look in them, sometimes
+containing stretcher-cases (feet only visible),
+or sitting cases with bandaged head or arm in sling.
+Then there were motor-cars with Staff officers;
+motor-cars with youthful officers in immaculate
+Sam Brownes and “slacks”; and as we drew
+nearer Béthune, we saw canteens with Tommies
+standing and lounging outside, small squads of men,
+English notices, and boards with painted inscriptions,
+
+<span class="table">
+ <span class="trow">
+ <span class="tcell">such as</span>
+ <span class="tcell tdc bbox">BILLETS.<br />
+ Officers—2<br />
+ Men—30</span>
+ <span class="tcell">or</span>
+ <span class="tcell tdc bbox">
+ H.Q.<br />
+ 117th Inf. Bde.</span>
+ </span>
+</span>
+
+and in the distance loomed the square tower of the
+cathedral, which I thought then to be a decapitated
+spire.</p>
+
+<p>And so we came into the bustle of a French city.</p>
+
+<p>I had never heard of Béthune before. As the
+crow flies it is about five to six miles from the front
+trenches. The shops were doing a roaring trade,
+and I was amazed to see chemists flaunting auto-strop
+razors, stationers offering “Tommy’s writing-pad,”
+and tailors showing English officers’ uniforms
+in their windows, besides all the goods of a large and
+populous town. We were very hungry and tired,
+and fate directed us to the famous tea-shop, where,
+at dainty tables, amid crowds of officers, we obtained
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span>
+an English tea! I was astounded; so were we all.
+To think that I had treasured a toothbrush as a
+thing that I might not be able to replace for months!
+Here was everything to hand. Were we really within
+six miles of the Germans? Yet officers were discussing
+“the hot time we had yesterday”; while
+“we only came out this morning,” or “they whizz-banged
+us pretty badly last night,” were remarks
+from officers redolent of bath and the hairdresser!
+Buttons brilliantly polished, boots shining like
+advertisements, swagger-canes, and immaculate
+collars, gave the strangest first impression of
+“active service” to us, with our leather equipment,
+packs, leather buttons, and trench boots!</p>
+
+<p>“Old Barrett was right about the Sam Brownes,”
+I said to Terry, vainly trying to look at my ease.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s look at your map,” he answered. Then,
+after a moment:</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, we’re not far from the La Bassée Canal.
+I’ve heard of that often enough!”</p>
+
+<p>“So have I,” I replied. “Is La Bassée ours or
+theirs?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ours, of course”; but he borrowed the map
+again to make sure!</p>
+
+<p>Refreshed, but feeling strangely “out” of everything,
+we eventually found our way to the town
+major. Here my letter continues:</p>
+
+<p>“I was told an orderly was coming in the evening
+to conduct me to the trenches, to my battalion!
+Suddenly, however, we were told to go off—seven of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span>
+us in the same division—to our brigades in a motor-lorry.
+So we are packed off. I said good-bye to
+Crowley and Terry. This was about 7 p.m. We
+went rattling along till within a short distance of
+our front trenches. There was a lot of cannonading
+going on around and behind us, and star-shells
+bursting continuously, with Crystal-Palace-firework
+pops; we could hear rifles cracking too. At length
+we got to where the lorry could go no further, and
+we halted for a long time at a place where the houses
+were all ruins and the roofs like spiders’-webs, with
+the white glare of the shells silhouetting them
+against the sky. The houses had been shelled
+yesterday, but last night no shells were coming our
+way at all. My feelings were exactly like they are
+in a storm—the nearer and bigger the flashes and
+bangs the more I hoped the next would be really big
+and really near.” Of course, all this cannonade was
+<i>our</i> artillery; at the time we were quite muddled up
+as to what it all was! The snarling bangs were the
+18-pounders quite close to us, about one thousand
+yards behind our front line; the cracking bullets
+were spent bullets, though it sounded to us as if they
+were from a trench about twenty yards in front of
+us! Nothing is more confusing at first than the
+different sounds of the different guns. I think
+several of us would have been ready to say we had
+been under shell-fire that night! The “star-shells”
+should be more accurately described as “flares”
+or “rockets.” But to continue my letter:
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span></p>
+
+<p>“Well, the next few hours were a strange mixture
+of sensations. We could nowhere find our brigades,
+and after <i>ten hours</i> in the lorry we landed here at a
+place sixteen miles back from the firing line; here
+our division had been located by a signaller, whom
+we had consulted when we stopped by the cross-roads!
+We were left by the lorry at 5.0 a.m. at a
+field ambulance station ‘close to H.Q.,’ where we
+slept wearily till 8.0, to awake and find ourselves
+miles from our division, which is really, I believe, quite
+near where we had been in the firing-line! Now we
+are sitting in a big old château awaiting a telephone-message;
+we are in a dining-room, walls peeling,
+and arm-chairs reduced to legless deformities! It
+is a jolly day: sun, and the smell of autumn.” I
+shall not forget that long ride. I was at the back,
+and could see out; innumerable villages we passed;
+innumerable mistakes we made; innumerable stops,
+innumerable enquiries! But always there was the
+throbbing engine while we halted, and the bump
+and rattle as we plunged through the night. Eight
+officers and seven valises, I think we were; one or
+two were reduced to grumbling; several were
+asleep; a few, like myself, were awake, but all
+absolutely tired out. It was too uncomfortable to
+rest, cramped up among bulky valises and all sorts
+of sprawling limbs! Once, at about four o’clock, we
+halted at a house with a light in the window, and
+found a miner just going off to work. An old woman
+brewed some very black coffee, and we hungrily
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span>
+devoured bits of bread and butter, coffee, and
+cognac; while the old woman, fat and smiling,
+gabbled incessantly at us! A strange weird picture
+we must have made, some of us in kilts and bonnets,
+standing half-awake in the flickering candle-light.</p>
+
+<p>We were at the Château all the morning. “The
+R.A.M.C. fellows were very decent to us; gave us
+breakfast (eggs, bread and butter, and tinned jam)
+and also lunch (bully-beef, cheese, bread and butter,
+and beer). These were eaten off the dining-room
+table in style. I explored the Château during the
+morning; just a big ordinary empty house inside;
+outside, it is white plaster, with steep slate roofs,
+and a few ornamental turrets. The garden is mostly
+taken up with lines of picketed horses; outside the
+orchards and enclosures the country is bare and flat;
+it is a mining district, and pyramids of slag stand up
+all over the plain.”</p>
+
+<p>I cannot do better than continue quoting from
+these first letters of mine; of course, I did not
+mention places by name:</p>
+
+<p>“Well, at 2.0 p.m. the same old lorry and corporal
+turned up and took us back to Béthune. I gather
+he got considerable ‘strafing’ for last night’s performance,
+although I think he was not given clear
+enough instructions. Then, with seven other officers,
+we were sent off again in daylight, and dropped by
+twos and threes at our various Brigade Headquarters.
+Our “Brigade H.Q.” was in one of the
+few houses left standing. Here I reported, and was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span>
+told that an orderly would take me to my battalion
+transport. In half an hour the orderly arrived on a
+bicycle, and by 6.0 p.m. I was only half a mile from
+our transport. We were walking along, when suddenly
+there was a scream like a rocket, followed by a
+big bang, and the sound of splinters falling all about.
+I expected to see people jump into ditches; but
+they stood calmly in the street, women and all, and
+watched, while several shells (whizz-bangs, I
+believe)”—No, dear innocence, <span class="smcap">High-explosive
+Shrapnel</span>—“burst just near the road about a
+hundred yards ahead. We were four miles back
+from the firing-line. It was just the ‘evening hate,’
+I expect. It didn’t last long. Just near us was one
+of our own batteries firing intermittently.”</p>
+
+<p>This was my first experience of being under fire.
+I hadn’t the least idea what to do. The textbooks,
+I believe, said “Throw yourself on the ground.” I
+therefore looked at my orderly; but he was ducking
+behind his bicycle, which I am sure is not recommended
+by any manual of military training! I
+ducked behind nothing, copying him. This all took
+place in the middle of the road. But when I saw
+women opening the doors of their houses and standing
+calmly looking at the shells, ducking seemed out
+of the question; so we both stood and watched the
+bursting shells. Then the salvo ceased, and I, thinking
+I must show some sort of a lead, suggested that
+we should proceed. But my orderly, wiser by
+experience, suggested waiting to see if another salvo
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span>
+were forthcoming. After ten minutes, however, it
+was clear that the Germans had finished, and we
+resumed our journey in peace.</p>
+
+<p>My letter continues: “At the transport I had a
+very comfortable billet. The quartermaster and
+two other new officers and myself had supper in an
+upstairs room. The quartermaster seemed very
+pessimistic, and told us a lot about our losses. We
+turned in at ten o’clock, and I slept well. It was
+‘very quiet’; that is to say, only intermittent
+bangs such as have continued ever since the beginning
+of the war, and will continue to the end thereof!</p>
+
+<p>“October 9th. This morning a cart took us at nine
+o’clock to within about a mile of the firing-line,
+putting us down at the corner of a street that has
+been renamed ‘H—— Street.’ The country was
+dead flat; the houses everywhere in ruins, though
+some were untouched and still inhabited. Thence
+an orderly conducted us to H.Q., where we reported
+to the Adjutant and the C.O. (who is quite young
+by the way); they were in the ground-floor room
+of a house, to which we came all the way from
+H—— Street along a communication trench about
+seven feet deep. These trenches were originally dug
+by the French, I believe. I was told I was posted to
+‘D’ Company, so another orderly took me back
+practically to H—— Street, which must be six or
+seven hundred yards behind the firing-line. ‘D’
+is in reserve; I am attached to it for the present.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span>
+There are two other officers in it, Davidson and
+Symons. Both have only just joined.”</p>
+
+<p>So at last I was fairly lodged in my battalion. I
+had been directed, dumped, shaken, and carried,
+in a kindly, yet to me most amazingly haphazard,
+way to my destination, and there I found myself
+quite unexpected, but immediately attached somewhere
+until I should sort myself out a little and find
+my feet. I had a servant called Smith. In the afternoon
+I went with Davidson to supervise a working
+party, which was engaged in paving a communication
+trench with tiles from the neighbouring houses.
+In the evening I set to and wrote letters. I will close
+this chapter with yet one more quotation:</p>
+
+<p>“Now I am in the ground-room of one of the few
+standing houses in H—— Street. Next door is a
+big ‘École des filles,’ which I am quite surprised to
+find empty! Really the way the people go about
+their work here is amazing. Still, I suppose to carry
+on a girls’ school half a mile from the Boche is just
+beyond the capacity of even their indifference!
+I’ve already got quite used to the <i>noise</i>. There are
+two guns just about forty yards away, that keep on
+firing with a terrific bang! I can see the flashes just
+behind me. I think the noise would worry you,
+if you heard these blaring bangs at the end of the
+back garden, which is just about the distance this
+battery is from me! We are messing here in this
+room; half a table has been propped up, and three
+chairs discovered and patched up for us. All the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span>
+windows facing the enemy have been blocked up
+with sand-bags. I sleep here to-night. If the house
+is shelled, I shall flee to the dug-out twenty yards
+away. Orders have not yet come, but I believe we
+go back to billets to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p>A free issue of ‘Glory Boys’ cigarettes has just
+arrived: two packets for each officer and man.
+Please don’t forget to send my Sam Browne belt.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br />
+
+CUINCHY AND GIVENCHY</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">Throughout</span> October and November our
+battalion was in the firing-line. This meant
+that we spent life in an everlasting alternation
+between the trenches and our billets behind,
+just far enough behind, that is, to be out of the
+range of the light artillery; always, though, liable
+to be called suddenly into the firing-line, and never
+out of the atmosphere of the trenches. Always
+before us was dangled a promised “rest,” and
+always it was being postponed. Rumours were
+spread, dissected, laughed at, and eventually
+treated with bored incredulity. The battalion had
+had no rest, I believe, since May. Men, and especially
+N.C.O.‘s, who had been out since October,
+1914, were tired out in body and spirit.</p>
+
+<p>With the officers and certain new drafts of men,
+it was different. We came out enthusiastic and
+keen. On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed those
+first two months. I am surprised now to see how
+much detail I wrote in my letters home. Everything
+was fresh, everything new and interesting.
+And things were on the whole very quiet. We had
+a few casualties, but underwent no serious bombardment.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span>
+And, most important to us, of course,
+we had no casualties among the officers.</p>
+
+<p>Givenchy and Cuinchy are two small villages,
+north and south, respectively, of the La Bassée
+Canal, which runs almost due east and west between
+La Bassée and Béthune. Givenchy stands on a
+slight rise in the flattest of flat countries. A church
+tower of red brick must have been the most noticeable
+feature as one walked in pre-war days from
+the suburbs of Béthune along the La Bassée road.
+Cuinchy is a village straggling along a road. Both
+are as completely reduced to ruins as villages can
+be, the firing-line running just east of them. Between
+them flows the great sluggish canal.</p>
+
+<p>During an afternoon in Béthune one could do all
+the shopping one required, and get a hair-cut and
+shampoo as well. Expensive cocktails were obtainable
+at the local bar; there was also a famous tea-shop.
+We were billeted in one of the small villages
+around. Sometimes we only stayed one night at
+a billet: there was always change, always movement.
+Sometimes I got a bed; often I did not; but
+a valise is comfortable enough, when once its tricks
+are mastered. Anyhow it is “billets” and not
+“trenches,” that is the point; a continuous night’s
+rest in pyjamas, the facilities of a bath, very often
+a free afternoon and evening, and no equipment and
+revolver to carry night and day! It was in billets
+the following letters were written, which are really
+the best description of my life at this period.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span></p>
+
+<p>“19th October, 1915. Our battalion went into
+the trenches on the 14th and came out on the 17th.
+Our company, ‘B,’ was in support. The front line
+was about 300 yards ahead, and we held the second
+line, everything prepared to meet an attack in case
+the enemy broke through the first line. Half-way
+between our first and second lines was a kind
+of redoubt, to be held at all costs. Here you are:</p>
+
+<div>
+<img class="figcenter" id="i_021a" src="images/i_021a.jpg" alt="" />
+<p class="caption">The arrows indicate the direction in which the fire-trenches point.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The line here forms a big salient, so that we often
+used to get spent bullets dropping into the redoubt,
+from right behind, it seemed. Here, another
+drawing will show what I mean:</p>
+
+<div>
+<img class="figcenter" id="i_021b" src="images/i_021b.jpg" alt="" />
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span></div>
+
+<p>The dotted line is the German front trench. If
+the enemy A fires at the English B, the bullet
+will go on and fall at about C, who is facing in the
+direction of the arrow, in the support line. So C
+has to look out for <i>enfilading spent bullets</i>.</p>
+
+<p>For three days and nights I was in command of
+this redoubt, isolated, and ready with stores, ammunition,
+water, barbed wire and pickets, bombs,
+and tools, to hold out a little siege for several days
+if necessary. I used to leave it to get meals at
+Company H.Q. in the support line; otherwise,
+I had always to be there, ready for instant action.
+No one used to get more than two or three hours’
+<i>consecutive</i> sleep, and I could never take off boots,
+equipment, or revolver.</p>
+
+<p>Here is a typical scene in the redoubt.</p>
+
+<p><i>Scene.</i> A dug-out, 6´ × 4´ × 4´: smell, earthy.</p>
+
+<p><i>Time.</i> 2.30 a.m.</p>
+
+<p>I awake and listen. Deathly stillness.</p>
+
+<p><i>A voice.</i> ‘What’s the time, kid?’</p>
+
+<p><i>Another voice.</i> ‘Dunno. About 2 o’clock, I
+reckon.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Past that.’</p>
+
+<p>Long silence.</p>
+
+<p>‘Rum job, this, ain’t it, kid?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Why?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, I reckon if the —— Huns were coming
+over, we’d know it long afore they got ’ere. I
+reckon we’d ’ear the boys in front firing.’</p>
+
+<p>Long pause.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span></p>
+
+<p>‘I dunno. ’Spose there’s some sense in it, else
+we wouldn’t be ’ere.’</p>
+
+<p>Silence.</p>
+
+<p>‘—— cold on this —— fire step. Guess it’s time
+they relieved us.’</p>
+
+<p>Long silence.</p>
+
+<p>‘Don’t them flares look funny in the mist?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yus, I guess old Fritz uses some of them every
+night. Hullo, there they go again. ’Ear that
+machine-gun?’</p>
+
+<p>Long pause, during which machine-guns pop, and
+snipers snipe merrily, and flares light up the sky.
+Trench-mortars begin behind us ‘whizz-sh-sh-sh-h-h’—silence—‘<small>THUD</small>.’
+Then the Germans reply,
+sending two or three over which thud harmlessly
+behind. The invisible sentries have now become
+clearly visible to me as I look out of my dug-out.
+Two of them are about ten yards apart standing
+on the fire-platform. Theirs is the above dialogue.</p>
+
+<p>With a sudden <i>thud</i>, a trench-mortar shell drops
+fifteen yards behind us.</p>
+
+<p>‘Hullo, Fritz is getting the wind up.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Getting the wind up’ is slang for getting
+nervous: this stolid comment from a sentry is
+typical of the attitude adopted towards ‘Fritz’
+(the German) when he starts shelling or finding.
+He is supposed to be a bit jumpy! It seems
+hard to realise that Fritz is really trying to kill
+these sentries: the whole thing seems a weird,
+strange play.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span></p>
+
+<p>I make an effort, and crawl out of the dug-out.
+The ‘strafing’ has died down. Only occasional
+flares climb up from the German lines, and ‘pop,’
+‘pop’ in the morning mist. I go round the sentries,
+standing up by them and looking over the parapet.
+It is cold and raw, and the sentries are looking forward
+to the next relief. Ah! there is the corporal
+on trench duty coming. I can hear him routing
+out the snoring relief.</p>
+
+<p>‘Ping-g-g-g’ goes a stray bullet singing by—a
+ricochet by its sound.</p>
+
+<p>‘A near one, sir.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, Evans. Safer in the front line.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I guess it is, sir.’</p>
+
+<p>Then, the sentries changed, I turn back again
+to my dug-out. Sleeping with revolvers and
+equipment requires some care of position.</p>
+
+<p>‘Half-past four, sir,’ comes after a pause and
+some sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Out I get, and everybody ‘stands to’ arms
+for an hour, each man taking up the position
+allotted to him along the fire-platform. Gradually
+it gets light. Some brick-stacks grow out of the
+mist in front, and ruined cottages loom up in the
+rear, and what was a church. The fire-platform
+being here pretty high, one can look back over the
+parados over bare flat country, cut up by trenches
+and run to waste terribly. ‘Parados,’ by the way,
+is the name given to the back of a trench; here is
+a drawing in section:
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span></p>
+
+<div>
+<img class="figcenter" id="i_025" src="images/i_025.jpg" alt="" />
+<table>
+ <tr>
+ <td>A. Bottom of trench.</td>
+ <td>C. Parapet.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>B. Fire-step.</td>
+ <td>D. Parados.</td>
+ </tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>At 5.30 ‘Stand down and clean rifles’ is the order
+given; and the cleaning commences—a process as
+oft-repeated as ‘washing up’ in civilised lands, and
+as monotonous and unsatisfactory, for a few hours
+later the rifles are a bit rusty and muddy again, and
+need another inspection.</p>
+
+<p>7.30. ‘Tell Sergeant Summers I’m going down
+to Company Headquarters.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Very good, sir.’ Then I take a long mazy
+journey down the communication trench, which is
+six feet deep at least, and mostly paved with bricks
+from a neighbouring brick-field. There are an
+amazing lot of mice about the trenches, and they
+fall in and can’t get out. Most of them get squashed.
+Frogs too, which make a green and worse mess than
+the mice. Our C.O. always stops and throws a frog
+out if he meets one. Tommy, needless to say, is
+not so sentimental. These trenches have been
+built a long time, and grass-stalks, dried scabious,
+and plantain-stalks grow over the edges, which
+must make them very invisible from above. ‘H——
+Street,’ ‘L—— Lane,’ ‘C—— Road,’ ‘P—— Lane’
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span>
+are traversed, and so into ‘S—— Street,’ where, in
+the cellar of what was once a house, are two hungry
+officers already started on bacon and eggs, coffee
+(with condensed milk), and bread and tinned jam.
+We are lucky with three chairs and a table. A
+newspaper makes an admirable tablecloth, and a
+bottle a good candlestick, and there is room in a
+cellar to stand up. Breakfast done, a shave is
+manipulated, Meadows, my servant, getting ready
+my tackle and producing a mug of hot water.</p>
+
+<p>9.30 finds me back in the redoubt and starting
+a ‘working party’ on repairing a communication
+trench and generally improving the trenches. Working
+parties are unpopular; Tommy does not believe
+in improving trenches he may never see again. And
+so the day goes on. Sentries change and take their
+place, sitting gazing into a scrap of mirror. Ration
+parties come up with dixies carried on wooden
+pickets, and the pioneer generally cleans up,
+sprinkling chloride of lime about in white showers,
+which seems as plentiful as the sand of the seashore,
+and the odour of which clings to the trenches,
+as the smell of seaweed does to the beach.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The redoubt was in the Cuinchy trenches, and that
+old cellar was really a delightful headquarters. The
+first time we were in it we found a cat there; on
+the second occasion the same cat appeared with
+three lusty kittens! These used to keep the place
+clear of rats and get sat on every half-hour or so.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span>
+I soon learned to get used to smoke; on one occasion
+the smoke from our brazier became so thick
+that Gray, the cook, threatened to resign. For all
+the smoke gathers at the top of a dug-out and seems
+impossibly suffocating to anyone first entering;
+yet it is often practically clear two or three feet from
+the ground, so that when lying or sitting one does
+not notice the smoke at all; but a new-comer gets
+his eyes so stung that it seems impossible that anyone
+can live in the dug-out at all! (Gray, by the
+way, was not allowed to resign.)”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Here follows a letter describing the front trenches
+at Givenchy:</p>
+
+<p>“7th November. On the 29th we marched off
+at 9.0 and halted at 11.0 for dinner. Luckily it
+was fine, and the piled arms, the steaming dixies,
+and the groups of men sitting about eating and
+smoking formed a pleasant sight. Our grub was
+put by mistake on the mess-cart which went straight
+on to the trenches! Edwards, however, our Company
+mess-president, came up to the scratch with
+bread, butter, and eggs. Tea was easily procured
+from the cookers. Then off we went to our H.Q.
+There we got down into the communication trench,
+and in single file were taken by guides into our
+part of the trenches: these guides were sent by
+the battalion we were relieving. I told you that all
+the trenches have names (which are painted on
+boards hung up at the trench corners). The first
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span>
+thing done was to post sentries along our company
+front: until this was done the outgoing battalion
+could not ‘out-go.’ Each man has his firing position
+allotted to him, and he always occupies it at ‘stand
+to’ and ‘stand down.’ We were three days and
+three nights in the trenches. Each officer was on
+duty for eight hours, during which he was responsible
+for a sector of firing-line and must be actually in the
+front trench. My watch was 12 to 4, a.m. and p.m.
+Work that out with ‘stand to’ in the morning and
+also in the evening and you will see that consecutive
+sleep is not easy! On paper 6-12 (midnight)
+looks good; but then, remember, dinner at 7.0 or
+7.30 according to the fire, while you may have to
+turn out any time if you are being shelled at all.
+For instance, one night I was just turning in early
+at 7.0, when a mine went up on our right, and
+shelling and general ‘strafing’ kept me out till
+9.30, after which I couldn’t sleep! So at midnight
+I was tired when I started my four hours, turned
+in at 4.0, out again for ‘stand to,’ 8.0 breakfast,
+9.0 rifle inspection, and so it goes on! That is
+why you can appreciate <i>billets</i>, and bed from 9.0
+to 7.0 if you want it.</p>
+
+<p>Imagine a cold November night—with a ground
+fog. What bliss to be roused from a snug dug-out
+at midnight, and patrol the Company’s line for four
+interminable hours. It is deathly quiet. Has the
+war stopped? I stand up on the fire-step beside
+the sentry and try to see through the fog. ‘Pip-pip-pip-pip-pip’
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span>
+goes a machine-gun. So the war’s
+still on.</p>
+
+<p>‘Cold?’ I ask a sentry. ‘Only me feet, sir.’
+‘Why don’t you stamp your feet, then?’ This
+being equivalent to an order, Tommy stamps
+feebly a few times until made to do so energetically.
+Unless you <i>make</i> him stamp, he will not stamp;
+would infinitely prefer to let his feet get cold as ice.
+Of course, when you have gone into the next bay,
+he immediately stops. Still, that is Tommy.</p>
+
+<p>I gaze across into No Man’s Land. I can just
+see our wire, and in front a collection of old tins—bully
+tins, jam tins, butter tins—paper, old bits of
+equipment. Other regiments always leave places
+so untidy. You clean up, but when you come into
+trenches you find the other fellows have left things
+about. You work hard repairing the trenches:
+the relieving regiment, you find on your return,
+has done ‘damn all,’ which is military slang for
+‘nothing.’ And all other regiments, it seems, have
+the same complaint.</p>
+
+<p>‘Swish.’ A German flare rocket lights up everything.
+You see our trenches all along. Everything
+is as clear as day. You feel as conspicuous as a
+cromlech on a hill. But the enemy can’t see you,
+fog or no fog, if you only keep still. The light has
+fallen on the parapet this time, and lies sizzling on
+the sand-bags. A flicker, and it is gone; and in the
+fog you see black blobs, the size and shape of the
+dazzling light you’ve just been staring at.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span></p>
+
+<p>‘Crack—plop.’ ‘Crack—plop.’ A couple of
+bullets bury themselves in the sand-bags, or else
+with a long-drawn ‘ping’ go singing over the
+top. Why the sentries never get hit seems extraordinary.
+I suppose a mathematician would by
+combination and permutation tell you the chances
+against bullets aimed ‘at a venture’ hitting sentries
+exposing one-fourth of their persons at a given
+elevation at so many paces interval. Personally I
+won’t try, as my whole object is to keep awake till
+four o’clock. And then I shall be too sleepy. Only
+remember, it is night and the sentries are invisible.</p>
+
+<p>‘Tap—tap—tap.’ ‘There’s a wiring party out,
+sir. I’ve heard ’em these last five minutes.’ Undoubtedly
+there are a few men out in No Man’s
+Land, repairing their wire. I tell the sentries near
+to look out and be ready to fire, and then I send off
+a ‘Very’ flare, fired by a thick cartridge from a
+thick-barrelled brass pistol. It makes a good row,
+and has a fair kick, so it is best to rest the butt
+on the parapet and hold it at arm’s length. Even
+so it leaves your ears singing for hours. The first
+shot was a failure—only a miserable rocket tail which
+failed to burst. The second was a magnificent shot.
+It burst beautifully, and fell right behind the party,
+two Germans, and silhouetted them, falling and
+burning still incandescent on the ground behind.
+A volley of fire followed from our waiting sentries.
+I could not see if the party were hit; most of the
+shots were fired after the light had died out. Anyhow,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span>
+the working party stopped. The two figures
+stood quite motionless while the flare burned.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans opposite us were very lively. One
+could often hear them whistling, and one night they
+were shouting to one another like anything. They
+were Saxons, who are always at that game. No
+one knows exactly what it means. It was quite
+cold, almost frosty, and the sound came across
+the 100 yards or so of No Man’s Land with a strange
+clearness in the night air. The voices seemed unnaturally
+near, like voices on the water heard from
+a cliff. ‘Tommee—Tommee. Allemands bon—Engleesh
+bon.’ ‘We hate ze <i>Kron</i>prinz.’ (I can
+hear now the nasal twang with which the ‘Kron’
+was emphasised.) ‘D—— the Kaiser.’ ‘Deutschland
+<i>unter</i> Alles.’ I could hear these shouts most
+distinctly: the same sentences were repeated again
+and again. They shouted to one another from one
+part of the line to another, generally preceding
+each sentence by ‘Kamerad.’ Often you heard
+loud hearty laughter. As ‘Comic Cuts’ (the name
+given to the daily Intelligence Reports) sagely
+remarked, ‘Either this means that there is a spirit
+of dissatisfaction among the Saxons, or it is a ruse
+to try and catch us unawares, or it is mere foolery.’
+Wisdom in high places!</p>
+
+<p>Really it was intensely interesting. ‘Come
+over,’ shouted Tommy. ‘We—are—not—coming—over,’
+came back. Loud clapping and laughter
+followed remarks like ‘We hate ze <i>Kron</i>prinz.’
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span>
+Then they would yodel and sing like anything.
+Tommy replied with ‘Tipperary.’ They sang,
+‘God save the King,’ or rather their German
+equivalent of it, to the familiar tune. Then, ‘Abide
+with us’ rose into the night air and starlight.
+This went on for an hour and a half; though almost
+any night you can hear them shout something,
+and give a yodel—
+
+<span class="figcenter">
+<img id="i_032" src="images/i_032m.jpg" alt="" />
+</span>
+
+It is the strangest thing I have ever experienced.
+The authorities now try and stop our fellows answering.
+The <i>entente</i> of last Christmas is not to be repeated!
+One of the officers in our battalion has
+shown me several German signatures on his pay-book
+(he was in the ranks then), given in friendly
+exchange in the middle of No Man’s Land last
+Christmas Day.</p>
+
+<p>I have had my baptism of mud now. It tires me
+to think of it, and I have not the effort to write
+fully about it! The second time we were in these
+trenches the mud was two feet deep. Even our
+Company Headquarters, a cellar, was covered with
+mud and slime. Paradoses and communication
+trenches had fallen in, and the going was terrible.
+The sticky mud yoicked one’s boots off nearly, and
+it felt as if one’s foot would be broken in extricating
+it. We all wore gum-boots, of blue-black rubber,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span>
+that come right up to the waist like fishermen’s
+waders. But the mud is everywhere, and we get
+our arms all plastered with it as we literally “reel
+to and fro” along the trench, every now and again
+steadying ourselves against slimy sand-bags. One
+or two men actually got stuck, and had to be helped
+out with spades; one fellow lost heart and left one
+of his gum-boots stuck in the mud, and turned up
+in my platoon in a stockinged foot, of course plastered
+thick with clay! We worked day and night.
+Gradually the problem is being tackled. Trench-boards,
+or ‘mats,’ are the best, like this:
+
+<span>
+<img class="figcenter" id="i_033" src="images/i_033.jpg" alt="" />
+</span>
+
+They are put along the bottom of the trench, the
+long ‘runners’ resting on bricks taken from ruined
+houses, so as to raise the board and allow drainage
+underneath. If possible, a deep sump-pit is dug
+under the centre of the board. (The shaded part
+represents the sump-pit: the dotted lines are the
+sides of the trench; the whole drawing in plan.)”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Weariness. Mud. The next experience (not
+mentioned in my letter) was Death. On our immediate
+right was “C” Company. Here our
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span>
+trench runs out like this __Ʌ_, more or less,
+and the opposite trenches are very close together.
+Consequently it is a great place for “mining
+activity.” One evening we put up a mine;
+the next afternoon the Germans put up a countermine,
+and accompanied it with a hail of trench-mortars.
+I was on trench duty at the time,
+and had ample opportunity of observing the genus
+trench-mortar and its habits. One can see them
+approaching some time before they actually fall,
+as they come from a great height (in military terms,
+“with a steep trajectory”), and one can see them
+revolving as they topple down. Then they fall
+with a <i>thud</i>, and black smoke comes up and mud
+spatters all about. Most of them were falling in
+our second line and support trenches. I was patrolling
+up and down our front trench. We were
+“standing to” after the mine, and for half an hour
+it was rather a “hot shop.” I was delighted to
+find that I rather enjoyed it: seeing one or two of
+the new draft with the “wind up” a bit steadied
+me at once. I have hardly ever since felt the
+slightest nervousness under fire. It is mainly
+temperament. Our company had four casualties:
+one in the front trench, the three others in the
+platoon in support. “C” Company suffered more
+heavily. At 6.0 Edwards came on duty, and I was
+able to go in quest of two bombers who were said
+to be wounded. Getting near the place I came on
+a man standing half-dazed in the trench. “Oh,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span>
+sirrh,” he cried, in the burring speech of a true
+Welshman. “A terench-mohrterh hass fall-en
+ericht in-ter me duck-out.” For the moment I felt
+like laughing at the man’s curious speech and look,
+but I saw that he was greatly scared: and no
+wonder. A trench mortar had dropped right into the
+mouth of his dug-out, and had half buried two of his
+comrades. We were soon engaged in extricating them.
+Both had bad head wounds, and how he escaped is a
+miracle. I helped carry the two men out and over
+the debris of flattened trenches to Company Headquarters.
+So, for the first time I looked upon two
+dying men, and some of their blood was on my
+clothes. One died in half an hour—the other early
+next morning. It was really not my job to assist:
+the stretcher-bearers were better at it than I, yet
+in this first little bit of “strafe” I was carried away
+by my instinct, whereas later I should have been
+attending to the living members of my platoon, and
+the defence of my sector. I left the company
+sergeant-major in difficulties as to whether Randall,
+the man who had so miraculously escaped, and
+who was temporarily dazed, should be returned
+as “sick” or “wounded.”</p>
+
+<p>Another death that came into my close experience
+was that of a lance-corporal in my platoon. I had
+only spoken to him a quarter of an hour before,
+and on returning found him lying dead on the fire-platform.
+He had been killed instantaneously by
+a rifle grenade. I lifted the waterproof sheet and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span>
+looked at him. I remember that I was moved,
+but there was nothing repulsive about his recumbent
+figure. I think the novelty and interest of
+these first casualties made them quite easy to bear.
+I was so busy noticing details: the silence that
+reigned for a few hours in my platoon; the details
+of removing the bodies, the collecting of kit, etc.
+These things at first blunted my perception of the
+vileness of the tragedy; nor did I feel the cruelty
+of war as I did later.</p>
+
+<p>Weariness. Mud. Death. So it was with great
+joy that we would return to billets, to get dry and
+clean, to eat, sleep, and write letters; to drill, and
+carry out inspections. Company drill, bayonet-fighting,
+gas-helmet drill, musketry, and lectures
+were usually confined to the morning and early
+afternoon. We thought that we had rather an
+overdose of lecturing from our medical officer (the
+M.O.) on sanitation and the care of the feet. “Trench
+feet,” one lecture always began, “is that state produced
+by excessive cold or long standing in water
+or liquid mud.” We soon got to know too much,
+we felt, about the use of whale-oil and anti-frostbite
+grease, the changing of socks and the rubbing and
+stamping of feet. We did get rather “fed up”
+with it; yet I believe we had only one case of
+trench feet in our battalion throughout the winter;
+so perhaps it was worth our discomfort of attending
+so many lectures! Our C.O.’s lectures on trench
+warfare were always worth hearing: he was so
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span>
+tremendously keen and such a perfect and whole-hearted
+soldier.</p>
+
+<p>A chapter might be written on billet-life. Here
+are a few more extracts from letters:</p>
+
+<p>“Oct. 13th. All day long this little inn has
+shaken from top to bottom: there is one battery
+about a hundred yards away that makes the whole
+house rattle like the inside of a motor-bus. The
+Germans might any time try and locate the battery,
+and a shell would reduce the house to ruins. Yet
+the old woman here declares she will not leave the
+house as long as she lives!</p>
+
+<p>It is a strange place, this belt of land behind the
+firing-line. The men are out of the trenches for
+three days, and it is their duty, after perhaps a
+running parade before breakfast and two or three
+hours’ drill and inspection in the morning, to rest
+for the remainder of the day. In the morning you
+will see all the evolutions of company drill carried
+out in a small meadow behind a strip of woodland;
+in the next field an old man and woman are unconcernedly
+hoeing a cabbage-patch; then behind here
+are a battalion’s transport lines, with rows of horses
+picketed. Along the road an A.S.C. convoy is
+passing, each lorry at regulation distance from the
+next. In the afternoon you will see groups of
+Tommies doing nothing most religiously, smoking
+cigarettes, writing letters home. From six to eight
+the <i>estaminets</i> are open, and everyone flocks to
+them to get bad beer. They are also open an hour
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span>
+at midday, and then the orderly officer, accompanied
+by the provost-sergeant, produces an electric
+silence with ‘Any complaints?’ It does not pay
+an <i>estaminet</i>-keeper to dilute his beer too much,
+or else he will lose his licence.</p>
+
+<p>I often wonder if these peasants think much.
+Think they must have done at the beginning, when
+their men were hastily called up. But now, after
+fifteen months of war? It is the children, chiefly,
+who are interested in the aeroplanes, shining like
+eagles silver-white against the blue sky; or in the
+boom from the battery across the street. But for
+their mothers and grandparents these things have
+settled into their lives; they are all one with the
+canal and the poplar trees. If a squad starts drilling
+on their lettuces, they are tremendously alert; but
+as for these other things, they are not interested,
+only unutterably tired of them. And after awhile
+you adopt the same attitude. The noise of the guns
+is boring and you hardly look up at an aeroplane,
+unless it is shrapnelled by the ‘Archies’ (anti-aircraft
+guns); then it is worth watching the pin-prick
+flashes dotting the sky all round it, leaving little
+white curls of smoke floating in the blue.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>That billet was close to the firing-line. Here is
+a letter from a village, eight miles back:</p>
+
+<p>“20th Oct., 1915. We came out here on Monday.
+The whole division marched out together.
+It was really an impressive sight, over a mile of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span>
+troops on the march. Perfect order, perfect arrangement.
+Where the road bent you could often see
+the column for a mile in front, a great snake curling
+along the right side of the road. Occasionally an
+adjutant would break out of the line to trot back
+and correct some straggling; or a C.O. would emerge
+for a gallop over the adjacent ploughland.</p>
+
+<p>Our company is billeted in a big prosperous farm.
+The men are in a roomy barn and look very comfortable.
+We are in a big room, on the right as you
+enter the front door of the farm: on a tiled floor
+stands a round table with an oilcloth cover, originally
+of a bright red pattern, but now subdued by constant
+scrubbings to the palest pink with occasional
+scarlet dottings. There are big tall windows, a
+wardrobe and sideboard, a big chimney-place fitted
+with a coke stove, and on the walls hang three very
+dirty old prints. The only war touch (beside our
+scattered possessions) is a picture from a French
+Illustrated of <i>L’Assaut de Vermelles</i>. Outside is a
+yard animated by cows, turkeys, geese, chicken,
+and ducks: also a donkey and a peacock, not to
+mention the usual dogs and cats. At 5 a.m. I am
+awakened by an amazing chorus.</p>
+
+<p>The ‘patron’ is a strong, competent man, with
+many fine buxom daughters, who do the farm work
+with great capacity and energy. Henriette with a
+pitchfork is strength and grace in action. Tommy
+is much in awe of her. She hustles the pigs relentlessly.
+The sons are at the war. Etienne and Marcelle,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span>
+aged ten and eight respectively, complete the
+family; with Madame, of course, who makes inimitable
+coffee; and various grandparents who
+appear in white caps and cook and bake all day.</p>
+
+<p>I have just ‘paid out’—all in five and twenty-franc
+notes. ‘In the field’ every man has his own
+pay book which the officer must sign, while the
+company quartermaster-sergeant sees that his acquittance
+roll is also signed by Tommy. We had
+a small table and chair out in the yard, and in an
+atmosphere of pigs and poultry I dealt out the blue-and-white
+oblongs which have already in many
+cases been converted into bread. For that is where
+most of the pay money goes, there and in the
+<i>estaminets</i>. The bread ration is always small, the
+biscuit ration overflowing. Bully beef, by the way,
+is simply ordinary corned beef. I watched cooking
+operations yesterday, and saw some fifty tins cut
+in half with an axe, clean hewn asunder, and the
+meat deftly hoicked with a fork into the field-kitchen,
+or ‘cooker,’ which is a range and boiler
+on wheels. This was converted into a big stew, and
+served out into dixies (camp kettles) and so to the
+men’s canteens.</p>
+
+<p>This afternoon our company practised an attack
+over open country. I was surprised to find the men
+so well trained. I had imagined that prolonged
+trench-warfare would have made them stale. The
+country is <i>very</i> flat. There are no hedges. The
+only un-English characteristics are the poplar rows,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span>
+the dried beans tied round poles like mother-gamp
+umbrellas, and the wayside chapels and crucifixes.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday afternoon Edwards and I got in a little
+revolver practice just near; and afterwards we
+had an energetic game of hockey, with sticks and
+an empty cartridge-case.”</p>
+
+<p>Altogether, billet life was very enjoyable. On
+November 1st Captain Dixon joined our battalion
+and took over “B” Company. For over four
+months I worked under the most good-natured and
+popular officer in the battalion. We were always
+in good spirits while he was with us. “I can’t
+think why it is,” he used to say, “I’m not at all a
+jolly person, yet you fellows are always laughing;
+and in my old regiment it was always the same!”
+He was a fearful pessimist, but a fine soldier. His
+delight used to be to get a good fire blazing in
+billets, sit in front of it with a novel, and then
+deliver a tirade against the discomfort of war!
+The great occasion used to be when the arch-pessimist,
+our quartermaster, was invited to dinner.
+Then Edwards, the Mess president, would produce
+endless courses, and the two pessimists would warm
+to a delightful duologue on the fatuity of the Staff,
+the Army, and the Government.</p>
+
+<p>“By Jove, we are the biggest fools on this
+earth!” Dixon would say at last.</p>
+
+<p>“We’re fools enough to be led by fools,” Jim
+Potter would reply.</p>
+
+<p>And somehow we were all more cheerful than ever!
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br />
+
+WORKING-PARTIES</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">“Fall</span> in the brick-party.”</p>
+
+<p>The six privates awoke from a state of
+inert dreaming, or lolling against the barn
+that flanked the gateway of battalion headquarters,
+to stand in two rows of three and await orders. At
+last the A.S.C. lorry had turned up, an hour late, and
+while it turned round I despatched one of the
+privates to our transport to get six sand-bags. By
+the time he returned the lorry had performed its
+about-wheel, and, all aboard, myself in front and
+the six behind, we are off for C——.</p>
+
+<p>We pass through Béthune. As we approach
+through the suburbs, we rattle past motor despatch
+riders, A.S.C. lorries, Red Cross carts, columns of
+transport horses being exercised, officers on horse-back,
+officers in motor-cars, small unarmed fatigue
+parties, battalions on the march; then there are
+carts carrying bricks, French postmen on bicycles,
+French navvies in blue uniforms repairing the road,
+innumerable peasant traps, coal waggons, women
+with baskets, and children of course everywhere.
+“Business as usual”—yet, but for a line of men
+not so many miles away the place would be a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span>
+desolate ruin like the towns and villages that chance
+has doomed to be in the firing-line.</p>
+
+<p>So I moralise. Not so the Tommies, sprawling
+behind, inside the lorry, and caring not a jot for
+anything save that they are on a “cushy” or soft
+job, as the rest of the battalion are doing four hours’
+digging under R.E. supervision. A good thing to be
+a Tommy, to be told to fall in here or there, and not
+to know whether it is for a bayonet-charge, or a job
+of carting earth!</p>
+
+<p>“Bang—Bang-bang.” We are nearing the firing-line,
+having left Béthune, where military police
+stand at every corner directing the traffic with flags,
+one road “up,” another “down”: we are once
+more within the noisy but invisible chain of batteries.
+“Lorries 6 miles per hour.” The shell-holes in the
+road, roughly filled with stones, would make quicker
+going impossible anyhow. We are entering C——,
+and I keep an eagle eye open for ruined houses, and
+soon stop by a house with two walls and half a roof.
+Out come the six Tommies and proceed to fill a sand-bag
+each with bricks and empty it into the lorry.
+The supply is inexhaustible, and in half an hour the
+A.S.C. corporal refuses to take more, declaring we
+have the regulation three-ton load, so I stop work
+and prepare to depart.</p>
+
+<p>The corporal, however, has heard of a sister-lorry
+near by, which has unfortunately slipped into
+a ditch and, so to speak, sprained its ankle. Though
+extraordinarily unromantic in appearance, the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span>
+corporal shows himself imbued with a spirit of
+knight errantry, and, having obtained my permission
+to rescue the fair damsel, sets off for what
+he declares cannot take more than ten minutes.
+As I thought the process would take probably more
+like twenty minutes, I let the men repair to a house
+on the opposite side of the road, where was a rather
+more undamaged piece of roof than usual (it was now
+raining), and myself explored the place I happened
+to be in.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally, at home one comes across a deserted
+cottage in the country; a most desolate spirit pervades
+the place. Imagine, then, what it is like in
+these villages half a mile or a mile behind what has
+been the firing-line for now twelve months. A few
+steps off the main road brought me into what had
+formerly been a small garden belonging to a farm.
+There had been a red-brick wall all along the north
+side with fruit trees trained along it. Now, the wall
+was mostly a rubble-heap, and the fruit trees dead.
+One sickly pear tree struggled to exist in a crumpled
+sort of heap, but its wilted leaves only added to the
+desolation of the scene. An iron gate, between red
+brick pillars, was still standing, strangely enough;
+but the little lawn was run to waste, and had a
+crater in the middle of it about five feet across,
+inside of which was some disintegrating animal,
+also empty tins, and other refuse. Trees were
+broken, weeds were everywhere. I tried to reconstruct
+the place in my imagination, but it was a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span>
+chaotic tangle. I came across a few belated raspberries,
+and picked one or two; they were tasteless
+and watery. Rubbish and broken glass were
+strewn everywhere. It was a dreary sight in the
+grey rain; the only sign of life a few chattering
+blue-tits.</p>
+
+<p>The house was an utter ruin, only a ground-room
+wall left standing; some of the outhouses had not
+suffered so much, but all the roofs were gone. I
+saw a rusty mangle staring forlornly out of a heap
+of débris; and a manger and hayrack showed what
+had been a stable. The pond was just near, too, and
+gradually I could piece together the various elements
+of the farm. Who the owners were I vaguely
+wondered; perhaps they will return after the war;
+but I doubt if they could make much of the old
+ruins. These villages will most likely remain a
+blighted area for years, like the villages reclaimed
+by the jungle. Already the virginia creeper and
+woodbine are trying to cover the ugliness....</p>
+
+<p>The Tommies meanwhile had been smoking Gold
+Flakes, and one or two had also been exploring; one
+had discovered a child’s elementary botany book, and
+was studying the illustrations when I came up. Our
+combined view now was “Where is the lorry?”
+and this view held the field, with increasing curiosity,
+annoyance, and vituperation, for one solid hour and
+a half. It was dinner-time, and a common bond of
+hunger held us, until at last in exasperation I
+marched half the party in quest of our errant conveyance.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span>
+I was thoroughly annoyed with the
+gallant corporal. Three-quarters of a mile away I
+found the two lorries. My little corporal had rescued
+his lorn princess, but she, being a buxom wench, had
+brought her rescuer into like predicament! And so
+we came up just in time to see the rescue of <i>our</i> lorry
+from the treacherous ditch! I felt I could not curse,
+especially as the little corporal had winded himself
+somehow in the stomach during the last bout. It
+had been a feeble show; yet there was the lorry,
+and in it the bricks, on to which the fellows climbed
+deliberately as men who recover a lost prize. And
+so we arrived at our transport (the bricks were for a
+horse-stand in a muddy yard) at half-past two;
+after which I dismissed the party to its belated
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p>The above incident hardly deserves a place in a
+chapter headed “working-parties,” being in almost
+every respect different from any other I have ever
+conducted. I think the “working-party” is realised
+less than anything else in this war by those who
+have not been at the front. It does not appeal to
+the imagination. Yet it is essential to realise, if one
+wants to know what this war is like, the amount of
+sheer dogged labour performed by the infantry in
+digging, draining, and improving trenches.</p>
+
+<p>The “working-party” usually consists of seventy
+to a hundred men from a company, with either one
+or two officers. The Brigadier going round the
+trenches finds a communication trench falling in,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span>
+and about a foot of mud at the bottom. “Get a
+working-party on to this at once,” he says to his
+Staff Captain. The Staff Captain consults one of
+the R.E. officers, and a note is sent to the Adjutant
+of one of the two battalions in billets: “Your
+battalion will provide a working party of ...
+officers ... full ranks (sergeants and corporals)
+and ... other ranks to-morrow. Report to Lt.
+..., R.E., at ... at 5.0 p.m. to-morrow for work
+on ... Trench. Tools will be provided.” The
+Staff Captain then dismisses the matter from his
+head. The Adjutant then sends the same note to
+one or more of the four company commanders, detailing
+the number of men to be sent by the companies
+specified by him. (He is scrupulously careful
+to divide work equally between the companies, by
+the way.) The company commander on receiving
+the note curses volubly, declares it a “d—d shame
+the hardest worked battalion in the brigade can’t
+be allowed a moment’s rest, feels sure the men will
+mutiny one of these days,” etc., summons the
+orderly, who is frowsting in the next room with the
+officers’ servants, and says, “Take this to the
+sergeant-major,” after scribbling on the note
+“Parade outside Company H.Q. 3.30 p.m.,” and
+adding, as the orderly departs, “Might tell the
+quartermaster-sergeant I want to see him.” Meanwhile
+the three subalterns are extraordinarily
+engrossed in their various occupations, until the
+company commander boldly states that it is
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span>
+“rotten luck, but he supposes as So-and-so took
+the last, it is So-and-so’s turn, isn’t it?” and details
+the officers; if they are new officers he tells them
+the sergeants will know exactly what to do, and if
+they are old hands he tells them nothing whatever.
+The “quarter” (company quartermaster-sergeant)
+then arrives, and is told the party will not be back,
+probably, till 10.0 p.m., and will he make sure,
+please, that hot soup is ready for the men on return,
+and also dry socks if it turns out wet; he is then
+given a drink, and the company commander’s work
+is finished.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the company sergeant-major has
+received the orders from the orderly, and summons
+unto him the orderly-sergeant, and from his
+“roster,” or roll, ticks off the men and N.C.O.’s to
+be warned for the working party. This the orderly-sergeant
+does by going round to the various barns
+and personally reading out each man’s name, and
+on getting the answer, saying, “You’re for working
+party, 3.15 to-day.” The exact nature of the
+remarks when he is gone are beyond my province.
+Only, as an officer taking the party, one knows that
+at 3.25 p.m. the senior sergeant calls the two lines
+of waiting “other ranks” to attention, and with a
+slap on his rifle, announces “Working-party present,
+Sir,” as you stroll up. Working-parties are dressed
+in “musketry order” usually—that is to say, with
+equipment, but no packs; rifles and ammunition,
+of course, and waterproof sheets rolled and fastened
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span>
+to the webbing belt. The officer then tells the
+sergeant to “stand them easy,” while he asks one
+or two questions, and looks once more at “orders”
+which the senior sergeant has probably brought on
+parade, and at 3.30, with a “Company-Shern!
+Slo-o-ope hip! Right-in-fours: form-fórs! Right!
+By the right, Quick <i>march</i>!” leads off his party,
+giving “March at <i>ease</i>, march-easy!” almost in one
+breath as soon as he rounds the corner. Then there
+is a hitching of rifles to the favourite position, and a
+buzz of remarks and whistles and song behind,
+while the sergeant edges up to the officer or the
+officer edges back to the sergeant, according to their
+degree of intimacy, and the working-party is on its
+way.</p>
+
+<p>One working-party I remember very well. We
+were in billets at ——, and really tired out. It was
+Nov. 6th, and on looking up my letters I find
+our movements for the last week had been as
+follows:</p>
+
+<table class="list-top">
+ <tr>
+ <td rowspan="3">Oct. 29th.</td>
+ <td>9.0 a.m. Moved off from billets.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>12.0 midday. Lunch.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>3.0 p.m. Arrived in front trenches.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>Oct. 30th.</td>
+ <td>Front trenches.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>Oct. 31st.</td>
+ <td>Front trenches.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td rowspan="2">Nov. 1st.</td>
+ <td>Relieved at 3.0 p.m. (The Devons were very late relieving us, owing to
+ bad rain and mud.)</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>5.30 p.m. Reached billets.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>Nov. 2nd.</td>
+ <td>Rain all day. Morning spent by men
+ in trying to clean up. Afternoon,
+ baths.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td rowspan="2">Nov. 3rd.</td>
+ <td>9.0 a.m. Started off for trenches again. It had rained incessantly.
+ Mud terrible.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>1.0 p.m. Arrived in front trenches.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>Nov. 4th.</td>
+ <td>Front trenches. Rained all day.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>Nov. 5th.</td>
+ <td>2.30 p.m. Relieved late again. Mud colossal. Billets 5.0 p.m.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td rowspan="2">Nov. 6th.</td>
+ <td>Morning. Cleaning up. Inspection by C.O.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>Afternoon. <span class="smcap">Sudden and unexpected
+ Working-Party.</span> 3.0 p.m.—11.0 p.m.!!</td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Yet I thoroughly enjoyed those eight hours, I
+remember. There were, I suppose, about eighty
+N.C.O.’s and men from “B” Company. I was in
+charge, with one other officer. We halted at a place
+whither the “cooker” had been previously despatched,
+and where the men had their tea. Luckily
+it was fine. The men sat about on lumps of trench-boards
+and coils of barbed wire, for the place was an
+“R.E. Dump,” where a large accumulation of R.E.
+stores of all description was to be found. I apologised
+to the R.E. officer for keeping him a few
+minutes while the men finished their tea; he, however,
+a second-lieutenant, was in no hurry whatever,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span>
+it seemed, and waited about a quarter of an hour
+for us. Then I fell the men in, and they “drew
+tools,” so many men a pick, so many a shovel (the
+usual proportion is one pick, two shovels), and we
+splodged along through whitish clay of the stickiest
+calibre in the gathering twilight. An R.E. corporal
+and two R.E. privates had joined us mysteriously
+by now, as well as the second-lieutenant, and crossing
+H—— Street we plunged down into a communication
+trench, and started the long mazy grope.
+The R.E. corporal was guide. The trench was all
+paved with trench-mats, but these were not “laid,”
+only “shoved down” anyhow; consequently they
+wobbled, and one’s boot slipped off the side into
+squelch, rubbing the ankle. Continually came up
+the message from behind, “Lost touch, Sir!”
+This involved a wait—one, two minutes—until the
+“All-up” or “All-in” came up. (One hears it
+coming in a hoarse whisper, and starts before it
+actually arrives. Infinite patience is necessary.
+R.E. officers are sometimes eager to go ahead; but
+once lose the last ten men at night in an unknown
+trench, and it may take three hours to find them.)
+The other officer was bringing up the rear.</p>
+
+<p>At last we reached our destination, and the R.E.
+officer and myself told off the men to work along the
+trench. This particular work was clearing what is
+known as a “berm,” that is, the flat strip of ground
+between the edge of the trench and the thrown-up
+earth, each side of a C.T. (communication trench).
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span></p>
+
+<p>When a trench is first dug, the earth is thrown up
+each side; the recent rains were, however, causing
+the trenches to crumble in everywhere, and the
+weight of the thrown-up earth was especially the
+cause of this. Consequently, if the earth were
+cleared away a yard on each side of the trench, and
+thrown further back, the trench would probably be
+saved from falling in to any serious extent, and the
+light labour of shovelling dry earth a yard or so back
+would be substituted for the heart-breaking toil of
+throwing sloppy mud or sticky clay out of a trench
+higher than yourself.</p>
+
+<p>
+<img class="figcenter" id="i_052" src="images/i_052.jpg" alt="" />
+</p>
+
+<p>The work to be done had been explained to the
+sergeants before we left our starting-point. As we
+went along, the R.E. officer told off men at ten or
+five yards’ interval, according to the amount of earth
+to be moved. Each man stopped when told off, and
+the rest of the company passed him. Sergeants and
+corporals stopped with their section or platoon, and
+got the men started as soon as the last man of the
+company had passed. At last up came the last man,
+sergeant, and the other officer, and together we went
+back all along. The men were on top (that is why
+the working-party was a night one); sometimes
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span>
+they had not understood their orders and were doing
+something wrong (a slack sergeant would then
+probably have to be routed out and told off). The
+men worked like fun, of course, it being known, to
+every one’s joy, that this was a piece-job, and that
+we went home as soon as it was finished. There was
+absolute silence, except the sound of falling earth,
+and an occasional chink of iron against stone; or a
+swish, and muttered cursings, as a bit of trench fell
+in with a slide, dragging a man with it; for it is not
+always easy to clear a yard-wide “berm” without
+crumbling the trench-edge in. One would not think
+these men were “worn out,” to see them working
+as no other men in the world can work; for nearly
+every man was a miner. The novice will do only
+half the work a trained miner will do, with the same
+effort.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes I was appealed to as to the “yard.”
+Was this wide enough? One man had had an unlucky
+bit given him with a lot of extra earth from a
+dug-out thrown on to the original lot. So I redivided
+the task. It is amazing the way the time
+passes while going along a line of workers, noticing,
+talking, correcting, praising. By the time I got to
+the first men of the company, they were half-way
+through the task.</p>
+
+<p>At last the job was finished. As many men as
+space allowed were put on to help one section that
+somehow was behind; whether it was bad luck in
+distribution or slack work no one knew or cared.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span>
+The work must be finished. The men wanted to
+smoke, but I would not let them; it was too near
+the front trenches. And then I did a foolish thing,
+which might have been disastrous! The R.E.
+corporal had remained, though the officer had left
+long ago. The corporal was to act as guide back,
+and this he was quite ready to do if I was not quite
+sure of the way. I, however, felt sure of it, and as
+the corporal would be saved a long tramp if he could
+go off to his dug-out direct without coming with us,
+I foolishly said I had no need of him, and let him go.
+I then lost my way completely. We had never been
+in that section before, and none of the sergeants
+knew it. We had come from the “R.E. Dump,”
+and thither we must return, leaving our tools on the
+way. But I had been told to take the men to the
+Divisional Soup Kitchen first, which was about
+four hundred yards north of X, the spot where we
+entered the C.T. and which I was trying to find.
+For all I knew I was going miles in the wrong direction.
+My only guide was the flares behind, which
+assured me I was not walking to the Germans but
+away from them. The unknown trenches began to
+excite among the sergeants the suspicion that all was
+not well. But I took the most colossal risk of stating
+that I knew perfectly well what I was doing, and
+strode on ahead.</p>
+
+<p>There was silence behind after that, save for
+splashings and splodgings. My heart misgave me
+that I was coming to undrained trenches of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span>
+worst description, or to water-logged impasses!
+Still I strode on, or waited interminable waits for the
+“All up” signal. At last we reached houses, grim
+and black, new and awfully unknown. I nearly
+tumbled down a cellar as a sentry challenged. I was
+preparing for humble questions as to where we were,
+the nearest way to X, and a possible joke to the
+sergeant (this joke had not materialised, and seemed
+unlikely to be of the easiest), when I recovered myself
+from the cellar, mounted some steps, and found
+myself on a road beside a group of Tommies emerging
+from the Soup Kitchen! My star (the only one
+visible, I believe, that inky night) had led me there
+direct! I said nothing, as every one warmed up in
+spirits as well as bodies with that excellent soup;
+and no one ever knew of the quailings of my heart
+along those unknown trenches! To lead men wrong
+is always bad; but when they are tired out it is unpardonable,
+and not quickly forgotten. As it was,
+canteens were soon brimming with thick vegetable
+soup, filled from a bubbling cauldron with a mighty
+ladle. In the hot room men glistened and perspired,
+while a regular steam arose from muddied boots and
+puttees; every one, from officer to latest joined
+private, was sipping with dangerous avidity the
+boiling fluid. Many charges have been laid against
+divisional staffs, but never a complaint have I heard
+against a soup kitchen! So in good spirits we
+tramped along, and dumped our tools in the place
+where we had found them. “Clank-clank, clank,”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span>
+as spade fell on spade. Then, “You may smoke”
+was passed down. The sergeant reported “All
+correct, Sir!” and we tramped along in file. Soon
+the bursts of song were swallowed up in a great
+whistling concert, and we were all merry. The fit
+passed, and there was silence; then came the singing
+again, which developed into hymns, and that took
+us into our billets. Here we were greeted with the
+most abominable news of réveillé at 5.0 a.m., but I
+think most of the men were too sleepy to hear it;
+we two officers deplored our fate while eating a
+supper set out for us in a greenhouse, our temporary
+mess-room!</p>
+
+<p>That is a working-party: interesting as a first
+experience to an officer; but when multiplied exceedingly,
+by day, by night, in rain, mud, sleet, and
+snow, carrying trench boards, filling sand-bags,
+digging clay, bailing out liquid mud, and returning
+cold and drenched, without soup—then, working-parties
+became a monotonous succession of discomforts
+that wore out the spirit as well as the
+body.</p>
+
+<p>The last six nights before the promised rest were
+spent in working-parties at Festubert. There the
+ground was low and wet, and it was decided to build
+a line of breastwork trenches a few hundred yards
+behind the existing line, so that we could retire on
+to dry ground in case of getting swamped out. For
+six nights in succession we left billets at 10.0 p.m.
+and returned by 4.0 a.m. The weather was the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span>
+coldest, it turned out eventually, that winter. It
+started with snow; then followed hard frost for
+four nights; and, last but not least, a thaw and
+incessant sleet and rain. I have never before experienced
+such cold; but, on the other hand, I have
+never before had to stand about all night in a severe
+frost (it was actually, I believe, from 10° to 15°
+below freezing point). At 2.0 a.m. the stars would
+glitter with relentless mirth, as the cold pierced
+through two cardigans and a sheepskin waistcoat.
+I have skated at night, but always to return
+by midnight to fire and bed. Bed! At home
+people were sleeping as comfortably as usual; a
+few extra blankets, perhaps, or more coals in the
+grate!</p>
+
+<p>I was out five nights of the six. Captain Dixon
+was on leave, so we only had three officers in “B,”
+and two had to go every night. Every night at 9.30
+the company would be fallen in and marched off to
+the rendezvous, there, at 10.0, to join the rest of the
+battalion. There was no singing; very little talking.
+In parts the road was very bad, and we marched in
+file. The road was full of shell-holes, and bad generally;
+the ice crackled and tinkled in the ruts and
+puddles; the frozen mud inclined you to stumble
+over its ridges and bumps. It took us the best part
+of an hour to reach our destination. The first night
+we must have gone earlier than the other nights, as
+I distinctly remember viewing by daylight those
+most amazing ruins. There was a barrier across the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span>
+road just before you entered the village; (a barrier
+is usually made like this—
+
+<span>
+<img class="figcenter" id="i_058" src="images/i_058.jpg" alt="" />
+</span>
+
+you can defend the road without blocking it to
+traffic; at the same time it cannot be rushed by
+motor-cycles or armoured cars); then just opposite
+were the few standing fragments of the church;
+bits of wall and mullion here and there; and all
+around tombstones leaning in every direction,
+rooted up, shattered, split. There was one of the
+crucifixes standing untouched in the middle of it all,
+about which so much has been written; whether it
+had fallen and been erected again I cannot say.
+The houses were more smashed, crumpled, and
+chaotic than even Cuinchy or Givenchy.</p>
+
+<p>I remember that corner very vividly, because at
+that spot came one of the few occasions on which
+I had the “wind up” a little. Why, I know not.
+We were halted a few moments, when two whizz-bangs
+shot suddenly into a garden about twenty
+yards to our right, with a vicious “Vee-bm ...
+Vee-bm.” We moved on, and just as we got round
+the corner I saw two flashes on my left, and two
+more shells hissed right over us and fell with the
+same stinging snarl into the same spot, just twenty
+yards <i>over</i> us this time. I was, luckily, marching at
+the rear of the company at the time, as I ducked and
+almost sprawled in alarm. For the next minute or
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span>
+two I was all quivery. I am glad to know what it
+feels like, as I have never experienced since such an
+abject windiness! I believe it was mainly due to
+being so exposed on the hard hedgeless road; or,
+perhaps that last pair did actually go particularly
+near me. At any rate, such was my experience, and
+so I record it.</p>
+
+<p>
+<img class="figcenter" id="i_059" src="images/i_059.jpg" alt="" />
+</p>
+
+<p>At the entrance to the communication trench
+R.E. officers told us off: “A” Company, “carrying
+party”; “B” Company to draw shovels and picks
+and “follow me.” Then we started off along about
+a mile and a half of communication trenches. I
+have already said that Festubert is a very wet
+district, and it can easily be imagined that the
+drainage problem is none of the easiest. This long
+communication trench had been mastered by
+trench-mats fastened down on long pickets which
+were driven deep down into the mud. The result
+was that the trench floor was raised about two feet
+from the original bottom, and one walked along a
+hollow-sounding platform over stagnant water.
+The sound reminded me of walking along a wooden
+landing-stage off the end of a pier. Every few
+hundred yards were “passing points,” presumably
+to facilitate passing other troops coming
+in the other direction; but as I never had the
+good fortune to meet the other troops at these
+particular spots, though I did in many others, I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span>
+cannot say they were particularly useful. Another
+disadvantage about these water-logged trenches
+was that the bad rains had made the water rise in
+several places even over the raised trench-board
+platform; others were fastened on top; but even
+these were often not enough. And when the frost
+came and froze the water on top of the boards, the
+procession became a veritable cake-walk, humorous
+no doubt to the stars and sky, but to the performers,
+feeling their way in the thick darkness and ever
+slipping and plunging a boot and puttee into the icy
+water at the side, a nightmare of painful and jarring
+experiences.</p>
+
+<p>There was one junction of trenches where one had
+to cross a dyke full of half-frozen water; there was
+always a congestion of troops here, ration-parties,
+relieving-parties, and ourselves. All relieving had
+to be done at night, as the trenches with their artificially
+raised floors were no longer deep enough to
+give cover from view. This crossing had to be
+negociated in a most gingerly fashion, and several
+men got wet to their waists when compelled to cross
+while carrying an awkward-shaped hurdle. After
+this, the trench was worse than ever; in parts it
+was built with fire-steps on one side, and one could
+scramble on to this and proceed on the dry for
+awhile; but even here the slippery sand-bags would
+often treacherously slide you back into the worst
+part of the iced platform, and so gave but a doubtful
+advantage. At last the open was gained; then
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span>
+came the crossing of the old German trench, full of
+all kinds of grim relics from the spring fighting.
+And so to our destination.</p>
+
+<p>On the open ground lay a tracing of white tape
+like this—
+
+<span>
+<img class="figcenter" id="i_061" src="images/i_061.jpg" alt="" />
+</span>
+
+forming a serpentine series of contacting squares;
+in the blackness only two white-bordered squares
+were visible from one position. Each man was given
+a square to dig. I forget the measurements; about
+two yards square, I think, and two feet deep. The
+earth had to be thrown about eight yards back
+against a breastwork of hurdles. These hurdles
+were being brought up by the “carrying-parties”
+and fastened by wires by the R.E’s; the R.E.
+officers had, of course, laid our white tapes for us
+previously. Eventually the sentries will stand
+behind the hurdle breastwork with a water-ditch
+ten yards in front of them, which obstacle will be
+suitably enhanced by strong wire entanglements.</p>
+
+<p>But all this vision of completion is hid from the
+eyes of Private Jones, who only knows he has his
+white-taped square to dig. Arms and equipment
+are laid carefully on the side of the trench furthest
+from the breastwork; and nothing can be heard
+but the hard breathing and the shovelling and scraping
+of the “other ranks.” For two hours those men
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span>
+worked their hardest; indeed, it was much the best
+job to have on those cold nights. I did more digging
+then than I have ever done before or since. “Come
+on, Davies, you’re all behind,” and for ten minutes
+I would do an abnormal amount of shovelling, until,
+out of breath, I would hand the boy back his shovel,
+and tell him to carry on, while all aglow I went
+along the line examining the progress of the work.
+We had quite a number of bullets singing and cracking
+across, and there were one or two casualties
+every night. Sometimes flares would pop over, and
+every one would freeze into static posture; but on
+the whole things were very quiet, the enemy doubtless
+as full of water as ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>That intense cold! Yet I did not know then that
+it is far worse being on sentry in the frost than
+marching and digging. And I am not sure that the
+last night, when it rained incessantly, was not worse
+than all the rest. We had a particularly bad piece
+of ground that night, pitted with shell-holes, full of
+frozen water: you were bound to fall in one at last,
+and get wet to the waist; but even if you did escape
+that sticky humiliation, the driving sleet and rain
+were bad enough in themselves. That was a night
+when I found certain sergeants sheltered together
+in a corner; and certain other sergeants in the
+middle of their men and the howling gale. I soon
+routed the former out, but did not forget; and have
+since discovered how valuable a test of the good and
+the useless N.C.O. is a working party in the rain.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span></p>
+
+<p>Never have I longed for 2.0 a.m. as I did that
+night! My feet were wet, my body tired, my whole
+frame shivering with an approaching cold. The
+men could do nothing any longer in that stinking
+slush (for these old shell-holes of stagnant water
+were, to say the least of it, unsavoury!). I was so
+heavy with sleep I could scarce keep my eyes open.
+But when at last the order came from our second-in-command
+“Cease work,” I was filled with a dogged
+energy that carried me back to billets in the best of
+spirits, though I actually fell asleep as I marched
+behind the company, and bumped into the last four,
+when they halted suddenly half-way home! And
+so at four o’clock the men tumbled upstairs to
+breakfast and braziers (thanks to a good quartermaster-sergeant).
+I drank Bovril down below, and
+then, in pyjamas, sweaters, and innumerable
+blankets, turned in till 11.0 a.m. Next afternoon
+we left Rue de l’Epinette and halted at a village on
+the road to Lillers, whence we were to train to “a
+more northern part of the line,” and enjoy at last
+our long-earned rest.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br />
+
+REST</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">Rumours</span> were rife again, and mostly
+right this time. “The C.O. knew the part
+we were going to: a chalk country ...
+rolling downs ... four or five weeks’ rest ... field
+training thirty miles from the firing-line.” Chalk
+downs! To a Kentish man the words were magic,
+after the dull sodden flats of Flanders. I longed
+for a map of France, but could not get hold of one.
+As we marched to Lillers I looked at the flat straight
+roads and the ditches, at the weary monotony,
+uninspired by hill or view, at the floods on the roads,
+and the uninteresting straightness of the villages;
+and I felt that I was at the end of a chapter. Any
+change must be better than this. And chalk!
+chalk! short dry turf, and slopes with purple
+woods! I had forgotten these things existed.</p>
+
+<p>I forget the name of the village where we halted
+for two nights. I had a little room to myself,
+reached by a rickety staircase from the yard. One
+shut the staircase door to keep out the yard. Here
+several new officers joined us, Clark being posted
+to our company, and soon I began to see my last
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span>
+two months as history. For we began to tell our
+adventures to Clark, who had never been in the
+firing-line! Think of it! He was envious of our
+experiences! So I listened in awe and heard a
+tale develop, a true tale, the tale of the night
+the mine went up. It was no longer a case of
+disputing how many trench-mortars came over, but
+telling an interested audience that trench-mortars
+<i>did</i> come over! Clark had never seen one. And
+I listened agape to hear myself the hero of a
+humorous story. When the mine went up, I had
+come out of my dug-out rather late and asked if
+anything had happened. This tale became elaborated:
+I was putting my gloves on calmly, it seems,
+as I strolled out casually and asked if anyone had
+heard a rather loud noise! And so stories crystallised,
+a word altered here and there for effect, but
+true, and as past history quite interesting.</p>
+
+<p>The move was made the occasion, by our C.O.,
+of very elaborate and careful operation orders. No
+details were left to chance, and a conference of
+officers was called to explain the procedure of
+getting a battalion on a train and getting it off
+again. As usual, the officers’ valises had to be
+ready at a very early hour, and the company mess-boxes
+packed correspondingly early. Edwards, I
+think, was detailed as O.C. loading-party. Everything
+like this was down in the operation orders.
+The adjutant had had a time of it.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly the entraining went like clockwork, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span>
+once more I was seated in a grey-upholstered
+corridor carriage; the men were in those useful
+adaptable carriages inscribed “Chevaux 10. Hommes
+30.” Our Tommies were evidently a kind of centaur
+class, for they went in by twenties. As far as I
+can remember, we entrained at 10.0 a.m.; we
+arrived at a station a few miles from Amiens at
+9.0 p.m. A slow journey, but I felt excited like a
+child. I must keep going to the corridor to put
+my head out of the window. It was a sparkling,
+nippy air; the smell of the steam, the grit of the
+engine—these were things I had forgotten; and
+soon there were rolling plains, hills, clustering
+villages. The route, through St. Pol, Doullens,
+and Canaples, is ordinary enough, no doubt; and
+so, too, the gleam of white chalk that came at last.
+But if you think that ordinary things cannot be
+wonderful beyond measure, then go and live above
+ground and underground in Flanders for two months
+on end in winter; then, perhaps, you will understand
+a little of my good spirits.</p>
+
+<p>It was quite dark when we arrived. Then for
+three and a half hours we waited in a meadow outside
+the station, arms piled, the men sitting about
+on their waterproof sheets. Meanwhile the transport
+detrained, a lengthy business. Tea was produced
+from those marvellous field-kitchens. The
+night was cold, though, and it was too damp to
+sit down. For hours we stood about, tired. Then
+came the news that our six-mile march would be
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span>
+more like double six; that the billets had been
+altered!... At half-past twelve we marched off.
+It was starlight, but pretty dark. Eighteen miles
+we marched, reaching Montagne at half-past seven;
+every man was in full marching kit, and most of
+them carried sandbagfuls of extras. It was a big
+effort, especially as the men had done nothing in
+the nature of a long march for months. Well I
+remember it—the tired silence, the steady tramp,
+along the interminable road. Sometimes the band
+would strike up for a little, but even bands tire,
+and cannot play continuously. Mile after mile of
+hard road, and then the hedges would spring up
+into houses, and from the opened windows would
+gaze down awakened women. Hardly ever was a
+light shown in any house. Then the village would
+be left behind, and men shifted their packs and
+exchanged a sand-bag, unslung a rifle from one
+shoulder to the other, and settled down to another
+stretch, wondering if the next village would be
+the last.</p>
+
+<p>So it went on interminably all through the winter
+night. Once we halted in a village, and I sat on
+a doorstep with O’Brien discussing methods of
+keeping our eyes open. Edwards had been riding
+the horse, and had nearly tumbled off asleep. At
+another halt, half-way up a hill, I discovered a
+box of beef lozenges and distributed it among No. 6
+platoon. All the last ten miles I was carrying a
+rifle and a sand-bag. Sergeant Callaghan had the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span>
+same, besides all his own kit. Sergeant Andrews
+kept on as steady as a rock. There were falterers,
+but we kept them in; only in the last two miles
+did one or two drop out. And all the while I was
+elated beyond measure; partly at seeing men like
+Ginger Joe, with his dry wit flashing, and Tudor,
+with his stolid power; but partly, too, at the
+climb uphill, the swing down, mysterious woods,
+and the unmistakable trunks of pines. And all
+the time we were steadily climbing; we must be
+upon a regular tableland.</p>
+
+<p>Dawn broke, and it got lighter and lighter—and
+so we entered Montagne. The quartermaster had
+had a nice job billeting at 2.0 a.m., but he had done
+it, and the men dropped on to their straw, into
+outhouses, anywhere. The accommodation seemed
+small and bad, but that could be arranged later.
+To get the men in, that was the main thing. One
+old woman fussed terribly, and the men looked like
+bayoneting her! We soon got the men in somehow.
+Then for our own billets. We agreed to have
+a scratch breakfast as soon as it could be procured.
+Meanwhile I went to the end of the village and
+found myself on the edge of the tableland; before
+me was spread out a great valley, with a poplar-lined
+road flung right across it; villages were
+dotted about; there were woods, and white ribbon
+by-roads. And over it all glowed the slant morning
+sun. I was on the edge of a chalky plateau; it
+was all just as I had imagined. I slept from 11.0
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span>
+a.m. to 7.0 p.m., when I got up for a meal at which
+we were all short-tempered! And at 9.0 p.m.
+I retired again to sleep till 7.0 next morning.</p>
+
+<p>Montagne—How shall I be able to create a picture
+of Montagne? As I look back at all those eight
+months, the whole adventure seems unreal, a dream;
+yet somehow those first few days in the little village
+had for me a dream-like quality, unlike any other
+time. I think that then I felt that I was living in
+an unreality; whereas at other times life was real
+enough; and it is only now, afterwards, that these
+days are gradually melting through distance into
+dreams. At any rate, if the next few pages are
+dull to the reader, let him try and weave into them
+a sort of fairy glamour, and imagine a kind of spell
+cast over everything in which people moved as in
+a dream.</p>
+
+<p>First, there was the country itself. The next
+day (after a day’s sleep and a night’s on top of it)
+was, if I remember right, rather wet, and we had
+kit inspection in billets, and tried to eke out the
+hours by gas-helmet drill, and arm-drill in squads
+distributed about the various farmyards and barns.
+Then Captain Dixon decided to take the company
+out on a short route march, and as it was raining
+very steadily we took half the company with <i>two</i>
+waterproof sheets per man. One sheet was thrown
+round the shoulders in the usual way; the other
+was tied kilt-wise round the waist. The result was
+an effective rainproof, if unmilitary-looking dress!
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span>
+We set off and soon came to a large wood with a
+broad ride through it.</p>
+
+<p>Along this ride we marched, two-deep now, and
+I at the rear as second-in-command. Here I felt
+most strongly that strange glamour of unreality.
+It was but three months ago, and I was in the heart
+of Wales, yet such was the effect of a few months
+that I looked on everything with the most exuberant
+sense of novelty. The rain-beads on the red-brown
+birch trees; the ivy; the oaks; the strange stillness
+in the thick wood after the gusts of wind and
+slashes of rain; especially the sounds—chattering
+jays, invisible peeping birds, the squelching of boots
+on a wet grass track—everything reminded me of
+a past world that seemed immeasurably distant,
+of past winters that had been completely forgotten.
+Then we emerged into a wide clearing along the
+edge of the wood, full of stunted gorse and junipers.
+Long coarse grass grew in tussocks that matted
+under foot; and now I could see the whole company
+straggling along in front of me, slipping and
+sliding about on the wet grass in their curious kilt-like
+costumes, some of which were now showing
+signs of uneasiness and tending to slip in rings to
+the ground. Everyone was very pleased with life.
+A halt was called at length, and while officers discussed
+buying shot-guns at Amiens, or stalking the
+wily hare with a revolver, Tommy, I have reason
+to believe, was planning more effective means of
+snaring Brer rabbit. Next day in orders appeared
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span>
+an extract from corps orders <i>re</i> prohibition of poaching
+and destruction of game. It was all part of
+the dream that we were surprised, almost shocked,
+at this unwarranted exhibition of property rights!
+Not that there was much game about, anyhow.</p>
+
+<p>The next day we did an advance guard scheme,
+down in the plain. It was a crisp winter day, and
+I remember the great view from the top of the hill,
+on the edge of the plateau as you leave Montagne.
+It was all mapped out, with its hedgeless fields,
+its curling white roads, and its few dark triangles
+and polygons of fir woods. But we had not long
+to see it, for we came into observation then (so
+this dream game pretended!) and were soon in
+extended order working our way along over the
+plain. It all came back to one, this “open warfare”
+business, the advancing in short rushes, the flurried
+messages from excited officers to stolid platoon-sergeants,
+the taking cover, the fire-orders, the
+rattling of the bolts, the lying on the belly in a
+ploughed field; and yes! the spectator, old man
+or woman, gazing in stupid amazement at the
+khaki figures rushing over his fields. Then came
+the assault, bayonets fixed, and the C.O.’s whistle,
+ending the game for that day. “Game,” that was
+it: it is all a game, and when you get tired you
+go home to a good meal, and discuss the humour
+of it, and probably have a pow-wow in the evening
+in which the O.C. “A” is asked why he went off
+to the left, the real answer being that he lost
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span>
+direction badly, but the actual answer given explaining
+the subtlety of a detour round a piece of
+dead ground! Which is the dream? this, or the
+mud-slogging in the trenches and the interminable
+nights?</p>
+
+<p>For, every night we went to bed! Think of it!
+Every night! Always that bed, that silence, that
+priceless privacy of sleep! I had a rather cold
+ground-floor billet with a door that would not shut;
+yet it was worth any of your beds at home! And
+I should be here for a month, perhaps six weeks!
+I wrote for my basin and stand, for books, for all
+sorts of things. I felt I could accumulate, and
+spread myself. It was like home after hotels!
+For always we had been moving, moving; even
+our six days out were often in two or even three
+different billets.</p>
+
+<p>So, too, with our mess. The dream here consisted
+of a jolly little parlour that was the envy of all
+the other company messes. As usual, the rooms
+led into one another, the kitchen into the parlour,
+the parlour into a bedroom; I might almost continue,
+and say the bedroom into a bed! For the
+four-poster, when curtained off, is a little room in
+itself. It was a good billet, but best of all was
+Madame herself. Suffice it to say she would not
+take a penny for use of crockery; and she would
+insist on us making full use of everything; she
+allowed all our cooking to be done in her kitchen;
+and on cold nights she would insist on our servants
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span>
+sitting in the kitchen, though that was her only
+sitting-room. Often have I come in about seven
+o’clock to find our dinner frizzling merrily on the
+fire under the supervision of Gray, the cook, while
+Madame sat humbly in the corner eating a frugal
+supper of bread and milk, before retiring to her
+little room upstairs. Ah, Madame! there are many
+who have done what you have done, but few, I
+think, more graciously. If we tried to thank her
+for some extra kindness, she had always the same
+reply “You are welcome, M. l’Officier. I have
+heard the guns, and the Germans passed through
+Amiens; if it were not for the English, where
+should we be to-day?”</p>
+
+<p>So we settled down for our “rest,” for long
+field days, lectures after tea, football matches, and
+week-ends; I wrote for my Field Service Regulations,
+and rubbed up my knowledge of outposts
+and visual training. But scarcely had I been a
+week at Montagne when off I went suddenly, on a
+Sunday morning, to the Third Army School. I
+had been told my name was down for it, a few days
+before, but I had forgotten all about it, when I
+received instructions to bicycle off with Sergeant
+Roberts; my kit and servant to follow in a limber.
+I had no idea what the “Third Army School”
+was, but with “note-book, pencil, and protractor”
+I cycled off at 11.0 a.m. “to fields and pastures
+new.”</p>
+
+<p>Most people, I imagine, have had the following
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span>
+experience. They have a great interest in some
+particular subject, yet they have somehow not got
+the key to it. They regret that they were never
+taught the elements of it at school; or it is some
+new science or interest that has arisen since their
+schooldays, such as flying or motoring. They are
+really ashamed of asking questions; and all books
+on the subject are technical and presuppose just
+that elementary knowledge that the interested
+amateur does not possess. Then suddenly he
+comes on a book with those delicious phrases in
+the preface promising “to avoid all technical
+details,” apologising for “what may seem almost
+childishly elementary,” and containing at the end
+an expert bibliography. These are the books
+written by very wise and very kind men, and
+because they are worth so much they usually cost
+least of all!</p>
+
+<p>Such was my delightful experience at the Army
+School. I will confess to a terrible ignorance of
+my profession—I did not know how many brigades
+made up a division; “the artillery” were to me
+vague people whom the company commander rang
+up on the telephone, and who appeared in gaiters in
+Béthune; a bomb was a thing I avoided with a
+peculiar aversion; and as to the general conduct
+of the war I was the most ignorant of pawns. The
+wildest things were said about Loos; the <i>Daily
+Mail</i> had just heard of the Fokker, and I had not
+the remotest idea whether we were hopelessly outclassed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span>
+in the air, or whether perhaps after all
+there were people “up top” who were not so
+surprised or disconcerted at the appearance of the
+Fokker as the Northcliffe Press. Moreover, I had
+been impressed with the reiteration of my C.O.,
+that my battalion was the finest in the Army,
+and that my division was likewise the best. Yet
+I had always felt that there were other good
+battalions, and that “K.’s Army” was, to say the
+least of it, in a considerable majority when compared
+with the contemptible little original which
+I had had the luck to join!</p>
+
+<p>Imagine my delight, then, at finding myself one
+of over a hundred captains and senior subalterns
+representing their various battalions. Regulars,
+Territorials, and Kitcheners, we were all there
+together; one’s vision widened like that of a boy
+first going to school. Here at least was a great
+opportunity, if only the staff was good. And any
+doubt on that question was instantly set at rest
+by the Commandant’s opening address, explaining
+that the instructors were all picked men with a
+large experience in this war, that in the previous
+month’s course mostly subalterns had been sent and
+this time it had been the aim to secure captains
+only (oh! balm in Gilead this!) and that apologies
+were due if some of the lectures and instructions
+were elementary; that bombing experts, for
+instance, must not mind if the bombing course
+started right at the very beginning, as it had been
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span>
+found in the previous course that it was wrong to
+presume <i>any</i> military knowledge to be the common
+possession of all officers in the school. Those who
+understood my simile of the expert’s kind book to
+the amateur will understand that there were few
+of us who did not welcome such a promising bill
+of fare.</p>
+
+<p>I do not intend to say much about the instruction
+at the Army School—a good deal of what I
+learnt there is unconsciously embodied in the rest
+of this book—but it is the spirit of the place that
+I want to record. I can best describe it as the
+opposite of what is generally known as academic.
+Theories and text-books about the war were at a
+discount: here were men who had been through
+the fire, every phase of it. It was not a question
+of opinions, but of facts. This came out most
+clearly in discussions after the lectures; a point
+would be raised about advancing over the open:
+“We attacked at St. Julien over open ground
+under heavy fire, and such and such a thing was
+our experience” would at once come out from
+someone. And there was no scoring of debating
+points! We were all out to pool our knowledge
+and experience all the time.</p>
+
+<p>The Commandant inspired in everyone a most
+tremendous enthusiasm. His lectures on “Morale”
+were the finest I have ever heard anywhere. “Put
+yourself in your men’s position on every occasion;
+continually think for them, give them the best
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span>
+possible time, be in the best spirits always;” “long
+faces” were anathema! No one can forget his
+tale of the doctor who never laughed, and whom
+he put in a barn and taught him how to! “‘Hail
+fellow well met’ to all other officers and regiments”
+was another of his great points. “Give ’em a
+d—d good lunch—a <i>d—d</i> good lunch.” “Get a
+good mess going.” “Ask your Brigadier into lunch
+in the trenches: <i>make</i> him come in.” “Concerts?—plenty
+of concerts in billets.” “An extra tot of
+rum to men coming off patrol.” All this was a
+“good show.” But long faces, inhospitality, men
+not cheerful and singing, officers not seeing that their
+men get their dinners, after getting into billets,
+before getting their own; officers supervising
+working-parties by sitting under haystacks instead
+of going about cheering the men; brigadiers not
+knowing their officers; poor lunches—all these
+things were a “bad show, a d—d bad show!”
+These lectures were full of the most delicious
+anecdotes and thrilling stories, and backed up by
+a huge enthusiasm and a most emphatic practice
+of his preaching. We had a concert every Wednesday,
+and every Saturday the four motor-buses took
+the officers into Amiens, and the sergeants on
+Sundays—week-ends were in fact “good shows.”</p>
+
+<p>Then there were the lectures. The second week,
+for instance, was a succession of lectures on the
+Battle of Loos. These lectures used to take place
+after tea, and the discussion usually lasted till
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span>
+dinner. First was a lecture by an infantry major
+of the Seventh Division (who needless to say had
+been very much in it!). Then followed one by
+an artillery officer, giving his version of it; then
+followed an R.E. officer. There was nothing hidden
+away in a corner. It was all facts, facts, facts.
+An enlarged map of our own and the German
+trenches was most fascinating to us who had for
+the most part never handled one before. I remember
+the Major’s description of the fighting in the
+Quarries; it was one of the most vivid bits of
+narrative I have ever heard. Then there were other
+fascinating lectures—Captain Jefferies, the big
+game hunter, on Sniping: the Commandant again
+on Patrol work and discipline, and Dealing with
+prisoners: two lectures from the Royal Flying
+Corps, perhaps most fascinating of all.</p>
+
+<p>We drilled hard with rifles: we took a bombing
+course and threw live bombs: we went through
+the gas, and had a big demonstration with smoke
+bombs: we went to a squadron of the R.F.C.,
+inspected the sheds, saw the aeroplanes, and had
+anything we liked explained: we went out in
+motor-buses and carried out schemes of attack and
+defence: we did outpost schemes: drew maps:
+dug trenches and revetted them. In short, there
+was very little we did not do at the School.</p>
+
+<p>It was, in fact, a “good show.” The School was
+in a big white château on the main road—a new
+house built by the owner of a factory. The village
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span>
+really lies like a sediment at the bottom of a basin,
+with houses clustering and scrambling up the sides
+along the high road running out of it east and west,
+getting thinner and fewer up the hill, to disappear
+altogether on the tableland. The jute factory was
+working hard night and day: we used to have
+hot baths in the long wooden troughs that are used
+for dyeing long rolls of matting, and I know no
+hot baths to equal those forty-footers!</p>
+
+<p>Needless to say, we took advantage of our commandant’s
+arrangement for free ‘bus rides into
+Amiens every Saturday. Christmas Day falling on
+a Saturday, we all had a Christmas dinner at the
+Hôtel de l’Univers. This, needless to say, was a
+“good show.” It was a pity, though, that turkey
+had been insisted on, as turkey with salad, minus
+sausages, bread-sauce, and brussels sprouts did not
+seem somehow the real thing; the chef had jibbed
+at sausages especially! Better at Rome to have
+done completely as Rome does. After all we cannot
+give the French much advice in cooking or in war.
+Otherwise the dinner was good, and unlike our
+folk at home we had a merry Christmas.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I went to see the Cathedral that Ruskin
+has claimed to be the most perfect building in the
+world; indeed, each Saturday found me there;
+for like all true beauty the edifice does not attract
+merely by novelty but satisfies the far truer test
+of familiarity. Yet I confess to a thrill on first
+entering that dream in stone, which could not come
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span>
+a second time. For down in the mud I had forgotten,
+in the obsession of the present, man’s dreams
+and aspirations for the future. Now, here again
+I was in touch with eternal things that wars do
+not affect. I remember once at Malvern we had
+been groping and choking in a thick fog all day;
+then someone suggested a walk, and three of us
+ventured out and climbed the Beacon. Half-way
+up the fog began to thin, and soon we emerged
+into a clear sunshine. Below lay all the plain
+wrapped in a great level blanket of white fog;
+here and there the top of a tall tree or a small
+hill protruded its head out of the mist and seemed
+to be laughing at its poor hidden companions;
+and in a cloudless blue the sun was smiling at
+mankind below who had forgotten his very existence.
+So in Amiens Cathedral I used to get my head out
+of the thick fog of war for a time, and in that
+stately silence recover my vision of the sun.</p>
+
+<p>The cathedral is a building full of all the freshness
+of spring. I was at vespers there on Christmas
+afternoon, and was then impressed by the wonderful
+lightness of the building: so often there is gloom
+in a cathedral, that gives a heavy feeling. But
+Amiens Cathedral is perfectly lighted, and in the
+east window glows a blue that reminded me of
+viper’s bugloss in a Swiss meadow. My imagination
+flew back to the building of the cathedral,
+and to the brain that conceived it, and beyond
+that again to the tradition that through long years
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span>
+moulded the conception; and behind all to the
+idea, the ultimate birth of this perfect creation.
+And one seemed to be straining almost beyond
+humanity, to see the first spring flowers looking up
+in wonder at the sky. The stately pillars were
+man’s aspiration towards his Creator, the floating
+music his attempt at praise.</p>
+
+<p>Yet it was only as I left the building that I
+found the key to the full understanding of this
+perfect expression of an idea. Round the chancel
+is a set of bas-reliefs depicting a saint labouring
+among his people. But what people! They live,
+they speak! The relief is so deep, that some of
+the figures are almost in the round, and several
+come outside the slabs altogether. They are the
+people of mediæval Amiens; they are the very
+people who were living in the town while their
+great cathedral rose stone by stone to be the wonder
+of their city, the pride of all Picardy. Almost
+grotesque in their vivid humanity, they are the
+same people who walk outside the cathedral to-day.
+The master-artist, greater in his dreams than his
+fellow men, was yet blessed with that divine sense
+of humour that made him love them for their quaint
+smallnesses! So in Amiens I felt a double inspiration:
+there was man’s offering of his noblest and
+most beautiful to his Creator, and there was also
+the reminder, in the saint among the Amiens
+populace, that God’s answer was not a proud bend
+of the head as He deigned to accept the offering
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span>
+of poor little man, but a coming down among
+them, a claiming of equality with them, even
+though they refuse still to realise their divinity,
+and choose to live in a self-made suffering and to
+degrade themselves in a fog of war.</p>
+
+<p>All too quickly the month went by. The enthusiasm
+and interest of everybody grew in a steady
+crescendo, and no one, I am sure, will ever forget
+the impression left by the Major-General who was
+deputed to come and “tell us one or two things”
+from the General Staff. In a quiet voice, with a
+quiet smile, he compared our position with that
+of a year ago; told us facts about our numbers
+compared with the enemy’s; our guns compared
+with his; the real position in the air, the temporary
+superiority of the Fokker that would vanish completely
+and finally in a month or so; in everything
+we were now superior except heavy trench-mortars,
+and in a month or so we should have a big supply
+of them too, and a d—d sight heavier! And we
+could afford to wait. One got the impression that
+all our grousings and doubtings were completely
+out of date, that up at the top now was a unity
+of command that had thought everything out and
+could afford to wait. Later on I forgot this impression,
+but I remember it so well now. Even through
+Verdun we could afford to wait. We had all the
+cards now. There was a sort of breathless silence
+throughout this quiet speech. And when it ended
+with a “Good luck to you, gentlemen,” there was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span>
+applause; but one’s chief desire was to go outside
+and shout. It was a bonfire mood: best of all
+would have been a bonfire of <i>Daily Mails</i>!</p>
+
+<p>We returned to our units on Sunday, 9th January,
+1916, by motor-bus, which conveyed us some sixty
+or seventy miles, when we were dropped, Sergeant
+Roberts, myself, and Lewis, my servant. Leaving
+Lewis with my valise, we walked in the moonlight
+up to Montagne, where I got the transport officer
+to send a limber for my valise. “O’Brien on leave”
+was the first thing I grasped, as I tried to acclimatise
+myself to my surroundings. Leave! My three
+months was up, so I ought to get leave myself in
+a week or so; in a few days in fact. My first
+leave! The next week was rosy from the prospect.
+My second impression was like that of a poet full
+of a great sunset and trying to adjust himself to
+the dry unimaginative remarks of the rest of the
+community who have relegated sunsets to perdition
+during dinner. For every one was so dull! They
+groused, they maligned the Staff, they were pessimistic,
+they were ignorant, oh! profoundly
+ignorant; they were in fact in a state of not
+having seen a vision! I could not believe then
+that the time would come when I, too, should
+forget the vision, and fix my eyes on the mud!
+Still, for the moment, I was immensely surprised,
+though I was not such a fool as to start at once
+on a general reform of everyone, starting with the
+Brigadier. For under the Commandant’s influence
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span>
+one felt ready to tell off the Brigadier, if he didn’t
+get motor-’buses to take your men to a divisional
+concert instead of saying the men must march three
+miles to it. But, as I say, I restrained myself.</p>
+
+<p>A week of field days, of advance guards and
+attacks in open order, of battalion drill, company
+drill, arm-drill, gas-helmet drill; lectures in the
+school in the evening, and running drill before
+breakfast. Yet all the time I felt chafing to get
+back into the firing-line. I felt so much better
+equipped to command my men. I wanted to
+practise all my new ideas. Then my leave came
+through.</p>
+
+<p>Leave “comes through” in the following manner.
+The lucky man receives an envelope from the
+orderly room, in the corner of which is written
+“Leave.” Inside is an “A” Form (Army Form
+C 2121) with this magic inscription: “Please note
+you will take charge of —— other ranks proceeding
+on leave to-morrow morning, 17th inst. They will
+parade outside orderly room at 7.0 a.m. sharp.”
+Then follow instructions as to where to meet the
+’bus. “Take charge!” If you blind-folded those
+fellows they would find their way somehow by
+the quickest route to Blighty! The officer is then
+an impossible person to live with. He is continually
+jumping about, upsetting everybody, getting
+sandwiches, and discussing England, looking at the
+paper to see “What’s on” in town, talking, being
+unnecessarily bright and cheery. He is particularly
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span>
+offensive in the eyes of the man just come back
+from leave. Still, it is his day; abide with him
+until he clears off! So they abode with me until
+the evening, and next morning Oliver and I started
+off in the darkness with our four followers. As we
+left the village it was just beginning to lighten a
+little, and we met the drums just turning out, cold
+and sleepy. As we sprang down the hill, leaving
+Montagne behind us, faintly through the dawn we
+heard réveillé rousing our unfortunate comrades to
+another Monday morning!</p>
+
+<p>Then came the long, long journey that nobody
+minds really, though every one grumbles at it.
+At B—— an hour’s halt for omelettes and coffee
+and bread and jam, while the Y.M.C.A. stall supplied
+tea and buns innumerable. B—— will be a station
+known for all time to thousands. “Do you remember
+B——?” we shall ask each other. “Oh! yes.
+Good omelettes one got there.” Then the port,
+and fussy R.T.O’s again. Why make a fuss, when
+everyone is magnetised towards the boat? Under
+the light of a blazing gas-jet squirting from a
+pendant ball, we crossed the gangway.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>There were men of old time who fell on their
+native earth and kissed it, on returning after exile.
+We did not kiss the boards of Southampton pier-head,
+but we understood the spirit that inspired that
+action as we steamed quietly along the Solent over
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span>
+a grey and violet sea. There were mists that
+morning, and the Hampshire coast was grey and
+vague; but steadily the engine throbbed, and we
+glided nearer and nearer, entered Southampton
+Water, and at last were near enough to see houses
+and fields and people. People. English women.</p>
+
+<p>We disembarked. But what dull people to meet
+us! Officials and watermen who have seen hundreds
+of leave-boats arrive—every day in fact! The last
+people to be able to respond to your feelings. Still,
+what does it matter? There is the train, and an
+English First! Some one started to run for one,
+and in a moment we were all running!...</p>
+
+<p>But you have met us on leave.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br />
+
+ON THE MARCH</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">On</span> this leave I most religiously visited
+relations and graciously received guests.
+For one thing, I felt it my duty to dispel
+all this ignorant pessimism that I found rolling
+about in large chunks, like the thunder in <i>Alice in
+Wonderland</i>. I exacted apologies, humble apologies
+from them. “How can we help it?” they pleaded.
+“We have no means of knowing anything except
+through the papers.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I suppose you can’t help it,” I would
+reply, and forgive them from my throne of optimism.
+Eight days passed easily enough.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner sometimes comes indigestion: people
+enjoy the one and not the other. So after leave
+comes the return from leave, the one in Tommy-French
+<i>bon</i>, the other <i>no bon</i>. I hope I do not
+offend by calling the state of the latter a mental
+indigestion! It was with a kind of fierce joy that
+we threw out our bully and biscuits to the crowds
+of French children who lined the railway banks
+crying out, “Bullee-beef,” “Biskeet.” The custom
+of supplying these rations on the leave train has
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span>
+long since been discontinued now, but in those
+days the little beggars used to know the time of
+the train to a nicety, and must have made a good
+trade of it.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as I got back to Montagne I heard a
+“move” was in the air, and I was delighted. I was
+fearfully keen to get back into the firing-line again.
+I was full of life, and in the mood for adventure.
+I started a diary. Here are some extracts.</p>
+
+<p>“29th January, 1916. Lewis (my servant)
+brought in a bucket of water this morning which
+contained 10% of mud. As the mud dribbled
+on to the green canvas of my bath during the end
+of the pouring, he saw it for the first time. Apparently
+the well is running dry.... He managed
+to get some clean water at length and I had a great
+bath. Madame asked me as I went in to breakfast
+why I whistled getting up that morning. I tried
+to explain that I was in good spirits. It was an
+exhilarating morning; outside was a great cawing of
+rooks, and the slant sunlight lit up everything with
+a rich colour; the mouldy green on the twigs of
+the apple trees was a joy to see. Later in the day
+I noticed how all this delicious morning light had
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>“7 p.m. Orders have just come in for the move
+to-morrow. Loading party at 6.0 a.m. under
+Edwards, who is inwardly fed up but outwardly
+quite pleased. Valises to be ready by 6.45 a.m.
+Dixon grouses as usual at orders coming in late.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span>
+These moves always try the tempers of all concerned.
+O’Brien and Edwards are now on the rustle, collecting
+kit. We have accumulated rather a lot of
+papers, books, tins of ration, tobacco, etc.”</p>
+
+<p>Madame was genuinely sorry to see us go. We
+gave her a large but beautiful ornament for her
+mantelpiece, suitably inscribed. The dear soul was
+overwhelmed, and drew cider from a cellar hitherto
+unknown to us, which she pressed on our servants
+as well as on us. We made the fellows drink it,
+though they were not very keen on it!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>“30 Jan., 1916. Montagne—Vaux-en-Amienois.
+I found myself suddenly detailed as O.C. rear party,
+in lieu of Edwards, who has to remain in Montagne
+and hand over to the incoming battalion. At 9.30
+three A.S.C. lorries arrived, and we loaded up. I
+had about forty men for the job. It was good to see
+these boys heaving up rolls of many-coloured
+blankets, which filled nearly two lorries; the third
+was packed with a mixture of boilers, dixies, brooms,
+spades, lamps, etc. The leather and skin waistcoats
+had to be left behind for a second journey:
+I left the shoemaker-sergeant and four men with
+these to await the return of one of the lorries. As
+we worked a fog rolled up, which was to stay all day.
+Edwards meanwhile saw to it that all the odd coal
+and wood left at the transport was taken to our good
+Madame; this much annoyed the groups of women
+who peered like vultures from the doorways, ready
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span>
+to squabble over the pickings as soon as the last of
+us had departed.</p>
+
+<p>Farewell to Montagne. All the fellows were dull.
+Even Sawyer the smiling, who had been prominent
+with his cheery face in the loading-up, was silent
+and dull. No life. No spirit. A mournful lot, save
+for the plum-pudding dog that galloped ahead and
+on either flank, smelling and pouncing and tossing
+his mongrel ears in delight. He belonged to one
+of the men, a gift from a warm-hearted daughter
+of France.</p>
+
+<p>A dull lot, I say. I rallied them. I persuaded.
+I whistled, hoping to put a tune into their dull
+hearts; and as we swung downhill into Riencourt
+they began to sing. It was but a sorry thin sort of
+singing though, like a winter sunshine; there was
+no power behind it, no joy, no spontaneity. Suddenly,
+however, as we came into the village, there
+was a company of the Warwicks falling in, and
+everyone sang like fury. Baker, one of the last
+draft, was the moving spirit. But he is young to
+this life, and later on, when the fog had entered
+their souls again, he said he could not well sing with
+a pack on. Yet is not that the very time to sing, is
+not that the very virtue of singing, the conquest
+of the poor old body by the indomitable spirit?</p>
+
+<p>It was a fifteen-mile march. At the third halt
+I gave half an hour for the eating of bread and
+cheese. Then was the hour of the plum-pudding
+hound; also appeared a sort of Newfoundland
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span>
+collie, very big in the hind-quarters, and very dirty
+as well as ill-bred. Between them they made rich
+harvest of crusts and cheese. We sat on a bank
+along the road, but after half an hour we were all
+getting cold in the raw air, and I fell them in again,
+and we got on our way. Soon they warmed up
+and whistled and sang for a quarter of an hour;
+then silence returned, and eyes turned to the ground
+again. This march began to tell on the older men.
+Halford fell out, and I sent Corporal Dewey to bring
+him along, hastily scribbling the name of our
+destination on a slip torn from my field-message
+book, and giving it to him. Then Riley fell out,
+and Flynn. I began to dread the appearance of
+Sergeant Hayman from the rear, to tell me of some
+one else. They were men, these, who had been
+employed on various jobs; the older and weaker
+men. There was no skrim-shanking, for there was
+no Red Cross cart behind us. But no one else fell
+out; the pace was steady and they were as fit as
+anything, these fellows. Then happened an incident.
+We had just turned off the main Amiens
+road, and come to a forked road. I halted a moment
+to make sure of the way by the map, and while I did
+so apparently some sergeant from a regiment
+billeted in the village there told Sergeant Hayman
+that the battalion had taken the left road. The way
+was to the right, and as I struck up a steep hill,
+Sergeant Hayman ran up and told me the battalion
+(which had started nearly two hours before us)
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span>
+had gone to the left. ‘I’m going to the right, sergeant,’
+said I. And the sergeant returned to the
+rear. Up, up, up. Grind, grind, grind. I began to
+hear signs of doubt behind. ‘Did you hear that?
+Said the battalion went t’other way,’ and so on.
+‘Ain’t ’e got a map all right?’ from a believer.
+‘Three kilos more,’ I said at the next stop. But
+some of the fellows had got it into their heads, I
+could see, that we were wrong. I studied the map;
+there was no doubt we were all right. Yet a mistake
+would be calamitous, as the men were very
+done. Ah! a kilo-stone! ‘Two kilos to ——,’ a
+place not named on the map at all. This gave me
+a qualm; and behind came the usual mispronunciations
+of this annoying village on the stone.
+But lo! on the left came a turning as per map.
+Round we swung, downhill, and suddenly we were
+in a village. Another qualm as I saw it full of Jocks.
+The doubters were just beginning to realise this
+fact, when we turned another corner, and almost
+fell on top of the C.O.! In five minutes we were
+in billets....”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The next day we marched to the village of Querrieux.
+There I heard the guns again after two
+months.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>“31st January. This evening was full of the
+walking tour spirit, the spirit of good company.
+We were billeted at a farmhouse, and the farmer
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span>
+showed Captain Dixon and me all round his farm.
+He was full of pride in everything; of his horses first
+of all. There were three in the first stable, sleek and
+strong; then we saw <i>la mère</i>, a beautiful mare in
+foal; then lastly there was ‘Piccaninny,’ a yearling.
+All the stables were spotlessly clean, and the animals
+well kept. But to see him with his lambs was best
+of all. The ewes were feeding from racks that ran
+all along both sides of the sheds, and his lantern
+showed two long rows of level backs, solid and uniform
+and dull; while in the middle of the shed
+was a jocund company of close-cropped lambs,
+frisking, pushing, jostling, or pulling at their dams;
+as lively and naughty a crew as you could imagine.
+‘Ah! <i>voleur</i>,’ cried our friend, picking up a lamb
+that was stealing a drink from the wrong tap, and
+pointing to its dam at the other end of the shed; he
+fondled and stroked it like a puppy, making us
+hold it, and assuring us it was not <i>méchant</i>!</p>
+
+<p>At 7.0 we had our dinner in the kitchen. The
+farmer, his wife, and the <i>domestique</i> (a manservant,
+whose history I will tell in a few minutes) had just
+finished, and were going to clear off; but we asked
+them to stay and let us drink their health in whiskey
+and soda. The farmer said this was wont to make
+the <i>domestique</i> go ‘zigzag’; for himself, he would
+drink, not for the inherent pleasure of the whiskey,
+which was a strong drink to which he was unused,
+he being of the land of light wines, but to give us
+pleasure! So the usual healths were given in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span>
+Old Orkney and Perrier. Then we were told the
+history of the <i>domestique</i>, which brought one very
+close to the spirit in which France is fighting. He
+had eight children in Peronne, barely ten miles the
+other side of the line. Called up in September, 1914,
+he was in the trenches until March, 1915, when he
+was released on account of his eight children. But
+by then the living line had set between them in
+steel and blood, and never a word yet has he heard
+of his wife and eight children, the youngest of whom
+he left nine days old! There are times when our
+cause seems clouded with false motives; but there
+seemed no doubt on this score to-night, as we
+watched this man in his own land, creeping up, as
+it were, as near as possible to his wife and children
+and home, and yet barred from his own village, and
+without the knowledge even that his own dear ones
+were alive. The farmer told us he had gone half
+crazed. Yet he had a fine face, though furrowed
+with deep lines down his forehead. ‘Ten minutes
+in the yard with the Germans—ah! what would
+he do!’ And vividly he drew his hand across his
+throat. But the Germans would never go back:
+that was another of his opinions. No wonder he
+told us he doubted the <i>bon Dieu</i>: no wonder he
+sometimes went zigzag.</p>
+
+<p>The farmer was well educated, and had very intelligent
+views on the war; one son was a captain;
+the other was also serving in some capacity. The
+wife made us good coffee, but got very sleepy. I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span>
+learnt she rose every morning at 4.0 a.m. to milk
+the cows.</p>
+
+<p>To-night we can hear the guns. There seems a
+considerable liveliness at several parts of the line,
+and strange rumours of the Germans breaking
+through, which I do not believe. To-morrow we
+shall be within the shell-zone again.”</p>
+
+<p>“Feb. 1st. To-day we marched to Morlancourt
+and are spending the night in huts. It is very cold,
+and we have a brazier made out of a biscuit tin,
+but it smokes abominably. We are busy getting
+trench-kit ready for the next day. From outside the
+hut I can see star-lights, and hear machine-guns
+tapping. It thrills like the turning up of the footlights.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>And it was a long act. The curtain did not fall
+till June.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br />
+
+THE BOIS FRANÇAIS TRENCHES</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">This</span> is a chapter of maps, diagrams, and
+technicalities. There are people, I know,
+who do not want maps, to whom maps
+convey practically nothing. These people can skip
+this chapter, and (from their point of view) they
+will lose nothing. The main interest of life lies in
+what is done and thought, and it does not much
+matter exactly where these acts and thoughts take
+place. Maps are like anatomy: to some people it
+is of absorbing interest to know where our bones,
+muscles, arteries and all the rest of our interior
+lie; to others these things are of no account whatever.
+Yet all are alike interested in human people.
+And so, quite understanding (I think you are really
+very romantic in your dislike of maps: you associate
+them with the duller kind of history, and examination
+papers!), I bid you mapless ones farewell till
+page 117, promising you (again) that you shall lose
+nothing.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Now to work. We understand each other, we
+map-lovers. The other folk have gone on to the
+next chapter, so we can take our time.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p class="author small"><i>To face page 97</i></p>
+<img id="i_097" src="images/i_097.jpg" alt="" />
+<p class="caption">MAP II.</p>
+<p class="caption small">TRENCH LINE —·—·—·—·—·—</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Now look at Map II. The River Ancre runs down
+west of the Thiepval ridge, through Albert, and then
+in a south-westerly course through Méricourt-l’abbé
+down to Corbie, where it joins the Somme on its
+way to Amiens. On each side of the Ancre is high
+ground of about 100 metres. The high ground
+between the Ancre and the Somme forms a long
+tableland. There is no ridge, it is just high flat
+country, from three hundred and thirty to three
+hundred and forty feet, cultivated and hedgeless.
+Now look at Fricourt. It is a break in this high
+ground running on the left bank of the Ancre, and
+this break is caused by a nameless tributary of that
+river, that joins it just west of Méaulte. And now
+you will see that this little streamlet was for over
+a year and a half the cause of much thought and
+labour to very many men indeed: for this stream
+formed the valley in which Fricourt lies; and right
+across this valley, just south of that unimportant
+little village, ran for some twenty months or so
+the Franco-German and later the Anglo-German
+lines.</p>
+
+<p>Now look at the dotted line (—·—·) which represents
+the trenches. From Thiepval down to Fricourt
+they run almost due north and south; then they run
+up out of the valley on to the high ground at Bois
+Français (a small copse, I suppose, once; I have
+never discovered any vestige of a tree-stump among
+the shell-holes), and then abruptly run due east.
+It is as though someone had appeared suddenly on
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span>
+the corner of the shoulder at Bois Français, and
+pushed them off, compelling them to make a détour.
+After five miles they manage to regain their direction
+and run south again.</p>
+
+<p>It is these trenches at Bois Français that we held
+for over four months. I may fairly claim to know
+every inch of them, I think! It is obvious that if
+you are at Bois Français, and look north, you have
+an uninterrupted view not only of both front lines
+running down into Fricourt valley, but of both
+lines running up on to the high ground north of
+Fricourt, and a very fine view indeed of Fricourt
+itself, and Fricourt wood. It is also quite clear that
+from their front lines north of Fricourt the Germans
+had a good view of <i>our</i> front lines and communications
+in the valley; but of Bois Français and our
+trenches east of it they had no enfilade view, as all
+our communications were on the reverse slope of
+this shoulder of high ground. So as regards observation
+we were best off. Moreover, whereas they
+could not possibly see our support lines and communications
+at Bois Français, we could get a certain
+amount of enfilade observation of their trenches
+opposite from point 87, where was a work called
+Boute Redoubt and an artillery observation post.</p>
+
+<p>The position of the artillery immediately becomes
+clear, when the lie of the ground is once grasped.
+For field artillery enfilade fire is far most effective,
+as the trajectory is lower than that of heavy artillery.
+That is to say, a whizz-bang (the name given to an
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span>
+18-lb. shell) more or less skims along the ground
+and comes <i>at</i> you; whereas howitzers fire up in
+the air, and the shell rushes down on top of you.
+To be explicit at the risk of boring:—</p>
+
+<p>If a battery of eighteen-pounders can fire up a
+trench like this:—
+
+<span class="figcenter">
+<img id="i_099a" src="images/i_099a.jpg" alt="" />
+</span>
+
+it has far more effect against the nine men in that
+trench than if it fires like this:
+
+<span class="figcenter">
+<img id="i_099b" src="images/i_099b.jpg" alt="" />
+</span></p>
+
+<p>The same applies of course to howitzers, but as
+howitzers drop shells down almost perpendicularly,
+they can be used with great effect traversing along
+a trench, that is to say, getting the exact range of
+the trench in sketch (<i>b</i>), and dropping shells methodically
+from right to left, or left to right, so many to
+each fire-bay, and dodging about a bit, and going
+back on to a bit out of turn so that the enemy cannot
+tell where the next coal-box is coming. Oh! it is
+a great game this for the actors, but not for the
+unwilling audience.</p>
+
+<p>So you can see now why a battery of field artillery
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span>
+was stationed in the gully called Gibraltar, and
+another just west of Albert (at B): each of these
+batteries could bring excellent enfilade fire on to
+the German trenches. There was another battery
+that fired from the place I have marked C, and
+another at D. The howitzers lived in all sorts of
+secret places, as far back as Morlancourt some of
+them. One never worried about them. They knew
+their own business. Once, in June, on our way into
+the trenches we halted close by a battery at E,
+and I looked into one of the gun-pits and saw the
+terrible monster sitting with its long nose in the
+air. And I saw the great shells (it was a 9·6) waiting
+in rows. But I felt like an interloper, and fled at
+the approach of a gunner. All these howitzers you
+see firing on the Somme films, we never saw or
+thought about; only we loved to hear their shells
+whistling and “griding” (if there is no such word,
+I cannot help it: there is an “r” and a “d” in
+the sound anyway!) over our head, and falling
+“crump,” “crump,” “crump” along the German
+support trenches. There were a lot of batteries in
+the Bois des Tailles; the woods were full of them,
+and grew fuller and fuller. I do not know what they
+all were.</p>
+
+<p>As one brigade contains four battalions, we almost
+invariably had two battalions in the line, and two
+“in billets.” So it was usually “six days in and
+six days out.” During these six days out we also
+invariably supplied four working-parties per company,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span>
+which lasted nine hours from the time of
+falling in outside company headquarters to dismissing
+after marching back. Still, it was “billets.”
+One slept uninterruptedly, and with equipment and
+boots off. Now we were undeniably lucky in being
+invariably (from February to June, 1916) billeted
+in Morlancourt, which, as you can see from the map,
+is situated in a regular cup with high ground all
+round it. I have put in the 50-metre contour line
+to show exactly how the roads all run down into it
+from every quarter. It was a cosy spot, and a very
+jolly thing after that long, long weary grind up
+from Méaulte at the end of a weary six days in, to
+look down on the snug little village waiting for you
+below. For once over the hill and “swinging”
+down into Morlancourt, one became, as it were,
+cut off from the war suddenly and completely. It
+was somewhat like shutting the door on a stormy
+night: everything outside was going on just the
+same, but with it was shut out also a wearing,
+straining tension of body and mind.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, we were very lucky in being billeted at Morlancourt.
+It was just too far off to be worth shelling,
+whereas Bray was shelled regularly almost every
+day. So was Méaulte. And there were brigades
+billeted in both Bray and Méaulte. There were
+troops in tents in the Bois des Tailles, and this too
+was sometimes shelled.</p>
+
+<p>Now just look, please, at the two thick lines,
+which represent alternative routes to the trenches.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span>
+We were always able to relieve by day, thanks to
+the rolling nature of the country. (Where the line
+is dotted, this represents a trench.) We always used
+to go by the route through Méaulte at one time,
+until they took to shelling the road at the point I
+have marked Z; whether they could see us from
+an observation post up la-Boiselle way, or whether
+they spotted us by observation balloon or aeroplane,
+one cannot say. But latterly we always used the
+route by the Bois des Tailles and Gibraltar. In
+both cases we had to cross the high ground S.W.
+of point 71 by trench, but on arrival at that point
+we were again in a valley and out of observation.
+All along this road were a series of dug-outs, and
+here were companies in reserve, R.E. headquarters,
+R.A.M.C. dressing-station, field kitchens, stores,
+etc. And here the transport brought up rations
+every evening viâ Bray. One could walk about
+here, completely secure from view; but latterly
+they took to shelling it, and it was not a healthy
+spot then. It was also enfiladed occasionally by
+long-range machine-gun fire. But on the whole it
+was a good spot, and one had a curious sensation
+being able to walk about on an open road within a
+thousand yards of the Germans. The dug-outs
+called “71 North” were the best. The bank
+sloped up very steeply from the road, thus protecting
+the dug-outs along it from anything but shell-fire
+of very high trajectory. And this the Germans
+never used. However, one did not want to walk
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span>
+too far along the road, for it led round the corner
+into full view of Fricourt at X. There was a trench
+at the side of the road that ought to be hopped
+down into, but it could easily be missed, and there
+was no barrier across the road! I saw a motor-cyclist
+dash right along to the corner once, and
+return very speedily when he found himself gazing
+full view at Fricourt!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p class="author small"><i>To face page 103</i></p>
+<img id="i_103a" src="images/i_103a.jpg" alt="" />
+<p class="caption">MAP III.</p>
+<img id="i_103b" src="images/i_103b.jpg" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Map III is an enlargement of the area in Map II,
+and gives details of our trenches and the German
+trenches opposite. I wish I could convey the sense
+of intimacy with which I am filled when I look at
+this map. It is something like the feelings I should
+ascribe to a farmer looking at a map of his property,
+every inch of which he knows by heart; every
+field, every copse, every lane, every hollow and hill
+are intimate things to him. With every corner he
+has some association; every tree cut down, every
+fence repaired, every road made up, every few
+hundred yards of shaw grubbed up, every acre of
+orchard enclosed and planted—all these he can call
+back to memory at his will. So do I know every
+corner, every turning in these trenches; every
+traverse has its peculiar familiarity, very often
+its peculiar history. This traverse was built the
+night after P——’s death; this trench was dug
+because “75 Street” was so marked down by the
+enemy rifle-grenades; another was a terrible straight
+trench till we built those traverses in it; another
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span>
+was a morass until we boarded it. How well I
+remember being half buried by a canister at the
+corner of “78 Street”; and the night the mine
+blew in all the trench between the Fort and the
+Loop; what an awful dug-out that was at Trafalgar
+Square; how we loathed the straightness of Watling
+Street. And so on, <i>ad infinitum</i>. We were in those
+trenches for over four months, and I know them as
+one knows the creakings of the doors at home, the
+subtle smell of the bath-room, the dusty atmosphere
+of the box-room, or the lowness of the cellar door.
+Particularly intimate are the recollections of dug-outs,
+with their good or bad conveniences in the
+way of beds and tables, their beams that smote you
+on the head as regularly as clockwork, or their
+peculiarly musty smell. One dug-out invariably
+smelt of high rodent; another of sand-bag, nothing
+but sand-bag.</p>
+
+<p>From February, then, to June we kept on going
+into these trenches drawn on Map III, and then
+back to Morlancourt for rest and working-parties,
+all as regular as clockwork. Once or twice the actual
+front line held by our battalion was altered, so that
+I have been in the trenches all along from the
+Cemetery (down in the valley) to the end of the
+craters opposite Danube Trench. But every time
+except twice my company held part of the trench
+between 83 B (the end of the craters) and the Lewis
+gun position to the right of 76 Street. The usual
+distribution of the battalion was as follows:—
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span></p>
+
+<table>
+ <tr>
+ <td>A</td>
+ <td>Company.</td>
+ <td>From 80 A to L. G. (Lewis gun) on right of 76.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>B</td>
+ <td class="tdc">”</td>
+ <td>Maple Redoubt.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>C</td>
+ <td class="tdc">”</td>
+ <td>71 North.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>D</td>
+ <td class="tdc">”</td>
+ <td>L. G. on right of 76 to 73 Street.</td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>(After three days A and B, and C and D,
+relieved each other.)</p></blockquote>
+
+<table>
+ <tr>
+ <td>Battalion Headquarters,<br />
+ Headquarter Bombers,<br />
+ M.O. and H.Q. Stretcher-bearers<br />
+ R.S.M.</td>
+ <td>Maple Redoubt.</td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Maple Redoubt was what is known as a “strong
+point.” In case of an enemy attack piercing our
+front line, the company in Maple Redoubt held out
+at all costs to the last man, even if the enemy got
+right past and down the hill. There was a dug-out
+which was provisioned full up with bully-beef and
+water (in empty petrol cans) ready for this emergency.
+There was a certain amount of barbed-wire
+put out in front of the trenches to N., W., and E.;
+and there were two Lewis-gun positions at A and
+B. Really it was not a bad little place, although
+the “Defences of Maple Redoubt” were always
+looked on by us as rather more of a big joke than
+anything. No one ever really took seriously the
+thought of the enemy coming over and reaching
+Maple Redoubt. Raid the front line he was liable
+to do at any moment; but attack on such a big
+scale as to come right through, no, no one really
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span>
+ever (beneath the rank of battalion commander,
+anyway) worried about that. Still, if he did, there
+was the redoubt anyway; and there was another
+called “Redoubt A” on the hill facing us, as one
+looked from Maple Redoubt across the smoke
+rising from dug-outs which could just not be seen
+under the bank at 71 North. Here was rumoured
+to be bully-beef and water also, and the Machine-gun
+Corps had some positions in it which they visited
+occasionally; but even a notice “No one allowed
+this way,” failed to tempt me to explore its interior.
+One saw it, traced out on the hill, from
+Maple Redoubt, and there I have no doubt it still
+is, with its bully-beef intact and its water a little
+stale!</p>
+
+<p>So much for Maple Redoubt. In case of attack,
+as I have said, it was a strong point that must
+hold out at all costs, while the company at 71 North
+came up to Rue Albert, and would support either
+of the front companies as the C.O. directed. The
+front companies of course held the front line to the
+last man. Meanwhile, the two battalions in billets
+would be marching up from Morlancourt, to the
+high ground above Redoubt A (that is, just east of
+D on Map II). Up there were a series of entrenched
+“works,” known as the “intermediate line.” (The
+“second line” ran a little north of point 90, N.E.
+of Morlancourt. But no one took <i>that</i> seriously,
+anyway.) The battalions marching up from billets
+might have to hold these positions, or, what was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span>
+more likely, be ordered to counter-attack immediately.
+Such was the defence scheme.</p>
+
+<p>“Six days in billets: three days in support.
+Not particularly hard, that sounds,” I can hear
+someone say. I tried to disillusion people in an
+earlier chapter about the easiness of the “rest” in
+billets, owing to the incessant working-parties.
+These were even more incessant during these four
+months. Let me say a few words then, also, about
+life in support trenches. I admit that for officers
+it was not always an over-strenuous time; but
+look at Tommy’s ordinary programme:—</p>
+
+<p>This would be a typical day, say, in April.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>4 a.m. Stand to, until it got light enough to clean
+your rifle; then clean it.</p>
+
+<p>About 5 a.m. Get your rifle inspected, and turn
+in again.</p>
+
+<p>6.30 a.m. Turn out to carry breakfast up to
+company in front line. (Old Kent Road very
+muddy after rain. A heavy dixie to be carried
+from top of Weymouth Avenue, up viâ Trafalgar
+Square, and 76 Street to the platoon holding
+the trench at the Loop.)</p>
+
+<p>7.45 a.m. Get your own breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>9 a.m. Turn out for working-party; spend
+morning filling sandbags for building traverses
+in Maple Redoubt.</p>
+
+<p>11.30 a.m. Carry dinner up to front company.
+Same as 6.30 a.m.</p>
+
+<p>1 p.m. Get your own dinner.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span></p>
+
+<p>1 to 4 p.m. (With luck) rest.</p>
+
+<p>4 p.m. Carry tea up to front company.</p>
+
+<p>5 p.m. Get your own tea.</p>
+
+<p>5.15 to 7.15 p.m. (With luck) rest.</p>
+
+<p>7.15 p.m. Clean rifle.</p>
+
+<p>7.30 p.m. Stand to. Rifle inspected.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Jones puts his big ugly boot out suddenly,
+just after you have finished cleaning rifle, and
+upsets it. Result—mud all over barrel and
+nose-cap.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>8.30 p.m. Stand down. Have to clean rifle again
+and show platoon sergeant.</p>
+
+<p>9 p.m. Turn out for working-party till 12 midnight
+in front line.</p>
+
+<p>12 midnight. Hot soup.</p>
+
+<p>12.15 a.m. Dug-out at last till</p>
+
+<p>4 a.m. Stand to.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And so on for three days and nights. This is
+really quite a moderate programme: it is one that
+you would aim at for your men. But there are
+disturbing elements that sometimes compel you to
+dock a man’s afternoon rest, for instance. A couple
+of canisters block Watling Street; you <i>must</i> send
+a party of ten men and an N.C.O. to clear it at once:
+or you suddenly have to supply a party to carry
+“footballs” up to Rue Albert for the trench-mortar
+man. The Adjutant is sorry; he could not
+let you know before; but they have just come up
+to the Citadel, and must be unloaded at once. So
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span>
+you have to find the men for this on the spur of
+the moment. And so it goes on night and day.
+Oh, it’s not all rum and sleep, is life in Maple
+Redoubt.</p>
+
+<p>Three days and nights in support, and then comes
+the three days in the front line.</p>
+
+<p>Now we will take it that “B” Company is holding
+from 80 A to the Lewis-gun position to the right
+of 76 Street. You will notice at once that almost
+the whole of No Man’s Land in front of this sector
+of trenches is a chain of mine craters. No one can
+have much idea of a crater until he actually sees
+one. I can best describe it as a hollow like a quarry
+or chalk hole about fifty yards in diameter and some
+forty or fifty feet deep. (They vary in size, of
+course, but that is about the average.) The sides,
+which are steepish, and vary in angle between
+thirty and sixty degrees, are composed of a very
+fine thin soil, which is, in point of fact, a thick
+sediment of powdered soil that has returned to
+earth after a tempestuous ascent into the sky. A
+large mine always causes a “lip” above the ground
+level, which appears in section somewhat like
+this:—
+
+<span class="figcenter">
+<img id="i_109" src="images/i_109.jpg" alt="" />
+</span></p>
+
+<p>There is usually water in the bottom of the
+deeper craters. When a series of craters is formed,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span>
+running into one another, you get a very uneven
+floor that appears in lengthwise section thus:—
+
+<span class="figcenter">
+<img id="i_110a" src="images/i_110a.jpg" alt="" />
+</span></p>
+
+<p>The dotted line is the ground level: the uneven
+line is the course that would be taken by a man
+walking along the bottom of the chain of craters,
+and keeping in the centre. Actually, of course,
+(on patrol) one would not keep in the centre where
+the crater contained water, but would skirt the
+water by going to one side of it. The “bridges”
+are important, as they are naturally the easiest
+way across the craters; a bombing patrol, for
+instance, could crawl over a bridge, without having
+to go right down to the bottom level, and (which
+is more important) will not have a steep climb up
+over very soft and spongy soil. These bridges are
+the “lips” of the larger craters where they join
+the smaller; looking at a crater-chain <i>in plan</i>
+X is a “bridge,” whereas Y and Z are “lips”
+rising above ground level.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter">
+<img id="i_110b" src="images/i_110b.jpg" alt="" />
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span></p>
+
+<p>This crater-chain being understood, the system
+of sentries is easily grasped. Originally, before
+mining commenced, our front line ran (roughly)
+from left to right along Rue Albert up 80 A Street
+and along to the top of 76 Street in a straight line.
+Then began the great game of mining under the
+enemy parapet and blowing him up; and its corollary
+countermining, or blowing up the enemy’s
+mine galleries before he reached your parapet.
+Such is the game as played underground by the
+tunnelling companies, R.E. To the infantry belongs
+the work (if not blown up) of consolidating the
+crater, whether made by your or an enemy mine,
+that is to say, of seizing your side of the crater and
+guarding it by bombing-posts in such a way as to
+prevent the enemy from doing anything except
+hold his side of the crater.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter">
+<img id="i_111" src="images/i_111.jpg" alt="" /></p>
+
+<p>For instance, take a single crater, caused by us
+blowing up the German gallery before it reaches
+our parapet. If we do nothing, the enemy digs a
+trench into the crater at A, and can get into the
+crater any time he likes and bomb our front line,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span>
+and return to his trench unseen. This, of course,
+never happens, as we dig a sap into the crater from
+our side, and the result is stale-mate; each side
+can see into the crater, so neither can go into it.</p>
+
+<p>That is all. 83 B, 81 A, the Matterhorn sap,
+the Loop, the Fort—they are all saps up to crater-edges,
+in some cases joined up along the edge (as
+between 83 B and 83 A, or at the Loop and the
+Fort.) And these saps are held by bombing-posts.
+Where there are no craters in front (as, for instance,
+between the Fort and the Loop), there the trench is
+held by sentry groups in the ordinary way. The
+most important bombing-posts are at the “bridges,”
+which are the points that most want guarding.</p>
+
+<p>Each platoon has so many posts to “find” men
+for. No. 5 Platoon has three posts between the
+Lewis-gun position and the top of 76 Street; No. 6
+finds two in the Fort and one between the Fort
+and the Loop; there is another post before you
+reach the Loop, found by No. 7, who also finds
+two in the Loop itself; while No. 8 finds the
+Matterhorn post and the top of 80 A. All these
+posts are composed of one bomber, who has a box
+of bombs with him and his rifle without bayonet
+fixed, and one bayonet man. There is no special
+structure about a “post”: it is just the spot in
+the trench where the sentries are placed. Sometimes
+one or two posts could be dispensed with by
+day, if one post could with a periscope watch the
+ground in front of both. The sentry groups are
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span>
+relieved every two hours by the platoon N.C.O.
+on trench duty. There is always an N.C.O. on trench
+duty, going the rounds of his sentry groups, in every
+platoon; and one officer going round the groups
+in the company. Thus is secured the endless chain
+of unwinking eyes that stretches from Dunkirk to
+Switzerland.</p>
+
+<p>There were two Lewis guns to every company.
+One had a position at the Fort, covering the ground
+between the Fort and the Loop; the other was
+just to the right of 80 A, where it had a good position
+sweeping the craters. The Lewis-gun teams found
+their sentries independently of the platoons, and
+had their dug-outs. A nice compact little affair
+was a Lewis-gun team; always very snug and self-contained.</p>
+
+<p>Company Headquarters were at Trafalgar Square,
+though later we changed to a dug-out half-way up
+76 Street. Each platoon had a dug-out about fifty
+yards behind the front line, and as far as possible
+one arranged to get the men a few hours’ sleep in
+them every day; but only a certain percentage at a
+time. There were four stretcher-bearers and two
+signallers also at Trafalgar Square. Also a permanent
+wiring-party had its quarters here, a corporal
+and five men; they made up “concertina”
+or “gooseberry” wire by day, and were out three
+or four hours every night putting it out. They were,
+of course, exempt from other platoon duties. Each
+platoon had a pioneer to attend to sanitary arrangements,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span>
+and other odd jobs such as fetching up soup;
+and each platoon had an orderly ready to take
+messages. At Company Headquarters, besides the
+officers’ servants, were the company orderly, and
+company officers’ cook. An officer on trench duty
+was accompanied by his servant as orderly.</p>
+
+<p>This was the distribution of the company in the
+front line. Every morning from 9 to 12 all men
+not on sentry worked at repairing and improving
+the trenches; and the same for four hours during
+the night. Work done to strengthen the parapet
+can only be done by night. Every night wire was
+put out. Every night a patrol went out. Every
+day one “stood to” arms for an hour before dawn,
+and an hour after dusk. And day and night there
+was an intermittent stinging and buzzing of black-winged
+instruments between the opposing trenches.
+Of shells I have already spoken; next in deadliness
+were rifle-grenades, which are bombs with a rod
+attachment that is put down the barrel of an ordinary
+rifle. Four of these rifles are stood in a rack
+fixed to the ground, and fired by a string from a
+few yards away, at a very high trajectory. They
+are a very deadly weapon, as you cannot see them
+dropping on to you. Then there is a multiform
+genus called “trench-mortar,” being projectiles of
+all kinds and shapes lobbed over from close range.
+The canister was the most loathed. It was simply
+a tin oil-can, the size of a lady’s muff (large); one
+heard a thud, and watched the beast rising, rising,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span>
+then stationary, it seemed, in mid-air, and then
+come toppling down, down, down on top of one
+with a crash—three seconds’ silence—and then a
+most colossal explosion, blowing everything in its
+vicinity to atoms. These canisters were loathed by
+the men with a most personal and intense aversion.
+Yet they were really not nearly so dangerous as
+rifle-grenades, as one had time to dodge them very
+often, unless enfiladed in a communication trench.
+They were, moreover, very local in their effects. A
+shell has splinters that spread far and wide; a
+trench-mortar is a clumsy monster with a thin
+skin, no splinters, and an abominable, noisy, vulgar
+way of making the most of itself. “Sausages”
+were another but milder form of the vulgar trench-mortar;
+aerial torpedoes were daintier people with
+wings, who looked so cherubic as they came sailing
+over, that one almost forgot their deadly stinging
+powers; they, too, were a species of trench-mortar.</p>
+
+<p>It is natural to write lightly of these things; yet
+they were no light matters. They were the instruments
+of death that took their daily toll of lives.
+In this chapter describing the system and routine
+of ordinary trench warfare, I have tried to prepare
+the canvas for several pictures I have drawn in
+bold bare lines; now I am putting in a wash of
+colour, the atmosphere of Death.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes we forgot it in the interest of the
+present activity; sometimes we saw it face to face,
+without a qualm; but always it was there with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span>
+its relentless overhanging presence, dulling our
+spirits, wearing out our lives. The papers are
+always full of Tommy smiling: Bairnsfather has
+immortalised his indomitable humour. Yes, it is
+true. We laugh, we smile. But for an hour of
+laughter, there are how many hours of weariness,
+strain, and grim agony! It is great that Tommy’s
+laughter has been immortalised; but do not forget
+that its greatness lies in this, that it was uttered
+beneath the canopy of ever-impending Death.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br />
+
+MORE FIRST IMPRESSIONS</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">It</span> must not be imagined that I at once grasped
+all the essential details of our trench system,
+as I have tried to put them concisely in the
+preceding chapter. On the contrary, it was only
+very gradually that I accumulated my intimate
+knowledge of our maze of trenches, only by degrees
+that I learnt the lie of the land, and only by personal
+patrolling that I learnt the interior economy
+of the craters. At first the front line, with its loops
+and bombing-posts, and portions “patrolled only,”
+its sand-bag dumps, its unexpected visions of
+R.E.’s scurrying like bolted rabbits from mine-shafts,
+its sudden jerk round a corner that brought
+you in full view of the German parapet across a
+crater that made you gaze fascinated several
+seconds before you realised that you should be
+stooping low, as here was a bad bit of trench that
+wanted deepening <i>at once</i> and had not been cleared
+properly after being blown in last night—all this,
+I say, was at first a most perplexing labyrinth.
+It was only gradually that I solved its mysteries,
+and discovered an order in its complexity.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span></p>
+
+<p>I will give a few more extracts from my diary,
+some of which seem to me now delightfully naïve!
+Here they are, though.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>“2nd Feb., 1916. In the trenches. Everything
+very quiet. We are in support, in a place called
+Maple Redoubt, on the reverse slope of a big ridge.
+Good dug-outs (<i>sic</i>), and a view behind, over a big
+expanse of chalk-downs, which is most exhilarating.
+A day with blue sky and a tingle of frost. Being
+on the reverse slope, you can walk about anywhere,
+and so can see everything. Have just been up in
+the front trenches, which are over the ridge, and a
+regular, or rather very irregular, rabbit-warren.
+The Boche generally only about thirty to forty
+yards away. The trenches are <i>dry</i>, that is the
+glorious thing. <span class="smcap">Dry.</span> Just off to pow-wow to the
+new members of my platoon.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Here I will merely remark that the “good”
+dug-out in which we were living was blown in by
+a 4·2 shell exactly four days later, killing one
+officer and wounding the other two badly. With
+regard to the state of the trenches, it was dry
+weather, and “when they were dry they were dry,
+and when they were wet they were wet!”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>“3rd Feb. Another beautiful February morning.
+Slept quite well, despite rats overhead.
+O’Brien and Dixon awfully dull and heavy; can’t
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span>
+think why. Everything outside is full of life;
+there is a crispness in the air, and a delightful sharp
+shadow and light contrast as you look up Maple
+Redoubt.</p>
+
+<p>Meditations on coldness, and how it unmans—on
+hunger, and how it weakens—on the art of
+feeding and warming, and how women realise this,
+while men do not usually know there is any art in
+keeping house at all!</p>
+
+<p>Meditations, too, on the stupidity, slowness, and
+clumsiness of officers’ servants.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Dixon’s snores make me bucked with life; so,
+too, this same clumsiness of the servants. Lewis
+came in just now. ‘Why are you waiting, Lewis?’
+I asked. ‘I thought Watson was waiting to-day.’
+(This after a great strafing of servants for general
+stupidity and incompetence.) ‘None of the others
+dared come in, sir,’ he replied, in his high piping
+voice, and a broad grin on his face. Oh! they are
+good fellows! Why be fed up with life? Why
+long faces? Long faces, these are the bad things
+of life, the things to fight against....”</p>
+
+<p>So did my vision of the Third Army School bear
+fruit, I see now!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>“Philosophy from the trenches. Does it cover
+everything? Does it explain the fellows I passed
+this morning being carried to the Aid Post, one
+with blood and orange iodine all over his face, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span>
+the other wounded in both legs? It always comes
+as a surprise when the bombs and shells produce
+wounds and death....</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Watched a mine go up this evening—great
+yellow-brown mass of smoke, followed by a beautiful
+under-cloud of orange-pink that steamed up in
+a soft creamy way. No firing and shelling followed
+as at Givenchy....</p>
+
+<p>Take over from ‘A’ to-morrow morning.</p>
+
+<p>10 p.m. Great starlight. Jupiter and Venus
+both up, and the Great Bear and Orion glittering
+hard and clean in the steely sky. I wish I had a
+Homer. I am sure he has just one perfect epithet
+for Orion on a night like this. I shall read Homer
+in a new light after these times. I begin to understand
+the spirit of the Homeric heroes; it was all
+words, words, words before. Now I see. Billet
+life—where is that in the <i>Iliad</i>? In the tents, of
+course. And the eating and drinking, the ‘word
+that puts heart into men,’ the cool stolid facing
+of death, all those gruesome details of wounds and
+weapons, all is being enacted here every day exactly
+as in the Homeric age. Human nature has not
+altered.</p>
+
+<p>And did not Homer tell, too, how utterly ‘fed
+up’ they were with it all? Can one not read
+between the lines and see, besides the glamour of
+physical courage, the strain, the weariness, the
+‘fed-upness’ of them all! I think so. ‘Νόστος’ is
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span>
+a word I remember so well. They were all longing
+for the day of their return. As here, the big fights
+were few and far between; and as here, there were
+the months and years of waiting.</p>
+
+<p>And on them, too, the stars looked down, winking
+alike at Greeks and Trojans; just as to-night
+thousands of German and British faces, dull-witted
+or sharp, sour-faced or smiling, sad or happy, are
+gazing up and wondering if there is any wisdom in
+the world yet.</p>
+
+<p>Four thousand years ago? And all the time
+the stars in the Great Bear have been hurtling
+apart at thousands of miles an hour, and the human
+eye sees no difference. No wonder they wink
+at us....</p>
+
+<p>And our mothers, and wives ... the women-folk—Euripides
+understood their views on war.
+Ten years they waited....</p>
+
+<p><i>Must</i> go to bed. D—— these scuffling rats.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Frequently I found my thoughts flying back
+through the years, and more especially on starlit
+nights, or on a breathless spring evening, to the
+Greeks and Romans. Life out here was so primitive;
+so much a matter of eating and drinking,
+and digging, and sleeping, and so full of the elements,
+of cold, and frost, and wind, and rain;
+there were so many definite and positive physical
+goods and bads, that the barrier of an unreal
+civilisation was completely swept away. Under
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span>
+the stars and in a trench you were as good as any
+Homeric warrior; but you were little better. And
+so you felt you understood him. And here I will
+add that it was especially at sunset that the passionate
+desire to live would sometimes surge up,
+so intense, so clamorous, that it swept every other
+feeling clean aside for the time.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to Maple Redoubt, or rather to
+Gibraltar, where the next entry in my diary was
+written.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>“6th Feb. Rather an uncomfortable dug-out
+in Gibraltar. Yesterday was a divine day. I sat
+up in ‘the Fort’ most of the day, watching the
+bombardment. Blue sky, on the top of a high
+chalk down; larks singing; and a real sunny dance
+in the air. We watched four aeroplanes sail over,
+amid white puffs of shrapnel; and a German
+’plane came over. I could see the black crosses very
+plainly with my glasses. Most godlike it must have
+been up there on such a morning. I felt very pleased
+with life, and did two sketches, one of Sawyer,
+another of Richards....</p>
+
+<p>A dull thud, and then ‘there goes another,’
+shouts someone. It reminds me of Bill the lizard
+coming out of the chimney-pot in <i>Alice in Wonderland</i>.
+Everyone gazes and waits for the crash!
+Toppling through the sky comes a big tin oil-can,
+followed immediately by another; both fall and
+explode with a tremendous din, sending up a fifty-foot
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span>
+spurt of black earth and flying débris, while
+down the wind comes the scud of sand-bag fluff
+and the smell of powder. This alternated with the
+4·2’s, which come over with a scream and wait
+politely a second or two before bursting so inelegantly.”
+(I seem to have got mixed up a bit here:
+it was usually the canisters that “waited.”)</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>“The mining is a great mystery to me at present.
+One part of the trench is only patrolled, as the
+Boche may ‘blow’ there at any moment. I must
+say it is an uncomfortable feeling, this liability to
+sudden projection skywards! The first night I
+had a sort of nightmare all the time, and kept
+waking up, and thinking about a mine going up
+under one. The second night I was too tired to
+have nightmares.</p>
+
+<p>The rats <i>swarm</i>. I woke up last night, and
+saw one sitting on Edwards, licking its whiskers.
+Then it ran on to the box by the candle. It was
+a pretty brown fellow, rather attractive, I thought.
+I felt no repulsion whatever at sight of it....</p>
+
+<p>The front trenches are a <i>maze</i>. I cannot disentangle
+all the loops and saps; and now we are
+cut off from ‘C,’ as the front trench is all blown in;
+one has to have a connecting patrol that goes viâ
+Rue Albert. A very weird affair. The only consolation
+is that the Boche would be <i>more</i> lost if he
+got in!</p>
+
+<p>I cannot help feeling that ‘B’ company has
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span>
+been very lucky. We were in Maple Redoubt,
+Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday; everything
+was quite quiet with us, but ‘D’ had seven casualties
+in the front trench. On Friday we relieved
+‘A,’ and all Saturday the enemy bombarded a spot
+just behind our company’s left, putting over 4·2’s
+and canisters all day long from 9.0 a.m. onwards,
+and absolutely smashing up our trenches there.
+Then Trafalgar Square has been rather a hot shop:
+two of our own whizz-bangs fell short there, and
+several rifle grenades fell <i>very</i> close—also, splinters
+of the 4·2’s came humming round, ending with little
+plops quite close. O’Brien picked up a large
+splinter that fell in the trench right outside the
+dug-out. Again, at ‘stand-down,’ when Dixon,
+Clark, Edwards, and I were standing talking together
+at the top of 76 Street, two canisters fell most
+alarmingly near us, about ten yards behind, covering
+us with dirt. Yet we have not had a single casualty.</p>
+
+<p>To-day we were to have been relieved by the
+Manchesters at midday, but this morning at ‘stand
+to’ we heard the time had been altered to 8.0 a.m.
+‘B’ was duly relieved, and No. 5 Platoon had just
+changed gum-boots, while 6, 7, and 8 were sitting
+at the corner of Maple Redoubt enthralled in the
+same process, when over came two canisters, one
+smashing in Old Kent Road, down which we had
+just come, and the other falling right into an ‘A’
+Company dug-out, twenty yards to my left, killing
+two men and wounding three others, one probably
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span>
+mortally. And now I have just had the news that
+the Manchester have had twenty-three casualties
+to-day, including three officers, their R.S.M., and
+a company sergeant-major.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>As I read some of these sentences, true in every
+detail as they are, I cannot help smiling. For it
+was no “bombardment” that took place on our
+left all day; it was merely the Germans potting
+one of our trench-mortar positions! And Trafalgar
+Square was really very quiet, that first time in.
+But what I notice most is the way in which I record
+the fall of <i>individual</i> canisters and rifle grenades,
+even if they were twenty yards away! Never a
+six days in, latterly, that we did not have to clear
+Old Kent Road and Watling Street two or three
+times; and we used to fire off a hundred rifle
+grenades a day very often, and received as many
+in return always. And the record of casualties one
+did not keep. We <i>were</i> lucky, it is true. Once, and
+once only, after, did “B” Company go in and
+come out without a casualty. Those first two days
+in Maple Redoubt, when “everything was quiet,”
+were the most deceitful harbingers of the future that
+could have been imagined. “Why long faces?”
+I could write. The Manchesters had a ruder but
+a truer introduction to the Bois Français trenches,
+and especially to Maple Redoubt. For the dug-outs
+were abominable; not one was shell-proof;
+and there was no parados or traverse for a hundred
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span>
+and fifty yards. The truth of the matter was
+that these trenches had been some of the quietest
+in the line; for some reason or other, when
+our Division took them over, they immediately
+changed face about, and took upon themselves the
+task of growing in a steady relentless crescendo into
+one of the hottest sectors in the line.</p>
+
+<p>On the 22nd of February the Germans raided our
+trenches on the left opposite Fricourt. They did
+not get much change out of it. I can remember at
+least four raids close on our left or right during
+those four months; they never actually came
+over on our front, but we usually came in for the
+bombardment. The plan is to isolate the sector
+to be raided by an intense bombardment on that
+sector, and on the sectors on each side; to “lift”
+the barrage, or curtain of fire, at a given moment off
+the front line of the sector raided “what time”
+(as the old phrase goes) they come over, enter the
+trench, if they can, make a few prisoners, and get
+back quickly. All the while the sectors to right
+and left are being bombarded heavily. It was this
+isolating bombardment that our front line was
+receiving, while we were left unmolested in 71
+North. All this I did not know at the time. Here
+is my record of it.</p>
+
+<p>“25 Feb., 1916. It is snowing hard. We are in
+a very comfortable tubular dug-out in 71 North.
+This dug-out is the latest pattern, being on the
+twopenny-tube model; very warm, and free from
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span>
+draughts. It is <i>not</i> shell-proof, but then shells
+never seem to come near here.</p>
+
+<p>Let me try and record the raid on our left on
+the 22nd, before I forget it.</p>
+
+<p>The Manchesters were in the front line and
+Maple Redoubt. During the afternoon the Boche
+started putting heavies on to Maple Redoubt,
+and the corner of Canterbury Avenue. ‘Bad
+luck on the Manchesters again,’ we all agreed—and
+turned in for tea. There was a wonderful
+good fire going.</p>
+
+<p>‘By Jove, they are going it,’ I said, as we sat
+down and Gray brought in the teapot. Thud!
+Thud! Thud—thud! We simply had to go out
+and watch. Regular coal-boxes, sending up great
+columns of mud, and splinters humming and
+splashing right over us, a good hundred yards or
+more. ‘Better keep inside,’ from Dixon.</p>
+
+<p>We had tea, and things seemed to quiet down.</p>
+
+<p>Then about six o’clock the bombardment got
+louder, and our guns woke up like fun. ‘Vee-bm
+... vee-bm’ from our whizz-bangs going over,
+and then the machine-guns began on our left.
+Simultaneously, in came Richards (Dixon’s servant)
+with an excited air. ‘Gas,’ he exclaimed.
+Instinctively, I felt for my gas helmet. Meanwhile
+Dixon had gone outside. ‘Absurd,’ he said in a
+quiet voice. ‘The wind’s wrong. Who brought
+that message?’</p>
+
+<p>Then up came a telephone orderly. I heard
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span>
+him running on the hard road. ‘Stand to,’ he said
+breathlessly, and Dixon went off to the ’phone
+with him. Nicolson appeared in a gas helmet.
+I was looking for my pipe, but could not find it.
+Then at last I went out without it.</p>
+
+<p>Outside it was getting dark. It was a fairly
+nippy air. The bombardment was going strong.
+All the sky was flickering, and our guns were
+screaming over. ‘Crump, crump,’ the Boche
+shells were bursting up by Maple Redoubt. ‘Scream,
+scream,’ went our guns back; and right overhead
+our big guns went griding.</p>
+
+<p>All this I noticed gradually. My first impression
+was the strong smell of gas helmets in the
+cold air. The gas alarm had spread, and some
+of the men had their helmets on. I felt undecided.
+I simply did not <i>know</i>, whether the men should
+wear them or not. What was happening? I
+wished Dixon would come back. Ah! there he
+was. What news?</p>
+
+<p>‘I can’t get through,’ he said, ‘but we shall get
+a message all right if necessary.’</p>
+
+<p>‘What’s happening?’ I asked. ‘Do you think
+they are coming over.’</p>
+
+<p>‘No. It won’t last long, I expect. Still, just
+let’s see if the men have got their emergency rations
+with them.’</p>
+
+<p>A few had not, and were sent into the dug-outs
+for them. Gas helmets were ordered back into
+their satchels.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span></p>
+
+<p>‘No possibility of gas,’ said Dixon; ‘wind’s
+dead south.’</p>
+
+<p>I was immensely bucked now. There was a
+feeling of tenseness and bracing-up. I felt the
+importance of essentials—rifles and bayonets in
+good order—the men fit, and able to run. This
+was the real thing, somehow.</p>
+
+<p>I made Lewis go in and get my pipe. I found
+I had no pouch, and stuffed loose baccy in my
+pocket.</p>
+
+<p>I realised I had not thought out what I would
+do in case of attack. I did not know what was
+happening. I was glad Dixon was there....</p>
+
+<p>It was great, though, to hear the continuous
+roar of the cannonade, and the machine-guns
+rapping, not for five minutes, but all the time.
+That I think was the most novel sound of all. No
+news. That was a new feature. A Manchester
+officer came up and said all their communications
+were cut with the left.</p>
+
+<p>I was immensely bucked, especially with my
+pipe. Our servants were good friends to have
+behind us, and Dixon was a man in his element.
+The men were all cool. ‘Germans have broken
+through,’ I heard one man say. ‘Where?’ said
+someone rather excitedly. ‘In the North Sea,’
+was the stolid reply.</p>
+
+<p>At last the cannonade developed into a roar
+on our left, and we realised that any show was
+there, and not on our sector. Then up came the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span>
+quartermaster with some boots for Dixon and me,
+and we all went into the dug-out, where was a
+splendid fire. And we stayed there, and certain
+humorous remarks from the quartermaster suddenly
+turned my feelings, and I felt that the tension
+was gone, the thing was over; and that
+outside the bombardment was slackening. In half
+an hour it was ‘stand down’ at 7.40.</p>
+
+<p>I was immensely bucked. I knew I should be
+all right now in an attack. And the cannonade
+at night was a magnificent sight. Of course we
+had not been shelled, though some whizz-bangs
+had been fired fifty yards behind us just above
+‘Redoubt A,’ trying for the battery just over the
+hill.</p>
+
+<p>My chief impression was, ‘This is the real thing.’
+You must know your men. They await clear
+orders, that is all. It was dark. I remember
+thinking of Brigade and Division behind, invisible,
+seeing nothing, yet alone knowing what was happening.
+No news, that was interesting. An entirely
+false rumour came along, ‘All dug-outs blown in
+in Maple Redoubt.’</p>
+
+<p>I had sent Evans to Bray to try and buy coal:
+he returned in the middle of the bombardment
+with a long explanation of why he had been unable
+to get it.</p>
+
+<p>‘Afterwards,’ I said. Somehow coal could wait.</p>
+
+<p>All the while I have been writing this, there is
+a regular blizzard outside.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span></p>
+
+<p>Such is my record of my first bombardment.
+The Manchesters, who were in the front line,
+suffered rather heavily, but not in Maple Redoubt.
+No dug-outs were smashed in at all there, though
+Canterbury Avenue was blocked in two places,
+and Old Kent Road in one. The Germans came
+over from just north of Fricourt, but only a very
+few reached our trenches, and of them about a
+dozen were made prisoners, and the rest killed.
+It was a “bad show” from the enemy point of
+view.</p>
+
+<p>And now I will leave my diary. These first impressions
+are interesting enough, but later the
+entries became more and more spasmodic, and
+usually introspective. The remaining chapters
+are not exactly, though very nearly, chronological.
+From February 6th to March 8th I was Sniping
+and Intelligence officer to the battalion. Chapters
+VIII, IX, and XII describe incidents in that period.
+Then on March 8th Captain Dixon was transferred
+as Second-in-Command to our ——th Battalion,
+and on that date I took over the command of
+“B” Company, which I held until I was wounded
+on the 7th of June. These were the three months
+in which I learnt the strain of responsibility as
+well as the true tragedy of this war.</p>
+
+<p>During all these four months I was fortunate
+in having as a commanding officer a really great
+soldier. The C.O. had inaugurated his arrival by
+a vigorous emphasis of the following principle:
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span>
+“No Man’s Land belongs to <i>US</i>; if the Boche
+dare show his face in it, he’s going to be d—d sorry
+for it. We are top-dogs, and if there is any strafing,
+the last word must always be ours.” Such was
+the policy of the man behind me during those
+four months. Meanwhile, from eight to midnight
+every night, trenches were being deepened, the
+parapet thickened, and fire-steps and traverses being
+put in the front line, which had hitherto been a
+maze of hasty improvisations; barbed wire was
+put out at an unprecedented pace, and patrols were
+going out every night. If things went wrong, there
+was the devil to pay; but if things went well, one
+was left entirely unmolested; and if there was a
+bombardment on, the orders came quick and clear.
+And any company commander will know that those
+three qualities in a commanding officer are worth
+almost anything.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br />
+
+SNIPING</h2>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">The</span> snow was coming down in big white
+flakes, whirling and dancing against a grey
+sky. I shivered as I looked out from the
+top of the dug-out steps in Maple Redoubt. It was
+half-past seven, a good hour since the snipers had
+reported to me before going to their posts. It was
+quite dark then, for a sniper must always be up on
+his post a good hour before dawn to catch the
+enemy working a few minutes too late. It is so
+easy to miss those first faint glimmerings of twilight
+when you are just finishing off an interesting piece
+of wiring in “No Man’s Land.” I speak from
+experience. For so a sniper got me.</p>
+
+<p>“U—u—u—gh,” I shuddered, “it’s no good
+keeping the men on in this”; so, putting my
+whiskey-bottle full of rum in my haversack, I set
+off up Old Kent Road to visit my posts and withdraw
+the men <i>pro tem</i>. I expected to find the
+fellows unutterably cold, shrivelled up, and bored.
+To my surprise, at No. 1 post Thomas and Everton
+were in a state of huge excitement, eyes glowing,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span>
+and faces full of life. There seemed to be a great
+rivalry, too, for the possession of the rifle. For the
+snipers always worked in pairs: a man cannot gaze
+out at the opposing lines with acute interest for
+more than about half an hour on end; so I used to
+work them by pairs, and give them shifts according
+to the weather. In summer you could put a pair on
+for four hours, and they would work well, taking
+half-hour shifts; but in cold weather two hours was
+quite enough.</p>
+
+<p>“We’ve got them, sir,” from 75 Thomas; “they
+was working in the trench over there—by all them
+blue sand-bags, sir—four of them, sir——”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, and I saw him throw up his arms, sir,”
+put in Everton, excited for the first time I have ever
+seen him, and trying to push Thomas out of the box,
+and have another look. But Thomas would not be
+pushed.</p>
+
+<p>“Splendid,” I said: “by Jove, that’s good work.
+Can I see?” But it was snowing hard, and I could
+see very little. I tried the telescope. “Put it right
+up to your eye, sir,” said Thomas, forgetting that I
+had myself taught him this in billets as he vainly
+tried to see through it holding it about four inches
+from his face, and declaring that he could see everything
+just as well with his own eyes!</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I think I see where you mean,” said I; “up
+by that sand-bag dump. There’s a mine-shaft there,
+and they were probably some of their R.E.’s piling
+up sand-bags, or emptying them out. I believe that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span>
+is what they usually do now, fill the sand-bags below
+in their galleries, bring them up, empty them, and
+use the same ones again.”</p>
+
+<p>Thomas and Everton gaped at this. It had not
+occurred to them to consider that the Boche had
+R.E.’s. They were of the unimaginative class of
+snipers, who “saw, did, and reported,” and on the
+whole I preferred them to those who saw, and immediately
+“concluded.” For their conclusions
+were usually wrong. To men like Thomas I was,
+I think, looked upon as one who had some slightly
+supernatural knowledge of the German lines; he
+did not realise that by careful compass-bearings I
+knew the exact ground visible from his post, and
+that my map of the German lines, showing every
+trench as revealed by aeroplane photographs, was
+accurate to a yard. He was like a retriever, who
+keeps to heel, noses out his bird with unerring skill,
+and brings it in with the softest of mouths; yet the
+cunning and strategy he leaves to his master, who
+is decidedly his inferior in nose and mouth. So 75
+Thomas could see and shoot far better than I;
+but it was I who thought out the strategy of the
+shoot.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said I, as I doled out a rather more liberal
+rum ration than usual, “that’s d—— good work,
+anyway. Two you got, you say? Not sure about
+the second? Anyway you had two good shots, and
+remember what I told you, a sniper only shoots to
+kill. So two it’s going to be, anyhow.” (They both
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span>
+grinned at this, which was the nearest they could
+get to a wink.) “I’m very pleased about it. Now
+it’s not much good staying up here in this thick snow,
+so you can go off till I send word to your dug-out
+for you to go on again.”</p>
+
+<p>I turned to go away, thinking that the other posts,
+rumless, and in all probability quarryless, must be
+in a state of exasperating coldness by now. But
+Thomas and Everton did not move. There was
+something wanted.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, what is it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Please sir, can we stay on here a bit? P’raps
+one of those R.E. fellows may come back for something.”</p>
+
+<p>“Good heavens, yes,” I said, “stay on as long as
+you like,” and smiled as I made off to my other posts.
+(Later I used to get the snipers to report to me coming
+off their posts, and get their rum ration then;
+as I found it gave a bad appearance and damaged
+the reputation of the snipers when people saw me
+going about with the nose of a bottle of “O.V.H.”
+whiskey sticking out of my haversack!) There,
+as I expected, I found the men blue and bored.</p>
+
+<p>“You can’t see nothing to-day, sir, at all,” was
+the sentence with which I was immediately greeted.
+Even the rum seemed to inspire very little outward
+enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>“You can go off to your dug-outs till I send for
+you,” I replied, carefully corking the bottle and not
+looking at them while I spoke: “if you like,” I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span>
+added after a pause, looking up. But the post was
+empty.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon I was up on No. 1 post, with a
+sniper who was new to the work. It was still freezing,
+but the snow-clouds had cleared right away,
+and the wind had dropped. There was a tingle in
+the air; everything was as still as death; the sun
+was shining from a very blue sky, and throwing
+longer and longer shadows in the snow as the afternoon
+wore on. It was a valuable afternoon, the
+enemy’s wire showing up very clearly against the
+white ground, and I was showing the new sniper
+how to search the trench systematically from left to
+right, noting the exact position of anything that
+looked like a loophole, or steel-plate, and especially
+the thickness of the wire, what kind, whether it was
+grey and new, or rusty-red and old; whether there
+were any gaps in it, and where. All these things a
+sniper should note every morning when he comes on
+to his post. Gaps are important, as patrols must
+come out through gaps, and the Lewis gunners
+should know these, and be ready to fire at them if a
+patrol is heard thereabouts in No Man’s Land.
+Similarly, old gaps closed up must be reported.</p>
+
+<p>It was very still. “Has the war stopped?”
+one felt inclined to ask. No, there is the sound of
+shells exploding far away on the right somewhere;
+in the French lines it must be, somewhere about
+Frise. Then a “phut” from just opposite, and a
+long whining “we’oo—we’oo—we’oo—we’-oo ...
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span>
+bzung,” and a rifle-grenade burst with a snarl about
+a hundred yards behind. Then another, and
+another, and another. “They’re trying for Trafalgar
+Square,” said I. No. 1 post was a little to the
+right of the top of 76 Street. I waited. There were
+no more. It was just about touch and go whether
+we replied. If they went on up to about a dozen, the
+chances were that the bombing-corporal in charge
+of our rifle-grenade battery would rouse himself, and
+loose off twenty in retaliation. But, no. Perhaps
+the German had repented him of the evil of desecrating
+the peace of such an afternoon; or perhaps he
+was just ranging, and had an observer away on the
+flank somewhere to watch the effect of his shooting.
+Anyway he did not fire again, and the afternoon
+slumber was resumed, till the evening “strafe”
+came on in due course.</p>
+
+<p>“I can see something over on the left, sir. It is
+a man’s head, sir! Look!”</p>
+
+<p>I looked. Yes!</p>
+
+<p>“No,” I almost shouted. “It’s a dummy head.
+Just have a look. And don’t, whatever you do,
+fire.”</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough, a cardboard head appeared over the
+front parapet opposite, with a grey cap on. Slowly
+it disappeared. Without the telescope it would
+have been next to impossible to see it was not a man.
+Again it appeared, then slowly sank out of view. It
+was well away on the left, just in front of where the
+“R.E.’s” had been hit at dawn. For this post was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span>
+well-sited, having an oblique field of vision, as all
+good sniping-posts should. That is to say, they
+should be sited something like this:
+
+<span>
+<img class="figcenter" id="i_139" src="images/i_139.jpg" alt="" />
+</span></p>
+
+<p>The ideal is to have all your posts in the supports,
+and <i>not</i> in the front line, and at about three hundred
+yards from the enemy front line. Of course if the
+ground slopes <i>away</i> behind you, you cannot get
+positions in the supports unless there are buildings
+to make posts in. By getting an <i>oblique</i> view, you
+gain two advantages:</p>
+
+<p>(<i>a</i>) If A gets a shot at C, C’s friends look out for
+“that d——d sniper opposite,” and look in the
+direction of B, who is carefully concealed from direct
+view.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>b</i>) A’s loophole is invisible from direct observation
+by D, as it is pointing slantwise at C.</p>
+
+<p>All this I now explained to my new sniper.</p>
+
+<p>“But why not smash up his old dummy, sir?
+Might put the wind up the fellow working it.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span></p>
+
+<p>“No,” I explained. “Look at the paper again.
+(I had drawn it out for him, as I have on the previous
+page.) Thomas shot at those R.E.’s this morning,
+don’t you see? He was here (B), and they’re at D.
+Now they’re trying to find <i>you</i>, or the man who shot
+their pal; and you can bet anything you like they’ve
+got a man watching either at C or right away on the
+left to spot you if you fire at the dummy. No. Lie
+doggo, and see if you can spot that man on the flank.
+He’s probably got a periscope.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t see him, sir,” at length.</p>
+
+<p>“No. Never mind; he’s probably far too well
+concealed. Always remember the Boche is as clever
+as you, and sometimes cleverer.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, but he wants me to shoot, sir, and I won’t,”
+came the cheery answer. “What about smashing
+up his old dummy?” I reminded him. His face
+fell. He had forgotten his old un-sniper-like self
+already. “Never mind,” said I. “Now when
+Thomas and Everton come up here, mind you tell
+them all about the dummy; and tell Thomas from
+me that the Boche doesn’t spend his time dummy-wagging
+for nothing. Probably it was an R.E.
+sergeant.”</p>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>“Swis-s-sh—báng. Swis-s-sh—báng.”</p>
+
+<p>“That settles it,” said I, as I scrambled hastily
+down into the trench, preceded by the sniper I had
+with me that day as orderly. I more or less pushed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span>
+him along for ten yards—then halted; we faced
+each other both very much out of breath and
+“blowy.” The whole place was reeking with the
+smell of powder, and the air full of sand-bag fluff.</p>
+
+<p>“That settles it,” I repeated: “I always thought
+that was a rotten post; and I object to being whizz-banged.
+‘A sniper’s job is to see and not be seen.’
+Isn’t that right, Morris?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir,” replied Morris, adding with a sad lack
+of humour “They must have seen us, sir!”</p>
+
+<p>“Exactly: they did. And they weren’t very far
+off hitting one of us into the bargain. As I say,
+that settles it. We’ll leave that post for ever and
+ever; and to-night we’ll build a new one that they
+<i>won’t</i> see.”</p>
+
+<p>At ten o’clock that night we were well at work.
+Just on the one hundred metre contour line there
+was a small quarry, at the west end of which had
+been the too conspicuous post where the Boche had
+spotted us. Every loophole must by its very nature
+be “spottable”; but when the natural ground is
+so little disturbed that it looks exactly the same as
+it did before the post was made, then indeed this
+“spottability” is so much reduced that it verges on
+invisibility. So, leaving the old post exactly as
+before, we were building a new one about twenty
+yards to the west of it.</p>
+
+<p>There was a disused support trench running west
+from the Quarry, and this suited my purpose admirably.
+It ran just along the crest of the hill, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span>
+commanded even a better view of Fricourt than the
+Quarry itself. Moreover, there was enough earth
+thrown up in front of the trench to enable us to fix
+in the steel-plate (at an angle of 45°: this increases
+its impenetrability) on ground level, without the top
+protruding above the top of the earth. The soil in
+front was not touched at all until the plate was fixed
+in, and then enough was carefully scooped away
+from the front of the actual loophole to secure a fair
+field of view. The earth in front of the loophole is
+then exactly like a castle wall, with a splay window.
+If you think of a Norman castle you will know
+exactly what I mean. The loophole represents the
+inch-wide aperture in the inner side of the splay.
+Similarly an embrasure is built behind the loophole,
+with room for one man to stand and fire, and the
+second man to sit by him. A rainproof shelter of
+corrugated iron is placed over this embrasure, and
+covered over with earth; this prevents it being
+spotted by aeroplane; also it makes the place habitable
+in the rain. Here is a section of a typical sniper’s
+post:
+
+<span>
+<img class="figcenter" id="i_142" src="images/i_142.jpg" alt="" />
+</span>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span></p>
+
+<p>“Click, click click” went the pick into the chalk,
+cutting room for the embrasure; there was a tinny
+sound as some of the loose surface soil came away
+with a spurt, spilling on to the two sheets of corrugated
+iron waiting to go on to the roof. Added to
+this were the few quiet whispers, such as “Where’s
+that sand-bag?” or “Is this low enough, sir?”,
+and the heavy breathing of Private Evans as he
+returned from the Quarry after emptying his sand-bag.
+For all the chalk cut away had to be carried
+to the Quarry and emptied there; new earth on the
+top there would not give any clue to those gentlemen
+in Fricourt Wood who put the smell of powder in
+my nostrils a few hours back.</p>
+
+<p>It was a darkish night, but not so dark but
+what you could see the top of the trench. There
+are very few nights when the sky does not show
+lighter than the trench-sides. There are a few,
+though, especially when it is raining; and they
+are bad, very bad. But that night I could just
+distinguish the outline of the big crater-top, half-right,
+and follow the near skyline along the German
+parapet down into Fricourt valley. I was
+gazing down into that silent blackness, when a
+machine-gun started popping; I could see the
+flashes very clearly from my position. Somewhere
+in Fricourt they must be.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the post was nearly finished; the
+corrugated iron was being fixed to the wooden upright,
+and Jones was on the parapet sprinkling earth
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span>
+over it. The others were deepening the trench from
+the Quarry to the post.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s the machine-gun that goes every night,
+sir,” said Jones. “Enfilading, that’s what it is.”</p>
+
+<p>“Pop—pop—pop,” answered the machine-gun.</p>
+
+<p>“Look here, Jones,” said I. “You know No. 5
+post, opposite Aeroplane Trench?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir!”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, go down there, and see if you can see the
+flashes from there; and if you can, mark it down.
+See?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir!” and he had his equipment on in no
+time, and was starting off when I called him back.</p>
+
+<p>“Be very careful to mark your own position,”
+I warned him. “You know what I mean.”</p>
+
+<p>He knew, and I knew that he knew.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, I stuck an empty cartridge case in the
+parados behind my head and waited.</p>
+
+<p>Five flashes spat out again, and “pop—pop—pop—pop—pop”
+came up out of the valley: and
+between me and them in the parapet I stuck a
+second cartridge case——</p>
+
+<p>I looked at my watch. It was half-past twelve.
+The post was finished, and the trench deep enough
+to get along, crawling anyway.</p>
+
+<p>“Cease work.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The next day was so misty that you could see
+practically nothing over five hundred yards, and the
+new post was useless. The following day it had
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span>
+frozen again, and an inch of snow lay on the ground.
+It was a sunny morning, and from the new post all
+Fricourt lay in full view before me. How well I
+remember every detail of that city of the dead! In
+the centre stood the white ruin of the church, still
+higher than the houses around it, though a stubby
+stump compared to what it must have been before
+thousands of shells reduced it to its present state.
+All around were houses; roofless, wall-less skeletons
+all of them, save in a few cases, where a red roof still
+remained, or a house seemed by some magic to be
+still untouched. On the extreme right was Rose
+Cottage, a well-known artillery mark; just to its
+left were some large park-gates, with stone pillars,
+leading into Fricourt Wood; and just inside the
+wood was a small cottage—a lodge, I suppose. The
+extreme northern part of the village was invisible,
+as the ground fell away north of the church. I
+could see where the road disappeared from view;
+then beyond, clear of the houses, the road reappeared
+and ran straight up to the skyline, a mile
+further on. A communication trench crossed this
+road: (I remember we saw some men digging there
+one morning). With my glasses I could see every
+detail; beyond the communication trench were
+various small copses, and tracks running over the
+field; and on the skyline, about three thousand
+yards away, was a long row of bushes.</p>
+
+<p>And just to the left of it all ran the two white lace-borders
+of chalk trenches, winding and wobbling
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span>
+along, up, up, up until they disappeared over the
+hill to La Boiselle. Sometimes they diverged as
+much as three hundred yards, but only to come in
+together again, so close that it was hard to see which
+was ours and which the German. Due west of
+Fricourt church they touched in a small crater
+chain.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fascinating view. I could not realise
+that there lay a <i>French</i> village; I think we often
+forgot that we were on French soil, and not on a
+sort of unreal earth that would disappear when the
+war was over; especially was No Man’s Land a kind
+of neutral stage, whereon was played the great game.
+To a Frenchman, of course, Fricourt was as French
+as ever it had been. But I often forgot, when I
+watched the shells demolishing a few more houses,
+that these were not German houses deserving of
+their fate. Perhaps people will not understand this:
+it is true, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>I was drawing a sketch of the village, when lo!
+and behold! coolly walking down the road into
+Fricourt came a solitary man. I had to think
+rapidly, and decide it must be a German, because
+the thing was so unexpected; I could not for the
+moment get out of my head the unreasonable idea
+that it might be one of our own men! However,
+I soon got over that.</p>
+
+<p>“Sight your rifle at two thousand yards,” said I
+to Morgan, who was with me. “Now, give it to
+me.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span></p>
+
+<p>Carefully I took aim. I seemed to be holding the
+rifle up at an absurd angle. I squeezed, and
+squeezed——</p>
+
+<p>The German jumped to one side, on to the grass
+at the side of the road, and doubled for all he was
+worth out of sight into Fricourt! Needless to say,
+I did not see him again to get another shot!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>“They’ve been using that road last night, sir,”
+said 58 Morgan, while I was taking a careful bearing
+on my empty cartridge case. (A prismatic compass
+is invaluable for taking accurate cross-bearings.)</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” I said. “Why yes, of course, they must
+have used it last night. I never thought of that.
+Good. We’ll get the artillery on there to-night,
+and upset their ration-carts.”</p>
+
+<p>This pleased the fancy of Sniper 58 Morgan, and
+a broad grin came over his face at the thought of the
+Boche losing his breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>“Maybe, sir, we’ll see the sausages on the road
+to-morrow morning.”</p>
+
+<p>For which thought I commended him not a little:
+a sense of humour is one of the attributes of a good
+sniper, just as rash conclusions are not.</p>
+
+<p>I then went down to No. 5 Post, where Jones was
+awaiting me, according to arrangement. There I
+took a second bearing, and retired to my dug-out to
+work out the two angles on the map. “From map
+to compass add: from compass to map subtract”
+I repeated to myself, and disposed of the magnetic
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span>
+variation summarily. Then with the protractor I
+plotted out the angles. “Exactly. The small house
+with the grey roof standing out by itself on the left.
+So that’s where you live, my friend, is it?”</p>
+
+<p>Once more I was up at the new post, scrutinising
+the grey-roofed house with the telescope. After a
+long gaze, I almost jumped. I gave the telescope to
+Morgan. He gazed intently for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>Then, “Is that a hole, sir, over the door, in the
+shadow, like ...?”</p>
+
+<p>“It is,” I answered</p>
+
+<p>That night the machine-gun started popping as
+usual, when suddenly a salvo of whizz-bangs
+screamed over, and H.E.’s joined in the game. All
+round and about the little grey-roofed house flickered
+the flashes of bursting shells. Then the enemy
+retaliated, and for a quarter of an hour “a certain
+liveliness prevailed.” Then came peace. But there
+was no sound all night of a machine-gun popping
+from Fricourt village; on the other hand, our
+machine-guns had taken up the tune, with short
+bursts of overhead fire, searching for those Boche
+ration carts. And in the morning the grey-roofed
+cottage appeared with two tiles left on the right-hand
+bottom corner of the roof, and the front wall
+had a huge gap in it big enough to act as a mouth
+for fifty machine-guns. Only Morgan was disappointed:
+all marks of the sausages had been
+cleared away before dawn! After all, are not the
+Germans pre-eminently a tidy people?
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span></p>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>Private Ellis had hard blue eyes that looked at
+you, and looked, and went on looking; they always
+reminded me of the colour of the sea when a north
+wind is blowing and the blue is hard and bright. I
+have seen two other pairs of eyes like them. One
+belonged to Captain Jefferies, the big game shooter,
+who lectured on Sniping at the Third Army School.
+The other pair were the property of a sergeant I met
+this week for the first time. “Are you a marksman?”
+I asked him. “Yes, sir! Always a marksman,
+sir.”</p>
+
+<p>There is no mistaking those eyes. They are the
+eyes of a man who has used them all his life, and
+found them grow steadier and surer every year.
+They are essentially the eyes of a man who can
+watch, watch, watch all day, and not get tired of
+watching; and they were the eyes of my best
+sniper.</p>
+
+<p>For Private Ellis had all the instincts of a cunning
+hunter. I had no need to tell him to keep his telescope
+well inside the loophole, lest the sun should
+catch on the glass; no need to remind him to stuff
+a bit of sand-bag in the loophole when he left the
+post unoccupied. He never forgot to let the sand-bag
+curtain drop behind him as he entered the box,
+to prevent light coming into it and showing white
+through a loophole set in dark earth. There was no
+need either to make sure that he understood the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span>
+telescopic sights on his rifle; and there was no need
+to tell him that the Boches were clever people. He
+never under-estimated his foe.</p>
+
+<p>It was a warm day in early March. Private Ellis
+was in No. 5 Box, opposite Aeroplane Trench. This
+post was very cunningly concealed. Our front
+trench ran along a road, immediately behind which
+was a steep chalk bank, the road having originally
+been cut out of a rather steep slope. You will see
+the lie of the ground clearly enough on Map III.
+Just about five yards behind this bank was cut a
+deep narrow trench, and in this trench were built
+several snipers’ posts, with loopholes looking out of
+the chalk bank. These loopholes were almost impossible
+to see, as they were very nearly indistinguishable
+from the shadows in the bank. Anyone
+who has hunted for oyster-catchers’ eggs on a
+pebbly beach knows that black and white is the
+most protective colour scheme existing. And so
+these little black loopholes were almost invisible
+in the black and white of the chalk bank.</p>
+
+<p>All the morning Private Ellis had been watching
+out of the corner of his eye a little bit of glass shining
+in Aeroplane Trench. Now Aeroplane Trench (as
+you will also see from the map) was a sap running
+out from the German front trench into a sunken
+road. From the centre sap two little branch saps
+ran up and down the road, and then slightly forward;
+the whole plan of it rather resembled an aeroplane
+and gave it its name. In it to-day was a Boche with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span>
+a periscopic rifle; and it was this little bit of glass
+at the top of the periscope, and the nose of the rifle-barrel
+that Private Ellis was watching. Every now
+and again the glass and nose-cap would give a little
+jump, and “plop” a bullet would bury itself in our
+front parapet. One of our sentries had had his periscope
+smashed during the morning, I was informed
+by a company commander with rather the air of
+“What’s the use of you and your snipers, if you
+can’t stop them sniping us?” I told Ellis about
+the periscope, to which he replied: “It won’t break
+us, I guess, sir—twopenn’orth of new glass for a periscope.
+It’s heads that count.” In which remark
+was no little wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>“Crack—plop,” and after a long interval another
+“Crack—zin—n—n—g,” as a bullet ricocheted off
+a stone, and went away over the ridge and fell with
+a little sigh somewhere in the ground right away
+beyond Redoubt A. So it went on all the afternoon,
+while the sun was warming everyone up and one
+dreamed of the summer, and warm days, dry
+trenches, and short nights. Ellis had gone off
+rather reluctantly at midday, and the other relief
+was there. There was a slumbrous sensation about
+that brought on the feeling that there was no one
+really in the enemy trenches at all. Yet there was
+the little glass eye looking at us: it reminded one of
+a snake in the grass. It glittered, unblinking.</p>
+
+<p>At about six o’clock I again visited the post.
+Ellis was back there, and watching as keenly as ever.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span></p>
+
+<p>“No luck?” I remarked. “I’m afraid your
+friend is too wily for you; he’s not going to put his
+head over, when he can see through a periscope as
+well.”</p>
+
+<p>Still Private Ellis said little, but his eye was as
+clear and keen as ever; and still the periscope
+remained.</p>
+
+<p>“We must shell him out to-morrow,” I said, and
+went off.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past seven we had “stood down,” and I
+was messing with “B” Company, when I heard a
+voice at the top of the dug-out, and the servant who
+was waiting—Lewis, I think it was—said a sniper
+wanted to see me.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell him to come down.”</p>
+
+<p>Private Ellis appeared at the door. Not a muscle
+in his body or face moved, but his eyes were glowing
+and glittering. “Got him, sir,” was all he said.</p>
+
+<p>“What?” I cried. “Got that Boche in Aeroplane
+Trench? By Jove, tell us all about it.”</p>
+
+<p>And so to the accompaniment of a whiskey and
+Perrier he told us exactly what happened. It was
+not till well after “stand-to,” it appeared, that any
+change had occurred in Aeroplane Trench. Then
+the periscope had wobbled and disappeared below
+ground. Then there had been another long wait,
+and the outline of the sunken road had begun to get
+faint. Then slowly, very slowly, a pink forehead
+had appeared over the top, and as slowly disappeared.
+I wish I had been there to watch Ellis
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span>
+then. I can imagine him coolly, methodically
+sighting his rifle on the trench-edge, and waiting.
+“I had to wait another minute, sir; then it appeared
+again, the whole head this time. He thought
+it was too dark to be seen ... Oh, he won’t worry
+us any more, sir! I saw one of his arms go up, and
+I thought I could see him fall against the back of
+the trench. But it was getting so dark, I couldn’t
+have seen him five minutes later at all.”</p>
+
+<p>And if Ellis couldn’t, who could?</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Next day, and for many days, there was no sniping
+from Aeroplane Trench.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX<br />
+
+ON PATROL</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">“Hullo</span>, Bill!” from Will Todd, as he
+passed me going up 76 Street.</p>
+
+<p>“Hullo,” I answered, “where are you
+off to?”</p>
+
+<p>“Going on patrol,” was the reply. “Oh, by
+the way, you probably know something about this
+rotten sap opposite the Quarry. I’m going out to
+find out if it’s occupied at night or not.”</p>
+
+<p>“Opposite the Quarry?” said I. “Oh, yes,
+I know it. We get rather a good view of it from
+No. 1 Post.”</p>
+
+<p>“That post up on the right here? Yes, I was
+up there this afternoon, but you can’t see much
+from anywhere here. The worst of it is I was going
+with 52 Jones; only his leave has just come through.
+You see, I’ve never been out before. I’m trying a
+fellow called Edwards, but I don’t know him.”</p>
+
+<p>“If you can’t get Edwards,” I said suddenly,
+“I’ve a good mind to come out with you. Meet me
+at Trafalgar Square, and let me know.”</p>
+
+<p>As Will disappeared, I immediately repented of
+my offer, repented heartily, repented abjectly. I
+had never been on patrol, and a great sinking feeling
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span>
+came over me. I hoped with all my might that
+Edwards would be bubbling over with enthusiasm
+for patrolling. I was afraid. With all the indifference
+to shells and canisters that was gradually
+growing upon me, I had never been out into No
+Man’s Land. And yet I had volunteered to go out,
+and at the time of doing so I felt quite excited at
+the prospect. “Fool,” I said to myself.</p>
+
+<p>“Edwards doesn’t seem at all enthusiastic about
+it,” said Will. “Will you really come out?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, rather. I’m awfully keen to go. I’ve
+never been before, either. How are you going?”</p>
+
+<p>We exchanged views on how best to dress and
+carry our revolvers, which instantly assumed a new
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>“What time are you going out?”</p>
+
+<p>“Eight o’clock.”</p>
+
+<p>It was a quarter to already.</p>
+
+<p>In the dug-out I was emptying my pockets,
+taking off my equipment, and putting on a cap-comforter.
+I had my compass with me, and put
+it in my pocket. I looked on the map and saw
+that the sap was practically due north of the
+Quarry. And I took a nip of brandy out of my
+flask. Will had gone to arrange with Captain
+Robertson about warning the sentries. I was alone,
+and still cursing myself for this unnecessary adventure.
+When I was ready, I stodged up 76 Street
+to the Quarry. It was certainly a good night, very
+black.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span></p>
+
+<p>When I saw Will and Captain Robertson together
+on the fire-step peering over, I felt rather bucked
+with myself. Hitherto I had felt like an enthusiastic
+bather undressing, nearly everyone else
+having decided it was not warm enough to bathe;
+now it was as if I suddenly found that they were
+watching me as I ran down the beach, and I no
+longer repented of my resolution. Next moment
+I was climbing up on to the slimy sandbag wall,
+and dropping over the other side. I was surprised
+to find there was very little drop at all. There
+was an old ditch to be crossed, and then we came
+to our wire, which was very thin at this point.
+While Will was cursing, and making, it seemed to
+me, rather an unnecessary rattling and shaking of
+the wire (you know how wire reverberates if you
+hit a fence by the road), I looked back at our own
+parapet. I felt it would be a good thing to see
+on one’s return; again, it struck me how low it
+was, regarded from this side; I saw a head move
+along the top of it. This made me jump. Already
+our trench seemed immeasurably far off.</p>
+
+<p>I looked in front again, as the noise of Will’s
+wire-rattling had ceased. In fact he was clean
+out of sight. This made me jump again, and I
+hurried on. It was “knife-rest” wire (see next
+page).</p>
+
+<p>I stepped over it, and my foot came down on to
+more wire, which rattled with a noise that made
+me stand stock still awaiting something to happen.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span>
+I felt like a cat who has upset a tablecloth and all
+the tea things. I stood appalled at the unexpected
+clatter. But really it was hardly audible to <i>our</i>
+sentries, much less to the Germans at least a
+hundred and twenty yards away.</p>
+
+<p>
+<img class="figcenter" id="i_157" src="images/i_157.jpg" alt="" />
+</p>
+
+<p>At last I got through and flopped down. Immediately
+Will’s form showed up dark in front of
+me. When I was standing up, I had been unable
+to see him against the black ground. We lay about
+a minute absolutely quiet, according to arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>I had fairly made the plunge now, and I felt
+like the bather shaking his hair as he comes up
+for the first time, and shouting out how glorious
+it is. I was elated. The feel of the wet grass was
+good under my hands; the silence was good; the
+immense loneliness, save for Will’s black form, was
+good; and a slight rustle of wind in the grass was
+good also. I just wanted to lie, and enjoy it. I
+hoped Will would not go on for another minute.
+But soon he began to crawl.</p>
+
+<p>Have you done much crawling? It is slow work.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span>
+You take knee-steps, and they are not like footsteps:
+they are not a hundred and twenty to the
+hundred yards They are more like fifty to ten
+yards, I should think. Anyway it seemed endless.
+The end of the sap was, to be precise, just one
+hundred and twenty-five yards from our front
+trench. Yet when I had gone, I suppose, forty
+yards, I expected to be on it any minute. Will
+must be going wrong. I thought of the map.
+Could we be going north-east instead of north?
+Will halted. I nearly bumped into his right foot,
+which raised itself twice, signalling a halt. I took
+out my compass, and looked at it. I shaded it
+with my hand, the luminous arrow seemed so
+bright: “rather absurd,” I thought immediately,
+“as if the Boches could possibly see it from the
+trench.” But we were going straight enough.
+Then the figure in front moved on, and I came
+up to where he had halted. It was the edge of a
+big shell-hole, full of water; I put my left hand
+in up to the wrist, I don’t know why.</p>
+
+<p>Still the figure crawled on, with a sort of hump-backed
+sidle that I had got to know by now. It
+was interminable this crawling....</p>
+
+<p>“Swis—s—sh.” A German flare shot up from
+ever so close. It seemed to be falling right over us.
+Then it burst with a “pop.” I had my head down
+on my arms, but I could squint out sideways. It
+seemed impossible we should not be seen; for
+there, hardly twenty yards away, was the German
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span>
+wire, as clear as anything. Meanwhile the flare
+had fallen behind us. Would it never go out?
+I noticed the way the blades of grass were lit up
+by it; and there was an old tin or something....
+I started as a rat ran across the grass past me.
+I wondered if it were a German rat, or one of
+ours.</p>
+
+<p>Then at last the flare went out, and the blackness
+was intense. For a while longer we lay still
+as death; then I saw Will’s foot move again. I
+listened intently, and on my right I heard a metallic
+sound. Quite close it was; it sounded like the
+clank of a dixie. I peered hard in the direction of
+the sound. Faintly I could distinguish earth above
+the ground-line. I had not looked to my right
+when the flare went up, and realised, as Will
+already had done, that we were out as far as the
+end of the sap. It was perhaps ten yards off, due
+right. I lay with my ear cocked sideways to catch
+the faintest sound. Clearly there was someone in
+the sap. But there was a wind swishing in the
+grass, and I could not hear anything more. Then
+my tense attitude relaxed, and I gradually sank
+my chin on my arm. I felt very comfortable. I
+did not want to move....</p>
+
+<p>“Bang!!” and then a flame spat out; then came
+that gritty metallic sound I had heard before, and
+another “Bang!” I kept my head down and
+waited for the next, but it did not come. Then I
+heard a most human scroopy cough, which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span>
+also sounded <i>very</i> near. The “bangs” were
+objectionably near; I literally shrank from them.
+To tell the truth, I had the “wind up” a bit.
+Those bullets seemed to me vicious personal spits
+that were distinctly unpleasant and near; and I
+wanted to get away from so close a proximity to
+them. I remembered a maxim of some famous
+General to the intent that if you are afraid of the
+enemy, the best thing was to remember that in all
+probability he was just as afraid of you. The
+maxim did not seem to apply somehow here. At
+the first “bang” I had thought we were seen;
+but I now realised that the sentry was merely
+blazing off occasional shots, and that the bullets
+had just plopped into our parapet.</p>
+
+<p>Then Will turned round, and I did the same.
+Our business was certainly ended, for there was
+no doubt about the sap being occupied. Then I
+heard a thud behind us, and looking up saw the
+slow climbing trail of a canister blazing up into
+the sky; up it mounted, up, up, up, hovered a
+moment, then turned, and with a gathering impetus
+blazed down somewhere well behind our front
+trench.</p>
+
+<p>“Trafalgar Square,” I thought, as I lay doggo,
+for the blaze lit up the sky somewhat.</p>
+
+<p>“Bomp.” The earth shook as the canister
+exploded.</p>
+
+<p>“Thud,” and the process was repeated exactly
+as before, ending in another quaking “Bomp!”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span></p>
+
+<p>I enjoyed this. It was rather a novel way of
+seeing canisters, and moreover a very safe way.</p>
+
+<p>Two more streamed over.</p>
+
+<p>Then our footballs answered, and burst with a
+bang in the air not so <i>very</i> far over into the German
+lines. The trench-mortar fellow was evidently
+trying short fuses, for usually our trench-mortar
+shells burst on percussion.</p>
+
+<p>Then in the distance I heard four bangs, and
+the Boche 4·2’s started, screaming over at Maple
+Redoubt. I determined to move on.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly came four distant bangs from
+the right of our lines (as we faced them), and with
+“wang—wang ... wang—wang” four whizz-bangs
+burst right around us, with most appalling
+flickers. “Bang—bang ... bang—bang” in the
+distance again, and I braced every muscle tightly,
+as you do when you prepare to meet a shock.
+Behind us, and just in front, the beastly things
+burst. I lay with every fibre in my body strained
+to the uttermost. And yet I confess I enjoyed
+the sensation!</p>
+
+<p>There was a lull, and I began crawling as fast
+as I could. I stopped to see if Will was following.
+“By God,” I heard, “let’s get out of this.” So
+I was thinking! Then as I went on I saw the edge
+of a crater. Where on earth?</p>
+
+<p>I halted and pulled out my compass. Due south
+I wanted. I found I was bearing off to the right
+far too much, so with compass in hand I corrected
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span>
+my course. Some crawling this time! It was not
+long before we could see wire in the distance. Then
+I got up and ran. How I got through that wire
+I don’t know; I tore my puttees badly, and must
+have made a most unnecessary rattling. After
+which I fell into the ditch.</p>
+
+<p>“Thank heaven you’re all right,” was the greeting
+from Captain Robertson. “I was just coming out
+after you. Those d—d artillery fellows. I sent
+down at once to ’phone to them to stop....”</p>
+
+<p>And so on. I hardly heard a word. I was so
+elated, I could not listen. As we went back to
+Trafalgar Square for dinner, I heard them warning
+the sentries “The patrol’s in.” I looked up at the
+sandbag parapet. “In,” I thought. “One does
+not realise what ‘in’ is, till one’s been out.”</p>
+
+<p>I have been out several times later. I never had
+any adventures much. But always, before going
+out, I felt the shivers of the bather; and always,
+after I came in, a most splendid glow.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X<br />
+
+“WHOM THE GODS LOVE”</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">“No</span> officer wounded since we came out in
+October,” said Edwards: “we’re really
+awfully lucky, you know.”</p>
+
+<p>“For heaven’s sake, touch wood,” I cried.</p>
+
+<p>We laughed, for the whole of our establishment
+was wood. We were sitting on a wooden seat, leaning
+our hands against wooden uprights, eating off
+a wooden table, and resting our feet on a wooden
+floor. Sometimes, too, we found splinters of wood
+in the soup—but it was more often straw. For this
+dining-room in Trafalgar Square was known sometimes
+as the “Summer-house” and sometimes as the
+“Straw Palace.” It was really the maddest so-called
+“dug-out” in the British lines, I should
+think; I might further add, “in any trench in
+Europe.” For the French, although they presumably
+built it in the summer days of 1915 when the
+Bois Français trenches were a sort of summer-rest
+for tired-out soldiers, would never have tolerated
+the “Summer-house” since the advent of the
+canister-age. As for the Boche, he would have
+merely stared if anyone had suggested him using it
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span>
+as a Company Headquarters. “But,” he would
+have said, “it is not shell-proof.”</p>
+
+<p>Exactly. It would not have stood even a whizz-bang.
+A rifle-grenade would almost certainly have
+come right through it. As for a canister or H.E.,
+it would have gone through like a stone piercing
+wet paper. But it had been Company Headquarters
+for so long—it was so light and, being
+next door to the servants’ dug-out, so convenient—that
+we always lived in it still; though we slept
+in a dug-out a little way down Old Kent Road,
+which was certainly whizz-bang—if not canister—proof.</p>
+
+<p>At any rate, here were Edwards and myself,
+drinking rather watery ox-tail soup out of very
+dinted tin-plates—the spoons were scraping noisily
+on the metal; overhead, a rat appeared out of the
+straw thatch, looked at me, blinked, turned about,
+and disappeared again, sending a little spill of earth
+on to the table.</p>
+
+<p>“Hang these rats,” I exclaimed, for the tenth
+time that day.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, it was brilliant moonlight: whenever
+the door opened, I saw it. It was very quiet. Then
+I heard voices, the sound of a lot of men, moving in
+the shuffling sort of way that men do move at night
+in a communication trench.</p>
+
+<p>The door flew open, and Captain Robertson looked
+in.</p>
+
+<p>“Hullo, Robertson; you’re early!”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span></p>
+
+<p>It was not much past half-past seven.</p>
+
+<p>“You’ve got those sand-bags up by 78 Street?”
+he said, sitting down.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, 250 there, and 250 right up in the Loop.
+The rest I shall use on the Fort. Oh! by the way,
+you know we are strafing at 12.5? We just had a
+message up from Dale. I shall knock off at 11.45
+to-night!”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll see how we get on. I want to finish that
+traverse. Righto. I’m just drawing tools and going
+up now.”</p>
+
+<p>“See you up there in a few minutes.”</p>
+
+<p>And the muttering stream of “A” Company filed
+past the dug-out, going up to the front line. The
+door swung open suddenly, and each man looked in
+as he went by.</p>
+
+<p>“Shut the door,” I shouted. Our plates themselves
+somehow suddenly looked epicurean.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after eight I was up in the front line. It was
+the brightest night we had had, and ideal for sand-bag
+work. The men were already at it. There was
+a certain amount of inevitable talking going on,
+before everyone got really started. We were working
+on the Fort, completing two box dug-outs that
+we had half put in the night before; also, we were
+thickening the parapet, between the Fort and the
+Loop, and building a new fire-step.</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t see any b—— sand-bags here,” came from
+one man.</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll have to pick this, sir,” from another.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span></p>
+
+<p>“Where’s Mullens gone off to?” sharply from a
+sergeant.</p>
+
+<div>
+<img class="figcenter" id="i_166" src="images/i_166.jpg" alt="" />
+<p class="caption">Good sand-bag work.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>But for the most part the moonlight made everything
+straightforward, and there was only the spitting
+sound of picks, the heavy, smothered noise of
+men lifting sand-bags, or the “slap, slap” of others
+patting them into a wall with the back of a shovel,
+that broke the stillness. On the left “A” Company
+were working full steam ahead, heightening the
+parapet and building a big traverse at the entrance
+to the Matterhorn sap. “Robertson’s traverse”
+we always called it afterwards. He got his men
+working in a long chain, passing filled sand-bags
+along from a big miners’ sand-bag dump, the accumulation
+of months of patient R.E. tunnelling.
+These huge dumps rose up in gigantic piles where-ever
+there was a shaft-head; and they were a windfall
+to us if they were anywhere near where we were
+working. On this occasion quite a thousand must
+have been passed along and built into that traverse,
+and the parapet there, by the Matterhorn. It was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span>
+fascinating work, passing these dry, small sacks
+as big as medium-sized babies, only as knobby and
+angular under their outer cover as a baby is soft and
+rounded. Meanwhile the builders laid them, like
+bricks, alternate “headers” and “stretchers.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>And so the work went on under the moon.</p>
+
+<p>“Davies,” I cried, in that low questioning tone
+that might well be called “trench voice.” It is not
+a whisper; yet it is not a full, confident sound. If
+a man speaks loudly in the front trench, you tell him
+to remember the Boche is a hundred yards away;
+if he whispers in a hoarse voice that sounds a little
+nervy, you tell him that the Boche’s ears are not a
+hundred yards long. The result is a restrained and
+serious-toned medium.</p>
+
+<p>“Sirr,” answered a voice close beside me, in a
+pitch rather louder than the usual trench-voice.
+Davies always spoke clear and loud. He was my
+orderly.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! there you are.” Like a dog he had got
+tired of standing, and while I stood watching the
+fascinating progress of the erection of a box dug-out
+under Sergeant Hayman’s direction, he was sitting
+on the fire-step immediately behind me. Had he
+been a collie, his tongue would have been out, and he
+would have yawned occasionally; or his nose might
+even have been between his paws. Now he jumped
+up, giving a hitch to his rifle that was slung over his
+left shoulder.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span></p>
+
+<p>“I’m going round the sentries,” I said.</p>
+
+<p>Davies said nothing, but followed about two paces
+behind, stopping when I stopped, and gazing at me
+silently when I got up on the fire-step to look over.</p>
+
+<p>The low-ground in the quarry was very wet, and
+the trench there two feet deep in water, so it was
+temporarily abandoned, and the little trench out of
+76 Street by No. 1 Sniping Post was my way to
+No. 5 Platoon. It was a very narrow bit of trench,
+and on a dark night one kept knocking one’s thighs
+and elbows against hard corners of chalk-filled sand-bags.
+To-night it was easy in the white moonlight.
+It was really not a trench at all, but a path behind
+a sand-bag dump. Behind was the open field.
+There was no parados.</p>
+
+<p>All correct on the two posts in No. 5. It seemed
+almost unnecessary to have two posts on such a
+bright night. The outline of the German parapet
+looked clear enough. Surely the sentries must be
+almost visible to-night? Right opposite was the
+dark earth of a sap-head. Our wire looked very
+near and thin.</p>
+
+<p>“Everything all right?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir!”</p>
+
+<p>I saw the bombs lying ready in the crease between
+two sand-bags that formed the parapet top. The
+pins were bent straight, ready for quick drawing.
+The bomber was all right; and there was not much
+wrong with his pal’s bayonet, that glistened in the
+moonlight.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span></p>
+
+<p>As usual, I went beyond our right post, until I
+was met by a peering, suspicious head from the left-hand
+sentry of “C” Company.</p>
+
+<p>“Who’s that?” in a hoarse low voice, as the
+figure bent down off the fire-step.</p>
+
+<p>“All right. Officer. ‘B’ Company.”</p>
+
+<p>Then I passed back along the trench to the top of
+76 Street; and so on, visiting all the sentries up to
+80 A trench, and disturbing all the working-parties.</p>
+
+<p>“Way, please,” I would say to the hindquarters
+of an energetic wielder of the pick.</p>
+
+<p>“Hi! make way there!” Davies would say in
+a higher and louder voice when necessary. Then the
+figure would straighten itself, and flatten itself
+against the trench, while I squeezed past between
+perspiring man and slimy sand-bag. This “passing”
+was an eternal business. It was unavoidable.
+No one ever said anything, or apologised. No one
+ever grumbled. It was like passing strap-hangers
+in the crowded carriage of a Tube. Only it went on
+day and night.</p>
+
+<p>Craters by moonlight are really beautiful; the
+white chalk-dust gives them the appearance of snow-mountains.
+And they look much larger than they
+really are. On this occasion, as I looked into them
+from the various bombing-posts, it needed little
+imagination to suppose I was up in the snows of the
+Welsh hills. There was such a death-like stillness
+over it all, too. The view from the Matterhorn was
+across the widest and deepest of all the craters, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span>
+I stood a long time peering across that yawning
+chasm at the dark, irregular rim of German sand-bags.
+I gazed fascinated. What was it all about?
+The sentry beside me came from a village near
+Dolgelly: was a farmer’s boy. He, too, was gazing
+across, hardly liking to shuffle his feet lest he broke
+the silence.</p>
+
+<p>“Good God!” I felt inclined to exclaim. “Has
+there ever been anything more idiotic than this?
+What in the name of goodness are you and I doing
+here?”</p>
+
+<p>So I thought, and so I believe he was thinking.</p>
+
+<p>“Everything all right?” was all I said, as I
+jumped back into the trench.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir,” was all the answer.</p>
+
+<p>About ten o’clock I went back to Trafalgar
+Square. There I heard that Thompson of “C”
+Company had been wounded. From what I could
+gather he had been able to walk down to the dressing-station,
+so I concluded he was only slightly hit. But
+it came as rather a shock, and I wondered whether
+he would go to “Blighty.”</p>
+
+<p>At eleven I started off for the front trench again,
+viâ Rue Albert and 78 Street. There was a bit of a
+“strafe” on. It started with canisters; it had now
+reached the stage of whizz-bangs as well. I thought
+little of it, when “woo—woo—woo—woo,” and the
+Boche turned on his howitzers. They screamed
+over to Maple Redoubt.</p>
+
+<p>A pause. Then again, and they screamed down
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span>
+just in front of us, evidently after the corner of
+78 Street. I did not hesitate, but pushed on. The
+trench was completely blocked. Rue Albert was
+revetted with wood and brushwood, and it was all
+over the place. Davies and I climbed over with
+great difficulty, the whole place reeking with powder.</p>
+
+<p>“Look out, sir!” came from Davies, and we
+crouched down. There was a colossal din while
+shells seemed all round us.</p>
+
+<p>“All right, Davies?” And we pushed on. At
+last here was 78 Street, and we turned up to find
+another complete block in the trench. We again
+scrambled over, and met “A” Company wiring-party,
+returning for more wire.</p>
+
+<p>“The trench is blocked,” said I, “but you can
+get over all right.”</p>
+
+<p>We passed in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Again “Look out!” from Davies, and we cowered.
+Again the shells screamed down on us, and burst
+just behind.</p>
+
+<p>“Good God!” I exclaimed, “those wirers!”</p>
+
+<p>Davies ran back.</p>
+
+<p>There was another block in the trench, but no
+sign of any men. They were well away by now!
+But the shell had fallen between us and them before
+they reached the block in 78 Street!</p>
+
+<p>Out of breath we arrived at the top of 78 Street,
+to find “A” Company just getting going again
+after a hot quarter of an hour. Luckily they had
+had no casualties. All was quiet now, and the moon
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span>
+looked down upon the workers as before. A quarter
+past eleven.</p>
+
+<p>I worked my way along to the Fort and found
+there a sentry rather excited because, he said, he
+had seen exactly the spot from which they had fired
+rifle-grenades in the strafing just now. I got him to
+point out the place. It was half-left, and as I looked,
+sure enough I saw a flash, and a rifle-grenade whined
+through the air, and fell with a snarl behind our
+trench.</p>
+
+<p>“Davies,” I said, “get Lance-Corporal Allan to
+come here with the Lewis gun.”</p>
+
+<p>Davies was gone like a flash.</p>
+
+<p>The Lewis guns had only recently become company
+weapons, and were still somewhat of a novelty.
+The Lewis gunners were rather envied, and also
+rather “downed” by the sergeant-major for being
+specialists. But this they could not help; and they
+were, as a matter of fact, the best men in my
+company.</p>
+
+<p>Allan arrived, with one of the team carrying two
+spare drums of ammunition. We pointed out the
+spot, and he laid his gun on the parapet, with the
+butt against his shoulder, and his finger on the
+trigger, and waited.</p>
+
+<p>“Flash!”</p>
+
+<p>“There he is, sir!” from the sentry.</p>
+
+<p>“Drrrrrr-r-r-r” purred the Lewis gun, then
+stopped. Then again, ending with another jerk.
+There was a silence. We waited five minutes.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span></p>
+
+<p>“I’ll just empty the magazine, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Dr-r-r-r-r.”</p>
+
+<p>Lance-Corporal Allan took off the drum, and
+handed it to the other Lewis gunner. Then he
+handed down the gun, and we talked a few minutes.
+He was very proud of his gun. After a time I
+sent him back, and made my way along to “A”
+Company.</p>
+
+<p>There I found Robertson. We talked. A tremendous
+lot of work had been done, and the big
+traverse was practically finished.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m knocking off now,” said I. It was a quarter
+to twelve, and I went along with the “Cease work”
+message.</p>
+
+<p>“All right,” said Robertson, “I’m just going to
+have another look at my wirers. I’ll look in as I go
+down.”</p>
+
+<p>By the time I had reached the top of 76 Street,
+the trench was full of the clank of the thermos dixies,
+and the men were drinking hot soup. The pioneers
+had just brought it up. I stopped and had a taste.
+It was good stuff. As I turned off down the trench,
+I heard the Germans start shelling again on our left,
+but they stopped almost directly. I thought nothing
+of it at the time.</p>
+
+<p>It was just midnight when I reached Trafalgar
+Square and bumped into Davidson coming round
+the corner.</p>
+
+<p>“I was looking for you,” said he. “You’ve
+heard about Tommy?”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">174</span></p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” I answered. “But he’s not badly hit, is
+he?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, you haven’t heard. He died at eleven
+o’clock.”</p>
+
+<p>Died! My God! this was something new.
+Briefly, tersely, Davidson told me the details. He
+had been hit in the mouth while working on the
+parapet, and had died down at the dressing station.
+I looked hard at Davidson, as we stood together in
+the moonlight by the big island traverse at Trafalgar
+Square. Somehow I felt my body tense; my teeth
+were pressed together; my eyes did not want to
+blink. Here was something new. I had seen death
+often: <i>it</i> was nothing new. But it was the first
+time it had taken one of us. I wondered what Davidson
+felt; he knew Thompson much better than I.
+Yet I knew him well enough—only a day or so ago
+he had come to our billet in the butcher’s shop, and
+we had talked of him afterwards—and now—dead——</p>
+
+<p>All this flashed through my brain in a second.
+Meanwhile Davidson was saying,</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I’m just going off for this strafe,” when I
+heard men running down a trench.</p>
+
+<p>“Quick! Stretcher-bearers. The Captain’s hit,”
+came from someone in a low voice. The stretcher-bearers’
+dug-out was just by where we were standing,
+and immediately I heard a stir inside, and a head
+looked out from the waterproof sheet that acted as
+curtain in front of it.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span></p>
+
+<p>“Is it a stretcher-case?” a voice asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” was the reply, and without more ado two
+stretcher-bearers turned out and ran up 76 Street
+after the orderly. At that moment there was a thud,
+and a blazing trail climbed up the sky from the left.</p>
+
+<p>“D——,” I muttered. “We must postpone this
+strafe. Davidson, we’ll fix up later, see? Only no
+firing now.” As Davidson disappeared to his gun-position,
+I ran to the telephone.</p>
+
+<p>“Trench-mortar officer,” I said. “Quick!”</p>
+
+<p>But there is no “quick” about a signaller. He
+is always there, and methodically, without haste or
+flurry, he takes down and sends messages. There is
+no “quickness”; yet there is no delay. If the
+world outside pulses and rocks under a storm of
+shells, in the signallers’ dug-out is always a deep-sea
+calm. So impatiently I watched the operator beat
+his little tattoo on the buzzer; looked at his face,
+as the candle-light shone on it, with its ears hidden
+beneath the receiver-drums, and its head swathed
+by the band that holds them over the ears. In the
+corner, the second signaller sat up and peered out of
+his blanket, and then lay down again.</p>
+
+<p>“Zx? Is there an officer there? Hold on a
+minute, please. The officer’s at the gun, sir; will
+you speak to the corporal?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.” I already had the receiver to my ear.</p>
+
+<p>“Is that the trench-mortar corporal? Well, go
+and tell Mr. Macfarlane, will you, to stop firing at
+once, and not to start again till he hears from Mr.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span>
+Adams. Right. Right. Thanks.” This last to the
+signaller as I left the dug-out.</p>
+
+<p>“Thud!” and another football blazed through
+the sky.</p>
+
+<p>Macfarlane was the officer in charge of the trench-mortar
+guns of our sector. I knew him well.
+Davidson was in charge of the Stokes gun, which is
+a quick-firing trench-mortar gun. Macfarlane’s
+shells were known as “footballs,” but as they had
+a handle attached they looked more like hammers
+as they slowly curved through the air.</p>
+
+<p>We had arranged to “strafe” a certain position
+in the German support line at five minutes after
+midnight. But I wanted to stop it before retaliation
+started. The doctor had gone up the front line,
+and Robertson would be brought down any minute.</p>
+
+<p>Outside I met Brock. He said little, but it was
+good to have him there. A long while it seemed,
+waiting. I started up 76 Street. No sooner had I
+started than I heard footsteps coming down, and to
+make room I went back. I was preparing to say
+some cheery word to Robertson, but when I saw
+him he was lying quite still and unconscious. I
+stopped the little doctor.</p>
+
+<p>“Is he bad, Doc?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, old man, I can hardly say. He’s got a
+fighting chance,” and he went on. Slowly I heard
+the stretcher-bearers’ footsteps growing fainter and
+fainter, and there was silence. Thank God! those
+footballs had stopped now!
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span></p>
+
+<p>Did I guess that Robertson too was mortally
+wounded? I cannot say—only my teeth were set,
+and I felt very wideawake. In a minute both
+Davidson and Macfarlane came up, Davidson down
+76 Street, and Macfarlane from Rue Albert. I told
+Macfarlane all about it, and as I did so my blood
+was up. I swore hard at the devils that had done
+this; and we agreed on a “strafe” at a quarter to
+one.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I stood alone at Trafalgar Square. There was a
+great calm sky, and the moon looked down at me.
+Then with a “thud” the first football went up.
+Then the Stokes answered.</p>
+
+<p>“Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!” Up they
+sailed into the air all together, and exploded with a
+deafening din.</p>
+
+<p>“Thud—thud!”</p>
+
+<p>“Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!”</p>
+
+<p>Then the Boche woke up. Two canisters rose,
+streamed, and fell, dropping slightly to my right.</p>
+
+<p>But still our trench-mortars went on. Two more
+canisters tried for Davidson’s gun.</p>
+
+<p>I was elated. “This for Thompson and Robertson,”
+I said, as our footballs went on methodically.</p>
+
+<p>Then the whizz-bangs began on Trafalgar Square.</p>
+
+<p>I went to the telephone.</p>
+
+<p>“Artillery,” I said briefly. “Retaliate C 1
+Sector.”</p>
+
+<p>And then our guns began.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span></p>
+
+<p>“Scream, scream, scream” they went over.</p>
+
+<p>“Swish—swish” answered the Boche whizz-bangs.</p>
+
+<p>“Phew,” said Sergeant Tallis, the bombing-sergeant,
+as he looked out of his dug-out.</p>
+
+<p>“More retaliation,” I said to the signaller, and
+stepped out again.</p>
+
+<p>A grim exaltation filled me. We were getting our
+own back. I did not care a straw for their canisters
+or whizz-bangs. It pleased me to hear Sergeant
+Tallis say “Phew.” My blood was up, and I did
+not feel like saying “Phew.”</p>
+
+<p>“The officer wants to know if that is enough,” said
+the telephone orderly, who had come out to find me.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” I answered; “I want more.”</p>
+
+<p>The Boche was sending “heavies” over on to
+Maple Redoubt. I would go on until he stopped.
+My will should be master. Again our shells screamed
+over. There was no reply.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually quiet came back.</p>
+
+<p>Then I heard footsteps, and there was Davidson.
+His face was glowing too.</p>
+
+<p>“How was that?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>How was that? He had fired magnificently,
+though the Boche had sent stuff all round him.
+How was that?</p>
+
+<p>“Magnificent! We’ve shut them up.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve got six shells left. Shall I blaze them off?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, no!” said I; “I think we’ve avenged
+Tommy.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span></p>
+
+<p>His face hardened.</p>
+
+<p>“Good night, Bill!”</p>
+
+<p>But I did not feel like sleep. I still stood at the
+corner, waiting for I knew not what.</p>
+
+<p>“Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!” went the
+Stokes gun. There was a pause, and “bang, bang,
+bang, bang, bang!” came the sound of them bursting.
+There was a longer pause.</p>
+
+<p>“Bang!” I watched the spark floating through
+the sky.</p>
+
+<p>“Bang!” came the sound back from the German
+trench.</p>
+
+<p>I waited. There was no answer. And for the
+first time that night I fancied the moon smiled.</p>
+
+<h3>[<i>Copy</i>]<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Daily Summary. C 1. (Left Company)</span><br />
+
+6 p.m. 18.3.16—3.30 p.m. 19.3.16</h3>
+
+<p>(a) <i>Operations.</i></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>11.0 p.m. Enemy fired six rifle-grenades
+from F10/5. The approximate position of the
+battery was visible from the <span class="smcap">Fort</span>, and Lewis
+gun fire was brought to bear on it, which immediately
+silenced it.</p>
+
+<p>11.30 p.m. Enemy fired several trench-mortar
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span>
+shells and H.E. shells on junction of
+78 Street and <span class="smcap">Rue Albert</span> (F10/6), a few falling
+in our front line trench by the <span class="smcap">Matterhorn</span>.
+No damage was done to our trenches.</p>
+
+<p>12.45 p.m. Our T.M. Battery fired 12 footballs,
+and our Stokes gun 32 shells at enemy’s
+front line trench in F10/5. The enemy sent a
+few canisters over, but then resorted to H.E.’s.
+Our artillery retaliated. Our Stokes gun continued
+to fire until enemy was silent, no reply
+being sent to our last 6 shells.</p>
+
+<p>7.45 a.m. Enemy fired several rifle-grenades
+and bombs. Our R.G.’s retaliated with 24
+R.G.’s.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>(b) <i>Progress of Work.</i></p>
+
+<table>
+ <tr>
+ <td>F 10/6</td>
+ <td>{ 30 yards of parapet thickened two feet.<br />
+ { 25 yards of fire-step built.<br />
+ {20 coils of wire put out.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>F 10/5</td>
+ <td>
+ { 20 yards of parapet thickened two feet.<br />
+ { 2 dug-outs completed.<br />
+ {20 yards of fire-step built.</td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="author">
+<span class="smcap">J. B. P. Adams</span>, Lt.,<br />
+O.C. “B” Coy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI<br />
+
+“WHOM THE GODS LOVE”—(<i>continued</i>)</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">As</span> I write I feel inclined to throw the whole
+book in the fire. It seems a desecration to
+tell of these things. Do I not seem to be
+exulting in the tragedy? Should not he who feels
+deeply keep silent? Sometimes I think so. And
+yet it is the truth, word for word the truth; so I
+must write it.</p>
+
+<p>In the Straw Palace next morning Davidson and
+I were sitting discussing last night, when the doctor
+looked in. He started talking about Vermorel
+sprayers (the portable tins shaped like large oval
+milk-cans, filled with a solution useful for clearing
+dug-outs after a gas attack). One of these was
+damaged, and I had sent down a note to the M.O.
+about it.</p>
+
+<p>“How’s Robertson?” I asked at once.</p>
+
+<p>“He died this morning, Bill—three o’clock this
+morning.”</p>
+
+<p>“Good God,” I said.</p>
+
+<p>“Pretty ghastly, isn’t it? Two officers like that
+in one night. The C.O. is awfully cut up about it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Robertson dead?” said Davidson.</p>
+
+<p>And so we talked for some minutes. The old
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span>
+doctor was used to these things. He had seen so
+many officers fall out of line. But to us this was
+new, and we had not gauged it yet. You might have
+thought from his quiet jerky sentences that the
+doctor was almost callous. You would have been
+wrong.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I must get on,” he said at last. “So
+long, Bill. Send that Vermorel sprayer down, will
+you, and I’ll see to it, and you’ll have it back to-night,
+probably.”</p>
+
+<p>“Righto.” And the doctor and his orderly disappeared
+down the Old Kent Road.</p>
+
+<p>Davidson and I talked alone.</p>
+
+<p>“It must be pretty rotten being an M.O.,” he
+remarked.</p>
+
+<p>Then the “F.L.O.” came in. He is the “Forward
+liaison officer,” an artillery officer who lives up with
+the infantry and facilitates co-operation between
+the two. At the same moment came a cheery
+Scotch voice outside, and Macfarlane, the “football”
+officer, looked in.</p>
+
+<p>“Come oot a’ that!” he cried. “Sittin’ indoors
+on a fine mornin’.”</p>
+
+<p>“Come in,” we said.</p>
+
+<p>But his will prevailed, and we all came out into
+the sunshine. I had not seen him since last night’s
+little show. Now he was being relieved by another
+officer for six days, and I was anxious to know
+what sort of a man was his successor. But Macfarlane
+did not know much about him yet.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span></p>
+
+<p>“Anyway,” said I, “if he’ll only fire like you,
+we don’t mind.”</p>
+
+<p>“Och!” grunted Macfarlane. “What’s the use
+of havin’ a gun, and no firin’ it? So long as I get
+ma footballs up, I’ll plunk them over aw recht.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” I added. “The Boche doesn’t approve
+of your sort.”</p>
+
+<p>For there were other sorts. There was the trench-mortar
+officer who was never to be found, but who
+left a sergeant with instructions not to fire without
+his orders; there was the trench-mortar officer
+who “could not fire except by Brigade orders”;
+there was the trench-mortar officer who was “afraid
+of giving his position away”; there was the trench-mortar
+officer who “couldn’t get any ammunition
+up, you know; they won’t give it me; only too
+pleased to fire, if only ...”; there was the trench-mortar
+officer who started firing on his own, without
+consulting the company commander, just when you
+had a big working-party in the front trenches;
+and lastly there were trench-mortar officers like
+Davidson and Macfarlane.</p>
+
+<p>“Cheero, then,” we said, as Macfarlane went off.
+“Look us up. You know our billet? We’ll be out
+to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>Then we finished our consultation and divided off
+to our different jobs.</p>
+
+<p>All that day I felt that there was in me something
+which by all rights should have “given”:
+these two deaths should have made me feel different:
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span>
+and yet I was just the same. As I went round the
+trench, with Davies at my heels, talking to platoon-sergeants,
+examining wire through my periscope,
+all in the ordinary way exactly as before, I forgot
+all about Tommy and Robertson. Even when I came
+to the place where Robertson had been hit, and
+saw the blood on the fire-step, and some scraps of
+cotton wool lying about, I looked at it as you might
+look at a smashed egg on the pavement, curiously,
+and then passed on. “Am I indifferent to these
+things, then?” I asked myself. I had not realised
+yet that violent emotion very rarely comes close
+upon the heels of death, that there is a numbness,
+a blunting of the spirit, that is an anodyne to pain.
+I was ashamed of my indifference; yet I soon saw
+that it was no uncommon thing. Besides, one had
+to “carry on” just the same. There was always a
+silence among the men, when a pal “goes west”;
+so now Edwards and I did not talk much, except
+to discuss the ordinary routine.</p>
+
+<p>I did not get much rest that day. In the afternoon
+came up a message from the adjutant that
+we were exploding a mine opposite the Matterhorn
+at 6.30; our trench was to be cleared from 80 <small>A</small>
+to the bombing-post on the left of the Loop inclusive.
+Edwards and I were the only officers in
+the company, so while he arranged matters with
+the Lewis-gun teams, I went off to see about getting
+the trench cleared. I had just sent off the “daily
+summary,” my copy of which is reproduced on
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span>
+page 179. As I came back along 78 Street, I met
+Davidson again. He was looking for a new site
+for his gun, so as to be able to get a good fire to
+bear on the German lines opposite the Matterhorn.
+I went with him, and together we found a place
+behind the big mine-dump to the left of 78 Street,
+and close to one of our rifle-grenade batteries. As
+he went off to get his corporal and team to bring
+the gun over and fix it in position, he said something
+in a rather low voice.</p>
+
+<p>“What?” I shouted. “Couldn’t hear.”</p>
+
+<p>He came back and repeated it.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh,” I said. “Sorry. Yes, all right. I expect
+I’ll hear from the Adjutant. Thanks.”</p>
+
+<p>What he said was that there would be a funeral
+that night at nine o’clock. Thompson and Robertson
+were being buried together. He thought I
+would like to know.</p>
+
+<p>It was close on half-past six, and getting dark.
+The trenches were cleared, and I was waiting at
+the head of two platoons that strung out along 78
+Street and behind the Loop. Rifles had been inspected;
+the men had the S.A.A. (small arms
+ammunition) and bomb boxes with them, ready to
+take back into the trench as soon as the mine had
+gone up. I looked at my watch.</p>
+
+<p>“Another minute,” I said.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as I spoke, the earth shook; there was a
+pause, and a great black cloud burst into the air,
+followed by a roar of flames. I got up on the fire-step
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span>
+to see it better. It is a good show, a mine.
+There was the sound of falling earth, and then
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on,” I said, and we hurried back into the
+trench. Weird and eerie it looked in the half-light;
+its emptiness might have been years old.
+It was undamaged, as we had expected; only there
+was loose earth scattered all over the parapet and
+fire-step.</p>
+
+<p>Then hell broke loose, a crashing, banging, flashing
+hell that concentrated on the German front line
+directly opposite. It seemed like stirring up an
+ant’s nest, and then spraying them with boiling
+water as they ran about in confusion!</p>
+
+<p>“Bang—bang—bang—bang—bang,” barked
+Davidson’s gun.</p>
+
+<p>“Thud,” muttered the football-thrower.</p>
+
+<p>“Wheep! Wee-oo, wee-oo, wee-oo,” went the
+rifle grenades. And all this splendid rain burst with
+a glorious splash just over the new crater. It was
+magnificent shooting, and half of us were up on
+the fire-step watching the fireworks.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Boche retaliated, with canisters and
+whizz-bangs, and “heavies” for Maple Redoubt;
+and then our guns joined the concert. It was “hot
+shop” for half an hour, but at last it died down
+and there was a great calm. Some of the men were
+in the trenches for the first time, and had not
+relished the proceedings overmuch! They were
+relieved to get the order “Stand down!”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span></p>
+
+<p>There were several things to be done, working-parties
+to be arranged, final instructions given to
+a patrol, Lewis gunners to be detailed to rake the
+German parapet opposite the Matterhorn all night.
+A platoon sergeant was worried about his sentries;
+he had not enough men, having had one or two
+casualties; and I had to lend him men from a
+more fortunate platoon. It was quite dark, and
+nearly half-past seven by the time I got back to
+Trafalgar Square. Edwards had started dinner,
+as he was on trench duty at eight o’clock. The
+sergeant-major was on duty until then.</p>
+
+<p>Davidson looked in on his way down to Maple
+Redoubt.</p>
+
+<p>“I say, your Stokes were bursting top-hole. We
+had a splendid view.”</p>
+
+<p>“They weren’t going short, were they?” he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>“No. Just right. The fellows were awfully
+bucked with it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, good. You can’t see a bit from where we
+are, and the corporal said he thought they were
+going short. But I’d worked out the range and was
+firing well over 120, so I carried on. I’m going down
+to have dinner with O’Brien. I think we’ve done
+enough to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>Then I saw that he was tired out.</p>
+
+<p>“Rather a hot shop?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he said in his casual way. “They were
+all round us. Well, cheero! I shan’t be up till
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span>
+about ten, I expect, unless there’s anything
+wanted.”</p>
+
+<p>“Cheero!”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s no joke firing that gun with the Boche
+potting at you hard with canisters,” I said to
+Edwards, as Davidson’s footsteps died away.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s the bravest fellow in the regiment,” said
+Edwards, and we talked of the time when the gun
+burst in his face as he was firing it, and he told his
+men that it had been hit by a canister, to prevent
+their losing confidence in it. I saw him just afterwards:
+his face was bleeding. It was no joke being
+Stokes officer; the Germans hated those vicious
+snapping bolts that spat upon them “One, two,
+three, four, five,” and always concentrated their
+fire against his gun. But they had not got him.</p>
+
+<p>“No, he’s inside,” I heard Edwards saying.
+“Bill. Telephone message.”</p>
+
+<p>The telephone orderly handed me a pink form.
+Edwards was outside, just about to go on trench
+duty. It was eight. I went outside. It was bright
+moonlight again. Grimly, I thought of last night.</p>
+
+<p>“Look here,” I said. “There’s this funeral at
+nine o’clock. I’ve just got this message. One
+officer from each company may go. Will you go?
+I can’t very well go as O.C. Company.” And I
+handed him the pink form to see.</p>
+
+<p>So we rearranged the night duties, and Edwards
+went off till half-past eight, while I finished my
+dinner. Lewis was hovering about with toasted
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span>
+cheese and <i>café au lait</i>. As I swallowed these
+glutinous concoctions, the candle flickered and
+went out. I pushed open the door: the moonlight
+flooded in, and I did not trouble to call for another
+candle. Then I heard the sergeant-major’s voice,
+and went out. We stood talking at Trafalgar
+Square.</p>
+
+<p>“Shan’t be sorry to get relieved to-morrow,” I
+said. I was tired, and I wondered how long the
+night would take to pass.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, up the Old Kent Road I heard a man
+running. My heart stopped. I hate the sound of
+running in a trench, and last night they had run
+for stretcher-bearers when Robertson was hit. I
+looked at the sergeant-major, who was biting his
+lip, his ears cocked. Round the corner a man bolted,
+out of breath, excited. I stopped him; he nearly
+knocked into us.</p>
+
+<p>“Hang you,” said I. “Stop! Where the
+devil...?”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Davidson, sir ... Mr. Davidson is killed.”</p>
+
+<p>“Rot!” I said, impatiently. “Pull yourself
+together, man. He’s all right. I saw him only
+half an hour ago.”</p>
+
+<p>But as I spoke, something broke inside me. It
+was as if I were straining, beating against something
+relentless. As though by words, by the cry
+“impossible” I could beat back the flood of conviction
+that the man’s words brought over me.
+Dead! I <i>knew</i> he was dead.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span></p>
+
+<p>“Impossible, corporal,” I said. “What do you
+mean?” For I saw now that it was Davidson’s
+corporal who stood gazing at me with fright in his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>He pulled himself together at last.</p>
+
+<p>“Killed, sir. It came between us as we were
+talking. A whizz-bang, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“My God!” I cried. “Where?”</p>
+
+<p>“Just at the bottom, sir”—the man jerked his
+hand back down Old Kent Road. “We were just
+talking, sir. My leave has come through, and he
+was joking, and saying his would be through soon,
+when ... oh, Jesus ... I was half blinded....
+I’ve not got over it yet, sir.” And the man was all
+trembling as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“He was killed instantly?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ach!” said the man. He made a gesture with
+his hands. “It burst right on him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Poor fellow,” I said. God knows what I meant.
+“Send a man with him, sergeant-major,” I added,
+and plunged up 76 Street.</p>
+
+<p>“Davidson,” I cried. “Davidson dead!”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>It was close on midnight, as I stood outside the
+Straw Palace. Lewis brought me a cup of cocoa.
+I drank it in silence, and ate a piece of cake. I
+told the man to go to bed. Then, when he had disappeared,
+I climbed up out of the trench, and sat,
+my legs dangling down into it. Down in the trench
+the moon cast deep black shadows. I looked around.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span>
+All was bathed in pale, shimmery moonlight. There
+was a great silence, save for distant machine-gun
+popping down in the Fricourt valley, and the very
+distant sound of guns, guns, guns—the sound that
+never stops day and night. I pressed on my right
+hand and with a quick turn was up on my feet out
+of the trench, on the hill-side; for I was just over
+the brow, on the reverse slope, and out of sight of
+the enemy lines. I took off my steel helmet and put
+it on the ground, while I stretched out my arms
+and clenched my hands.</p>
+
+<p>“So this is War,” I thought. I realised that my
+teeth were set, and my mouth hard, and my eyes,
+though full of sleep, wide open: silently I took
+in the great experience, the death of those well-loved.
+For of all men in the battalion I loved
+Davidson best. Not that I knew him so wonderfully
+well—but ... well, one always had to smile
+when he came in; he was so good-natured, so
+young, so delightfully imperturbable. He used to
+come in and stroke your hair if you were bad-tempered.
+Somehow he reminded me of a cat
+purring; and perhaps his hair and his smile had
+something to do with it? Oh, who can define what
+they love in those they love?</p>
+
+<p>And then my mind went back over all the incidents
+of the last few hours. Together we had
+been through it all: together we had discussed
+death: and last of all I thought how he had told
+me of the funeral that was to be at 9 o’clock. And
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span>
+now he lay beside them. All three had been buried
+at nine o’clock.</p>
+
+<p>“Dead. Dead,” said a voice within me. And
+still I did not move. Still that numbness, that
+dulness, that tightening across the brain and
+senses. This, too, was something new. Then I
+looked around me, across the moorland. I walked
+along until I could see down over Maple Redoubt
+and across the valley, where there seemed a slight
+white mist; or was it only moonshine?</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, “Strength.” I answered the voice.
+“Strong. I am strong.” Every muscle in my
+body was tingling at my bidding. I felt an iron
+strength. All this tautness, this numbness, was
+strength. I remembered last night, the feeling of
+irresistible will-power, and my eyes glowed. I
+thought of Davidson, and my eyes glistened: the
+very pain was the birth of new strength.</p>
+
+<p>Then, even as the strength came, I heard a thud,
+and away on the left a canister blazed into the air,
+climbed, swooped, and rushed. And the vulgar
+din of its bursting rent all the stillness of the night.
+A second followed suit. And as it, too, burst, it
+seemed a clumsy mocking at me, a mocking that
+ran in echoes all along the still valley.</p>
+
+<p>“Strength,” it sneered. “Strength.”</p>
+
+<p>And all my iron will seemed beating against a
+wall of steel, that must in the end wear me down
+in a useless battering.</p>
+
+<p>“War,” I cried. “How can my will batter
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span>
+against war?” I thought of Davidson’s smiling
+face; and then I thought of the blind clumsy
+canister. And I felt unutterably weak and powerless.
+What did it matter what I thought or did,
+whether I was weak or strong? What power had
+I against this irresistible impersonal machine; this
+war? And I remembered how an hour or so ago
+the trench-mortar officer had asked me whether I
+wanted him to fire or not, and I had answered,
+“Good God! Do as you d—d well like.” What
+did it matter what he did? Yet, last night it had
+seemed to matter everything.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly there came into my mind that picture
+that later has come to mean to me the true expression
+of war. Only slowly it came now, a
+half-formed image of what my spirit alone understood.</p>
+
+<p>“A certain man drew a bow at a venture,” I
+thought. What of those shells that I had called
+down last night at my bidding, standing like a god,
+intoxicated with power, and crying “Retaliate.
+More retaliation.” Where did they fall? Were
+other men lying as Davidson lay to-night? Had I
+called down death? Had I stricken families?
+Probably. Nay, more than probably. Certainly.
+Death. Blind death. That was it. Blind death.</p>
+
+<p>And all the time above me was the white moon.
+I looked at the shadows of my arms as I held them
+out. Such shadows belonged to summer nights in
+England ... in Kent.... Oh! why was everything
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span>
+so silent? Could nothing stop this utter
+folly, this cruel madness, this clumsy death?</p>
+
+<p>And then, at last, the strain gave a little, and my
+muscles relaxed. I went back and took up my
+helmet.</p>
+
+<p>“Dead,” the voice repeated within me. And this
+time my spirit found utterance:</p>
+
+<p>“Damn!” I said. “Oh damn! damn! Damn!”</p>
+
+<h3>[<i>Copy</i>]<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Special Report—C 1 Section (Left
+Company)</span></h3>
+
+<p>The mine exploded by us opposite 80 A at 6.30
+p.m. last night has exposed about 20 yards of
+German parapet. A working-party attempting to
+work there about 12.30 a.m. and again at 2 a.m.
+was dispersed at once by our rifle and Lewis-gun
+fire. The parapet has been built up sufficiently to
+prevent our seeing over it, sand-bags having been
+put up from inside the trench. Our snipers are
+closely watching this spot.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<span class="smcap">J. B. P. Adams</span>, Lieut.<br />
+O.C. “B” Coy.</p>
+
+<p>6.30 a.m. 20.3.16.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII<br />
+
+OFFICERS’ SERVANTS</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">“Poor</span> devils on sentry,” said Dixon. He
+shut the door quickly and came over to
+the fire. Outside was a thick blizzard,
+and it was biting cold. He sat down on the bed
+nearest the fire and got warm again.</p>
+
+<p>“Look here, Bill, can’t we possibly get any
+coal?”</p>
+
+<p>“We sent a fellow into Bray,” I answered,
+“but it’s very doubtful if he’ll get any. Anyway
+we’ll see.”</p>
+
+<p>Tea was finished. The great problem was fuel.
+There were no trees or houses anywhere near 71
+North. We had burnt two solid planks during the
+day; these had been procured by the simple expedient
+of getting a lance-corporal to march four
+men to the R.E. dump, select two planks, and
+march them back again. But by now the planks
+had surely been missed, and it would be extremely
+risky to repeat the experiment, even after dark.
+So a man had been despatched to Bray to try and
+purchase a sack of coal; also, I had told the Mess-sergeant
+to try and buy one for us, and bring it up
+with the rations. This also was a doubtful quantity.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span>
+Meanwhile, we had a great blaze going, and were
+making the most of it.</p>
+
+<p>I was writing letters; Dixon was reading; Nicolson
+was seeing to the rum ration; Clark was
+singing, “Now Neville was a devil,” and showing
+his servant Brady how to “make” a hammock.
+Brady was a patient disciple, but his master had
+slept in a hammock for the first time in his life the
+night before and consequently was not a very clear
+exponent of the art. Apparently certain things
+that happened last night must be avoided to-night;
+<i>how</i> they were to be avoided was left to Brady’s
+ingenuity. Every attempt on his part to solve the
+problems put before him was carefully tested by
+Clark, and accepted or condemned according to its
+merit under the strain of Clark’s body. At such
+times of testing the strains of “Neville was a
+devil” would cease. At last Brady hit on some
+lucky adjustment, and the occupant pronounced
+his position to be first rate. Then Brady disappeared
+behind the curtain that screened the servants’
+quarters, and the song proceeded uninterruptedly,
+
+<span class="poetry"><span class="poem"><span class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Now Neville was a devil<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A perfect little devil”;<br /></span>
+</span></span></span>
+
+and Clark rocked himself contentedly into a state
+of restful slumber.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, behind the arras the retainers prepared
+their masters’ meal. This dug-out was of
+the “tubular” pattern, a succession of quarter
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span>
+circles of black iron riveted together at the top,
+and so forming a long tube, one end of which was
+bricked up and had a brick chimney with two
+panes of glass on each side of it; the other led into
+a small wooden dug-out curtained off. Here abode
+five servants and an orderly. I should here state that
+this dug-out was the most comfortable I have ever
+lived in; as a matter of fact it was not a dug-out at
+all, but being placed right under the steep bank at
+71 North it was practically immune from shelling.
+The brick chimney and the glass window-panes were
+certainly almost unique: one imagined it must
+have been built originally by the R.E.’s for their own
+abode! Along the sides were four beds of wire-netting
+stretched over a wooden frame with a layer
+of empty sand-bags for mattress. In the centre was
+a wooden table. Over this table, in air suspended,
+floated Clark.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, as above stated, behind the arras the
+retainers prepared their masters’ meal, with such-like
+comments—</p>
+
+<p>“Who’s going for rations to-night?”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s Lewis’s turn to-night, and Smith’s.”</p>
+
+<p>“All right, sergeant.”</p>
+
+<p>“Gr-r-r” (unintelligible).</p>
+
+<p>“Where’s Dodger?”</p>
+
+<p>“Out chasing them hares. Didn’t you hear the
+Captain say he’d be for it, if he didn’t get one?”</p>
+
+<p>“Gr-r-r. He won’t get any —— hares.”</p>
+
+<p>Here followed a pause, and a lot of noise of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span>
+plates and boxes being moved. Then there was a
+continued crackling of wood, as the fire was made
+up. Followed a lot of coughing, and muttering,
+and “Phew!” as the smoke got too thick even for
+that smoke-hardened crew.</p>
+
+<p>“Phew! Stop it. Jesus Christ.”</p>
+
+<p>More coughing, the door was opened, and soon
+a cold draught sped into our dug-out. There was
+but one door for both.</p>
+
+<p>“Shut that door!” I shouted.</p>
+
+<p>“Hi, Lewis, your bloke’s calling. Said, ‘Shut
+that door.’”</p>
+
+<p>Then the door shut. More coughing ensued, but
+the smoke was better, apparently, for it soon ceased.
+We were each, by the way, “my bloke” to our
+respective retainers.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation remained for some time at an
+inaudible level, until I heard the door open again,
+and a shout of “Hullo! Dodger. Coo! Jesus
+Christ! He’s all right, isn’t he? There’s a job for
+you, sergeant, cooking that bloke. Has the Captain
+seen him? Hey! Look out of that! You’ll have
+the blood all over the place. Get a bit of paper.”</p>
+
+<p>The “sergeant” (Private Gray) made no comments
+on the prospect of cooking the “Dodger’s”
+quarry, and the next minute Private Davies,
+orderly, appeared with glowing though rather
+dirty face holding up a large hare, that dripped gore
+from its mouth into a scrunched-up ball of <i>Daily
+Mail</i> held to its nose like a pocket-handkerchief.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span></p>
+
+<p>“Look here, Dixon,” I said.</p>
+
+<p>“Devil’s alive,” exclaimed Dixon. “Then you’ve
+got one. By Jove! Splendid! I say, isn’t he a
+beauty?” And we all went up and examined him.
+He was a hare of the first order. To-morrow he
+should be the <i>chef d’œuvre</i> in “B” Company mess
+at Morlancourt. For we went out of reserve into
+billets the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>“How did you get him, Davies?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! easy enough, sir. I’ll get another if you
+like. There’s a lot of them sitting out in the snow
+there. I was only about fifty yards off. He don’t
+get much chance with a rifle, sir.” (Here his voice
+broke into a laugh.) “It’s not what you call much
+sport for him, sir! I got this too, sir!”</p>
+
+<p>And lo! and behold! a plump partridge!</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! they’re as tame as anything, and you
+can’t help getting them in this snow,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>At last the dripping hare was removed from the
+stage to behind the scenes, and Davies joined the
+smothered babel behind the arras.</p>
+
+<p>“Wonderful fellow, old Davies,” said Dixon.</p>
+
+<p>“By the way, Bill,” he added. “How about
+getting the little doctor in to-night for a hand of
+vingt-et-un? Can we manage it all right?”</p>
+
+<p>I was Mess-president for the time, Edwards
+being away on a course.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! yes,” I answered. “Rather. I’ll send
+a note.”</p>
+
+<p>As I was writing a rather elaborate note (having
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span>
+nothing better to do) requesting the pleasure of the
+distinguished presence of the medical officer, the
+man who had been to Bray for coal came and
+reported a fruitless errand. He seemed very depressed
+at his failure, but cheered up when we gave
+him a tot of rum to warm him up. (All rum, by
+the way, is kept in the company officer’s dug-out;
+it is the only way.)</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the problem of fuel must be faced.
+A log was crackling away merrily enough, but it
+was the very last. Something must be done.</p>
+
+<p>“Davies,” I called out.</p>
+
+<p>“Sir?” came back in that higher key of his.</p>
+
+<p>He appeared at the door.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you going down for rations?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, look here. There’s a sack of coal <i>ordered</i>
+from Sergeant Johnson, but I’m none too sure it’ll
+come up to-night. I only ordered it yesterday.
+But I want you to make sure you get it if it is there;
+in fact you <i>must</i> bring it, whether it’s there or not.
+See? If you don’t, you’ll be for it.”</p>
+
+<p>This threat Davies took for what it was worth.
+But he answered:</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll get it, sir. I’ll bring something along
+somehow.”</p>
+
+<p>And Davies never failed of his word.</p>
+
+<p>“Good! Do what you can.”</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later he staggered in with a sack of
+coal, and plumped it down, all covered with snow.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span>
+The fire was burning very low, and we were looking
+at it anxiously. The sight of this new supply of
+fuel was wonderful good to the eyes. So busy were
+we in stoking up, that we forgot to ask Davies if
+he had had any trouble in getting it. After all, it
+did not matter much. There was the coal; that
+was the point.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the curtain there was a great business.
+Lewis and Brady had brought up the rations;
+Gray was busy with a big stew, and Richards was
+apparently engaged in getting out plates and knives
+and forks from a box; Davies was reading aloud,
+in the middle of the chaos, from the <i>Daily Mail</i>.
+Sometimes the Mess-president took it into his head
+to inspect the servants’ dug-out; but it was an
+unwise procedure, for it took away the relish of the
+meal, if you saw the details of its preparation. So
+long as it was served up tolerably clean, one should
+be satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past seven came in Richards to lay the
+table. The procedure of this was first to take all
+articles on the table and dump them on the nearest
+bed. Then a knife, fork, and spoon were put to
+each place, and a varied collection of tin mugs and
+glasses arranged likewise; then came salt and
+mustard in glass potted-meat jars; bread sitting
+bareback on the newspaper tablecloth; and a
+bottle of O.V.H. and two bottles of Perrier to crown
+the feast. All this was arranged with a deliberate
+smile, as by one who knew the exact value of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span>
+things, and defied instruction in any detail of laying
+a table. Richards was an old soldier, and he had
+won from Dixon at first unbounded praise; but he
+had been found to possess a lot too much talk at
+present, and had been sat on once or twice fairly
+heavily of late. So now he wore the face of one who
+was politely amused, yet, knowing his own worth,
+could forbear from malice. He gave the table a
+last look with his head on one side, and then departed
+in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the door flew open, and the doctor
+burst in, shuddering, and knocking the snow off
+his cap.</p>
+
+<p>“By Jove, Dicker,” he cried. “A bad night to
+go about paying joy visits. But, by Jove, I’m jolly
+glad you asked me. There’s the devil to pay up at
+headquarters. The C.O.’s raving, simply. Some
+blighter has pinched our coal, and there’s none to
+be got anywhere. Good Lord, it’s too hot altogether.
+I couldn’t stand Mess there to-night at any price.
+I pity old Dale. The C.O.’s been swearing like a
+trooper! He’s fair mad.”</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind,” he added after a pause. “I
+think we’ve raised enough wood to cook the dinner
+all right. See you’ve got coal all right.”</p>
+
+<p>I hoped to goodness Dixon wouldn’t put his foot
+in it. But he rose to the occasion and said:</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes. We ordered some coal from Sergeant
+Johnson. Come on, let’s start. Hi! Richards!”</p>
+
+<p>And Richards came in with the stew in a tin jug
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span>
+such as is used in civilised lands to hold hot water
+of a morning. And so the doctor forgot the Colonel’s
+rage.</p>
+
+<p>Late that night, after the doctor had gone, I
+called Davies.</p>
+
+<p>“Davies,” I said, “where did you get that
+coal?”</p>
+
+<p>“Off the ration cart, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was it ours, do you think?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, sir, I don’t somehow think it was. You
+see, the ration cart came up, and the man driving
+it was up by the horse—and I saw the bag o’ coal
+there, like. So I said to Lewis, ‘Lewis, you see to
+the rations. I’ll take the coal up quick!’ Then
+I heard the man up by the horse say, ‘There’s
+coal there for headquarters.’ ‘Oh, yes,’ I said,
+‘that’s all right, but this here was ordered off
+Sergeant Johnson yesterday,’ I said. And I made
+off quick.”</p>
+
+<p>“Good Lord!” I exclaimed. “Was Sergeant
+Johnson there?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” answered Davies. “He came later. I
+said to Lewis just now, ‘What about that coal?’
+And he said Sergeant Johnson came just after and
+started kicking up some bit of a row, sir, about
+some coal; but Lewis, he said he didn’t know
+nothing about any coal, and the man at the horse
+he didn’t know who I was, sir; it was quite dark,
+you see, sir. Lewis said Sergeant Johnson got the
+wind up a bit, sir, about losing the coal....”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span></p>
+
+<p>“Look here Davies,” I remarked solemnly, “do
+you realise that that coal was for headquarters ...”</p>
+
+<p>“I couldn’t say, sir,” began Davies.</p>
+
+<p>“But I can,” said I. “Look here, you must
+just set a limit somewhere. I know I said you <i>must</i>
+get some coal, somewhere. But I wasn’t exactly
+thinking of bagging the C.O.’s coal. As a matter
+of fact he was slightly annoyed, though doubtless
+if he knew it was No. 14 Davies, “B” Company
+orderly, he would abate his wrath. Do you realise
+this is a very serious offence?”</p>
+
+<p>Davies’ mouth wavered. He could never quite
+understand this method of procedure. He looked
+at the blazing fire, and his eyes twinkled. Then he
+understood.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“All right,” I replied. “Don’t let it occur
+again.”</p>
+
+<p>And it never did—at least, not headquarters coal.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>We did not get back to Morlancourt till nearly
+half-past three the next day. Things were not
+going well in our billet at the butcher’s shop.
+Gray, the cook, and two of the servants had been
+sent on early to get the valises from the quartermaster’s
+stores, and to have a meal ready. We
+arrived to find no meal ready, and what was worse,
+the stove not lit. Coal could not be had from the
+stores, was the statement that greeted us.</p>
+
+<p>“What the blazes do you mean?” shouted
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span>
+Dixon. We were really angry as well as ravenous;
+for it was freezing hard, and the tiles on the floor
+seemed to radiate ice-waves.</p>
+
+<p>“Have you asked Madame if she can lend us a
+little to go on with?” I queried.</p>
+
+<p>No, they had not asked Madame.</p>
+
+<p>Then followed a blaze of vituperation, and
+Richards was sent at the double into the kitchen.
+Soon Madame appeared, with sticks and coal,
+and lit the fire. We watched the crackles, too cold
+to do anything else. The adjoining room, where
+Dixon and I slept, was an ice-house, also tiled.
+It was too cold to talk even.</p>
+
+<p>“C’est froid dans les tranchés,” said I in execrable
+French.</p>
+
+<p>“Mais oui, m’sieur l’officier,” said Madame,
+deeply sympathising.</p>
+
+<p>I thought of the blazing fire in 71 North, but it
+was too cold to say anything more. What matter
+if Madame imagined us standing in a foot of snow?
+So we should have been for the most part had we
+been in the line the last two days, instead of in
+reserve.</p>
+
+<p>Soon it began to get less icy, and the stove looked
+a little less of the blacklead order. It was a kitchen-range
+really, with a boiler and oven; but the
+boiler was rather leaky. Now, as the coal blazed up,
+life began to ebb back again.</p>
+
+<p>Confound it! The stove was smoking like fury.
+Pah! The flues were all full of soot. Dixon was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span>
+rather an expert on stoves, and said that all that
+was needed was a brush. Where had all the servants
+disappeared to? Why wasn’t someone there?
+I opened the door into our bedroom—a cold blast
+struck me in the face. In the middle of the room,
+unopened, sat our two valises, like desert islands in
+a sea of red tiles.</p>
+
+<p>“Hang it all, this is the limit,” I said, and ran
+out into the street, and into the next house, where
+the servants’ quarters were. And there, in the
+middle of a pile of half-packed boxes, stood Gray,
+eating a piece of bread. Now I discovered afterwards
+that the boxes had just been brought in by
+Cody and Lewis, that Davies and Richards had gone
+after the coal, and were at that moment staggering
+under the weight of it on their way from the stores,
+and that Gray could not do anything more, having
+unpacked the boxes, until the coal came. But I
+did not grasp these subtle details of the interior
+economy of the servants’ hall, and I broke out into
+a real hot strafe. Why should Gray be standing
+there eating, while the officers shivered and starved?</p>
+
+<p>I returned to Dixon, and found Clark and Nicolson
+there; and together we all fumed. Then in
+came the post-corporal with an accumulation of
+parcels, and we stopped fuming.</p>
+
+<p>“By Jove,” I exclaimed, a few minutes later.
+“The hare. I had forgotten le—what is it, lièvre,
+lèvre? I forget. Never mind. Lewis, bring the
+hare along, and ask Madame in your best manner
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span>
+if she would do us the honour of cooking it for us.
+To-night, now.”</p>
+
+<p>Presently Madame came in, with Lewis standing
+rather sheepishly behind. She delivered a tornado
+of very fluent French: “eau-de-vie,” “eau-de-vie,”
+was all I could disentangle.</p>
+
+<p>“Eau-de-vie?” I asked her. “Pourquoi eau-de-vie?”</p>
+
+<p>“Brandy,” explained Dixon.</p>
+
+<p>“I know that,” said I (who did not know that
+eau-de-vie was brandy?)</p>
+
+<p>“Brandy,” said Dixon, “to cook the hare with.
+That’s all she wants. Oui, oui, Madame. Eau-de-vie.
+Tout de suite. The doctor’s got brandy.
+Send Lewis along to the doctor to ask him to dinner,
+and borrow a little brandy.”</p>
+
+<p>So Lewis was despatched, and returned with a
+little brandy, but the doctor could not come.</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind,” we said.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile some tea was on the table, and bully
+and bread and butter; there was no sugar, however.
+Richards smiled and said the rats had eaten
+it all in 71 North, but Davies was buying some.
+Whenever anything was missing, these rats had
+eaten it, just as they were responsible for men’s
+equipment and packs getting torn, and their
+emergency rations lost. In many cases the excuse
+was quite a just one; but when it came to rats
+running off with canteen lids, our sympathy for the
+rat-ridden Tommy was not always very strong.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span></p>
+
+<p>To-day, a new reason was found for the loss of
+three teaspoons.</p>
+
+<p>“Lost in the scuffle, sir, the night of the raid,”
+was the answer given to the demand for an explanation.</p>
+
+<p>“What scuffle?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, the box got upset, sir, the night of the
+raid when we all stood to in a bit of a hurry, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>I remembered there had been some confusion
+and noise behind the arras that night when the
+Germans raided on the left; apparently all the
+knives and forks had fallen to the ground and
+several had snapped under the martial trampling
+of feet when our retainers stood to arms. For many
+days afterwards when anything was lost, one’s
+anger was appeased by “Lost in the scuffle, sir.”
+At last it got too much of a good thing.</p>
+
+<p>“Why this new teapot, Davies?” I said a few
+days later.</p>
+
+<p>“The old one was lost in the scuffle, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Look here,” I said. “We had the old one
+yesterday, and this morning I saw it broken on
+Madame’s manure heap. Here endeth ‘lost in the
+scuffle.’ See? Go back to rats.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very good, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>That night, about ten o’clock, when Clark, Nicolson,
+and Brownlow (who had been our guest) had
+gone back to their respective billets, Dixon and I
+were sitting in front of the stove, our feet up on
+the brass bar that ran along the top-front of it, on
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span>
+a comfortable red-plush settee. This settee made
+amends for very many things, such as: a tile
+floor; four doors, one of which scraped most
+excruciatingly over the tiles, and another being
+glass-panelled allowed in much cold air from the
+butcher’s shop; no entry for the servants save
+either through the butcher’s shop or through the
+bedroom viâ the open window; very little room to
+turn round in, when we were all there; a smell of
+stale lard that permeated the whole establishment;
+and finally, the necessity of moving the settee every
+time Madame or Mam’selle wanted to get to either
+the cellar or the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>But now all these disabilities were removed,
+everyone else having gone off to bed, and Dixon and
+I were talking lazily before turning in also. I had
+a large pan of boiling water waiting on the top of
+the range, and my canvas bath was all ready in the
+next room.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! the discomfort of it!” ejaculated Dixon.
+“The terrible discomfort of it all!”</p>
+
+<p>“How they are pitying us at home,” I replied.
+“‘Those rabbit holes! I can’t think how you keep
+the water out of them at all!’ Can’t you hear
+them? ‘And isn’t that bully beef most horribly
+tough and hard! Ugh! I couldn’t bear it.’” I
+tried to imitate a lady’s voice, but it was not a
+great success. I was out of practice.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said Dixon, thinking of the extraordinarily
+good jugged hare produced by Madame. Then
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span>
+his thoughts turned to Davies, the hunter who was
+responsible for the feast.</p>
+
+<p>“Wonderful fellow, old Davies,” he added. “In
+fact they’re all good fellows.”</p>
+
+<p>“He’s a shepherd boy,” I said. “Comes from
+Blaenau Festiniog, a little village right up in the
+Welsh mountains. I know the place. A few years
+ago he was a boy looking after sheep out on the
+hills all day; a wide-eyed Welsh boy, with a sheepdog
+trotting behind him. He’s rather like a sheepdog
+himself, isn’t he?”</p>
+
+<p>“Gad, he’s a wonderful fellow. But they all
+are, you know, Bill. Look at your chap, Lewis;
+great clumsy red-faced fellow, with his piping voice,
+that sometimes gets on your nerves.”</p>
+
+<p>“He’s too lazy at times,” I broke in; “but he’s
+honest, dead honest. He was a farm hand! Good
+heavens, fancy choosing a fellow out of the farmyard
+to act as valet and waiter! I remember the
+first time he waited! He was so nervous he nearly
+dropped everything, and his face like that fire!
+O’Brien said he was tight!”</p>
+
+<p>“Richards talks a jolly sight too much, sometimes—but
+after all what does it matter? They
+try their best; and think how we curse them!
+Look at the way I cursed about that stove this
+afternoon: as soon as anything goes wrong, we
+strafe like blazes, whether it’s their fault or not.
+A fellow in England would resign on the spot. But
+they don’t care a damn, and just carry on. This
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span>
+cursing’s no good, Bill. Hang it all, they’re doing
+their bit same as we are, and they have a d—d
+sight harder time.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think they worry much about the
+strafing,” I said. “It’s part of the ordinary routine.
+Still, I agree, we do strafe them for thousands of
+things that aren’t their fault.”</p>
+
+<p>“They’re a sort of safety-valve,” he answered
+with a laugh. “I don’t know how it is, one would
+never dream of cursing the men like we do these
+fellows. You know as well as I do, Bill, the only
+way to run a company is by love. It’s no earthly
+use trying to get the men behind you, by cursing
+them day and night. I really must try and stop
+cursing these servants. After all, they’re the best
+fellows in the world.”</p>
+
+<p>“The men curse all right,” I said, “when they
+don’t get their food right. I guess we’re all animal,
+after all. It’s merely a method of getting things
+done quickly. Besides, you know perfectly well
+you won’t be able to stop blazing away when there’s
+no fire or food. It creates an artificial warmth.”</p>
+
+<p>“D—d artificial,” laughed he.</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence.</p>
+
+<p>“By Jove, Bill,” he said at last, getting up to go
+to bed. “When’s this war going to end?”</p>
+
+<p>To which I made no reply, but moved my bath
+out of the icy bedroom and dragged it in front of
+the fire.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII<br />
+
+MINES</h2>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">“The</span> Colonel wants to speak to O.C. ‘B,’
+sir.” It was midday.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s about that wire,” said Edwards.
+“But we couldn’t get any more out without
+stakes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I don’t expect it’s about the wire,” I said,
+as I hurried out of the Straw Palace. “The C.O.
+knows we can’t get the stakes.”</p>
+
+<p>No, it was nothing to do with the wire.</p>
+
+<p>“Just a minute, sir,” said the telephone orderly.
+“Hi! Headquarters. Is that you, George? O.C.
+‘B’s’ here now. Just a minute, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>A pause, followed by:</p>
+
+<p>“Commanding Officer, sir,” and I was handed
+the receiver.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir,” I said. “This is Adams.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! that you, Adams? Well, look here—about
+this mine going up to-night. Got your map
+there? Well, the mining officer is here now, and
+he says.... Look here, you’d better come down
+here now. Yes, come here now.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span></p>
+
+<p>“Very good, sir,” but the C.O. had rung off with
+a jerk, and only a singing remained in my ears.</p>
+
+<p>“Got to go down and explain in person why the
+officer in charge of ‘B’ Company wirers did not
+get out twenty coils last night,” I said to Edwards
+as I hurried off down Old Kent Road. “The C.O.’s
+in an ‘I gave a distinct order’ mood. Cheero!”</p>
+
+<p>On entering the Headquarters’ dug-out in Maple
+Redoubt, I found the C.O. engaged in conversation
+with an artillery officer: there had been another
+raid last night on the left, and our artillery had
+sent a lot of stuff over. This was the subject under
+discussion.</p>
+
+<p>“I think you did d—d well,” said the C.O. as
+the officer left. “Well, Adams, I thought it would
+be easiest if you came down. Here’s our friend
+from the underworld, and he’ll explain exactly
+what he’s going to do”; and I saw the R.E.
+officer for the first time. He had been standing
+in the gloom of the further end of the dug-out.</p>
+
+<p>“Look here,” began the Colonel, as he laid out
+the trench map on the table. “<i>Here</i> is where we
+blow to-night at 6.0” (and he made a pencil dot
+in the middle of the grass of No Man’s Land midway
+between the craters opposite the Loop and
+the Fort. See Map III). “And here, all round
+here” (he drew his pencil round and round in a
+blacker and yet blacker circle) “is roughly where
+the edge of the crater will come. Isn’t that right,
+Armstrong?”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span></p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” was the reply, “the crater edge won’t
+come right up to the front trench, but I don’t
+want anyone in the front trench, as it will probably
+be squeezed up in one or two places.”</p>
+
+<p>“Exactly,” said the Colonel. “Do you think
+this blow will completely connect up the two craters
+on either side?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, certainly,” was the answer. “There’s no
+question of it. You see, we’ve put in” (here followed
+figures and explosives incomprehensible to the lay
+mind). “It’ll be the biggest mine we’ve ever blown
+in this sector.”</p>
+
+<p>“A surface mine, I suppose?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Almost certainly,” said the R.E. officer. “You
+see, their gallery is only ten feet above ours, and
+they might blow any minute. But they’re still
+working. We wanted to get another twenty feet
+out before blowing, but it isn’t safe. Anyway, we
+are bound to smash up all their galleries there
+completely, though I doubt if we touch their
+parapet at all.” He spoke almost impatiently, as
+one who talks of things that have been his main
+interest for weeks, and tries to explain the whole
+thing in a few words. “But,” he added, “I don’t
+want any men in that trench.”</p>
+
+<p>The mining officers always presumed that the
+infantry clung tenaciously like limpets to their
+trench, and had to be very carefully removed in
+case a mine was going up. As a matter of fact,
+the infantry always made a rule of clearing the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span>
+trench half as far again as the mining officer
+enjoined, and were always inclined to want to
+depart from the abhorred spot long before the
+time decided upon!</p>
+
+<p>“That’s clear enough,” said the Colonel. “Then
+from <i>here</i> to <i>here</i> (and he made pencil blobs where
+I have marked A and B on Map III) we will clear
+the trench. Get your Lewis guns placed at these
+two points (A and B), ready to open fire as soon
+as the mine has gone up. And get your bombers
+ready to seize the crater edge as soon as it’s dark
+enough. You’ll want to have some tools and sand-bags
+ready, and your wirers should have plenty
+of gooseberries and all the stakes we can get you.
+Right.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>As I went up 76 Street at half-past five, I realised
+that I had been rushing about too much, and had
+forgotten tea. So I sent Davies back and told him
+to bring up a mug of tea and something to eat.
+No sooner had he disappeared than I met a party
+of six R.E.’s, the two leading men carrying canaries
+in cages. They held them out in front, like you
+hold out a lantern on a muddy road, and they
+were covered from head to foot in white chalk-dust.
+They were doing a sort of half-run down
+the trench, known among the men as the “R.E.
+step.” It is always adopted by them if there is
+any “strafing” going on, or on such occasions as
+the present, when the charge has been laid, the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span>
+match lit, and the mine-shaft and galleries, canaries
+and all, evacuated. (The canaries are used to
+detect gas fumes, not as pets.)</p>
+
+<p>When I reached the Fort, I found No. 7 Platoon
+already filing out of the trench area that had been
+condemned as dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>“You’re very early, Sergeant Hayman,” I said.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at my watch.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, all right,” I added, “it’s twenty to six;
+very well. Have you got all the bomb boxes and
+S.A.A. out?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir. Everything’s clear.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very well, then. All those men not detailed
+as tool and sand-bag party can get in dug-outs,
+ready to come back as soon as I give orders. There
+will probably be a bit of ‘strafing.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Very good, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>The Lewis-gun team emerged from its dug-out
+twenty yards behind the Fort, in rather a snail-like
+fashion. I arranged where the N.C.O. and
+two men should stand, just at the corner of the
+Fort, but in the main trench (at B in map). The
+rest of the team I sent back to its burrow.
+Edwards had made all arrangements for the other
+team.</p>
+
+<p>Ten to six. It was a warm evening early in
+April, and there was a deathly calm. These hushes
+are hateful and unnatural, especially at “stand to”
+in the evening. In the afternoon an after-dinner
+slumber is right and proper, but as dusk creeps
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span>
+down it is well known that everyone is alive and
+alert, and a certain visible expression is natural
+and welcome. This evening silence is like the pause
+between the lightning and the thunder; worst of
+all is the stillness after the enemy has blown a
+mine at “stand to,” for ten to one he is going to
+blow another at “stand down.”</p>
+
+<p>The sun set in a blaze of red, and in the south the
+evening star glowed in a deepening blue. What will
+have happened by the time the day has returned
+with its full light and sense of security?</p>
+
+<p>“Here you are, sir,” I heard suddenly at my
+elbow, and found my mug of tea, two large pieces
+of bread and butter and cake, presented by Davies
+on a box-lid salver.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know if this is enough, sir. Lewis
+he wanted me to bring along a pot o’ jam, sir.
+But I said Mr. Adams he won’t have time for all
+that.”</p>
+
+<p>“I should think not. Far too much as it is.
+Here, put the cake on the fire-step, and take hold
+of this notebook, will you?” And so, with the
+mug in one hand, and a piece of bread and butter
+in the other, Scott found me as he came along at
+that moment, looking, as he told me afterwards,
+exactly like the Mad Hatter in <i>Alice in Wonderland</i>.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s the time?” I enquired, munching hard.</p>
+
+<p>“I make it two minutes to six,” said Scott.</p>
+
+<p>“Go up a shixo’-clock,” I said, taking a very big
+mouthful indeed.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span></p>
+
+<p>“Who put the sugar in this tea?” I asked
+Davies a minute later.</p>
+
+<p>“I did,” said Davies.</p>
+
+<p>“Far too much. I shall never get you fellows
+to understand ...”</p>
+
+<p>But the sentence was not finished. There was a
+faint “Bomp” from goodness knows where, and
+a horrid shudder. The earth shook and staggered,
+and I set my legs apart to keep my balance. It
+felt as if the whole ground were going to be tilted
+up. The tea splashed all over the fire-step as I
+hastily put it down. Then I looked up. There
+was nothing. What had happened? Was it a
+camouflet after all? Then, over the sandbags
+appeared a great green meadow, slowly, taking its
+time, not hurrying, a smooth curved dome of grass,
+heaving up, up, up, like a rising cake; then, like
+a cake, it cracked; cracked visibly with bursting
+brown seams; still the dome rose, towering ten,
+twenty feet up above the surrounding level; and
+then with a roar the black smoke hurtled into the
+air, followed by masses of pink flame creaming up
+into the sky, giving out a bonfire heat and lighting
+up the twilight with a lurid glare! Then we all
+ducked to avoid the shower of mud and dirt and
+chalk that pattered down like hail.</p>
+
+<p>“Magnificent,” I said to Scott.</p>
+
+<p>“Wonderful,” he answered.</p>
+
+<p>“The mud’s all in your tea, sir,” said Davies.</p>
+
+<p>“Dr—r-r-r-r-r,” rattled the Lewis guns. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span>
+Lewis gunners with me had been amazed rather
+than thrilled by the awful spectacle, but were now
+recovered from the shock, and emptying two or
+three drums into the twilight void. I was peering
+over into a vast chasm, where two minutes ago had
+been a smooth meadow full of buttercups and
+toadstools.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I found Sergeant Hayman at my elbow.</p>
+
+<p>“The trench is all fallen in, sir. You can’t get
+along at all.” And so the night’s work began.</p>
+
+<p>At 1.0 a.m. I was lying flat down on soft spongy
+grass atop of a large crater-lip quite eight feet
+higher than the ground level. Beside me lay two
+bombers and a box of bombs: we were all peering
+out into a space that seemed enormous. Suddenly
+a German starlight rocketed up, and as it burst
+the great white bowl of the crater jumped into
+view. Then a few rifle-shots sang across the gulf.
+There followed a deeper darkness than before.
+Behind me was a wiring-party not quite finished;
+also the sound of earth being shovelled by tired
+men. A strong working-party of “A” Company
+had been engaged for four hours clearing the trench
+that had been squeezed up; all available men of
+“B” Company not on sentry had been digging a
+zigzag sap from the trench to the post on the
+crater-lip where I lay. Two other pairs of bombers
+lay out on the crater edge to right and left; behind
+me the wirers had run out a thin line of stakes
+and barbed wire behind the new crater; this wire
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span>
+passed over the sap, which would not be held by
+day. One wirer had had a bullet through the leg,
+but we had suffered no other casualties. Another
+hour, and I should be off duty. Altogether, a good
+show.</p>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>I was reading <i>Blackwood’s</i> in a dug-out in Maple
+Redoubt. It was just after four, and I was lying
+on my bed. Suddenly the candle flickered and
+went out. I had to get up to ring the bell, and
+when I did get up, the bell did not ring, so I went
+out and called Lewis. The bell, by the way, was
+an arrangement of string from our dug-out to the
+servants’ next door.</p>
+
+<p>“Bring me a candle,” I said, as Lewis appeared,
+evidently flushed and blear-eyed from sleep. “I
+don’t know where you keep them. I can’t find one
+anywhere.”</p>
+
+<p>Lewis fished under the bed and discovered a
+paper packet of candles, and lit one. “By the by,”
+I added, “tell the pioneer servant (this was Private
+Davies, my orderly) to fix up that bell, will you?
+And I think we’ll be ready for tea as soon as you
+can get it. What do you say, Teddy? Hullo,
+Clark! What are you doing here? Come in and
+have tea.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thanks, I will,” said Clark, who had just come
+down Park Lane. “I was coming to invite myself,
+as a matter of fact.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span></p>
+
+<p>“Good man,” we said. Clark was no longer of
+“B” Company, having passed from Lewis-gun
+officer to the Brigade Machine-gun Corps. So we
+did not see very much of him.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Sergeant-Major Brown arrived
+and stood at the door. He saluted.</p>
+
+<p>“Come in, sergeant-major.”</p>
+
+<p>“The tea’s up, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, all right,” I said. “I’ll go. Don’t wait
+if tea comes in, Edwards. But I shan’t be a
+minute.”</p>
+
+<p>As I went along with that tower of strength,
+the company sergeant-major, followed by an orderly
+carrying two rum jars produced from under my
+bed, I discussed the subject of working-parties for
+the night, and other such dull details of routine.
+Also we discussed leave. His dug-out was at the
+corner of Old Kent Road and Park Lane, and there
+I found the “Quarter” (Company Sergeant-Major
+Roberts) waiting with the five dixies of hot tea,
+just brought up on the ration trolley from the
+Citadel.</p>
+
+<p>Sergeant Roberts saluted, and informed me that
+all was correct. Then the sergeant-major spilled
+the contents of the two jars into the five dixies,
+and as he did so the ten orderlies, two from each
+platoon, and two Lewis gunners, made off with the
+dixies. Then I made off, but followed by Sergeant
+Roberts with several papers to sign, and five pay
+books in which entries had to be made for men
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span>
+going on leave. One signed the pay-book, and
+also a paper to the quartermaster authorising him
+to pay 125 francs (the usual sum) to the undermentioned
+men, out of the company balance which
+was deposited with him on leaving billets. I signed
+everything Sergeant Roberts put before me, almost
+without question.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Clark,” I said, as we sat down to a tea
+of hot buttered toast, jam and cake. “How goes
+it?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve just been down a mine-shaft with that
+R.E. officer, I forget his name—the fellow with
+the glasses.”</p>
+
+<p>“I know,” I replied; “I don’t know his name
+either, but it doesn’t matter. Did you go right
+down, and along the galleries? How frightfully
+interesting. I always mean to go, but somehow
+don’t. Well, what about it?”</p>
+
+<p>“By Jove,” said Clark. “It’s wonderful. It’s
+all as white as snow, dazzling white. I never
+realised that before, although you see these R.E.’s
+coming out all covered with white chalk-dust.
+First of all you go down three or four ladders;
+it’s awfully tricky work at the sort of halts on the
+way down, because there’s a little platform, and
+very often the ladder goes down a different side
+of the shaft after one of these halts; and if you
+don’t notice, you lower your foot to go on down
+the same side as you were going before, and there’s
+nothing there. The first time I did this and looked
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span>
+down and saw a dim light miles below, it quite
+gave me a turn. It’s a terrible long way down,
+and of course you go alone; the R.E. officer went
+first, and got ahead of me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have some more tea, and go on.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, down there it’s fearfully interesting. I
+didn’t go far up the gallery where they’re working,
+because you can’t easily pass along; but the R.E.
+officer took me along a gallery that is not being
+worked, and there, all alone, at the end of it was
+a man sitting. He was simply sitting, listening.
+Then I listened through his stethoscope thing ...”</p>
+
+<p>“I know,” I interposed. It is an instrument like
+a doctor’s stethoscope, and by it you can hear
+underground sounds a hundred yards away as
+clearly as if they were five yards off.</p>
+
+<p>“... and I could hear the Boche working as
+plainly as anything. Good heavens, it sounded
+about a yard off. Yet they told me it was forty
+yards. By Jove, it was weird. ‘Pick ... pick
+... pick.’ I thought it must be our fellows really,
+but theirs made a different sound, and not a bit
+the same. But, you know, that fellow sitting there
+alone ... as we went away and left him, he looked
+round at us with staring eyes just like a hunted
+animal. To sit there for hours on end, listening.
+Of course, while you hear them working, it’s all
+right, they won’t blow. But if you <i>don’t</i> hear them!
+My God, I wouldn’t like to be an R.E. It’s an
+awful game.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span></p>
+
+<p>“By Jove,” said Edwards. “How fearfully
+interesting! Is it cold down there?”</p>
+
+<p>“Fairly. I really didn’t notice.”</p>
+
+<p>“I must go down,” I said. “We always laugh
+at these R.E.’s for looking like navvies, and for
+going about without gas-helmets or rifles. But
+really they are wonderful men. It’s awful being
+liable to be buried alive any moment. Somehow
+death in the open is far less terrible. Ugh! Do
+you remember that R.E., Teddy, we saw running
+down the Old Kent Road? It was that night the
+Boche blew the mine in the Quarry. Jove, Clark,
+that was a sight. I was just going up from Trafalgar
+Square, when I heard a running, and there was
+a fellow, great big brawny fellow, naked to the
+waist, and <i>grey</i> all over; and someone had given
+him his equipment and rifle in a hurry, and he’d
+got his equipment over his bare skin! The men
+were fearfully amused. ‘R.E.,’ they said, and
+smiled. But, by God, there was a death look in
+that man’s eyes. He’d been down when the Boche
+blew their mine, and as near as possible buried
+alive. No, it’s a rotten game.”</p>
+
+<p>As I spoke, the ground shuddered, and the tea-things
+shook.</p>
+
+<p>“There <i>is</i> a mine,” we all exclaimed together.</p>
+
+<p>“I wonder if it’s ours, or theirs,” said Edwards.</p>
+
+<p>“I saw Hills, this afternoon,” I answered, “and
+he said nothing about a mine. I’m sure he would
+have, if we had been going to send one up. No,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span>
+I bet that’s a Boche mine. Good thing you’re
+out of it, Clark. Oh, don’t go. Well, cheero! if
+you must. Look us up oftener. Good luck!”</p>
+
+<p>Clark departed, and I resumed <i>Blackwood’s</i>.</p>
+
+<p>“I say, Edwards,” said I, after a while. “This
+stuff of Ian Hay’s is awfully good. This about
+the signallers is <i>top-hole</i>. You can simply smell
+it!”</p>
+
+<p>“After you with it,” was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>“There you are,” I said at last. “It’s called
+‘Carry On’; there have been several others in
+the same series. You know the ‘First Hundred
+Thousand’?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Good stuff,” said I. “Good readable stuff;
+the sort you’d give to your people at home. But
+it leaves out bits.”</p>
+
+<p>“Such as ...?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, well, the utter fed-upness, and the dullness—and—well,
+oh, I don’t know. You read it and
+see.”</p>
+
+<p>That was a bad night. The Boche mine had
+caught our R.E.’s this time. All the night through
+they were rescuing fellows from our mine gallery.
+Seven or eight were killed, most of them “gassed”;
+two of “A” Company were badly gassed too while
+aiding in the rescue work. This mine gas is, I
+suppose, very like that encountered in coal mines;
+and the explosion of big charges of cordite must
+create cracks and fissures underground that release
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span>
+these gases in all directions. I do not profess to
+write as an expert on this. At any rate they were
+all night working to get the fellows out. One man
+when rescued disobeyed the doctor’s strict injunctions
+to lie still for half an hour before moving
+away from where he was put, just outside the
+mine shaft; and this cost him his life. He hurried
+down the Old Kent Road, and dropped dead with
+heart failure at the bottom of it. Hills told me
+he felt the pulses of two men who had been gassed
+and were waiting the prescribed half-hour; and
+they were going like a watch ticking. Yes, it was
+a bad night. I got snatches of sleep, but always
+there was the sound of stretchers being carried past
+our dug-out to the doctor’s dressing-station;
+several times I went out to investigate how things
+were going. But there was nothing I could do.
+It was my duty to sleep: we were going up in
+the line to-morrow. But sleep does not always
+come to order.</p>
+
+<p>Before dawn we “stood to,” and it was quite
+light as I inspected the last rifle of No. 6 Platoon.
+They were just bringing the last of the gassed
+miners down to the dressing-station. I stood at
+the corner of Park Lane, and watched. The
+stretcher-bearers came and looked at two forms
+lying on stretchers close by me; then they asked
+me if I thought it would be all right to take those
+stretchers, and leave the dead men there another
+hour. I said if they wanted the stretchers, yes.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span>
+So they lifted the bodies off, and went away with
+the stretchers. There were several men standing
+about, silent, as usual, in the presence of death.
+I looked at those two R.E.’s as they lay quite
+uncovered; grim their faces were, grim and severe.
+I told a man to get something and cover them up,
+until the stretcher-bearers came and removed
+them. And as I strode away in silence between my
+men, I felt that my face was grim too. I thought
+of Clark’s description, a few hours back, of the
+man sitting alone in the white chalk gallery, listening,
+listening, listening. And now!</p>
+
+<p>Once more I thought of “blind death.” The
+Germans who had set light to the fuse at tea-time
+were doubtless sleeping the sleep of men who have
+worked well and earned their rest. And here....
+They knew nothing of it, would never know whom
+they had slain. And I remembered the night Scott
+and I had watched our big mine go up. “Wonderful,”
+we had said, “magnificent.” And in the
+morning the R.E. officer had told us that we
+had smashed all their galleries up, and that they
+would not trouble us there for a fortnight at
+least. “A certain man drew a bow at a venture,”
+I said again, vaguely remembering something,
+but stiffening myself suddenly, and stifling my
+imagination.</p>
+
+<p>I met Edwards by the dug-out as he returned
+from inspecting the Lewis guns.</p>
+
+<p>“Remember,” I said, “I told you the ‘First
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span>
+Hundred Thousand’ leaves out bits? Did you see
+those R.E.’s who were gassed?”</p>
+
+<p>Edwards nodded.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” I added, “that’s a thing it leaves
+out.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV<br />
+
+BILLETS</h2>
+
+<h3 class="smcap">I. Morning</h3>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">“Two</span> hours’ pack drill, and pay for a
+new handle,” I said.</p>
+
+<p>“Right—Turn!” said the sergeant-major.
+“Right—Wheel—Quick—March! Get your
+equipment on and join your platoon at once.”</p>
+
+<p>This last sentence was spoken in a quick undertone,
+as the prisoner stepped out of the door into the
+road. I was filling up the column headed “Punishment
+awarded” on a buff-coloured Army Form, to
+which I appended my signature. The case just dealt
+with was a very dull and commonplace one, a man
+having “lost” his entrenching tool handle. Most
+of these “losses” occurred in trenches, and were
+dealt with the first morning in billets at company
+orderly-room. This man had been engaged on
+special fatigue work the last few days; hence the
+reason why the loss had not been checked before,
+and came up on this last morning in billets.</p>
+
+<p>“No more prisoners?” I asked the company
+sergeant-major.</p>
+
+<p>“No more prisoners, sir,” he answered. I then
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span>
+rather hurriedly signed several returns made out by
+Sergeant Roberts, the company quartermaster-sergeant,
+and promised to come in later and sign the
+acquittance rolls. These are the pay-lists, made
+out in triplicate, which are signed by each man as
+he draws his pay. The original goes to the Paymaster
+in England, one carbon copy to the adjutant,
+and one is retained by the company-commander.
+We had paid out the first day in
+billets. This time “working-parties” had been
+tolerable. We had arrived back in billets about
+half-past three in the afternoon; the next morning
+had been spent in a march to the divisional baths
+at Treux (two miles away), in cleaning up, kit-inspection,
+and a little arm-drill and musketry practice;
+in the afternoon we paid out. Then followed three
+days of working-parties, up on the support line at
+Crawley Ridge; and now, we had this last day in
+which to do a little company work. There had been
+running parade at seven-thirty. Owen had taken
+this, and I confess that I had not yet breakfasted.
+So I hurried off now at 9.10 to gulp something
+down and be at battalion orderly-room at 9.30
+sharp.</p>
+
+<p>The company office was a house of two rooms;
+one was the “office” itself, with a blanket-clad
+table and a couple of chairs in the middle, and all
+around were strewn strange boxes, and bundles of
+papers and equipment. On the walls were pictures
+from illustrated English papers; one of Nurse
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span>
+Cavell, another of howitzers firing; and several
+graphic bayonet-charges at Verdun, pictured by an
+artist who must have “glowed” as he drew them in
+his room in Chelsea. In the other room slept the
+C.S.M. and C.Q.M.S. (more familiar as the
+“sergeant-major” and the “quartermaster”).</p>
+
+<p>From this house, then, I stepped out into the
+glaring street. It was the end of May, and the day
+promised to be really quite hot. I have already
+explained how completely shut off from the trenches
+one felt in Morlancourt, sheltered as it was in a cup
+of the hills and immune from shelling. Now as I
+walked quickly along the street, past our battalion
+“orderly-room,” and returned the immaculate
+salute of Sergeant-Major Shandon, the regimental
+sergeant-major, who was already marshalling the
+prisoners ready for the Colonel at half-past nine,
+I felt a lightness and freshness of body that almost
+made me think I was free of the war at last. My
+Sam Browne belt, my best tunic with its polished
+buttons, and most of all, I suppose, the effect of a
+good sleep and a cold bath, all contributed to this
+feeling, as well as the scent from the laburnum and
+lilac that looked over the garden wall opposite the
+billet that was our “Mess.”</p>
+
+<p>I found Edwards just going off to inspect “B”
+Company Lewis gunners, whom he was taking on
+the range the first part of the morning.</p>
+
+<p>“Hullo!” he said, “you’ve not got much
+time.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span></p>
+
+<p>“No,” said I. “My own fault for getting up late.
+Got a case for the C.O. too. Is my watch right? I
+make it seventeen minutes past.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nineteen, I make it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Wish I hadn’t asked you,” I laughed. “No
+porridge, Lewis. Bring the eggs and bacon in at
+once. This tea’ll do. There’s no milk, though.
+What?”</p>
+
+<p>Edwards had asked something. He repeated his
+question, which was whether I wanted Jim, the
+company horse, this afternoon. I thought rapidly,
+and the scent of the lilac decided me.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” I answered. “Sorry, but I do.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, all right; I expect I can get old Muskett
+to let me have one.”</p>
+
+<p>Muskett was the transport officer.</p>
+
+<p>“Righto,” said I. “Go teach thy Lewis gunners
+how to drill little holes in the chalk-bank.”</p>
+
+<p>He clattered off over the cobbles of the garden
+path, and in a few minutes I followed suit, running
+until I rounded a corner and came into view of the
+orderly-room, when I altered my gait to a dignified
+walk and arrived just as the Colonel appeared from
+the opposite direction.</p>
+
+<p>“Parade! Tchern!!” shouted Sergeant-Major
+Shandon; and a moment later the four company
+commanders came to attention and saluted as the
+Colonel passed in, sprinkling “Good mornings” to
+right and left.</p>
+
+<p>I had one very uninteresting case of drunkenness;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span>
+“A” had a couple of men who had overstayed their
+pass in England; “C” had a case held over from
+the day before for further evidence, and was now
+dismissed as not proven; while “D” had an unsatisfactory
+sergeant who was “severely reprimanded.”
+All these cases were quickly and unerringly
+disposed of, and we company commanders
+saluted again and clattered down the winding staircase
+out into the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>I had to pass from one end of the village to the
+other. The orderly-room was not far from our
+company “Mess” and was at a cross-roads.
+Opposite, in one of the angles made by the junction
+of the four roads, was a deep and usually muddy
+horse-pond. But even here the mud was getting
+hard under this spell of warm May weather, and the
+innumerable ruts and hoof-marks were crystallising
+into a permanent pattern. As I walked along the
+streets I passed sundry Tommies acting as road-scavengers;
+“permanent road fatigue” they were
+called, although they were anything but permanent,
+being changed every day. Formerly they had
+seemed to be engaged in a Herculean, though unromantic,
+task of scraping great rolling puddings of
+mud to the side of the road, in the vain hope that
+the mud would find an automatic exit into neighbouring
+gardens and ponds; for Morlancourt did
+not boast such modern things as gutters. To-day
+there were large pats of mud lining the street, but
+these were now caked and hard, and even crumbling
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span>
+into dust, that whisked about among the sparrows.
+The permanent road fatigue was gathering waste-paper
+and tins in large quantities, but otherwise was
+having a holiday.</p>
+
+<p>Women were working, or gossiping at the doorsteps.
+The <i>estaminet</i> doors were flung wide open,
+and the floors were being scrubbed and sprinkled
+with sawdust. A little bare-legged girl, in a black
+cotton dress, was hugging a great wide loaf; an old
+man sat blinking in the sunshine; cats were basking,
+dogs nosing about lazily. A party of about thirty
+bombers passed me, the sergeant giving “eyes
+right” and waking me from meditations on the
+eternal calm of cats. Then I reached the headquarter
+guard, and the sentry saluted with a rattling
+clap upon his butt, and I did my best to emulate his
+smartness. So I passed along all the length of the
+shuttered houses of Morlancourt.</p>
+
+<p>“A great day, this,” I thought, as I came to the
+small field where “B” Company was paraded; not
+two hundred and fifty men, as you will doubtless
+assume from the text-books, but some thirty or forty
+men only; one was lucky if one mustered forty.
+Where were the rest, you ask? Well, bombers
+bombing; Lewis gunners under Edwards; some on
+“permanent mining fatigue,” that is, carrying the
+sand-bags from the mine-shafts to the dumps;
+transport, pioneers, stretcher-bearers, men under
+bombing instruction, officers’ servants, headquarter
+orderlies, men on leave, etc. etc. The company
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span>
+sergeant-major will make out a parade slate for you
+if you want it, showing exactly where every man is.
+But here are forty men. Let’s drill them.</p>
+
+<p>Half were engaged in arm-drill under my best
+drill-sergeant; the other half were doing musketry
+in gas-helmets, an unpleasant practice which nothing
+would induce me to do on a sunny May morning.
+They lay on their fronts, legs well apart, and were
+working the bolts of their rifles fifteen times a
+minute. After a while they changed over and did
+arm-drill, while the other half took over the gas-helmets,
+the mouthpieces having first been dipped
+in a solution of carbolic brought by one of the
+stretcher-bearers in a canteen. These gas-helmets
+were marked D.P. (drill purposes), and each company
+had so many with which to practise.</p>
+
+<p>When both parties were duly exercised, I gave a
+short lecture on the measures to be adopted against
+the use of <i>Flammenwerfer</i>, which is the “Liquid
+Fire” of the official <i>communiqués</i>. I had just been
+to a demonstration of this atrocity in the form of a
+captured German apparatus, and my chief object in
+lecturing the men about it was to make it quite clear
+that the flaming jets of burning gas cannot sink into
+a trench, but, as a matter of fact, only keep level so
+long as they are propelled by the driving power of
+the hose apparatus; as water from a hose goes
+straight, and then curves down to the ground, so gas,
+even though it be incandescent, goes straight and
+then rises. In the trench you are unscathed, as we
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span>
+proved in the demonstration, when they sprayed the
+flaming gas over a trench full of men. Indeed, the
+chief effect of this <i>flammenwerfer</i> is one of frightfulness,
+as the Germans cannot come over until the
+flames have ceased. The men were rather inclined
+to gape at all this, but I found the words had sunk
+in when I asked what should be done if the enemy
+used this diabolical stuff against us. “Get down at
+the bottom of the trench, sir, and as soon as they
+stop it, give the ——’s ’ell!”</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the morning we spent “on the range,”
+which meant firing into a steep chalk bank at a
+hundred yards. Targets and paste-pot had been
+procured from the pioneers’ shop, and after posting
+a couple of “look-out” men on either side, we
+started range practice. The men are always keen
+about firing on the range, and it is really the most
+interesting and pleasant part of the infantryman’s
+training. I watched these fellows, hugging their
+rifle-butt into their shoulder, and feeling the smooth
+wood against their cheeks; they wriggled their
+bodies about to get a comfortable position; sometimes
+they flinched as they fired and jerked the rifle;
+sometimes they pressed the trigger as softly, as
+softly.... And gradually, carefully, we tried to
+detect and eliminate the faults. Then we ended up
+with fifteen rounds rapid in a minute. The “mad
+minute” it used to be called at home. After which
+we fell the men in, and Paul marched them back to
+the company “alarm post” outside the company
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span>
+office, where “B” Company always fell in; while
+Owen, Nicolson, and I walked back together.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">II. Afternoon</span></p>
+
+<p>“I still maintain,” said I, an hour later, as we
+finished lunch, “that bully-beef, some sort of sauce
+or pickle, and salad, followed by cheese, and ending
+with a cup of tea, is the proper lunch for an officer.
+I don’t mind other officers having tinned fruit,
+though, if they like it,” I added with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Owen and Syme were newly joined officers for
+whom the sight of tinned pears or apricots had not
+yet lost a certain glamour that disappeared after
+months and months. They were just finishing the
+pear course. Hence my last remark.</p>
+
+<p>“I bet if we allowed you to have bully every day,”
+came from Edwards, our Mess president, “you’d
+soon get sick of it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Try,” said I, knowing that he never would. I
+always used to eat of the hot things that would
+appear at lunch, to the detriment of a proper appreciation
+of dinner; but I always maintained the
+position laid down in the first sentence of this
+section.</p>
+
+<p>I lit a pipe and strolled out into the garden. This
+was undoubtedly an ideal billet, and a great improvement
+on the butcher’s shop, where they used always
+to be killing pigs in the yard and letting the blood
+run all over the place. It was a long, one-storied
+house, set back about fifty yards from the road;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span>
+this fifty yards was all garden, and, at the end,
+completely shutting off the road, was a high brick
+wall. On each side of the garden were also high
+walls formed by the sides of stables and outhouses;
+the garden was thus completely walled round, and
+the seclusion and peace thus entrapped were a very
+priceless possession to us.</p>
+
+<p>The garden itself was full of life. There were box-bordered
+paths up both sides and down the centre,
+and on the inner side of the paths was an herbaceous
+border smelling very sweet of wallflowers and
+primulas of every variety. Although it was still
+May, there were already one or two pink cabbage-roses
+out; later, the house itself would be covered
+with them; already the buds were showing yellow
+streaks as they tried to burst open their tight green
+sheaths. In the centre of the garden ran a cross path
+with a summer-house of bamboo canes completely
+covered with honeysuckle; that, too, was budding
+already. The rest of the garden was filled with rows
+of young green things, peas, and cabbages, and I
+know not what, suitably protected against the
+ravages of sparrows and finches by the usual
+miniature telegraph system of sticks connected by
+cotton decorated with feathers and bits of rag.
+Every bit of digging, hoeing, weeding and sowing
+were performed by Madame and her two black-dressed
+daughters in whose house we were now
+living, and who were themselves putting up in the
+adjoining farmhouse, which belonged to them.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span></p>
+
+<p>I said that they had done all the digging in the
+garden. I should make one reservation. All the
+potato-patch had been dug by our servants, with
+the assistance of Gray, the cook. Nor did they do
+it in gratitude to Madame, as, doubtless, ideal Tommies
+would have done. A quarter of it was done by
+Lewis, for carelessness in losing my valise; nearly
+half by the joint effort of the whole crew for a
+thoroughly dirty turn-out on commanding officer’s
+inspection; and the rest for various other defalcations!
+We never told Madame the reasons for their
+welcome help; and I am quite sure they never did!</p>
+
+<p>“The worst of this war,” said I to Edwards, puffing
+contentedly at a pipeful of Chairman, “is this:
+it’s too comfortable. You could carry on like this
+for years, and years, and years.”</p>
+
+<p>“Wasn’t so jolly last time in,” muttered the wise
+Edwards.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s exactly the point,” I answered; “life
+in the trenches we all loathe, and no one makes any
+bones about it or pretends to like it—except for a
+few rare exciting minutes, which are very few and
+far between. But you come out into billets, and
+recover; and so you can carry on. It’s not concentrated
+enough.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s more concentrated for the men than for us.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, yes, very often; but they haven’t the
+strain of responsibility. Yes, you are right though;
+and it’s less concentrated for the C.O., still less for
+the Brigadier, and so on back to the Commander-in-Chief;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span>
+and still further to men who have never seen
+a trench at all.”</p>
+
+<p>“I dare say,” said Edwards; “but, as the phrase
+goes, ‘What are you going to do abaht it?’ Here’s
+Jim. Old Muskett’s going to send me a nag at five,
+so I’m going out after tea. Will you be in to tea?”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t know.”</p>
+
+<p>As I tightened my puttees preparatory to mounting
+the great Jim, Edwards started his gramophone;
+so leaving them to the strains of Tannhäuser,
+I bestrode my charger and steered him
+gracefully down the garden path, under the brick
+archway, and out into the street.</p>
+
+<p>Myself on a horse always amused me, especially
+when it was called an “officer’s charger.” Jim was
+not fiery, yet he was not by any means sluggish, and
+he went fast at a gallop. He suited me very well
+indeed when I wanted to go for an afternoon’s ride;
+for he was quite content to walk when I wanted to
+muse, and to gallop hard when I wanted exhilaration.
+I hate a horse that will always be trotting.
+I know it is best style to trot; but my rides were
+not for style, but for pleasure, exercise, and solitude.
+And Jim fell in admirably with my requirements.
+But, as I say, the idea that I was a company-commander
+on his charger always amused me.</p>
+
+<p>I rode, as I generally did, in a south-easterly
+direction, climbing at a walk one of the many roads
+that led out of Morlancourt towards the Bois des
+Tailles. When I reached the high ground I made
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span>
+Jim gallop along the grass-border right up to the
+edge of the woods. There is nothing like the exhilaration
+of flying along, you cannot imagine how,
+with the great brown animal lengthening out under
+you for all he is worth! I pulled him up and turned
+his head to the right, leaving the road, and skirting
+the edge of the wood. At last I was alone.</p>
+
+<p>In the clearings of the wood the ground was a
+sheet of blue hyacinths, whose sweet scent came
+along on the breeze; their fragrance lifted my spirit,
+and I drank in deep breaths of the early summer air.
+I took off my cap to feel the sun full on my face.
+On the ground outside the wood were still a few late
+primroses interspersed with cowslips, stubborn and
+jolly; and as I rounded a bend in the wood-edge, I
+found myself looking across a tiny valley, the opposite
+face of which was a wooded slope, with all the trees
+banked up on it as gardeners bank geraniums in tiers
+to give a good massed effect. So, climbing the hill-side,
+were all these shimmering patches of green,
+yellow-green, pea-green, yellow, massed together in
+delightful variety; and dotted about in the middle
+of them were solitary patches of white cherry-blossom,
+like white foam breaking over a reef, in the
+midst of a great green sea. And across this perfect
+softness from time to time the bold black and white
+of magpies cut with that vivid contrast with which
+Nature loves to baffle the poor artist.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on, old boy,” I said, as I reached the
+bottom of this little valley; and trotting up the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span>
+other side, and through a ride in the wood, I came
+out on the edge of the Valley of the Somme. I then
+skirted the south side of the wood until I reached a
+secluded corner with a view across the valley: here
+I dismounted, fastened Jim to a tree, loosened his
+girths, and left him pulling greedily at the grass at
+his feet. Then I threw myself down on the grass to
+dream.</p>
+
+<p>My thoughts ran back to my conversation with
+Edwards. Perhaps it was best not to think too hard,
+but I could no more stifle my thoughts than can a
+man his appetite. Responsibility. Responsibility.
+And those with the greatest responsibility endure
+and see the least; no one has more to endure than
+the private soldier in the infantry, and no one has
+less responsibility or power of choice. I thought of
+our last six days in the trenches. When “A”
+Company were in the line, the first three days, we
+had been bombarded heavily at “stand-to” in the
+evening. In Maple Redoubt it had been bad enough.
+There was one sentry-post a little way up Old Kent
+Road; by some mistake a bomber had been put on
+duty there, whereas it was a bayonet-man’s post,
+the bombers having a special rôle in case of the
+enemy attacking. I found this mistake had been
+made, but did not think it was worth altering.
+And that man was killed outright by a shell.</p>
+
+<p>In the front line “A” Company had had several
+killed and wounded, and I had had to lend them
+half my bombers; as I had placed two men on one
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">243</span>
+post, a canister had burst quite a long way off, but
+the men cowered down into the trench. I cursed
+them as hard as I could, and then I saw that in the
+post were the two former occupants lying dead,
+killed half an hour ago where they lay, and where
+I was placing my two men. I stopped my curses,
+and inwardly directed them against myself. And
+there I had to leave these fellows, looking after me
+and thinking, “<i>He’s</i> going back to his dug-out.”
+Ah! no, they knew me better than to think like
+that. Yet I had to go back, leaving them there. I
+should never forget that awful weight of responsibility
+that suddenly seemed visualised before me.
+Could I not see their scared faces peering at me,
+even as now I seemed to smell the scent of pear-drops
+with which the trench was permeated, the Germans
+having sent over a few lachrymatory shells along
+with the others that night?</p>
+
+<p>Ah! Why was I living all this over again, just
+when I had come away to get free of all this awhile,
+and dream? I had come out to enjoy the sunshine
+and the peace, just as Jim was enjoying the grass
+behind me. I listened. There was a slight jingle of
+the bit now and again, and a creaking of leather, and
+always that drawing sound, with an occasional purr,
+as the grass was torn up. I could not help looking
+round at last. “You pig,” I said; but my tone did
+not altogether disapprove of complacent piggishness.</p>
+
+<p>In front of me lay the blue water of the Somme
+Canal, and the pools between it and the river; long
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">244</span>
+parallel rows of pale green poplars stretched along
+either bank of the canal; and at my feet, half hidden
+by the slope of the ground, lay the sleepy little
+village of Etinehem. There was a Sunday afternoon
+slumber over everything. Was it Sunday? I
+thought for a moment. No, it was Thursday, and
+to-morrow we went “in” again. I deliberately
+switched my thoughts away from the trenches, and
+they flew to the events of the morning. I could see
+my fellows lying, so keen—I might almost say so
+happy—blazing away on the range. One I remembered
+especially. Private Benjamin, a boy
+with a delicate eager face, who came out with the
+last draft: he came from a village close up to
+Snowdon; he was shooting badly, and very concerned
+about it. I lay down beside him and showed
+him how to squeeze the trigger, gradually, ever
+so gradually. Oh! these boys! Responsibility.
+Responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>“This is no good,” I said to myself at last, and
+untied Jim and rode again. I went down into the
+valley, and along the green track between an avenue
+of poplars south of the canal until at last I came to
+Sailly-Laurette, and so back and in to Morlancourt
+from the south-west. It was six o’clock by the time
+I stooped my head under the gateway into our
+garden, and for the last hour or so I had almost forgotten
+war at last.</p>
+
+<p>“Hullo,” was the greeting I received from Owen.
+“There’s no tea left.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span></p>
+
+<p>“I don’t want any tea,” I answered. “Has the
+post come?”</p>
+
+<p>There were three letters for me. As I slept at a
+house a little distance away, I took the letters along
+with me.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m going over to my room to clean up,” I
+shouted to Owen, who was reading inside the Mess-room.
+“What time’s old Jim coming in?”</p>
+
+<p>“Seven o’clock!”</p>
+
+<p>“All right,” I answered. “I’ll be over by seven.”</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="smcap">III. Evening</span></p>
+
+<p>As I walked up the garden path a few minutes
+before seven, I had to pass the kitchen door, where
+the servants slept, lived, and cooked our meals. I
+had a vision of Private Watson, the cook, busy at
+the oven; he was in his shirt-sleeves, hair untidy,
+trousers very grimy, and altogether a very unmartial
+figure. There seemed to be a dispute in
+progress, to judge from the high pitch to which the
+voices had attained. On these occasions Lewis’
+piping voice reached an incredible falsetto, while
+his face flushed redder than ever.</p>
+
+<p>Watson, Owen’s servant, had superseded Gray
+as officers’ mess cook; the latter had, unfortunately,
+drunk one or two glasses of beer last time in billets,
+and, to give his own version, he “somehow felt very
+sleepy, and went down and lay under a bank,” and
+could remember nothing more until about ten
+o’clock, when he humbly reported his return to me.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">246</span>
+Meanwhile Watson had cooked the dinner, which
+was, of course, very late; and as he did it very well,
+and as Gray’s explanation seemed somewhat vague,
+we decided to make Watson cook, let Gray try a
+little work in the company for a change, and get the
+sergeant-major to send Owen another man for
+servant. Watson had signalised the entry to his
+new appointment by a quarrel with Madame (the
+Warwicks had managed to “bag” this ideal billet
+of ours temporarily, and we were in a much less
+comfortable one the last two occasions out of
+trenches); eventually Madame had hurled the
+frying-pan at him, amid a torrent of unintelligible
+French; neither could understand a word the other
+was saying, of course. Gray had been wont, I
+believe, to “lie low and say nuffin,” like Brer Fox,
+when Madame, who was old and half-crazed, came
+up and threw water on the fire in a fit of unknown
+anger. But Watson’s blood boiled at such insults
+from a Frenchwoman, and hence had followed a
+sharp contention ending in the projection of the
+frying-pan. Luckily, we were unmolested here:
+Watson could manage the dinner, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>I entered our mess-room, which was large, light,
+and boasted a boarded floor; it was a splendid
+summer-room, though it would have been very cold
+in winter. There I found a pile of literature awaiting
+me; operation orders for to-morrow, giving the
+hour at which each company was to leave Morlancourt,
+and which company of the Manchesters it was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">247</span>
+to relieve, and when, and where, and the route to be
+taken; there were two typed documents “for your
+information and retention, please,” one relating to
+prevention of fly-trouble in billets, the other giving
+a new code of signals and marked “Secret” on the
+top, and lastly there was <i>Comic Cuts</i>. Leaving the
+rest, I hastily skimmed through the latter, which
+contained detailed information of operations carried
+out, and intelligence gathered on the corps front
+during the last few days. At first these were intensely
+interesting, but after seven months they
+began to pall, and I grew expert at skimming through
+them rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>Then Jim Potter came in, and <i>Comic Cuts</i> faded
+into insignificance.</p>
+
+<p>“Here, Owen,” said I, and threw them over to him.</p>
+
+<p>Captain and Quartermaster Jim Potter was the
+Father of the battalion. He had been in the battalion
+sixteen years, and had come out with them in
+1914; twice the battalion had been decimated, new
+officers had come and disappeared, commanding
+officers had become brigadiers and new ones taken
+their place, but “Old Jim” remained, calm, unaltered,
+steady as a rock, good-natured, and an
+utter pessimist. I first introduced him in Chapter I,
+when I spent the night in his billet prior to my first
+advent into the trenches. I was a little perturbed
+then by his pessimism. Now I should have been
+very alarmed if he had suddenly burst into a fit of
+optimism.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">248</span></p>
+
+<p>“Well, Jim,” we said, “how are things going?
+When’s the war going to end?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! not so very long now.” We gaped at this
+unexpected reply. “Because,” he added, “you
+know, Bill, it’s the unexpected that always happens
+in this war. Hullo! You’ve got some pretty
+pictures, I see.”</p>
+
+<p>We had been decorating the walls with the few
+unwarlike pictures that were still to be found in the
+illustrated papers.</p>
+
+<p>“Not a bad place, Blighty,” he resumed, gazing
+at a picture entitled “Home, Sweet Home!”
+There had been a little dispute as to whether it
+should go up, owing to its sentimental nature. At
+last “The Warwicks will like it,” we had said, and
+up it had gone. The Warwicks had our billet, when
+we were “in.”</p>
+
+<p>“Tell us about your leave,” we said, and Jim
+began a series of delightful sarcastic jerks about the
+way people in England seemed to be getting now a
+faint glimmering conception that somewhere there
+was a war on.</p>
+
+<p>The joint was not quite ready, Edwards explained
+to me, drawing me aside a minute; would old Jim
+mind? The idea of old Jim minding being quite
+absurd, we decided on having a cooked joint a
+quarter of an hour hence, rather than a semi-raw
+one now; and we told Jim our decision. It seemed
+to suit him exactly, as he had had tea late. There
+never was such an unruffled fellow as he; had we
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">249</span>
+wanted to begin before the time appointed, he would
+have been ravenous. So he continued the description
+of his adventures on leave. Meanwhile I
+rescued <i>Comic Cuts</i> from the hands of Paul, and
+despatched them, duly initialled, by the trusty
+Davies to “C” Company. Just as I had done
+so the sergeant-major appeared at the door.</p>
+
+<p>“You know the time we move off to-morrow?”
+I said.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, he had known that long before I did, by
+means of the regimental sergeant-major and the
+orderly sergeant.</p>
+
+<p>“Fall in at 8.15,” I said. “Everything the same
+as usual. All the officers’ servants, and Watson,
+are to fall in with the company; this straggling in
+independently, before or after the company, will
+stop once and for all.” Lewis’ face, as he laid
+the soup-plates, turned half a degree redder than
+usual.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s nothing more?” I said.</p>
+
+<p>“No, that’s all, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant-major drained off his whiskey with
+a dash of Perrier, and prepared to go. Now was the
+psychological moment when one learnt any news
+there was to learn about the battalion.</p>
+
+<p>“No news, I suppose?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“The fellows are still talking about this ‘rest,’
+sir. No news about that, I suppose?” said the
+sergeant-major.</p>
+
+<p>“Only that it’s slightly overdue,” I answered,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">250</span>
+with a laugh. “What do you think, Jim? Any
+likelihood of this three weeks’ rest coming off?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes; I should think so,” said the quartermaster.
+“Any time next year.”</p>
+
+<p>“Good night, sir,” said Sergeant-Major Brown,
+with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>“Good night, Sergeant-Major,” came in a chorus
+as he disappeared into the garden.</p>
+
+<p>“Soup’s ready, sir,” said Lewis. And we sat
+down to dine.</p>
+
+<p>The extraordinary thing about having Jim Potter
+in to dinner was that an extra elaborate menu was
+always provided, and yet old Jim himself always ate
+less than anyone else; still, he did his share nobly
+with the whiskey, so that made up for it, I suppose.
+To-night Edwards planned “sausages and mash”
+as an entrée; but, whether through superior knowledge
+or a mere misunderstanding, the sausages
+arrived seated carefully on the top of the round of
+beef, like <i>marrons-glacés</i> stuck on an iced cake. As
+the dish was placed, amid howls of execration, on
+the table, one of the unsteadier sausages staggered
+and fell with a splash into the gravy, much to everyone’s
+delight; Edwards, wiping the gravy spots off
+his best tunic, seemed the only member of the party
+who did not greet with approbation this novel dish.</p>
+
+<p>After soup, sausages and beef, and rice-pudding
+and tinned fruit, came Watson’s special dish—cheese
+<i>au gratin</i> on toast. This was a glutinous concoction,
+and a little went a long way. Then followed <i>café au</i>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">251</span>
+<i>lait</i> made in the teapot, which was the signal for
+cigarettes to be lit up, and chairs to be moved a little
+to allow of a comfortable expansion of legs. Owen
+proposed sitting out in the summer-house, but on
+going outside reported that it was a little too chilly.
+So we remained where we were.</p>
+
+<p>Edwards was talking of Amiens: he had been
+there for the day yesterday, and incidentally discovered
+that there was a cathedral there.</p>
+
+<p>“I know it,” said I. “I used to go there every
+Saturday when I was at the Army School.”</p>
+
+<p>“You had a good time at the Army School, didn’t
+you?” asked Jim.</p>
+
+<p>“Tip-top time,” said I. “It’s a really good show.
+The Commandant was the most wonderful man we
+ever met. By the way, that concert Tuesday night
+was a really good show.”</p>
+
+<p>Jim Potter and Edwards had got it up; it had
+been an <i>al fresco</i> affair, and the night had been
+ideally warm for it. Edwards had trained a Welsh
+choir with some success. Several outsiders had contributed,
+the star of the evening being Basil Hallam,
+the well-known music-hall artist, whose dainty
+manner, reminding one of the art of Vesta Tilley,
+and impeccable evening clothes had produced an
+unforgettably bizarre effect in the middle of such an
+audience and within sound of the guns. He was
+well known to most of the men as “the bloke that
+sits up in the sausage.” For any fine day, coming
+out of trenches or going in, you could see high
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">252</span>
+suspended the “sausage,” whose home and “base”
+was between Treux and Mericourt, and whose
+occupant and eye was Basil Hallam. And so the
+“sausage bloke” was received enthusiastically at
+our concert.</p>
+
+<p>As we talked about the concert, Owen began
+singing “Now Florrie was a Flapper,” which had
+been Basil Hallam’s most popular song, and as he
+sang he rose from his chair and walked about the
+room; he was evidently enjoying himself, though
+his imitation of Basil Hallam was very bad indeed.
+As he sang, we went on talking.</p>
+
+<p>“A good entry in <i>Comic Cuts</i> to-night,” I remarked.
+“‘A dog was heard barking in Fricourt at
+11 p.m.’ Someone must have been hard up for
+intelligence to put that in.”</p>
+
+<p>“A dog barking in Fricourt,” said old Jim, warming
+up. “‘A dog barking in Fricourt.’ What’s that—Corps
+stuff? I never read the thing; good Lord, no!
+That’s what it is to have a Staff—‘A dog barking in
+Fricourt!’”</p>
+
+<p>“The Corps officer didn’t hear it,” said I. “It
+was some battalion intelligence officer that was such
+a fool as to report it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Fool?” said old Jim. “I’d like to meet the
+fellow. He’s the first fellow I’ve ever met yet who
+has a just appreciation of the brain capacity of the
+Staff. You or I might have thought of reporting a
+dog’s mew, or roar, or bellow; but a dog’s bark we
+should have thought of no interest whatever to the—er—fellows
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">253</span>
+up there, you know, who plan our
+destinies.” And he gave an obsequious flick of his
+hand to an imaginary person too high up to see him
+at all.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s a good fellow,” he repeated, “that intelligence
+officer. Ought to get a D.S.O.”</p>
+
+<p>Old Jim had two South African medals, a D.C.M.
+and a D.S.O.</p>
+
+<p>“The Staff,” he went on, with the greatest contempt
+he could put into his voice. “I saw three of
+them in a car to-day. I stood to attention: saluted.
+A young fellow waved his hand, you know; graciously
+accepted my salute, you know, and passed on
+leaning back in his limousin. The ‘Brains of the
+British Army,’ I thought. Pah!”</p>
+
+<p>We waited. Jim on the Staff was the greatest
+entertainment the battalion could offer. We tried
+to draw him out further, but he would not be
+drawn. We tried cunningly, by indirect methods,
+enquiring his views on whether there would be a
+push this year.</p>
+
+<p>“Push!” he said. “Of course there will be a
+push. The Staff must have something to show for
+themselves. ‘Shove ’em in,’ they say; ‘rather
+a bigger front than last time.’ Strategy? Oh, no!
+That’s out of date, you know. Five-mile front—frontal
+attack. Get a few hundred thousand mown
+down, and then discover the Boche has got a second
+line. The Staff. Pah!!” And no more would he say.</p>
+
+<p>Then Clark came in, and the Manchester Stokes
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">254</span>
+gun officer. Clark immediately joined Owen in a
+duet on “Florrie.” Then we went through the
+whole gamut of popular songs, with appropriate
+actions and stamping of feet upon the floor. Meanwhile
+the table was cleared, only the whiskey and
+Perrier remaining. Soon there were cries of
+“Napoleon—Napoleon,” and Owen, who bears a
+remarkable resemblance to that great personage,
+posed tragically again and again amid great applause.
+And then, in natural sequence, I, as “Bill, the man
+wot won the Battle of Waterloo,” attacked him with
+every species of trench-mortar I could lay hands on,
+my head swathed in a remarkable turban of <i>Daily
+Mail</i>. At last I drove him into a corner behind a
+table, and bombarded him relentlessly with oranges
+until he capitulated! All the time Edwards had
+been in fear and trembling for the safety of his
+gramophone.</p>
+
+<p>At length peace was signed, and we grew quiet
+again beneath the soothing strains of the gramophone,
+until at last Jim Potter said he must really
+go. Everyone reminding everyone else that breakfast
+was at seven, we broke up the party, and Owen,
+Paul, Jim Potter and I departed together. But
+anyone who knows the psychology of conviviality
+will understand that we had first to pay a visit to a
+neighbouring Mess for one last whiskey-and-soda
+before turning in.</p>
+
+<p>As I opened the door of my billet, I heard a
+“strafe” getting up. There was a lively cannonade
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">255</span>
+up in the line; for several minutes I listened, until
+it diminished a little, and began to die away. “In”
+to-morrow, I thought. My valise was laid out on
+the floor, and my trench kit all ready for packing
+first thing next morning. I lost no time in getting
+into bed. And yet I could not sleep.</p>
+
+<p>I could not help thinking of the jollity of the last
+few hours, the humour, the apparently spontaneous
+outburst of good spirits; and most of all I thought
+of old Jim, the mainspring somehow of it all. And
+again I saw the picture of the concert a few nights
+ago, the bright lights of the stage, the crowds of our
+fellows, all their bodies and spirits for the moment
+relaxed, good-natured, happy, as they stood laughing
+in the warm night air. And lastly I thought
+again of Private Benjamin, that refined eager face,
+that rather delicate body, and that warm hand as
+I placed mine over his, squeezing the trigger. He
+was no more than a child really, a simple-minded
+child of Wales. Somehow it was more terrible that
+these young boys should see this war, than for the
+older men. Yet were we not all children wondering,
+wondering, wondering?... Yes, we were like
+children faced by a wild beast. “Sometimes I
+dislike you almost,” I thought; “your dulness,
+your coarseness, your lack of romance, your unattractiveness.
+Yet that is only physical. You,
+I love really. Oh, the dear, dear world!”</p>
+
+<p>And in the darkness I buried my face in the pillow,
+and sobbed.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">256</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV<br />
+
+“A CERTAIN MAN DREW A BOW AT A
+VENTURE”</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">It</span> was ten o’clock as I came in from the wiring-party
+in front of Rue Albert, and at that
+moment our guns began. We were in Maple
+Redoubt. The moon had just set, and it was a
+still summer night in early June.</p>
+
+<p>“Come and have a look,” I called to Owen, who
+had just entered the dug-out. I could see him
+standing with his back to the candlelight reading a
+letter or something.</p>
+
+<p>He came out, and together we looked across the
+valley at the shoulder of down that was silhouetted
+by the continuous light of gun-flickers. Our guns
+had commenced a two hours’ bombardment.</p>
+
+<p>“No answer from the Boche yet,” I said.</p>
+
+<p>“They’re firing on C 2, down by the cemetery.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I hardly noticed it; our guns make such a
+row. By Jove, it’s magnificent.”</p>
+
+<p>We gazed fascinated for a long time, and then
+went into the dug-out where Edwards and Paul
+were snoring rhythmically. I read for half an hour,
+but the dug-out was stuffy, and the smell of sand-bags
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">257</span>
+and the flickering of the candle annoyed me
+for some reason or other. Somehow “Derelicts”
+by W. J. Locke failed to grip my attention. Owing
+to our bombardment, there were no working-parties,
+in case the Germans should take it into
+their head to retaliate vigorously. But at present
+there was no sign of that.</p>
+
+<p>I went outside again, and walked along Park
+Lane until I came to the Lewis-gun position just
+this side of the corner of Watling Street. The
+sentry was standing up, with his elbows on the
+ground level (there was no parapet) gazing alert
+and interested at the continuous flicker of our
+shells bursting along the enemy’s trenches. Lance-Corporal
+Allan looked out of the dug-out, and,
+seeing me, came out and stood by us. And together
+we watched, all three of us, in silence. Overhead
+was the continual griding, screeching, whistling of
+the shells as they passed over, without pause or
+cessation; behind was a chain of gun-flickers the
+other side of the ridge; and in front was another
+chain of flashes, and a succession of bump, bump,
+bumps, as the shells burst relentlessly in the German
+trenches. And where we stood, under the noisy
+arch, was a steady calm.</p>
+
+<p>“This is all right, sir,” said Lance-Corporal Allan.
+He was the N.C.O. in charge of this Lewis-gun
+team.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said I. “The artillery are not on short
+rations to-night.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">258</span></p>
+
+<p>For always, through the last four months, the
+artillery had been more or less confined to so many
+shells a day. The officers used to tell us they had
+any amount of ammunition, yet no sooner were
+they given a free hand to retaliate as much as we
+wanted, than an order came cancelling this privilege.
+To-night at any rate there was no curtailment.</p>
+
+<p>“I believe this is the beginning of a new order
+of things,” I said, half musing, to myself; “that is,
+I believe the Boche is going to get lots and lots of
+this now.”</p>
+
+<p>“About time, sir,” said the sentry.</p>
+
+<p>“Is there a push coming off?” said Lance-Corporal
+Allan.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know,” I replied. “But I expect we
+shall be doing something soon. It’s quite certain
+we’re going to get our three weeks’ rest after this
+turn in. The Brigade Major told me so.”</p>
+
+<p>Corporal Allan smiled, and as he did so the
+flashes lit up his face. He was quite a boy, only
+eighteen, I believe, but an excellent N.C.O. He
+had a very beautiful though sensuous face that
+used to remind me sometimes of the “Satyr” of
+Praxiteles. His only fault was an inclination to
+sulkiness at times, which was perhaps due to a
+little streak of vanity. It was no wonder the
+maidens of Morlancourt made eyes at him, and a
+little girl who lived next door to the Lewis-gunner’s
+billet was said to have lost her heart long ago. To-night
+I felt a pang as I saw him smile.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">259</span></p>
+
+<p>“We’ll see,” I said. “Anyway it’s going to be
+a good show giving the Boche these sort of pleasant
+dreams. Better than those one-minute stunts.”</p>
+
+<p>I was referring to a one-minute bombardment of
+Fricourt Wood, that had taken place last time we
+were in the line. It was a good spectacle to see
+the wood alive with flames, hear our Vickers’ guns
+rattling hard behind us from the supports, and see
+the Germans firing excited green and red rockets
+into the air. But the retaliation had been unpleasant,
+and the whole business seemed not worth
+while. This continuous pounding was quite different.</p>
+
+<p>I went back and visited the other gun position,
+and spent a few minutes there also. At last I turned
+in reluctantly. I went out again at half-past eleven,
+and still the shells were screaming over. It seemed
+the token of an irresistible power. And there was
+no reply at all now from the German lines.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The short summer nights made life easier in some
+respects. We “stood to” earlier, and it was quite
+light by three. As I turned in again, I paused for a
+moment to take in the scene. Davies had retired
+to a small dug-out, that looked exactly like a dog-kennel,
+and was not much larger. As Davies himself
+frequently reminded me of a very intelligent
+sheepdog, the dog-kennel seemed most suitable. I
+heard him turning about inside, as I stood at the
+door of our own dug-out.</p>
+
+<p>The scene was one of the most perfect peace.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">260</span>
+The sun was not up, but by now the light was firm
+and strong; night had melted away. I went back
+and walked a little way along Park Lane until I
+came to a gap in the newly erected sand-bag parados.
+I went through the gap and into a little graveyard
+that had not been used now for several months.
+And there I stood in the open, completely hidden
+from the enemy, on the reverse slope of the hill.
+Below me were the dug-outs of 71 North, and away
+to the left those of the Citadel. Already I could
+see smoke curling up from the cookers. There was
+a faint mist still hanging about over the road there,
+that the strong light would soon dispel. On the
+hill-side opposite lay the familiar tracery of Redoubt
+A, and the white zigzag mark of Maidstone Avenue
+climbing up well to the left of it, until it disappeared
+over the ridge. Close to my feet the meadow was
+full of buttercups and blue veronica, with occasional
+daisies starring the grass. And below, above, everywhere,
+it seemed, was the tremulous song of countless
+larks, rising, growing, swelling, till the air
+seemed full to breaking-point.</p>
+
+<p>And there was not a sound of war. Who could
+desecrate such a perfect June morning? I felt a
+mad impulse to run up and across into No Man’s
+Land and cry out that such a day was made for
+lovers; that we were all enmeshed in a mad nightmare,
+that needed but a bold man’s laugh to free
+us from its clutches! Surely this most exquisite
+morning could not be the birth of another day of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">261</span>
+pain? Yet I felt how vain and hopeless was the
+longing, as I turned at last and saw the first slant
+rays of sunlight touch the white sand-bags into
+life.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>“What time’s this working-party?” asked Paul
+at four o’clock that afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>“I told the sergeant-major to get the men out
+as soon as they’d finished tea,” I replied. “About
+a quarter to five they ought to be ready. He will
+let you know all right.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hullo!” said Paul.</p>
+
+<p>“What are you ‘hulloing’ about?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>Paul did not answer. Faintly I heard a “wheeoo,
+wheeoo, wheeoo,” that grew louder and louder and
+ended in a swishing roar like a big wave breaking
+against an esplanade—and then “wump—wump—wump—wump”
+four 4·2’s exploded beyond the
+parados of Park Lane.</p>
+
+<p>“Well over,” said Edwards.</p>
+
+<p>“I expected this,” I answered. “They’ve been
+too d—d quiet all day—especially after the pounding
+we gave them last night.”</p>
+
+<p>“There they are again,” I added. This time I
+had heard the four distant thuds, and we all waited.</p>
+
+<p>“Wump, wump—<span class="smcap">Crump</span>.” There was a colossal
+din, the two candles went out, and there was a
+shaking and jarring in the blackness. Then followed
+the sound of falling stuff, and I felt a few patters of
+earth all over me. Gradually it got lighter, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">262</span>
+through the smoke-filled doorway the square of
+daylight reappeared.</p>
+
+<p>“Je ne l’aime pas,” said I, as we all waited,
+without speaking. Then Edwards struck a match
+and lit the candles; all the table, floor, and beds
+were sprinkled with dust and earth. Then Davies
+burst in.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you all right?” we asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Yessir. Are you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, we’re all right, Davies,” said I. “But
+there’s a job for Lewis cleaning this butter up.”</p>
+
+<p>At length we went outside, stepping over a heap
+of loose yielding earth, mixed up with lumps of
+chalk and bits of frayed sand-bags. Outside, the
+trench was blocked with débris of a similar kind.
+Already two men had crossed it, and several men
+were about to do so. It was old already. There
+was still a smell of gunpowder in the air, and a lot
+of chalk dust that irritated your nose.</p>
+
+<p>“I think I’ll tell the sergeant-major not to get
+the working-party out just yet,” I said to Paul.
+“They often start like that and then put lots more
+over about a quarter of an hour later.” And I sped
+along Park Lane quickly.</p>
+
+<p>As I returned I heard footsteps behind me. I
+looked round, but the men were hidden by a traverse.
+And then came tragedy, sudden, and
+terrible. I have seen many bad sights—every man
+killed is a tragedy—but one avoids and hides away
+the hideousness as soon as possible. But never,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">263</span>
+save once perhaps, have I seen the thing so vile as
+now.</p>
+
+<p>“Look out!” I heard a voice from behind. And
+as I heard the shell screaming down, I tumbled into
+the nearest dug-out. The shell burst with a huge
+“crump,” but not so close as the one that had
+darkened our dug-out ten minutes before. Then
+again another four shells burst together, but some
+forty or fifty yards away. I waited one, two
+minutes. <i>And then I heard men running in the
+trench.</i></p>
+
+<p>As I sprang up the dug-out steps, I saw two
+stretcher-bearers standing looking round the traverse.
+And then there was the faint whistling overhead
+and they pushed me back as they almost fell
+down the dug-out steps.</p>
+
+<p>“Is there a man hurt?” I asked. “We can’t
+leave him.”</p>
+
+<p>“He’s dead,” said one. And as he spoke there
+were three more explosions a little to the left.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sure?”</p>
+
+<p>“Aye,” said the stretcher-bearer and closed his
+eyes tight.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s past our help,” said the other man.</p>
+
+<p>At last, after a minute’s calm, we stepped out
+into the sunshine. I went round the traverse,
+following the two stretcher-bearers. And looking
+between them, as they stood gazing, this is what I
+saw.</p>
+
+<p>In the trench, half buried in rags of sand-bag and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">264</span>
+loose chalk, lay what had been a man. His head
+was nearest to me, and at that I gazed fascinated;
+for the shell had cut it clean in half, and the face
+lay like a mask, its features unmarred at all, a full
+foot away from the rest of the head. The flesh
+was grey, that was all; the open eyes, the nose,
+the mouth were not even twisted awry. It was
+like the fragment of a sculpture. All the rest of the
+body was a mangled mass of flesh and khaki.</p>
+
+<p>“Who is it?” whispered a stretcher-bearer,
+bending his head down to look sideways at that
+mask.</p>
+
+<p>“Find his identity-disc,” said the other.</p>
+
+<p>“It is Lance-Corporal Allan,” said I.</p>
+
+<p>Then up came the regimental sergeant-major,
+and Owen followed him. They too gazed in horror
+for a moment. The sergeant-major was the first
+to recover.</p>
+
+<p>“Hi! you fellows,” he called to two men. “Get
+a waterproof sheet.”</p>
+
+<p>“Come away, old man,” said I to Owen.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>In silence we walked back to the dug-out. But
+my brain was whirling. “A certain man drew a
+bow at a venture,” I thought again. That was how
+it was possible. No man could keep on killing, if
+he could see the men he killed. Who had fired that
+howitzer shell? A German gunner somewhere right
+away in Mametz Wood probably. He would never
+see his handiwork, never know what he had done
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">265</span>
+to-day. He would never <i>see</i>; that was the point.
+Had he known, he would have rejoiced that there
+was one Englishman less in the world. It was not
+his fault. We were just the same. What of last
+night’s bombardment? (The memory of Lance-Corporal
+Allan up by his gun-position gave me a
+quick sharp pang.) Had we not watched with
+glittering eyes the magnificent shooting of our own
+gunners? This afternoon’s strafe was but a puny
+retaliation.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly it came back to me, the half-formed picture
+that had arisen in my mind the night of Davidson’s
+death. “A certain man drew a bow at a
+venture,” expressed it perfectly. It was splendid
+twanging the bow, feeling the fingers grip the
+polished wood, watching the bow-string stretch
+and strain, and then letting the arrow fly. That
+was the fascinating, the deadly fascinating side
+of war. That was what made it possible to
+“carry on.” I remembered my joy in calling up
+the artillery in revenge for Thompson’s death.
+And then again, whenever we put a mine up, how
+exhilarating was the spectacle! Throwing a bomb,
+firing a Lewis gun, all these things were pleasant.
+It was like the joy of throwing stones over a barn
+and hearing them splash into a pond; like driving
+a cricket ball out of the field.</p>
+
+<p>But the arrows fell somewhere. That was the
+other side of war. The dying king leant on his
+chariot, propped up until the sun went down. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">266</span>
+man who had fired the bolt never knew he had
+killed a king. That was the other side of war;
+that was the side that counted. What I had just
+seen was war.</p>
+
+<p>I leaned my face on my arm against the parados.
+Oh, this unutterable tragedy! Had there ever
+been such a thing before? Why was this thing so
+terrible? Why did I have this feeling of battering
+against some relentless power? Death. There
+were worse things than death. There were sights,
+such as I had just come from, as terrible in everyday
+life, in any factory explosion or railway accident.
+There was nothing new in death. Vaguely my mind
+felt out for something to express this thing so far
+more terrible than mere death. And then I saw it.
+Vividly I saw the secret of war.</p>
+
+<p>What made war so cruel, was the force that compelled
+you to go on. After a factory explosion you
+cleared up things and then took every precaution
+to prevent its recurrence; but in war you did
+the opposite, you used all your energies to make
+more explosions. You killed and went on killing;
+you saw men die around you, and you deliberately
+went on with the thing that would cause more of
+your friends to die. You were placed in an arena,
+and made to fight the beasts; and if you killed
+one beast, there were more waiting, and more and
+more. And above the arena, out of it, secure,
+looked down the glittering eyes of the men who
+had placed you there; cruel, relentless eyes, that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">267</span>
+went on glittering while the mouths expressed admiration
+for your impossible struggles, and pity
+for your fate!</p>
+
+<p>“Oh God! I shall go mad!” I thought, in the
+agony of my mind. I saw into that strange empty
+chamber which is called madness: I knew what it
+would be like to go mad. And even as I saw, came
+the thought again of those glittering eyes, and the
+ruthless answer to my soul’s cry: “The war is
+utterly indifferent whether you go mad or not.”</p>
+
+<p>Owen was standing waiting for me. I grew calm
+again, and turned and put my hand on his shoulder.
+Together we reached the door of the dug-out.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Bill,” he said, “have you ever seen anything
+more awful?”</p>
+
+<p>“Only once. No, not more awful: more beastly.
+Nothing could be more awful.”</p>
+
+<p>We told the others.</p>
+
+<p>“Not Allan?” said Edwards. He was Lewis-gun
+officer, and Allan was his best man.</p>
+
+<p>“Not Allan?” he repeated. “Oh, how will they
+tell his little girl in Morlancourt? What will she
+say when she learns she will never see him again?”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank God she never saw him as we saw him
+just now,” I said, “and thank God his mother
+never saw him.”</p>
+
+<p>“If women were in this war, there would be no
+war,” said Edwards.</p>
+
+<p>“I wonder,” said I.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">268</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI<br />
+
+WOUNDED</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">Lance-Corporal Allan</span> was killed on
+Tuesday the 6th of June. For the rest
+of that day I was all “on edge.” I wondered
+sometimes how I could go on: even in billets I
+dreamed of rifle-grenades; and though I had only
+returned from leave a fortnight ago, I felt as tired
+out in body and mind as I did before I went. And
+this last horror did not add to my peace of mind.
+I very nearly quarrelled with Captain Wetherell,
+the battalion Lewis-gun officer, over the position
+of a Lewis gun. There had been a change of
+company front, and some readjustments had to be
+made. I believe I told him he had not got the
+remotest idea of our defence scheme, or something
+of the sort! My nerves were all jangled, and my
+brain would not rest a second. We were nearly
+all like that at times.</p>
+
+<p>I decided therefore to go out again to-night with
+our wires. I had been out last night, and Owen
+was going to-night, but I wanted to be doing something
+to occupy my thoughts. I knew I should
+not sleep. At a quarter to ten I sent word to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">269</span>
+Corporal Dyson, the wiring-corporal, to take his
+men up at eleven instead of ten, as the moon had
+not quite set. At eleven o’clock Owen and I were
+out in No Man’s Land putting out concertina wire
+between 80<small>A</small> and 81<small>A</small> bombing posts, which had
+recently been connected up by a deep narrow trench.
+There was what might be called a concertina craze
+on: innumerable coils of barbed wire were converted
+into concertinas by the simple process of
+winding them round and round seven upright
+stakes in the ground; every new lap of wire was
+fastened to the one below it at every other stake
+by a twist of plain wire; the result, when you came
+to the end of a coil and lifted the whole up off the
+stakes was a heavy ring of barbed wire that concertina’d
+out into ten-yard lengths. They were
+easily made up in the trench, quickly put up, and
+when put out in two parallel rows, about a yard
+apart, and joined together with plenty of barbed
+wire tangled in loosely, were as good an obstacle
+as could be made. We had some thirty of these to
+put out to-night.</p>
+
+<p>When you are out wiring you forget all about
+being in No Man’s Land, unless the Germans are
+sniping across. The work is one that absorbs all
+your interest, and your one concern is to get the
+job done quickly and well. I really cannot remember
+whether the enemy had been sniping or
+not (I use the word “sniping” to denote firing
+occasional shots across with fixed rifles sited by
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">270</span>
+day). I remember that I forgot all about Captain
+Wetherell and his Lewis-gun positions, as soon as I
+was outside the bombing post at 80<small>A</small>. There were
+about fifteen yards between this post and the crater-edge,
+where I had a couple of “A” Company
+bombers out as a covering party. But in this
+fifteen yards were several huge shell-holes, and we
+were concealing the wire in these as much as
+possible. It was fascinating work, and I felt we
+could not get on fast enough with it. After a
+time I went along to Owen, whose party was
+working on my left. Here Corporal Dyson and
+four men were doing well also. All this strip of
+land between the trench and the crater edge was
+an extraordinary tangle of shell-holes, old beams
+and planks, and scraps of old wire. Every square
+yard of it had been churned and pounded to bits
+at different times by canisters and “sausages”
+and such-like. Months ago there had been a trench
+along the crater edges; but new mines had altered
+these, and until we had dug the deep, narrow trench
+between 80<small>A</small> and 81<small>A</small> about a fortnight ago, there
+had been no trench there for at least five months.
+The result was a chaotic jumble, and this jumble
+we were converting into an obstacle by judiciously
+placed concertina wiring.</p>
+
+<p>I repeat that I cannot remember if there had
+been much sniping across. I had just looked at
+my luminous watch, which reported ten past one,
+when I noticed that the sky in the east began to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">271</span>
+show up a little paler than the German parapet
+across the crater. “Dawn,” I thought, “already.
+There is no night at all, really. We must knock
+off in a quarter of an hour. The light will not be
+behind us, but half-past one will be time to stop.”
+I was lying out by the bombers, gazing into the
+black of the crater. It was a warm night, and
+jolly lying out like this, though a bit damp and
+muddy round the shell-holes. Then I got up, told
+Corporal Evans to come in after fixing the coil
+he was putting up, and was walking towards 80<small>A</small>
+post, when “Bang” I heard from across the crater,
+and I felt a big sting in my left elbow, and a jar
+that numbed my whole arm.</p>
+
+<p>“Ow,” I cried out involuntarily, and doubled
+the remaining few yards, and scrambled down into
+the trench.</p>
+
+<p>Corporal Dyson was there.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you hit, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. Nothing much—here in the arm. Get
+the wirers in. It’ll be light soon.”</p>
+
+<p>Then somehow I found my equipment and tunic
+off; there seemed a lot of men round me; and I
+tried to realise that I was really hit. My arm hung
+numb and stiff, with the after-taste of a sting in it.
+I felt this could not be a proper wound, as there
+was no real throbbing pain such as I expected.
+I was surprised when I saw a lot of blood in the
+half light. Corporal Dyson asked me if I had a
+field-dressing, and I said he would find one in the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">272</span>
+bottom right-hand corner of my tunic. To my
+annoyance he did not seem to hear, and used one
+of the men’s. Then Owen appeared, with a serious
+peering face.</p>
+
+<p>“Are all the wirers in?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he answered. “How are you feeling?”</p>
+
+<p>His serious tone amused me. I wanted to say,
+“Good heavens, man, I’m as fit as anything. I
+shall be back to-morrow, I expect.” But I felt
+very tired and rather out of breath as I answered
+“Oh! all right.”</p>
+
+<p>By this time my arm was bandaged and I started
+walking back to Maple Redoubt, leaning on Corporal
+Dyson. I wanted to joke, but felt too tired. It
+seemed an interminable way down, especially along
+Watling Street.</p>
+
+<p>I had only once looked into the dressing-station,
+although I must have passed it several hundred
+times. I was surprised at its size: there were two
+compartments. As I stepped down inside, I
+wondered if it were shell-proof. In the inner
+chamber I could hear the doctor’s quick low voice,
+telling a man to move the lamp: and it seemed
+to flash across me for the first time that there
+ought to be some kind of guarantee against dressing-stations
+being blown in like any ordinary dug-out.
+And yet I knew there was no possibility of any
+such guarantee.</p>
+
+<p>“Hullo, Bill, old man,” said the little doctor,
+coming out quickly. “Where’s this thing of yours?
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">273</span>
+In the arm, isn’t it? Let’s have a look. Oh yes,
+I see. (He examined the bandage, and the arm
+above it.) Well, I won’t be long. You won’t mind
+waiting a few minutes, will you? I’ve got a bad
+case in here. Hall, get him to sit down, and give
+him some Bovril.”</p>
+
+<p>And he was gone. No man could move or make
+men move quicker than the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>I felt apologetic: I had chosen a bad time to
+come, just when the doctor was busy with this
+other man. I asked who the fellow was, and learned
+he was a private from “D” Company. I was very
+grateful for the Bovril. A good idea, this, I thought,
+having Bovril ready for you.</p>
+
+<p>I waited about ten minutes, sitting on a chair.
+I listened to the movements and low voices inside.
+“Turn him over. Here. No, those longer ones.
+Good heavens, didn’t I tell you to get this changed
+yesterday? Now. That’ll do,” and so on. I
+turned my head round in silence, observing acutely
+every detail in this antechamber, as one does in a
+dentist’s waiting-room. All the time in my arm
+I felt this numb wasp-sting; I wondered when the
+real pain would start; there was no motion in
+this still smart.</p>
+
+<p>“Now then, Bill,” said the doctor. “So sorry
+to keep you. Let’s have a look at it. Oh, that’s
+nothing very bad.”</p>
+
+<p>It smarted as he undid the bandage. I don’t
+know what he did. I never looked at it.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">274</span></p>
+
+<p>“What sort of a one is it?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“I could just do with one like this myself,”
+said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>“Is it a Blighty one?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’d give you a fiver for it any minute,” answered
+the doctor. “I’m not certain whether the bone’s
+broken or not, but I rather think it is touched. I
+can’t say, though. A bullet, did you say? Are
+you sure?”</p>
+
+<p>“Very sure,” I laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, it must be one of these explosive bullets,
+an ordinary bullet doesn’t make a wound like yours.
+That’s it. That’ll do.”</p>
+
+<p>“I can’t make out why there’s not more pain,”
+said I.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, that’ll come later. You see the shock
+paralyses you at first. Here, take one of these.”
+And he gave me a morphia tabloid.</p>
+
+<p>“Cheero, Bill,” he said, and I went out of the
+dug-out leaning on a stretcher-bearer. Round my
+neck hung a label, the first of a long series. “Gun-shot
+wound in left forearm” it contained. I found
+later “? fracture. 1.15 a.m., 7.6.16.”</p>
+
+<p>Outside Lewis was waiting with my trench kit.
+He had appeared a quarter of an hour back at the
+door of the dressing-station, and had been told by
+the doctor so rapidly and forcibly that he ought
+to know that he would go with me to the clearing
+station, and that he had five minutes in which to
+get my kit together, that he had fairly sprinted
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">275</span>
+away. Poor fellow! How should he know, seeing
+that he had been my servant over six months,
+and I had never got wounded before? But the
+doctor always made men double.</p>
+
+<p>As I passed our dug-out, Edwards, Owen, Paul,
+and Nicholson were all standing outside.</p>
+
+<p>“Cheero,” I shouted. “Good luck. The doctor
+says it’s nothing much. I’ll be back soon.”</p>
+
+<p>“What about that Lewis-gun position?” asked
+Edwards.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh,” I said, “I want to keep that position on
+the left.” Then I felt my decision waver. “Still,
+if Wetherell wants the other ... I don’t know.”</p>
+
+<p>“All right. I’ll fix up with Wetherell. Good
+luck. Hope you get to Blighty.”</p>
+
+<p>I wanted to say such a lot. I wanted to say that
+I was sure to be back in a week or so. I wanted
+to think hard, and decide about that Lewis gun.
+I wanted to send a message to Wetherell apologising
+for what I had said.... I wanted to talk to Sergeant
+Andrews, who was standing there too. But
+the stretcher-bearer was walking on, and I must
+go as he pleased.</p>
+
+<p>“Good-bye, Sergeant Andrews,” I shouted.</p>
+
+<p>Last of all I saw Davies, standing solemn and
+dumb.</p>
+
+<p>“Good-bye, Davies. Off to Blighty.”</p>
+
+<p>I could not see if he answered. The relentless
+stretcher-bearer led me on. Was I O.C. stretcher-bearers
+or was I not? Why didn’t I stop him?
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">276</span>
+I had not decided about that Lewis gun. At the
+corner of Old Kent Road, I was told I might as
+well sit on the ration trolley and go down on that.
+And in the full light of dawn, about half-past two,
+I was rolled serenely down the hill to the Citadel.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t let go,” I said to the stretcher-bearer,
+who was holding the trolley back. I still thought of
+sending up a message about that Lewis-gun position.
+Why could not I make up my mind? I looked back
+and saw Maple Redoubt receding further and further
+in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>“By Jove,” I thought, “I may not see it again
+for weeks.” And suddenly I realised that whether
+I made up my mind about the Lewis-gun position
+or not, would not make the slightest difference!</p>
+
+<p>“Where do I go to now?” said I.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s an ambulance at the Citadel,” said the
+stretcher-bearer. “You’re quite right. You’ll be
+in Heilly in a little over an hour.”</p>
+
+<p>Heilly? Why, this would be interesting, I
+thought. And I should just go, and have nothing
+to decide. I should be passive. I was going right
+out of the arena!</p>
+
+<p>And the events of yesterday seemed a dream
+already.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wednesday</span></p>
+
+<p>I lay in bed, at the clearing station at Heilly.
+It was just after nine o’clock the same morning,
+and the orderlies were out of sight, but not out
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">277</span>
+of hearing, washing up the breakfast things. Half
+the dark blue blinds were drawn, as the June sun
+was blazing outside. I could see the glare of it
+on the cobbles in the courtyard, as the door opened
+and a cool, tall nurse entered. I closed my eyes,
+and pretended to be asleep. I felt she might come
+and talk, and one thing I did not want to do,
+I did not want to talk.</p>
+
+<p>My body was most extraordinarily comfortable.
+I moved my feet toes-up for the sheer joy of feeling
+the smooth sheets fall cool on my feet when I
+turned them sideways again. The pillow was comfortable;
+the whole bed was comfortable; even my
+arm, that was throbbing violently now, and felt
+boiling hot, was very comfortably rested on another
+pillow. I just wanted to lie, and lie: only my
+mind was working so fast and hard that it
+seemed to make the skin tight over my forehead.
+And all the time there was that buzz, buzzing.
+If I left off thinking, the buzzing took complete
+mastery of my brain. That was intolerable: so I
+had to keep on thinking.</p>
+
+<p>At the Citadel an R.A.M.C. doctor had given me
+tea and a second label. He had also given me an
+injection against tetanus. This he did in the chest.
+Why didn’t he do it in my right arm, I had thought:
+I would have rather had it there. Again, I had had
+to wait quite a quarter of an hour, while he attended
+to the “D” Company private. I had learned from
+an orderly that this poor fellow was bound to lose
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">278</span>
+a leg, and again I had felt that I was in the way
+here, that I was a bother. I had then watched the
+poor fellow carried out on a stretcher, and the
+stretcher slid into the ambulance. There was a
+seat inside, into which I was helped. Lewis had
+gone in front, very red-faced and awkward. And
+an R.A.M.C. orderly had got in behind with me.
+Sitting, I had felt that he must think I was shamming!
+Then I remembered the first ambulance
+I had seen, when I first walked from Chocques to
+Béthune in early October! Was there really any
+connection between me then and me now?</p>
+
+<p>Then there had been a rather pleasant journey
+through unknown country, it seemed. After a few
+miles, we halted and changed into another ambulance.
+As I had stood in the sunshine a moment,
+I had tried to make out where we were. But I
+could not recognise anything, and felt very tired.
+There was a white chalk road, a grass bank, and
+a house close by: that is all I could remember.
+And then there was another long ride, in which
+my one paramount idea was to rest my arm (which
+was in a white sling) and prevent it shaking and
+jarring.</p>
+
+<p>Then at last we had reached a village and pulled
+up in a big sunlit courtyard. Again as I walked
+into a big room I felt that people must think I
+was shamming. A matron had come in, and a
+doctor. Did I mind sitting and waiting a minute
+or so? Would I like some tea? I had refused tea.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">279</span>
+Then the doctor and an orderly came in, and the
+doctor asked some questions and took off my label.
+The orderly was taking off my boots, and the doctor
+had started helping! I had apologised profusely,
+for they were trench boots thick with mud. And
+then the doctor had asked me whether I could wait
+until about eleven before they looked at my arm:
+meanwhile it would be better, as I should be more
+rested after a few hours in bed. Bed! I had never
+thought of going to bed for an arm at all! What a
+delicious idea! I felt so tired, too. I had not been
+to bed all night. Then I had been helped into this
+delightful bed, and after scrawling a letter home
+to go away by the eight o’clock post (I was glad
+I had remembered that), I had been left in peace
+at about half-past four. And here I was! I had
+had a cup of tea for breakfast, but did not want
+to eat anything.</p>
+
+<p>I wished I could go to sleep. Yet it was not
+much good now, if they were going to look at my
+arm at eleven. I opened my eyes whenever I was
+sure there was no one near me. Then I thought
+I might as well keep them open, otherwise they
+would think I had slept, and not know how tired
+out I felt. There was a man in the next bed with
+his head all bandaged; and round the bed in the
+corner was a screen. Opposite was an R.A.M.C.
+doctor, as far as I could gather; he was talking
+to the nurse, and looked perfectly well. I thought
+perhaps he might be the sort who would talk late
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">280</span>
+when I wanted to sleep—he looked so well and
+lively; suppose he had a gramophone and wanted
+to play it this afternoon. I should really have to
+complain, if he did. Yet perhaps they would understand,
+and make him give it up because of us who
+were not so well. On my right, up at the other
+end of the room (was it a “ward”? yes, I suppose
+it was) were several voices, but I could not turn
+over and look at their owners, with my arm like this.
+How it throbbed and pulsed! Or was it aching?
+Supposing I got pins and needles in it....</p>
+
+<p>A khaki-clad padre came in. He just came
+over and asked me if I wanted anything, and did
+not worry me with talking. He had a very quiet
+voice and bald head. I liked both. I felt I
+ought to have wanted something: had I been
+discourteous?</p>
+
+<p>The door opened, and the doctor entered, with
+another nurse and another doctor. Somehow this
+last person electrified everyone and everything. Who
+was he? His very walk was somehow different
+from the ordinary. My attention was riveted on
+him; somehow I felt that he knew I was there,
+and yet he did not look at me. They wheeled a
+little table up from the other end of the room,
+laden with glasses and bottles and glittering little
+silver forks and things. I could not see clearly.
+An orderly was reprimanded by the nurse for something,
+in a subdued voice. There was a hush and
+a tenseness in this man’s presence. Yet he was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">281</span>
+calmly looking at a newspaper, and sitting on an
+empty bed as he did so! Apparently Kitchener
+was reported drowned in the North Sea: he spoke
+in a rich, almost drawling voice. He was immensely
+casual! And yet one did not mind. He walked
+over and washed his hands, and put on some
+yellowy-brown india-rubber gloves that scrooped
+and squelched in the basins. And then he turned
+round, and the other doctor (whom I had seen at
+four o’clock and who already seemed a sort of
+confidential friend of mine in the presence of this
+master-man) asked him, which case he wanted to
+see first. And as he jerked his hand casually to
+one of the beds, I was filled with a strange elation.
+This was a surgeon, I felt; and one in whom I
+had immense confidence. He would do the best
+for my arm: he would make no mistakes. I almost
+laughed for sheer joy!</p>
+
+<p>He came at last to my bed and glanced at me.
+He never smiled. He asked me one or two questions.
+I said I was “? fracture,” that my arm was throbbing
+but felt numb more than anything.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose we may presume there is a fracture,”
+said he; “at any rate there is no point in looking
+at it here. I’ll look at it under an anæsthetic,”
+he said to me, not unkindly, but still without a
+smile. And a little later, as he went out, he half
+looked back at my bed.</p>
+
+<p>“Eleven o’clock,” he said to the nurse as he went
+out.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">282</span></p>
+
+<p>The tension relaxed. An orderly spoke in a bold
+ordinary voice. The spell was gone out with the
+man.</p>
+
+<p>“Who is that?” I asked the nurse.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! that’s Mr. Bevan; he’s a very good
+surgeon indeed.”</p>
+
+<p>“I know,” said I, “I can feel that.”</p>
+
+<p>About an hour later, two orderlies whom I had
+not seen before came in with a stretcher, and laid
+it on the floor by the bed. The tall nurse asked me
+if I had any false teeth, and said I had better put
+socks on, as my feet might get cold. The orderly
+did this, and then they helped me on to the stretcher.
+My head went back, and I felt a strain on my neck.
+The next second my head was lifted and a pillow
+put under it. And they had moved me without
+altering the position of my arm. I was surprised
+and pleased at that. Then a blanket was put over
+me, and one of the orderlies said “Ready?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” I said, but suddenly realised he was
+talking to the other orderly. I was lifted up, and
+carried across the room out into the courtyard.
+What a blazing sun! I closed my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Dump, dump, dump.” The stretcher seemed
+to bob along, with a regular rhythmic swaying.
+Then they turned a corner, and I felt a slight nausea.
+I opened my eyes. The stretcher was put on a
+table. I felt very high up.</p>
+
+<p>The matron-person appeared. She was older
+than the nurses, and had a chain with scissors
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">283</span>
+dangling on the end of it. She smiled, and asked
+what kind of a wound it was. Then the orderlies
+looked at each other, at some signal that I could
+not see, and lifted me up and into the next room.
+They held the stretcher up level with the operating
+table, and helped me on to it. I did some good
+right elbow-work and got on easily. As I did so,
+I saw Mr. Bevan sitting on a chair in his white
+overall, his gloved hands quietly folded in his lap.
+He said and did nothing. Again I felt immensely
+impressed by his competence, reserving every ounce
+of energy, waiting, until these less masterful beings
+had got everything ready.</p>
+
+<p>They took off the blanket, and moved things
+behind. Then they put the rubber cup over my
+mouth and nose.</p>
+
+<p>“Just breathe quite naturally,” said the doctor.
+I shut my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Just ordinary breaths. That is very good,”
+said the voice, quietly and reassuringly.</p>
+
+<p>I felt a sort of sweet shudder all down my body.
+I wanted to laugh. Then I let my body go a little.
+It was no good bracing myself.... I opened my
+right hand and shut it, just to show them I was
+not “off” yet ...</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The process of “coming to” was unpleasant and
+uninteresting. I do not think I distinguished myself
+by any originality, so will not attempt to
+describe it. That was a long interminable day,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">284</span>
+and my arm hurt a good deal. In the afternoon
+I was told that I should be pleased to hear that
+there was no bone broken. I was anything but
+pleased. I wanted the bone to be broken, as I
+wanted to go to “Blighty.” This worried me all
+day. I wondered if I should get to England or not.
+Then in the evening the sister (I found that the
+nurses should be called sisters) dressed the wound.
+That was distinctly unpleasant. It took hours and
+hours and hours before it began to get even twilight.
+I have never known so long a day. And then I
+could not sleep. They injected morphia at last,
+but I awoke after three or four hours feeling more
+tired than ever.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thursday</span></p>
+
+<p>I can hardly disentangle these days; night and
+day ran into one another. I can remember little
+about Thursday. I could not sleep however much
+I wanted to; and all the time my brain was working
+so hard, thinking. I worried about the company:
+they must be in the line now. Would
+Edwards remember this, and that? Had I left him
+the map, or was it among those maps in my valise
+which Lewis had gone to Morlancourt to fetch?</p>
+
+<p>And all the time there were rifle-grenades about;
+I daren’t let the buzzing come, because it was all
+rifle-grenades really; and always I kept seeing
+Lance-Corporal Allan lying there. Why could I
+not get rid of the picture of him? Yet I was afraid
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">285</span>
+I might forget; and it was important that I should
+remember....</p>
+
+<p>I remember the waiting to have my arm dressed.
+It was like waiting before the dentist takes up the
+drill again. I watched the man next to me out
+of the corner of my eye, and felt it intensely if he
+seemed to wince, or drew in his breath. And I
+remember in the morning Mr. Bevan dressed my
+wound. I looked the other way. For a week I
+thought the wound was above instead of just below
+the elbow. “This will hurt,” he said once.</p>
+
+<p>Some time in the day the man behind the screen
+died. I had heard him groaning all day; and there
+was the rhythmic sound of pumping—oxygen,
+I suppose.... I heard a lot of moving behind the
+screen, and at last it was taken away and I saw
+the corner for the first time and in it an empty
+bed with clean sheets.</p>
+
+<p>The man next to me, with the bandaged head,
+kept talking deliriously to the orderly about his
+being on a submarine. Once the orderly smiled at
+me as he answered the absurd questions.</p>
+
+<p>There was one good incident I remember. After
+the surgeon had dressed my arm, I said, “Is there
+any chance of this getting me to Blighty?” And
+I thought he did not hear; he was looking the
+other way. But suddenly I heard that calm
+deliberate voice:</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, that is a Blighty one. There is enough
+damage to those muscles to keep you in Blighty
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">286</span>
+several months.” And this made all the rest bearable
+somehow.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Friday</span></p>
+
+<p>Again the only sleep I could get was by morphia.
+In the morning they told me I should go by a
+hospital train leaving at three o’clock. I scrawled
+a note or two and gave them to Lewis, and instructed
+him about my kit. I believe they made
+an inventory of it. I gave him some maps for
+Edwards. And then he said good-bye. And I
+thought of him going back, and I going to England.
+And I felt ashamed of myself again. I wondered
+if the Colonel was annoyed with me.</p>
+
+<p>They gave me gas in the morning. It seemed
+such a bother going through all that again: it was
+not worth trying to get better. Still I was glad,
+it was one dressing less! Then in the afternoon
+I was carried on a stretcher to the train. I hardly
+saw anyone to say good-bye to. I thought of
+writing later.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed an interminable journey. By some
+mistake I had been put in with the Tommies.
+There was no difference in the structure or comfort
+of the officers’ or Tommies’ quarters; but I knew
+they were taking me wrong. However, I was
+entirely passive, and did not mind what they did.
+The carriage had a corridor all the way down the
+centre, and on each side was a succession of berths
+in three tiers. On the top tier you must have felt
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">287</span>
+very high and close up to the roof; on the centre
+one you got a good view out of the windows;
+on the third and lowest tier (which was my lot)
+you felt that if there were an accident, you would
+not have far to roll; on the other hand, you were
+out of view of orderlies passing along the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>A great thirst consumed me as I lay waiting. I
+could see two orderlies in the space by the door
+cutting up large pieces of bread and butter. This
+made my mouth still drier. Then they brought
+in cans of hot tea, and gave it out in white enamel
+bowls. I longed for the sting of the tea on my dry
+palate, but the orderly was startled when I said,
+“I suppose this is all right; I am an officer.” He
+said he would tell them, and gave the bowl to the
+next man. The bowls were taken away and washed
+up, before a cup of tea was at last brought me.
+A corporal brought it; he poured it out of a little
+teapot; but I could not drink it out of a cup. My
+left arm lay like a log beside me, and I could not
+hold my right arm steady <i>and</i> raise my head. So
+the corporal went off for a feeding cup. I felt
+rather nervy and like a man with a grievance!
+And when I got the tea it was nearly cold.</p>
+
+<p>I say it seemed an interminable journey, and
+my arm was so frightfully uncomfortable. I had
+it across my body, and felt I could not breathe
+for the weight of it. At last I felt I <i>must</i> get its
+position altered. I called “orderly” every time
+an orderly went past: sometimes they paused and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">288</span>
+looked round; but they could not see me, and
+went on. Sometimes they did not hear anything.
+I felt as self-conscious and irritated as a man who
+calls “waiter” and the waiter does not hear. At
+last one heard, and a sister came and fixed me up
+with a small pillow under the elbow. I immediately
+felt apologetic, and I wondered if she thought me
+fussy.</p>
+
+<p>The train made a long, slow grind over the rails;
+and it kept stopping with a griding sound and a
+jolt. Why did it go so slowly? At ten o’clock
+I begged and obtained another morphia dose, and
+got four hours’ sleep from it again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Saturday</span></p>
+
+<p>I suppose it was about 7.0 a.m. when we arrived
+at Étretat. I was taken and laid in the middle of
+rows and rows of Tommies in a big sunny courtyard.
+I thought how well the bearers carried the stretchers:
+I did not at all feel that I was likely to be dropped
+or tilted off on to my arm. There were a lot of
+men in blue hospital dress on the steps of a big
+house. I wondered where I was: in Havre probably.
+It was a queer sensation lying on my back
+gazing up at the sun; we were tightly packed in
+together, like cards laid in order, face upwards.
+How high everyone looked standing up. Then they
+discovered one or two officers, and I said that I
+too was an officer. I felt that they rather dared
+me to repeat this statement. Then a man looked
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">289</span>
+at my label, and said: “Yes, he is an officer.”
+And I was taken up and carried off.</p>
+
+<p>I found myself put to bed in a spacious room
+in which were only two beds. The house had only
+recently been finished, and was in use as a hospital.
+As soon as I was in bed, I felt a great relief again.
+No more motion for a time, I thought. There was
+a man in the other bed, threatened with consumption.
+We were talking, when a pretty V.A.D.
+nurse came in and asked what we wanted for breakfast.
+I felt quite hungry, and enjoyed tea and fish.
+I began to think that life was going to be good.
+I saw Cecil Todd, who had been slightly wounded
+a fortnight ago. I condoled with him on not getting
+to England. He asked me if I wanted to read.
+No, I did not feel like reading. I wrote a letter.
+Then two V.A.D. nurses came and dressed my
+wound. They seemed surprised to find so big a
+one, and sent for the doctor to see it. They
+dressed it very well, and gave me no unnecessary
+pain.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon, I was again moved to a motor
+ambulance, which took me to Havre. It jolted
+and shook horribly. “This man does not know
+what it is like up here,” I thought. All the time
+I was straining my body to keep the left arm from
+touching the jolting stretcher. (The stretchers slide
+in the ambulance.) I was a top-berth passenger;
+I could touch the white roof with my right hand;
+and there was a stuffy smell of white paint.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">290</span></p>
+
+<p>At last it stopped, and after a wait I was carried
+amid a sea of heads, along a quay. I could smell
+sea and the stale oily smell of a steamer. Then I
+was taken over the gangway with that firm, steady,
+nodding motion with which I was getting so
+familiar, along the deck, through doorways, and
+into a big room, all green and white. All round the
+edge were beds, into one of which I was helped.
+In the centre of the room were beds that somehow
+reminded me of cots. I dare say there was a low
+railing round the beds that gave me this impression.
+A Scotch nurse looked after me. These
+nurses were all in grey and red; the others had
+been in blue. I wondered what was the difference.
+I asked the name of the ship and they said it was
+the <i>Asturias</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Later on a steward brought a menu, and I chose
+my own dinner. Apparently I could eat what I
+liked. The doctor looked at my wound, and said
+it could wait until morning before being dressed;
+he pleased me. I was more comfortable than I
+had been yet. The boat was not due out till about
+1.0 a.m. At eleven o’clock I again asked for
+morphia, and so got sleep for another four hours
+or so.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sunday</span></p>
+
+<p>“I represent Messrs. Cox and Co. Is there anything
+I can do for any of you gentlemen this
+morning?”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">291</span></p>
+
+<p>A short, squarely built man, with a black suit, a
+bowler hat, and a small brown bag, stepped briskly
+into the room. He gave me intense pleasure: as
+he talked to a Scotch officer who wanted some
+ready cash, I felt that I was indeed back in England.
+It was a hot sunny day; and a bowler hat on such
+a day made me feel sure that this was <i>really</i>
+Southampton, and not all a dream. Sir, whoever
+you are, I thank you for your most appropriate
+appearance.</p>
+
+<p>The hospital ship had been alongside nearly an
+hour, I believe. It was three o’clock in the afternoon.
+Breakfast, the dressing of my wound again,
+lunch; all had followed in an uneventful succession.
+The throbbing of the engines as the boat steamed
+quietly along had been hardly noticeable at all.
+At last there was a bustle, and we were carried
+out of the room, out into the sunshine again, and
+along the quay to the train. Here I was given a
+berth in the middle tier this time, for which I was
+very thankful. I felt so utterly tired; and the
+weight of my arm across my body was intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>That seemed a long, long journey too; but I got
+tea without delay this time, and it was hot. At
+Farnborough the train stopped and a few men were
+taken out. The rest came on to London.</p>
+
+<p>“Is there any special hospital in London you
+want to go to?” said a brisk R.A.M.C. official,
+when we reached Waterloo.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” I answered.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">292</span></p>
+
+<p>He wrote on a label, and put that round my
+neck also.</p>
+
+<p>“Lady Carnarvon’s,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>I lay for some time on the platform of Waterloo
+station, gazing up at the vault in the roof. Porters
+and stretcher-bearers stood about, and gazed down
+at one in silence. Then I was moved into a motor
+ambulance, and a Red Cross lady took her seat
+in the back. My head was in the front, so that I
+could see nothing. Just before the car went off,
+a policeman put his head in.</p>
+
+<p>“Any milk or anything?”</p>
+
+<p>“Would you like any milk or beef tea?” the
+lady said.</p>
+
+<p>“Milk, please.”</p>
+
+<p>“He says he would like a little milk,” said the
+lady.</p>
+
+<p>And then we drove off.</p>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Monday</span></h3>
+
+<p>It was somewhere about ten o’clock Monday
+morning. The sister had just finished dressing my
+arm; the doctor had poked it about; now it lay
+cool and quiet along by my side. I had not slept
+that night again, except with morphia. I still
+felt extraordinarily tired, but was very comfortable.
+I watched the tall sister in blue with the white
+headdress that reminded me of a nun’s cap. She
+was so strong and quiet, and seemed to know that
+my hand always wanted support at the wrist when
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">293</span>
+she lifted my arm. I did not want to talk, just to
+lie.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I realised that my head was no longer
+buzzing. I knew that I should sleep to-night—at
+last! My body relaxed: the tension suddenly
+melted away.</p>
+
+<p>“Hurrah!” I thought, “I have not got to move,
+or think, or decide—and I can just lie for hours,
+for days.”</p>
+
+<p>At last I was out of the grip of war.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">294</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII<br />
+
+CONCLUSION</h2>
+
+<p class="drop"><span class="uppercase">It</span> was a slumbrous afternoon in September. My
+wound had healed up a month ago, and I was
+lazily convalescent at my aunt’s house in one of
+the most beautiful parts of Kent. The six soldiers
+who were also convalescent there were down in the
+hop-garden. For hop-picking was in full swing. I
+was sitting in a deck-chair with <i>Don Quixote</i> on my
+knees; but I was not reading. I had apparently
+broken the offensive power of the army of midges
+by making a brilliant counter-attack with a pipe of
+Chairman. The sun blazed mercilessly on the
+croquet-lawn; the balls were lying all together
+round one hoop: for there was a golf-croquet
+tournament in progress, and the mallets stood about
+against various hoops; one very tidy and proper
+mallet was standing primly in the stand at one
+corner. My chair was well sited under the cool
+shade of a large mulberry tree, in whose thick lofty
+branches the wind rustled with a delicious little sigh;
+sometimes a regular little gust would send the
+boughs swishing, and then a little rain of red and
+white mulberries would plop on to the grass, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">295</span>
+strike the summer-house roof with a smart patter.
+On the grass-bank at the side of the lawn, by a
+blazing border of orange and red nasturtiums, a
+black cat was squatting with tail slowly waving to
+and fro, watching a fine large tabby that was sniffing
+at the nasturtiums in a nonchalant manner. They
+were the best of friends, playing that most interesting
+of all games, war.</p>
+
+<p>I was not reading: I was listening to the incessant
+murmur that came from far away across the
+Medway, across the garden of England, and across
+the Channel and the flats of Flanders. That sound
+came from Picardy. All day the insistent throb had
+been in the air; sometimes faint bumps were clearly
+distinguishable, at other times it was nothing but
+one steady vibration. But always it was there,
+that distant growl, that insistent mutter. Even in
+this perfect peace, I could not escape the War.</p>
+
+<p>To-day I felt completely well; the lassitude and
+inertness of convalescence were gone—at any rate,
+for the moment. My mind was very clear, and I
+could think surely and rapidly. The cats reminded
+me of the lusty family that lived in the cellar in the
+Cuinchy trenches, and the murmur of the guns drew
+my thoughts across the Channel. I tried to imagine
+trenches running across the lawn, with communication
+trenches running back to a support line through
+the meadow; a few feet of brick wall would be all
+that would be left of the house, and this would
+conceal my snipers; the mulberry tree would long
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">296</span>
+ago have been razed to the ground, and every scrap
+of it used as firewood in our dug-outs; this deck
+chair of mine might possibly be in use in Company
+Headquarters in one of the cellars. No, it was not
+easy to imagine war without seeing it.</p>
+
+<p>I picked up the paper that had fallen at my side.
+There had been more terrible fighting on the Somme,
+and it had seemed very marvellous to a journalist
+as he lay on a hill some two miles back, and watched
+through his field-glasses: it was wonderful that the
+men advancing (if indeed he could really see them
+at all in the smoke of a heavy artillery barrage) still
+went on, although their comrades dropped all round
+them. Yet I wondered what else anyone could do
+but go on? Run back, with just as much likelihood
+of being shot in doing so? Or, even if he did get
+back, to certain death as a deserter? Everyone
+knows the safest place is in a trench; and it is a
+trench you are making for. Lower down on the page
+came a description of the wounded; he had talked
+to so many of them, and they were all smiling, all so
+cheerful; smoking cigarettes and laughing. They
+shook their fists, and shouted that the only thing
+they wanted to do was to get back into it! Pah!
+I threw the paper down in disgust. Surely no one
+wants to read such stuff, I thought. Of course the
+men who were not silent, in a dull stupefied agony,
+were smiling: what need to say that a man with a
+slight wound was laughing at his luck, just as I had
+smiled that early morning when the trolley took me
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">297</span>
+down from Maple Redoubt? And who does not
+volunteer for an unpleasant task, when he knows he
+cannot possibly get it? Want to get back into it,
+indeed! Ask Tommy ten years hence whether he
+wants to be back in the middle of it again!</p>
+
+<p>I wondered why people endured such cheap
+journalism. What right had men who have never
+seen war at all, who creep up on bicycles to get a
+glimpse of it through telescopes, who pester wounded
+men, and then out of their pictorial imagination
+work up a vivid description—what right have they
+to insult heroes by saying that “their wonderful
+spirit makes up for it all,” that “the paramount
+impression is one of glory”? Are not our people
+able to bear the truth, that war is utterly hellish,
+that we do <i>not</i> enjoy it, that we hate it, hate it, hate
+it all? And then it struck me how ignorant people
+still were; how uncertainly they spoke, these people
+at home: it was as though they dared not think
+things out, lest what they held most dear should be
+an image shattered by another point of view.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow people were amazed at the cheerfulness,
+the doggedness, the endurance under pain, the indifference
+to death, shown every minute during this
+war. I thought of the men whom I had seen in
+hospital. One man had had his right foot amputated;
+it used to give me agony to see his stump
+dressed every day. Another man had both legs
+amputated above the knees. Yet they were so
+wonderfully cheerful, so apparently content with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">298</span>
+life! As though alone in the blackness of night they
+did not long for the activity denied them for the
+rest of their life. As though their cheerfulness—(do
+not think I belittle its heroism)—<i>as though their
+cheerfulness justified the thing</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Another thing I had noticed. An old man told
+me he was so struck with the heroism, the courage,
+the indifference to death, shown by the ordinary unromantic
+man. Some men had been converted, too,
+their whole lives changed, their vices eradicated, by
+this war. So much good was coming from it.
+People, too, at home were so changed, so sobered;
+they were looking into the selfishness of their lives
+at last. Again I thought, <i>as though all that justified
+the thing</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Oh! you men and women who did not know
+before the capabilities of human nature, I thought,
+please take note of it now; and after the war do not
+underestimate the quality of mankind. Did it need
+a war to tell you that a man can be heroic, resolute,
+courageous, cheerful, and capable of sacrifice?
+There were those who could have told you that
+before this war.</p>
+
+<p>There was a lull in the vibration. I turned in my
+chair, and listened. Then it began again.</p>
+
+<p>“People are afraid to think it out,” I said. “I
+have not seen the Somme fighting, but I know what
+war is. Its quality is not altered by multiplication
+or intensity. The colour of life-blood is a constant
+red. Let us look into this business; let us face all
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">299</span>
+the facts. Let us not flinch from any aspect of the
+truth.”</p>
+
+<p>And my thoughts ran somewhat as follows:</p>
+
+<p>First of all, War is evil—utterly evil. Let us be
+sure of that first. It is an evil instrument, even if it
+be used for motives that are good. I, who have been
+through war and know it, say that it is evil. I knew
+it before the war; instinct, reason, religion told me
+that war was evil; now experience has told me
+also.</p>
+
+<p>It is a strange synthesis, this war: it is a synthesis
+of adventure, dulness, good spirits, and
+tragedy; but none of these things are new to human
+experience; nor is human nature altered by war.
+It is at war as a whole that we must look in order to
+appreciate its quality. And what is war seen as a
+whole, or rather seen in the light of my eight months’
+experience? For no one man can truly appraise
+war.</p>
+
+<p>I have seen and felt the adventure of war, its
+deadly fascination and excitement: it is the greatest
+game on earth: that is its terrible power: there is
+such a wild temptation to paint up its interest and
+glamour: it gives such scope to daring, to physical
+courage, to high spirits: it makes so many prove
+themselves heroic, that were it not for the fall of the
+arrow men would call the drawing of the bow good.
+I have seen the dulness, the endless monotony, the
+dogged labour, the sheer power of will conquering
+the body and “carrying on”: there is good in that,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">300</span>
+too. In the jollity, the humour, the good-fellowship,
+is nothing but good also. There is good in all these
+things; for these are qualities of human nature
+triumphing in spite of war. These things are not
+war; they are the good in man prostituted to a vile
+thing.</p>
+
+<p>For I have seen the real face of war: I have seen
+men killed, mutilated, blown to little pieces; I have
+seen men crippled for life; I have looked in the face
+of madness, and I know that many have gone
+mad under its grip. I have seen fine natures break
+and crumble under the strain. I have seen men
+grow brutalised, and coarsened in this war. (God
+will judge justly in the end; meanwhile, there are
+thousands among us—yes, and among our enemy
+too—brutalised through no fault of theirs.) I have
+lost friends killed (and shall lose more yet), friends
+with whom I have lived and suffered so long.</p>
+
+<p>Who is for war now? Its adventure, its heroism?
+Bah! Yet this is not all.</p>
+
+<p>For war spares none. It desecrates the beauty of
+the earth; it ruins, it destroys, it wastes; it starves
+children; it drives out old men, and women, homeless.
+And most terrible of all, it brings agony to every
+household: it is like a plague of the firstborn. Do not
+think I have forgotten you, O women, and old men.
+You, too, have to endure the agony of the arena; you
+are compelled to sit and watch us fight the beasts.
+Every mother is there in agony, watching her baby,
+and unable to stretch a finger to help. This, too, is
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">301</span>
+war—the anguish of mothers whose sons perish,
+of wives who lose their husbands, of girls robbed for
+all time of marriage and motherhood.</p>
+
+<p>And this vile thing is still perpetrated upon the
+earth among peoples who have long ago declared
+human sacrifice impossible and barbaric.</p>
+
+<p>This then is a basal fact. We have faced it fairly.
+The instrument is vile. What then of the motive?
+What is the motive which drives us to use this evil
+instrument? And I see you fathers and mothers
+waiting to hear what I shall say. For there are
+people who whisper that we who are fighting are
+vindictive, that we lust for the blood of our enemies,
+that we are coarse and brutal, that we are unholy
+champions of what we call a just cause. Again let
+us face the facts. And to these whisperers I answer
+boldly: “Yes! we are coarse, some of us; we are
+vindictive; we hate; we do not deny it.” For war
+in its vileness taints its human instruments too.
+When Davidson died I cried death upon his murderers.
+I called them devils, and worse. I am not
+ashamed.</p>
+
+<p>That is not the point. What I or Tommy may be
+at a given moment is not the point. The question is,
+with what motives did we enter this war, agree to
+take up this vile instrument? We cannot help if
+it soils our hands. What is our motive in fighting
+in the arena? What provokes the dumb heroism
+of our soldiers? Why did men flock to the colours,
+volunteer in millions for the arena? You know.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">302</span>
+I who have lived with them eight months in France,
+I also know. It was because a people took up this
+vile instrument and used it from desire of power.
+Because they trampled on justice, and challenged
+us to thwart them. Because they willed war for the
+sake of wrong; because they said that force was
+master of the world, and they set out to prove it.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, it is sometimes said, war is unchristian. If
+men were Christian there would be no war. You
+cannot conquer evil by evil. I agree, if men were
+Christian there would be no war. I agree that you
+cannot conquer evil by evil; but it is war that is
+evil, not our motive in going to war. We are conquering
+an evil spirit by a good spirit, even if we are
+using an evil instrument. And if you say that
+Christ would not fight, I say that none of us would
+fight if the world had attained the Christian plane
+towards which we are slowly rising: but we are still
+on a lower plane, and in it there is a big war raging;
+and in the arena there are many who have felt Christ
+by their side.</p>
+
+<p>That, then, is the second point. I knew that war
+was vile, before I went into it. I have seen it: I do
+not alter my opinion. I went into this war prepared
+to sacrifice my life to prove that right is stronger
+than wrong; I have stood again and again with a
+traverse between me and death; I have faced the
+possibility of madness. I foresaw all this before I
+went into this war. What difference does it make
+that I have experienced it? It makes no difference.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">303</span>
+Let no one fear that our sacrifice has been in vain.
+We have already won what we are fighting for. The
+will for war, that aggressive power, with all the cards
+on its side prepared, striking at its own moment,
+has already failed against a spirit, weaker, unprepared,
+taken unawares. And so I am clear on
+my second point. We are fighting from just motives,
+and we have already baulked injustice. Aggressive
+force, the power that took up the cruel weapon of
+war, has failed. No one can ever say that his
+countrymen have laid down their lives in vain.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I got up from the chair, and started walking about
+the garden. Everything was so clear. Before going
+out to the war I had thought these things; but the
+thoughts were fluid, they ran about in mazy patterns,
+they were elusive, and always I was frightened
+of meeting unanswerable contradictions to my
+theorising from men who had actually seen war.
+Now my conclusions seemed crystallised by irrefutable
+experience into solid truth.</p>
+
+<p>After a while I sat down again and resumed my
+train of thought:</p>
+
+<p>War is evil. Justice is stronger than Force. Yet,
+was there need of all this bloodshed to prove this?
+For this war is not as past wars; this is every man’s
+war, a war of civilians, a war of men who hate war,
+of men who fight for a cause, who are compelled to
+kill and hate it. That is another thing that people
+will not face. Men whisper that Tommy does not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">304</span>
+hate Fritz. Again I say, away with this whispering.
+Let us speak it out plain and bold. Private Davies,
+my orderly, formerly a shepherd of Blaenau Festiniog,
+has no quarrel with one Fritz Schneider of
+Hamburg who is sitting in the trench opposite the
+Matterhorn sap; yet he will bayonet him certainly
+if he comes over the top, or if we go over into the
+German trenches; ay, he will perform this action
+with a certain amount of brutality too, for I have
+watched him jabbing at rats with a bayonet through
+the wires of a rat trap, and I know that he has in him
+a savage vein of cruelty. But when peace is declared,
+he and Fritz will light a bonfire of trench stores in
+No Man’s Land, and there will be the end of their
+quarrel. I say boldly, I know. For indeed I know
+Davies very well indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Again I say, was there need of all this bloodshed?
+Who is responsible? Who is responsible for Lance-Corporal
+Allan lying in the trench in Maple Redoubt?
+Again I see yon glittering eyes looking down upon
+me in the arena. And Davies, too, in his slow simple
+way, is beginning to take you in, and to ask you why
+he is put there to fight? Is it for your pleasure?
+Is it for your expediency? Is it a necessary part of
+your great game? Necessary? Necessary for
+whom? Davies and Fritz alike are awaiting your
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>It is hard to trace ultimate causes. It is hard to
+fix absolute responsibility. There were many seeds
+sown, scattered, and secretly fostered before they
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">305</span>
+produced this harvest of blood. The seeds of
+cruelty, selfishness, ambition, avarice, and indifference,
+are always liable to swell, grow, and bud,
+and blossom suddenly into the red flower of war.
+Let every man look into his heart, and if the
+seeds are there let him make quick to root them
+out while there is time; unless he wishes to join
+those glittering eyes that look down upon the
+arena.</p>
+
+<p>These are the seeds of war. And it is because
+they know that we, too, are not free from them,
+that certain men have stood out from the arena as
+a protest against war. These men are real heroes,
+who for their conscience’s sake are enduring taunts,
+ignominy, misunderstanding, and worse. Most men
+and women in the arena are cursing them, and, as they
+struggle in agony and anguish, they beat their hands
+at them and cry “You do not care.” I, too, have
+cursed them, when I was mad with pain. But I
+know them, and I know that they are true men. I
+would not have one less. They are witnesses against
+war. And I, too, am fighting war. Men do not
+understand them now, but one day they will.</p>
+
+<p>I know that there are among us, too, the seeds of
+war: no cause has yet been perfect. But I look at
+the facts. We did not start, we did not want this
+war. We have gone into it, fighting for the better
+cause. Whether, had we been more Christian, we
+might have prevented the war, is not the point. We
+did not want this war: we are fighting against it.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">306</span>
+It was the seeds of war in Germany that were
+responsible. And so history will judge.</p>
+
+<p>But what of the future? How are we to save
+future generations from going down into the arena?
+We will rearrange the map of Europe: we will
+secure the independence of small states: we will
+give the power to the people: there shall be an end
+of tyrannies. So men speak easily of an international
+spirit, of a world conference for peace.
+There is so great a will-power against war, they say,
+that we will secure the world for the future. Millions
+of men know the vileness of war; they will devise
+ways and means to prevent its recurrence. I agree.
+Let us try all ways. Yet I see no guarantee in all
+this against the glittering eyes: I see no power in
+all this knowledge against a new generation fostering
+and harvesting the seeds of war. Men have long
+known that war is evil. Did that knowledge prevent
+this war? Will that knowledge secure India or
+China from the power of the glittering eyes?</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I walked up and down the lawn, my eyes glowing,
+my brain working hard. Here around me was all
+the beauty of an old garden, its long borders full of
+phloxes, delphiniums, stocks, and all the old familiar
+flowers; the apples glowed red in the trees; the
+swallows were skimming across the lawn. In the
+distance I could hear the rumble of the waggon
+bringing up the afternoon load of hop-pokes to the
+oasthouse. Yet what I had seen of war was as true,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">307</span>
+had as really happened, as all this. It would be so
+easy to forget, after the war. And yet to forget
+might mean a seed of war. I must never forget
+Lance-Corporal Allan.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>There is only one sure way, I said at last. And
+again a clear conviction filled me. There is only one
+way to put an end to the arena. Pledges and treaties
+have failed; and force will fail. These things may
+bring peace for a time, but they cannot crush those
+glittering eyes. There is only one Man whose eyes
+have never glittered. Look at the palms of your
+hands, you, who have had a bullet through the
+middle of it! Did they not give you morphia to
+ease the pain? And did you not often cry out alone
+in the darkness in the terrible agony, that you did
+not care who won the war if only the pain would
+cease? Yet one Man there was who held out His
+hand upon the wood, while they knocked, knocked,
+knocked in the nail, every knock bringing a jarring,
+excruciating pain, every bit as bad as yours. And
+any moment His will-power could have weakened,
+and He could have saved Himself that awful pain.
+And then they nailed through the other hand: and
+then the feet. And as they lifted the Cross, all the
+weight came upon the pierced hands. And when
+He had tasted the vinegar He would not drink.
+And any moment He could have come down from
+the Cross: yet He so cared that love should win the
+war against evil, that He never wavered, His eyes
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">308</span>
+never glittered. Do you want to put an end to the
+arena? Here is a Man to follow. <i>In hoc signo
+vinces.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I stood up again, and stretched out my hands.
+And as I did so a memory came back vivid and
+strong. I remembered the night when I stood out
+on the hillside by Trafalgar Square, under the moon.
+And I remembered how I had felt a strength out of
+the pain, and even as the strength came a more unutterable
+weakness, the weakness of a man battering
+against a wall of steel. The sound of the relentless
+guns had mocked at me. Now as I stood on the
+lawn, I heard the long continuous vibration of the
+guns upon the Somme.</p>
+
+<p>“You are War,” I said aloud. “This is your
+hour, the power of darkness. But the time will come
+when we shall follow the Man who has conquered
+your last weapon, death: and then your walls of
+steel will waver, cringe, and fall, melted away before
+the fire of LOVE.”</p>
+
+<p class="copy">PRINTED BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
+PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND</p>
+
+<div class="transnote">
+
+<h3>Transcriber’s Note:</h3>
+
+<p>Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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