Bullets & Billets

By
Bruce Bairnsfather
 Bullets & Billets
CHAPTER I
LANDING AT HAVRE—TORTONI'S—FOLLOW
THE TRAM LINES—ORDERS FOR THE FRONT
Gliding up the Seine, on a transport crammed to the lid with troops, in the
still, cold hours of a November morning, was my debut into the war. It was
about 6 a.m. when our boat silently slipped along past the great wooden
sheds, posts and complications of Havre Harbour. I had spent most of the
twelve-hour trip down somewhere in the depths of the ship, dealing out
rations to the hundred men that I had brought with me from Plymouth.
This sounds a comparatively simple process, but not a bit of it. To begin
with, the ship was filled with troops to bursting point, and the mere matter
of proceeding from one deck to another was about as difficult as trying to
get round to see a friend at the other side of the ground at a Crystal Palace
Cup final.
I stood in a queue of Gordons, Seaforths, Worcesters, etc., slowly moving
up one, until, finally arriving at the companion (nearly said staircase), I
tobogganed down into the hold, and spent what was left of the night
dealing out those rations. Having finished at last, I came to the surface
again, and now, as the transport glided along through the dirty waters of
the river, and as I gazed at the motley collection of Frenchmen on the
various wharves, and saw a variety of soldiery, and a host of other warlike
"props," I felt acutely that now I was in the war at last—the real thing! For
some time I had been rehearsing in England; but that was over now, and
here I was—in the common or garden vernacular—"in the soup."
At last we were alongside, and in due course I had collected that hundred
men of mine, and found that the number was still a hundred, after which I
landed with the rest, received instructions and a guide, then started off for
the Base Camps.
These Camps were about three miles out of Havre, and thither the whole
contents of the ship marched in one long column, accompanied on either
side by a crowd of ragged little boys shouting for souvenirs and biscuits. I
and my hundred men were near the rear of the procession, and in about an
hour's time arrived at the Base Camps.
I don't know that it is possible to construct anything more atrociously
hideous or uninteresting than a Base Camp. It consists, in military parlance,
of nothing more than:—
Fields, grassless 1
Tents, bell 500
In fact, a huge space, once a field, now a bog, on which are perched rows
and rows of squalid tents.
I stumbled along over the mud with my troupe, and having found the
Adjutant, after a considerable search, thought that my task was over, and
that I could slink off into some odd tent or other and get a sleep and a rest.
Oh no!—the Adjutant had only expected fifty men, and here was I with a
hundred.
Consternation! Two hours' telephoning and intricate back-chat with the
Adjutant eventually led to my being ordered to leave the expected fifty and
take the others to another Base Camp hard by, and see if they would like to
have them there.
The rival Base Camp expressed a willingness to have this other fifty, so at
last I had finished, and having found an empty tent, lay down on the
ground, with my greatcoat for a pillow and went to sleep.
I awoke at about three in the afternoon, got hold of a bucket of water and
proceeded to have a wash. Having shaved, washed, brushed my hair, and
had a look at the general effect in the polished back of my cigarette case (all
my kit was still at the docks), I emerged from my canvas cave and started
off to have a look round.
I soon discovered a small café down the road, and found it was a place
used by several of the officers who, like myself, were temporarily dumped
at the Camps. I went in and got something to eat. Quite a good little place
upstairs there was, where one could get breakfast each morning: just coffee,
eggs, and bread sort of thing. By great luck I met a pal of mine here; he had
come over in a boat previous to mine, and after we had had a bit of a
refresher and a smoke we decided to go off down to Havre and see the
sights.
A tram passed along in front of this café, and this we boarded. It took
about half an hour getting down to Havre from Bléville where the Camps
were, but it was worth it.
Tortoni's Café, a place that we looked upon as the last link with
civilization: Tortoni's, with its blaze of light, looking-glass and gold paint—
its popping corks and hurrying waiters—made a deep and pleasant indent
on one's mind, for "to-morrow" meant "the Front" for most of those who sat
there.
As we sat in the midst of that kaleidoscopic picture, formed of French,
Belgian and English uniforms, intermingled with the varied and gaudy
robes of the local nymphs; as we mused in the midst of dense clouds of
tobacco smoke, we could not help reflecting that this might be the last time
we should look on such scenes of revelry, and came to the conclusion that
the only thing to do was to make the most of it while we had the chance.
And, by Gad, we did....
A little after midnight I parted from my companion and started off to get
back to that Base Camp of mine.
Standing in the main square of the town, I realized a few points which
tended to take the edge off the success of the evening:
No. 1.—It was too late to get a tram.
No. 2.—All the taxis had disappeared.
No. 3.—It was pouring with rain.
No. 4.—I had three miles to go.
I started off to walk it—but had I known what that walk was going to be, I
would have buttoned myself round a lamp-post and stayed where I was.
I made that fatal mistake of thinking that I knew the way.
Leaning at an angle of forty-five degrees against the driving rain, I
staggered along the tram lines past the Casino, and feeling convinced that
the tram lines must be correct, determined to follow them.
After about half an hour's walk, mostly uphill, I became rather suspicious
as to the road being quite right.
Seeing a sentry-box outside a palatial edifice on the right, I tacked across
the road and looked for the sentry.
A lurid thing in gendarmes advanced upon me, and I let off one of my
curtailed French sentences at him:
"Pour Bléville, Monsieur?"
I can't give his answer in French, but being interpreted I think it meant that
I was completely on the wrong road, and that he wasn't certain as to how I
could ever get back on it without returning to Havre and starting again.
He produced an envelope, made an unintelligible sketch on the back of it,
and started me off again down the way I had come.
I realized what my mistake had been. There was evidently a branch tram
line, which I had followed, and this I thought could only have branched off
near the Casino, so back I went to the Casino and started again.
I was right about the branch line, and started merrily off again, taking as I
thought the main line to Bléville.
After another half-hour of this, with eyes feverishly searching for
recognizable landmarks, I again began to have doubts as to the veracity of
the tram lines. However, pretending that I placed their honesty beyond all
doubt, I plodded on; but round a corner, found the outlook so unfamiliar
that I determined to ask again. Not a soul about. Presently I discovered a
small house, standing back off the road and showing a thin slit of light
above the shutters of a downstairs window. I tapped on the glass. A sound
as of someone hurriedly trying to hide a pile of coverless umbrellas in a
cupboard was followed by the opening of the window, and a bristling head
was silhouetted against the light.
I squeezed out the same old sentence:
"Pour Bléville, Monsieur?"
A fearful cataract of unintelligible words burst from the head, but left me
almost as much in the dark as ever, though with a faint glimmering that I
was "warmer." I felt that if I went back about a mile and turned to the left,
all would be well.
I thanked the gollywog in the window, who, somehow or other, I think
must have been a printer working late, and started off once more.
After another hour's route march I came to some scattered houses, and
finally to a village. I was indignantly staring at a house when suddenly,
joy!—I realized that what I was looking at was an unfamiliar view of the
café where I had breakfasted earlier in the day.
Another ten minutes and I reached the Camp. Time now 2.30 a.m. I
thought I would just take a look in at the Orderly Room tent to see if there
were any orders in for me. It was lucky I did. Inside I found an orderly
asleep in a blanket, and woke him.
"Anything in for me?" I asked. "Bairnsfather's my name."
"Yes, sir, there is," came through the blanket, and getting up he went to the
table at the other end of the tent. He sleepily handed me the wire:
"Lieutenant Bairnsfather to proceed to join his battalion as machine-gun
officer...."
"What time do I have to push off?" I inquired.
"By the eight o'clock from Havre to-morrow, sir."
Time now 3 a.m. To-morrow—THE FRONT! And then I crept into my tent
and tried to sleep.
 CHAPTER II
TORTUOUS TRAVELLING—CLIPPERS AND
TABLETS—DUMPED AT A SIDING—I JOIN
MY BATTALION
Not much sleep that night, a sort of feverish coma instead: wild dreams in
which I and the gendarme were attacking a German trench, the officer in
charge of which we found to be the Base Camp Adjutant after all.
However, I got up early—packed my few belongings in my valise, which
had mysteriously turned up from the docks, and went off on the tram
down to Havre. That hundred men I had brought over had nothing to do
with me now. I was entirely on my own, and was off to the Front to join my
battalion. Down at Havre the officials at the station gave me a complicated
yellow diagram, known as a travelling pass, and I got into a carriage in the
train bound for Rouen.
I was not alone now; a whole forest of second lieutenants like myself were
in the same train, and with them a solid, congealed mass of valises, packs,
revolvers and haversacks. At last the train started, and after the usual hour
spent in feeling that you have left all the most important things behind, I
settled down on a mound of equipment and tried to do a bit of a sleep.
So what with sleeping, smoking and talking, we jolted along until we
pulled up at Rouen. Here I had to leave the train, for some obscure reason,
in order to go to the Palais de Justice to get another ticket. I padded off
down over the bridge into Rouen, found the Palais, went in and was shown
along to an office that dealt in tickets.
In this dark and dingy oak-panelled saloon, illuminated by electric light
and the glittering reflections from gold braid, there lurked a general or two.
I was here given another pass entitling me to be deposited at a certain
siding in Flanders.
Back I went to the station, and in due course rattled off in the train again
towards the North.
A fearfully long journey we had, up to the Front! The worst of it was that
nobody knew—or, if they did, wouldn't tell you—which way you were
going, or how long it would take to get to your destination. For instance,
we didn't know we were going to Rouen till we got there; and we didn't
know we were going from Rouen to Boulogne until, after a night spent in
the train, the whole outfit jolted and jangled into the Gare de Something,
down by the wharf at that salubrious seaport.
We spent a complete day and part of an evening at Boulogne, as our train
did not leave until midnight.
I and another chap who was going to the next railhead to mine at the Front,
went off together into the town and had lunch at a café in the High Street.
We then strolled around the shops, buying a few things we needed. Not
very attractive things either, but I'll mention them here to show how we
thought and felt.
We first went to a "pharmacie" and got some boxes of morphia tablets, after
which we went to an ironmonger's (don't know the French for it) and each
bought a ponderous pair of barbed wire cutters. So what with wire clippers
and morphia tablets, we were gay. About four o'clock we calmed down a
bit, and went to the same restaurant where we had lunched.
Here we had tea with a couple of French girls, exceeding good to look
upon, who had apparently escaped from Lille. We got on splendidly with
them till a couple of French officers, one with the Legion of Honour, came
along to the next table. That took all the shine out of us, so we determined
to quit, and cleared off to the Hotel de Folkestone, where we had a bath to
console us. Dinner followed, and then, feeling particularly hilarious, I
made my will. Not the approved will of family lawyer style, but just a
letter announcing, in bald and harsh terms that, in the event of my
remaining permanently in Belgium, I wanted my total small worldly
wealth to be disposed of in a certain way.
Felt better after this outburst, and, rejoining my pal, we went off into the
town again and by easy stages reached the train.
At about one a.m. the train started, and we creaked and groaned our way
out of Boulogne. We were now really off for the Front, and the situation,
consequently, became more exciting. We were slowly getting nearer and
nearer to the real thing. But what a train! It dribbled and rumbled along at
about five miles an hour, and, I verily believe, stopped at every farmhouse
within sight of the line. I could not help thinking that the engine driver was
a German in disguise, who was trying to prevent our ever arriving at our
destination. I tried to sleep, but each time the train pulled up, I woke with a
start and thought that we'd got there. This went on for many hours, and as
I knew we must be getting somewhere near, my dreams became worse and
worse.
I somehow began to think that the engine driver was becoming cautious—
(he was a Frenchman again)—thought that, perhaps, he had to get down
occasionally and walk ahead a bit to see if it was safe to go on.
Nobody in the train had the least idea where the Front was, how far off, or
what it was like. For all we knew, our train might be going right up into the
rear of the front line trenches. Somewhere round 6 a.m. I reached my
siding. All the others, except myself and one other, had got out at previous
halts. I got down from the carriage on to the cinder track, and went along
the line to the station. Nobody about except a few Frenchmen, so I went
back to the carriage again, and sat looking out through the dimmed
window at the rain-soaked flat country. The other fellow with me was
doing the same. A sudden, profound depression came over me. Here was I
and this other cove dumped down at this horrible siding; nothing to eat,
and nobody to meet us. How rude and callous of someone, or something. I
looked at my watch; it had stopped, and on trying to wind it I found it was
broken.
I stared out of the window again; gave that up, and stared at the opposite
seat. Suddenly my eye caught something shiny under the seat. I stooped
and picked it up; it was a watch! I have always looked upon this episode as
an omen of some sort; but of what sort I can't quite make out. Finding a
watch means finding "Time"—perhaps it meant I would find time to write
this book; on the other hand it may have meant that my time had come—
who knows?
At about eight o'clock by my new watch I again made an attack on the
station, and at last found the R.T.O., which, being interpreted, means the
Railway Transport Officer. He told me where my battalion was to be
found; but didn't know whether they were in the trenches or out. He also
added that if he were me he wouldn't hurry about going there, as I could
probably get a lift in an A.S.C. wagon later on. I took his advice, and
having left all my tackle by his office, went into the nearest estaminet to get
some breakfast. The owner, a genial but garrulous little Frenchman, spent
quite a lot of time explaining to me how those hateful people, the Boches,
had occupied his house not so long before, and had punched a hole in his
kitchen wall to use a machine-gun through. After breakfast I went to the
station and arranged for my baggage to be sent on by an A.S.C. wagon, and
then started out to walk to Nieppe, which I learnt was the place where my
battalion billeted. As I plodded along the muddy road in the pouring rain, I
became aware of a sound with which I was afterwards to become horribly
familiar.
"Boom!" That was all; but I knew it was the voice of the guns, and in that
moment I realized that here was the war, and that I was in it.
I ploughed along for about four miles down uninteresting mud canals—
known on maps as roads—until, finally, I entered Nieppe.
The battalion, I heard from a passing soldier, was having its last day in
billets prior to going into the trenches again. They were billeted at a
disused brewery at the other end of the town. I went on down the squalid
street and finally found the place.
A crowd of dirty, war-worn looking soldiers were clustered about the
entrance in groups. I went in through the large archway past them into the
brewery yard. Soldiers everywhere, resting, talking and smoking. I
inquired where the officers' quarters were, and was shown to the brewery
head office. Here I found the battalion officers, many of whom I knew, and
went into their improvised messroom, which, in previous days, had
apparently been the Brewery Board room.
I found everything very dark, dingy and depressing. That night the
battalion was going into the trenches again, and last evenings in billets are
not generally very exhilarating. I sat and talked with those I knew, and
presently the Colonel came in, and I heard what the orders were for the
evening. I felt very strange and foreign to it all, as everyone except myself
had had their baptism of trench life, and, consequently, at this time I did
not possess that calm indifference, bred of painful experience, which is part
of the essence of a true trench-dweller.
The evening drew on. We had our last meal in billets—sardines, bread,
butter and cake sort of thing—slung on to the bare table by the soldier
servants, who were more engrossed in packing up things they were taking
to the trenches than in anything else.
And now the time came to start off. I found the machine-gun section in
charge of a sergeant, a most excellent fellow, who had looked after the
section since the officer (whose place I had come to fill) had been wounded.
I took over from him, and, as the battalion moved off along the road, fell in
behind with my latest acquisition—a machine-gun section, with machine
guns to match. It was quite dusk now, and as we neared the great Bois de
Ploegstert, known all over the world as "Plugstreet Wood," it was nearly
night. The road was getting rougher, and the houses, dotted about in dark
silhouettes against the sky-line, had a curiously deserted and worn
appearance. Everything was looking dark, damp and drear.
On we went down the road through the wood, stumbling along in the
darkness over the shell-pitted track. Weird noises occasionally floated
through the trees; the faint "crack" of a rifle, or the rumble of limber wheels.
A distant light flickered momentarily in the air, cutting out in bold relief
the ruins of the shattered chateau on our left. On we went through this
scene of dark and humid desolation, past the occasional mounds of former
habitations, on into the trenches before Plugstreet Wood.
 CHAPTER III
THOSE PLUGSTREET TRENCHES—MUD AND

RAIN—FLOODED OUT—A HOPELESS DAWN

An extraordinary sensation—the first time of going into trenches. The first

idea that struck me about them was their haphazard design. There was, no
doubt, some very excellent reason for someone or other making those
trenches as they were; but they really did strike me as curious when I first
saw them.
A trench will, perhaps, run diagonally across a field, will then go along a
hedge at right angles, suddenly give it up and start again fifty yards to the
left, in such a position that it is bound to cross the kitchen-garden of a
shattered chateau, go through the greenhouse and out into the road. On
getting there it henceforth rivals the ditch at the side in the amount of
water it can run off into a row of dug-outs in the next field. There is,
apparently, no necessity for a trench to be in any way parallel to the line of
your enemy; as long as he can't shoot you from immediately behind, that's
all you ask.
It was a long and weary night, that first one of mine in the trenches.
Everything was strange, and wet and horrid. First of all I had to go and fix
up my machine guns at various points, and find places for the gunners to
sleep in. This was no easy matter, as many of the dug-outs had fallen in
and floated off down stream.
In this, and subsequent descriptions of the trenches, I may lay myself open
to the charge of exaggeration. But it must be remembered that I am
describing trench life in the early days of 1914, and I feel sure that those
who had experience of them will acquit me of any such charge.
To give a recipe for getting a rough idea, in case you want to, I recommend
the following procedure. Select a flat ten-acre ploughed field, so sited that
all the surface water of the surrounding country drains into it. Now cut a
zig-zag slot about four feet deep and three feet wide diagonally across,
dam off as much water as you can so as to leave about a hundred yards of
squelchy mud; delve out a hole at one side of the slot, then endeavour to
live there for a month on bully beef and damp biscuits, whilst a friend has
instructions to fire at you with his Winchester every time you put your
head above the surface.
Well, here I was, anyway, and the next thing was to make the best of it. As
I have before said, these were the days of the earliest trenches in this war:
days when we had none of those desirable "props," such as corrugated
iron, floorboards, and sand bags ad lib.
When you made a dug-out in those days you made it out of anything you
could find, and generally had to make it yourself. That first night I was "in"
I discovered, after a humid hour or so, that our battalion wouldn't fit into
the spaces left by the last one, and as regards dug-outs, the truth of that
mathematical axiom, "Two's into one, won't go," suddenly dawned on me
with painful clearness. I was faced with making a dug-out, and it was
raining, of course. (Note.—Whenever I don't state the climatic conditions,
read "raining.") After sloshing about in several primitive trenches in the
vicinity of the spot where we had fixed our best machine-gun position, my
sergeant and I discovered a sort of covered passage in a ditch in front of a
communication trench. It was a sort of emergency exit back from a row of
ramshackle, water-logged hovels in the ditch to the communication trench.
We decided to make use of this passage, and arranged things in such a way
that by scooping out the clay walls we made two caves, one behind the
other. The front one was about five yards from the machine gun, and you
reached the back cave by going through the outer one. It now being about
11 p.m., and having been for the last five hours perpetually on the
scramble, through trenches of all sorts, I drew myself into the inner cave to
go to sleep.
This little place was about 4 feet long, 3 feet high, and 3 feet wide. I got out
my knife, took a scoop out of the clay wall, and fishing out a candle-end
from my pocket, stuck it in the niche, lit it and a cigarette. I now lay down
and tried to size up the situation and life in general.
Here I was, in this horrible clay cavity, somewhere in Belgium, miles and
miles from home. Cold, wet through and covered with mud. This was the
first day; and, so far as I could see, the future contained nothing but
repetitions of the same thing, or worse.
Nothing was to be heard except the occasional crack of the sniper's shot,
the dripping of the rain, and the low murmur of voices from the outer cave.
In the narrow space beside me lay my equipment; revolver, and a sodden
packet of cigarettes. Everything damp, cold and dark; candle-end
guttering. I think suddenly of something like the Empire or the Alhambra,
or anything else that's reminiscent of brightness and life, and then—swish,
bang—back to the reality that the damp clay wall is only eighteen inches in
front of me; that here I am—that the Boche is just on the other side of the
field; and that there doesn't seem the slightest chance of leaving except in
an ambulance.
My machine-gun section for the gun near by lay in the front cave, a couple
of feet from me; their spasmodic talking gradually died away as, one by
one, they dropped off to sleep. One more indignant, hopeless glare at the
flickering candle-end, then I pinched the wick, curled up, and went to
sleep.
A sudden cold sort of peppermint sensation assailed me; I awoke and sat
up. My head cannoned off the clay ceiling, so I partially had to lie down
again.
I attempted to strike a match, but found the whole box was damp and
sodden. I heard a muttering of voices and a curse or two in the outer
cavern, and presently the sergeant entered my sanctum on all fours:
"We're bein' flooded out, sir; there's water a foot deep in this place of ours."
That explains it. I feel all round the back of my greatcoat and find I have
been sleeping in a pool of water.
I crawled out of my inner chamber, and the whole lot of us dived through
the rapidly rising water into the ditch outside. I scrambled up on to the top
of the bank, and tried to focus the situation.
From inquiries and personal observation I found that the cause of the tide
rising was the fact that the Engineers had been draining the trench, in the
course of which process they had apparently struck a spring of water.
We accepted the cause of the disaster philosophically, and immediately
discussed what was the best thing to be done. Action of some sort was
urgently necessary, as at present we were all sitting on the top of the mud
bank of the ditch in the silent, steady rain, the whole party being
occasionally illuminated by a German star shell—more like a family sitting
for a flashlight photograph than anything else.
We decided to make a dam. Having found an empty ration box and half a
bag of coke, we started on the job of trying to fence off the water from our
cave. After about an hour's struggle with the elements we at last succeeded,
with the aid of the ration box, the sack of coke and a few tins of bully, in
reducing the water level inside to six inches.
Here we were, now wetter than ever, cold as Polar bears, sitting in this
hygroscopic catacomb at about 2 a.m. We longed for a fire; a fire was
decided on. We had a fire bucket—it had started life as a biscuit tin—a few
bits of damp wood, but no coke. "We had some coke, I'm sure! Why, of
course—we built it into the dam!" Down came the dam, out came the coke,
and in came the water. However, we preferred the water to the cold; so,
finally, after many exasperating efforts, we got a fire going in the bucket.
Five minutes' bliss followed by disaster. The fire bucket proceeded to emit
such dense volumes of sulphurous smoke that in a few moments we
couldn't see a lighted match.
We stuck it a short time longer, then one by one dived into the water and
out into the air, shooting out of our mud hovel to the surface like snakes
when you pour water down their holes.
Time now 3 a.m. No sleep; rain, water, plus smoke. A board meeting held
immediately decides to give up sleep and dug-outs for that night. A motion
to try and construct a chimney with an entrenching tool is defeated by five
votes to one ... dawn is breaking—my first night in trenches comes to an
end.
 CHAPTER IV
MORE MUD—RAIN AND BULLETS—A BIT OF

CAKE—"WIND UP"—NIGHT ROUNDS

The rose-pink sky fades off above to blue,

The morning star alone proclaims the dawn.
The empty tins and barbed wire bathed in dew
Emerge, and then another day is born.
I wrote that "poem" in those—trenches, so you can see the sort of state to
which I was reduced.
Well, my first trench night was over; the dawn had broken—everything
else left to break had been seen to by the artillery, which started off
generally at about eight. And what a fearful long day it seemed, that first
one! As soon as it was light I began scrambling about, and having a good
look at the general lie of things. In front was a large expanse of root field, at
the further side of which a long irregular parapet marked the German
trenches. Behind those again was more root field, dented here and there
with shell holes filled with water, beyond which stood a few isolated
remnants which had once been cottages. I stood at a projection in one of
our trenches, from where I could see the general shape of our line, and
could glimpse a good view of the German arrangements. Not a soul could
be seen anywhere. Here and there a wisp of smoke indicated a fire bucket.
Behind our trenches, behind the shattered houses at the top of a wooded
rise in the ground, stood what once must have been a fine chateau. As I
looked, a shrieking hollow whistle overhead, a momentary pause, then—
"Crumph!" showed clearly what was the matter with the chateau. It was
being shelled. The Germans seemed to have a rooted objection to that
chateau. Every morning, as we crouched in our mud kennels, we heard
those "Crumphs," and soon got to be very good judges of form. We knew
they were shelling the chateau. When they didn't shell the chateau, we got
it in the trenches; so we looked on that dear old mangled wreck with a
friendly eye—that tapering, twisted, perforated spire, which they never
could knock down, was an everlasting bait to the Boche, and a perfect fairy
godmother to us.
Oh, those days in that trench of ours! Each day seemed about a week long.
I shared a dug-out with a platoon commander after that first night. The
machine-gun section found a suitable place and made a dug-out for
themselves.
Day after day, night after night, my companion and I lay and listened to
the daily explosions, read, and talked, and sloshed about that trench
together.
The greatest interest one had in the daytime was sitting on the damp straw
in our clay vault, scraping the mud off one's saturated boots and clothes.
The event to which one looked forward with the greatest interest was the
arrival of letters in the evening.
Now and again we got out of our dug-out and sloshed down the trench to
scheme out some improvement or other, or to furtively look out across the
water-logged turnip field at the Boche trenches opposite. Occasionally, in
the silent, still, foggy mornings, a voice from somewhere in the alluvial
depths of a miserable trench, would suddenly burst into a scrap of song,
such as—
Old soldiers never die,
They simply fade away.
—a voice full of "fed-upness," steeped in determination.
Then all would be silence for the next couple of hours, and so the day
passed.
At dusk, my job was to emerge from this horrible drain and go round the
various machine-gun positions. What a job! I generally went alone, and in
the darkness struck out across the sodden field, tripping, stumbling, and
sometimes falling into various shell holes on the way.
One does a little calling at this time of day. Having seen a gun in another
trench, one looks up the nearest platoon commander. You look into so-and-
so's dug-out and find it empty. You ask a sergeant where the occupant is.
"He's down the trench, sir." You push your way down the trench, dodging
pools of water and stepping over fire buckets, mess tins, brushing past men
standing, leaning or sitting—right on down the trench, where, round a
corner, you find the platoon commander. "Well, if we can't get any
sandbags," he is probably saying to a sergeant, "we will just have to bank it
up with earth, and put those men on the other side of the traverse," or
something like that. He turns to me and says, "Come along back to my dug-
out and have a bit of cake. Someone or other has sent one out from home."
We start back along the trench. Suddenly a low murmuring, rattling sound
can be heard in the distance. We stop to listen, the sound gets louder;
everyone stops to listen—the sound approaches, and is now
distinguishable as rifle-fire. The firing becomes faster and faster; then
suddenly swells into a roar and now comes the phenomenon of trench
warfare: "wind up"—the prairie fire of the trenches.
Everyone stands to the parapet, and away on the left a tornado of crackling
sound can be heard, getting louder and louder. In a few seconds it has
swept on down the line, and now a deafening rattle of rifle-fire is going on
immediately in front. Bullets are flicking the tops of the sandbags on the
parapet in hundreds, whilst white streaks are shooting up with a swish
into the sky and burst into bright radiating blobs of light—the star shell at
its best.
A curious thing, this "wind up." We never knew when it would come on. It
is caused entirely by nerves. Perhaps an inquisitive Boche, somewhere a
mile or two on the left, had thought he saw someone approaching his
barbed wire; a few shots are exchanged—a shout or two, followed by more
shots—panic—more shots—panic spreading—then suddenly the whole
line of trenches on a front of a couple of miles succumbs to that well-
known malady, "wind up."
In reality it is highly probable that there was no one in front near the wire,
and no one has had the least intention of being there.
Presently there comes a deep "boom" from somewhere in the distance
behind, and a large shell sails over our heads and explodes somewhere
amongst the Boches; another and another, and then all becomes quiet
again. The rifle fire diminishes and soon ceases. Total result of one of these
firework displays: several thousand rounds of ammunition squibbed off,
hundreds of star shells wasted, and no casualties.
It put the "wind up" me at first, but I soon got to know these affairs, and
learnt to take them calmly.
I went along with the platoon commander back to his lair. An excellent
fellow he was. No one in this war could have hated it all more than he did,
and no one could have more conscientiously done his very best at it. Poor
fellow, he was afterwards killed near Ypres.
"Well, how are things going with you?" I said.
"Oh, all right. They knocked down that same bit of parapet again to-day. I
think they must imagine we've got a machine gun there, or something.
That's twice we've had to build it up this week. Have a bit of cake?"
So I had a bit of cake and left him; he going back to that old parapet again,
whilst I struck off into the dark, wet field towards another gun position,
falling into an unfamiliar "Johnson 'ole" on the way.
No one gets a better idea of the general lie of the position than a machine-
gun officer. In those early, primitive days, when we had so few of each
thing, we, of course, had few machine guns, and these had to be sprinkled
about a position to the best possible advantage. The consequence was that
people like myself had to cover a considerable amount of ground before
our rambles in the dark each night were done.
One machine gun might be, say, in "Dead Man Farm"; another at the
"Barrier" near the cross roads; whilst another couple were just at some
effective spot in a trench, or in a commanding position in a shattered farm
or cottage behind the front line trenches.
I would leave my dug-out as soon as it was dark and do the round of all
the guns every night. Just as a sample, I will carry on from where I left the
platoon commander.
I slosh across the ploughed field at what I feel to be a correct angle to bring
me out on the cross roads, where, about two hundred yards away, I have
another gun. I scramble across a broken gateway and an old bit of trench,
and close behind come to a deep cutting into which I jump. About five
yards along this I come to a machine-gun emplacement, with a machine-
gun sentry on guard.
"Where's the corporal?"
"I'm 'ere, sir," is emitted from the slimy depths of a narrow low-roofed dug-
out, and the corporal emerges, hooking back the waterproof sheet as he
comes out to prevent the light showing.
"How about this gun, Corporal—is everything all right?"
"Yes, sir; but I was looking around to-day, and thought that if we was to
shift the gun over there, where the dead cow is, we'd get a better field of
fire."
Meeting adjourned to inspect this valuable site from the windward side.
After a short, blood-thirsty conversation relative to the perforating of the
enemy, I leave and push off into the bog again, striking out for another
visit. Finally, after two hours' visiting, floundering, bullet dodging, and
star shell shirking, accompanied by a liberal allowance of "narrow
squeaks," I get back to my own bit of trench; and tobogganing down where
I erroneously think the clay steps are, I at last reach my dug-out, and
entering on all fours, crouch amongst the damp tobacco leaves and straw
and light a cigarette.
 CHAPTER V
MY MAN FRIDAY—"CHUCK US THE

BISCUITS"—RELIEVED—BILLETS

It was during this first time up in the trenches that I got a soldier servant.
As I had arrived only just in time to go with the battalion to the trenches,
the acquisition had to be made by a search in the mud. I found a fellow
who hadn't been an officer's servant before, but who wanted to be. I liked
the look of him; so feeling rather like Robinson Crusoe, when he booked up
Friday, "I got me a man."
He lived in a dug-out about five yards away, and from then onwards
continued with me right to the point where this book finishes. This fellow
of mine did all my cooking, such as it was, and worked in conjunction with
my friend, the platoon commander's servant. Cooking, at the times I write
about, consisted of making innumerable brews of tea, and opening tins of
bully and Maconochie. Occasionally bacon had to be fried in a mess-tin lid.
One day my man soared off into culinary fancies and curried a
Maconochie. I have never quite forgiven him for this; I am nearly right
again now.
These two soldier servants never had to leave the trench. It was their job to
try and find something to make a fire with, and to do all they could to keep
the water out of our dug-out, a task which not one of us succeeded in
doing. My plan for sustaining life under these conditions was to change my
boots as often as possible. If there wasn't time for this I used to try and boil
the water in my boots by keeping my feet to the fire bucket. I always put
my puttees on first and then a pair of thick socks, and finally a pair of
boots. I could, by this means, hurriedly slip off the sodden pair of boots
and socks and slip on another set which had become fairly dry by the fire.
We lived perpetually damp, if not thoroughly wet. My puttees, which I
rarely removed, were more like long rolls of the consistency of nougat than
anything else, thanks to the mud. Dug-outs had no wooden linings in those
days; no corrugated iron roofs; no floorboards. They were just holes in the
clay side of the fire trench, with any old thing for a roof, and old straw or
tobacco leaves, which we pinched from some abandoned farm, for a floor.
So, you see, there was not much of a chance of dodging the moisture.
The cold was what got me. Personally, I would far rather have gone
without food than a fire. A fire of some sort was the only thing to cheer.
Coke was scarce and always wet, and it was by no means uncommon to
over-hear a remark of this sort: "Chuck us the biscuits, Bill; the fire wants
mendin'."
At night I would frequently sally forth to a cracked up village behind, and
perhaps procure half a mantelpiece and an old clog to stoke our "furnace"
with.
Well, after the usual number of long days and still longer nights spent
under these conditions, we came to the day when it was our turn to go out
to rest billets, and a relieving battalion to come in. What a splendid day
that is! You start "packing" at about 4 p.m. As soon as it is dusk the
servants slink off across that turnip morass behind and drag our few
belongings back to where the limbers are. These limbers have come up
from about three to four miles away, from the Regimental Transport
headquarters, to take all the trench "props" back to the billets.
We don't leave, ourselves, until the "incoming" battalion has taken over.
After what seems an interminable wait, we hear a clinking of mess tins and
rattling of equipment, the sloshing of feet in the mud, and much whispered
profanity, which all goes to announce to you that "they're here!" Then you
know that the other battalion has arrived, and are now about to take over
these precious slots in the ground.
When the exchange is complete, we are free to go!—to go out for our few
days in billets!
The actual going out and getting clear of the trenches takes a long time.
Handing over, and finally extricating ourselves from the morass, in the
dark, with all our belongings, is a lengthy process; and then we have about
a mile of country which we have never been able to examine in the day
time, and get familiar with, to negotiate. This is before we get to the high
road, and really start for billets.
I had the different machine-gun sections to collect from their various guns,
and this not until the relieving sections had all turned up. It was a good
two hours' job getting all the sections with their guns, ammunition and
various extras finally collected together in the dark a mile back, ready to
put all the stuff in the limbers, and so back to billets. When all was fixed up
I gave the order and off we started, plodding along back down the narrow,
dreary road towards our resting-place. But it was quite a cheerful tramp,
knowing as we did that we were going to four days' comparative rest, and,
anyway, safety.
On we went down the long, flat, narrow roads, occasionally looking round
to see the faint flicker of a star shell showing over the tops of the trees, and
to think momentarily of the "poor devils" left behind to take our place, and
go on doing just what we had been at. Then, finally, getting far enough
away to forget, songs and jokes took us chirping along, past objects which
soon became our landmarks in the days to come. On we went, past
estaminets, shrines and occasional windmills, down the long winding road
for about four miles, until at last we reached our billets, where the battalion
willingly halted and dispersed to its various quarters. I and my machine-
gun section had still to carry on, for we lived apart, a bit further on, at the
Transport Farm. So we continued on our own for another mile and a half,
past the estaminet at Romerin, out on towards Neuve Eglise to our
Transport Farm. This was the usual red-tiled Belgian farm, with a
rectangular smell in the middle.
 CHAPTER VI
THE TRANSPORT FARM—FLEECED BY THE

FLEMISH—RIDING—NEARING CHRISTMAS

It was about 9 p.m. when we turned into the courtyard of the farm. My
sergeant saw to the unlimbering, and dismissed the section, whilst I went
into the farm and dismantled myself of all my tackle, such as revolver,
field-glass, greatcoat, haversacks, etc.
My servant had, of course, preceded me, and by the time I had made a
partial attempt at cleaning myself, he had brought in a meal of sorts and
laid it on the oilcloth-covered table by the stove. I was now joined by the
transport officer and the regimental quartermaster. They lived at this farm
permanently, and only came to the trenches on occasional excursions. They
had both had a go at the nasty part of warfare though, before this, so
although consumed with a sneaking envy, I was full of respect for them.
We three had a very merry and genial time together. We now had
something distinctly resembling a breakfast, a lunch, and a dinner, each
day. The transport officer took a lively interest in the efforts of Messrs.
Fortnum and Mason, and thus added generously to our menus. It was a
glorious feeling, pushing open the door of that farm and coming in from all
the wet, darkness, mud and weariness of four days in the trenches. After
the supper, I disappeared into the back kitchen place and did what was
possible in the shaving and washing line. The Belgian family were all
herded away in here, as their front rooms were now our exclusive
property. I have never quite made out what the family consisted of, but,
approximately, I should think, mother and father and ten children. I am
pretty certain about the children, as about half a platoon stood around me
whilst shaving, and solemnly watched me with dull brown Flemish eyes.
The father kept in the background, resting, I fancy, from his usual day's
work of hiding unattractive turnips in enormous numbers, under mounds
of mud—(the only form of farming industry which came under my notice
in Flanders).
The mother, however, was "all there," in more senses than one. She was of
about observation balloon proportions, and had an unerring eye for the
main chance. Her telegraphic address, I should imagine, was "Fleecem."
She had one sound commercial idea, i.e., "charge as much as you can for
everything they want, hide everything they do want, and slowly collect
any property, in the way of food, they have in the cellar; so that, in the
future, there shall be no lack of bully and jam in our farm, at any rate."
They had one farm labourer, a kind of epileptic who, I found out, gave his
services in return for being fed—no pay. He will regret this contract of his
in time, as the food in question was bully beef and plum and apple jam,
with an occasional change to Maconochie and apple and plum jam. That
store in the cellar absolutely precludes him from any change from this diet
for many years to come. Of course, I must say his work was not such as
would be classed amongst the skilled or intellectual trades; it was,
apparently, to pump all the accumulated drainage from a subterranean
vault out into the yard in front, about twice a week, the rest of his time
being taken up by assisting at the hiding of the turnips.
After I had washed and shaved under the critical eyes of Angèle, Rachel,
André and Co., I retired into an inner chamber which had once been an
apple store, and went to bed on a straw mattress in the corner. Pyjamas at
last! and an untroubled sleep. Occasionally in the night one would wake
and, listening at the open window, would hear the distant rattle of rifle fire
far away beyond the woods.
These four days at the Transport Farm were days of wallowing in rest.
There was, of course, certain work to be done in connection with the
machine-gun department, such as overhauling and cleaning the guns, and
drilling the section at intervals; but the evenings and nights were a perfect
joy after those spent in the trenches.
One could walk about the fields near by; could read, write letters, and sleep
as much as one liked. And if one wished, walk or ride over to see friends at
the other billets. Ah, yes! ride—I am sorry to say that riding was not, and is
not, my forte. Unfortunate this, as the machine-gun officer is one of the few
privileged to have a horse. I was entitled to ride to the trenches, and ride
away from them, and during our rest, ride wherever I wanted to go; but
these advantages, so coveted by my horseless pals in the regiment, left me
cold. I never will be any good at the "Haute Ecole" act, I'm sure, although I
made several attempts to get a liking for the subject in France. When the
final day came for our departure to the trenches again, I rode from that
Transport Farm.
Riding in England, or in any civilized country, is one thing, and riding in
those barren, shell-torn wastes of Flanders is another. The usual darkness,
rain and mud pervaded the scene when the evening came for our return
journey to the trenches. My groom (curse him) had not forgotten to saddle
the horse and bring it round. There it was, standing gaunt and tall in front
of the paraded machine-gun section. With my best equestrian demeanour I
crossed the yard, and hauling myself up on to my horse, choked out a few
commands to the section, and sallied forth on to the road towards the
trenches.
Thank Heaven, I didn't go into the Cavalry. The roads about the part we
were performing in were about two yards wide and a precipitous ditch at
each side. In the middle, all sorts and conditions of holes punctuated their
long winding length. Add to this the fact that you are either meeting, or
being passed by, a motor lorry every ten minutes, and you will get an idea
of the conditions under which riding takes place.
Well, anyway, during the whole of my equestrian career in France, I never
came off. I rode along in front of my section, balancing on this "Ship of the
Desert" of mine, past all the same landmarks, cracked houses, windmills,
estaminets, etc. I experienced innumerable tense moments when my
horse—as frequently happened—took me for a bit of a circular tour in an
adjacent field, so as to avoid some colossal motor lorry with one headlight
of about a million candle-power, which would suddenly roar its way down
our single narrow road. At last we got to the dumping-ground spot
again—the spot where we horsemen have to come to earth and walk, and
where everything is unbaled from the limbers. Here we were again, on the
threshold of the trenches.
This monotonous dreary routine of "in" and "out" of the trenches had to be
gone through many, many times before we got to Christmas Day. But,
during that pre-Christmas period, there was one outstanding feature above
the normal dangerous dreariness of the trenches: that was a slight affair in
the nature of our attack on the 18th of December, so in the next chapter I
will proceed to outline my part in this passage of arms.
 CHAPTER VII
A PROJECTED ATTACK—-DIGGING A SAP—

AN 'ELL OF A NIGHT—THE ATTACK—

PUNCTURING PRUSSIANS

One evening I was sitting, coiled up in the slime at the bottom of my dug-
out, toying with the mud enveloping my boots, when a head appeared at a
gap in my mackintosh doorway and said, "The Colonel wants to see you,
sir." So I clambered out and went across the field, down a trench, across a
road and down a trench again to where the headquarter dug-outs lay all in
a row.
I came to the Colonel's dug-out, where, by the light of a candle-end stuck
on an improvised table, he was sitting, busily explaining something by the
aid of a map to a group of our officers. I waited till he had finished,
knowing that he would want to see me after the others, as the machine-
gunner's job is always rather a specialized side-line. Soon he explained to
me what he wished me to do with my guns, and gave me a rough outline
of the projected attack. He pointed out on the map where he wished me to
take up positions, and closed the interview by saying that he thought I
should at once proceed to reconnoitre the proposed sites, and lay all my
plans for getting into position, as we were going to conduct an operation
on the Boches at dawn the next day.
I left, and started at once on my plans. The first thing was to have a
thorough good look at the ground, and examine all the possibilities for
effective machine-gun co-operation. I determined to take my sergeant
along with me, so that he would be as familiar with the scheme in hand as I
was. It was raining, of course, and the night was as black as pitch when we
both started out on our Sherlock Holmes excursion. I explained the idea of
the attack to him, and the part we had to play. The troops on our right were
going to carry out the actual attack, and we, on their left flank, were going
to lend assistance by engaging the Deutschers in front and by firing half-
right to cover our men's advance. My job was clear enough. I had to bring
as many machine guns as I could spare down to the right of our own line to
assist as much as possible in the real attack. My sergeant and I went down
to examine the ground where it was essential for us to fix up. We got to our
last trench on the right, and clambering over the parapet, did what we
could to find out the nature of the ground in front, and see how we could
best fix our machine guns to cover the enemy. We soon saw that in order to
get a really clear field of fire it was necessary for us to sap out from the end
of our existing right-hand trench and make a machine-gun emplacement at
the end.
This necessitated the digging of a sap of about ten yards in length,
collecting all the materials for making an emplacement, and mounting our
machine gun. It was now about 11 p.m., and all this work had to be
completed before dawn.
Having rapidly realized that there was not the slightest prospect of any
sleep, and that the morrow looked like being a busy day, we commenced
with characteristic fed-up vigour to carry out our nefarious design.
A section, myself and the sergeant, started on digging that sap, and what a
job it was! The Germans were particularly restless that night; kept on
squibbing away whilst we were digging, and as it was some time before we
had the sap deep enough to be able to stand upright without fear of a
puncture in some part of our anatomy, it was altogether most unpleasant.
At about an hour before dawn we had got as far as making the
emplacement. This we started to put together as hard as we could. We
filled sandbags with the earth excavated from the sap, and with frenzied
energy tried to complete our defences before dawn. The rain and darkness,
both very intense that night, were really very trying. One would pause,
shovel in hand, lean against the clay side of the sap, and hurriedly
contemplate the scene. Five men, a sergeant and myself, wet through and
muddy all over; no sleep, little to eat, silently digging and filling sandbags
with an ever-watchful eye for the breaking of the dawn.
Light was breaking across the sky before the job was done, and we had still
to complete the top guard of our emplacement. Then we had some
fireworks. The nervy Boches had spotted our sap as something new, and
their bullets, whacking up against our newly-thrown-up parapet, made us
glad we had worked so busily.
We were bound to complete that emplacement, so, at convenient intervals,
we crept to the opening, and after saying "one, two, three!" suddenly
plumped a newly-filled sandbag on the top. Each time we did this half a
dozen bullets went zipping through the canvas or just past overhead. This
operation had to be done about a dozen times.
A warm job! At last it was finished, and we sank down into the bottom of
the sap to rest. The time for the artillery bombardment had been fixed to
begin at about 6 a.m., if I remember rightly, so we got a little rest between
finishing our work and the attack itself.
Of course the whole of this enterprise, as far as the bombardment and
attack were concerned, cannot be compared with the magnitude of a
similar performance in 1915. All the same, it was pretty bad, but not
anything like so accurately calculated, or so mechanically efficient as our
later efforts in this line. The precise time-table methods of the present
period did not exist then, but the main idea of giving the Opposition as
much heavy lyddite, followed by shrapnel, was the same.
At about half-past six, as we sat in the sap, we heard the first shell go over.
I went to the end of the traverse alongside the emplacement, and watched
the German trenches. We were ready to fire at any of the enemy we could
see, and when the actual attack started, at the end of the bombardment, we
were going to keep up a perpetual sprinkling of bullets along their reserve
trenches. A few isolated houses stood just in line with the German
trenches. Our gunners had focussed on these, and they gave them a good
pasting.
"Crumph! bang! bang! crumph!"—hard at it all the time, whilst shrapnel
burst and whizzed about all along the German parapet. The view in front
soon became a sort of haze of black dust, as "heavy" after "heavy" burst on
top of the Boche positions. Columns of earth and black smoke shot up like
giant fountains into the air. I caught sight of a lot of the enemy running
along a shallow communication trench of theirs, apparently with the
intention of reinforcing their front line. We soon had our machine gun
peppering up these unfortunates, and from that moment on kept up an
incessant fire on the enemy.
On my left, two of our companies were keeping up a solid rapid fire on the
German lines immediately in front.
At last the bombardment ceased. A confused sound of shouts and yells on
our right, intermingled with a terrific crackle of rifle fire, told us the attack
had started. Without ceasing, we kept up the only assistance we could give:
our persistent firing half-right.
How long it all lasted I can't remember; but when I crept into a soldier's
dug-out, back in one of our trenches, completely exhausted, I heard that we
had taken the enemy trench, but that, unfortunately, owing to its enfiladed
position, we had to abandon it later.
Such was my first experience of this see-saw warfare of the trenches.
A few days later, as I happened to be passing through poor, shattered
Plugstreet Wood, I came across a clearance 'midst the trees.
Two rows of long, brown mounds of earth, each surmounted by a rough,
simple wooden cross, was all that was inside the clearing. I stopped, and
looked, and thought—then went away.
 CHAPTER VIII
CHRISTMAS EVE——A LULL IN HATE—

BRITON CUM BOCHE

Shortly after the doings set forth in the previous chapter we left the
trenches for our usual days in billets. It was now nearing Christmas Day,
and we knew it would fall to our lot to be back in the trenches again on the
23rd of December, and that we would, in consequence, spend our
Christmas there. I remember at the time being very down on my luck about
this, as anything in the nature of Christmas Day festivities was obviously
knocked on the head. Now, however, looking back on it all, I wouldn't
have missed that unique and weird Christmas Day for anything.
Well, as I said before, we went "in" again on the 23rd. The weather had
now become very fine and cold. The dawn of the 24th brought a perfectly
still, cold, frosty day. The spirit of Christmas began to permeate us all; we
tried to plot ways and means of making the next day, Christmas, different
in some way to others. Invitations from one dug-out to another for sundry
meals were beginning to circulate. Christmas Eve was, in the way of
weather, everything that Christmas Eve should be.
I was billed to appear at a dug-out about a quarter of a mile to the left that
evening to have rather a special thing in trench dinners—not quite so much
bully and Maconochie about as usual. A bottle of red wine and a medley of
tinned things from home deputized in their absence. The day had been
entirely free from shelling, and somehow we all felt that the Boches, too,
wanted to be quiet. There was a kind of an invisible, intangible feeling
extending across the frozen swamp between the two lines, which said "This
is Christmas Eve for both of us—something in common."
About 10 p.m. I made my exit from the convivial dug-out on the left of our
line and walked back to my own lair. On arriving at my own bit of trench I
found several of the men standing about, and all very cheerful. There was a
good bit of singing and talking going on, jokes and jibes on our curious
Christmas Eve, as contrasted with any former one, were thick in the air.
One of my men turned to me and said:
"You can 'ear 'em quite plain, sir!"
"Hear what?" I inquired.
"The Germans over there, sir; 'ear 'em singin' and playin' on a band or
somethin'."
I listened;—away out across the field, among the dark shadows beyond, I
could hear the murmur of voices, and an occasional burst of some
unintelligible song would come floating out on the frosty air. The singing
seemed to be loudest and most distinct a bit to our right. I popped into my
dug-out and found the platoon commander.
"Do you hear the Boches kicking up that racket over there?" I said.
"Yes," he replied; "they've been at it some time!"
"Come on," said I, "let's go along the trench to the hedge there on the
right—that's the nearest point to them, over there."
So we stumbled along our now hard, frosted ditch, and scrambling up on
to the bank above, strode across the field to our next bit of trench on the
right. Everyone was listening. An improvised Boche band was playing a
precarious version of "Deutschland, Deutschland, uber Alles," at the
conclusion of which, some of our mouth-organ experts retaliated with
snatches of ragtime songs and imitations of the German tune. Suddenly we
heard a confused shouting from the other side. We all stopped to listen.
The shout came again. A voice in the darkness shouted in English, with a
strong German accent, "Come over here!" A ripple of mirth swept along
our trench, followed by a rude outburst of mouth organs and laughter.
Presently, in a lull, one of our sergeants repeated the request, "Come over
here!"
"You come half-way—I come half-way," floated out of the darkness.
"Come on, then!" shouted the sergeant. "I'm coming along the hedge!"
"Ah! but there are two of you," came back the voice from the other side.
Well, anyway, after much suspicious shouting and jocular derision from
both sides, our sergeant went along the hedge which ran at right-angles to
the two lines of trenches. He was quickly out of sight; but, as we all
listened in breathless silence, we soon heard a spasmodic conversation
taking place out there in the darkness.
Presently, the sergeant returned. He had with him a few German cigars
and cigarettes which he had exchanged for a couple of Maconochie's and a
tin of Capstan, which he had taken with him. The séance was over, but it
had given just the requisite touch to our Christmas Eve—something a little
human and out of the ordinary routine.
After months of vindictive sniping and shelling, this little episode came as
an invigorating tonic, and a welcome relief to the daily monotony of
antagonism. It did not lessen our ardour or determination; but just put a
little human punctuation mark in our lives of cold and humid hate. Just on
the right day, too—Christmas Eve! But, as a curious episode, this was
nothing in comparison to our experience on the following day.
On Christmas morning I awoke very early, and emerged from my dug-out
into the trench. It was a perfect day. A beautiful, cloudless blue sky. The
ground hard and white, fading off towards the wood in a thin low-lying
mist. It was such a day as is invariably depicted by artists on Christmas
cards—the ideal Christmas Day of fiction.
"Fancy all this hate, war, and discomfort on a day like this!" I thought to
myself. The whole spirit of Christmas seemed to be there, so much so that I
remember thinking, "This indescribable something in the air, this Peace and
Goodwill feeling, surely will have some effect on the situation here to-day!"
And I wasn't far wrong; it did around us, anyway, and I have always been
so glad to think of my luck in, firstly, being actually in the trenches on
Christmas Day, and, secondly, being on the spot where quite a unique little
episode took place.
Everything looked merry and bright that morning—the discomforts
seemed to be less, somehow; they seemed to have epitomized themselves
in intense, frosty cold. It was just the sort of day for Peace to be declared. It
would have made such a good finale. I should like to have suddenly heard
an immense siren blowing. Everybody to stop and say, "What was that?"
Siren blowing again: appearance of a small figure running across the frozen
mud waving something. He gets closer—a telegraph boy with a wire! He
hands it to me. With trembling fingers I open it: "War off, return home.—
George, R.I." Cheers! But no, it was a nice, fine day, that was all.
Walking about the trench a little later, discussing the curious affair of the
night before, we suddenly became aware of the fact that we were seeing a
lot of evidences of Germans. Heads were bobbing about and showing over
their parapet in a most reckless way, and, as we looked, this phenomenon
became more and more pronounced.
A complete Boche figure suddenly appeared on the parapet, and looked
about itself. This complaint became infectious. It didn't take "Our Bert" long
to be up on the skyline (it is one long grind to ever keep him off it). This
was the signal for more Boche anatomy to be disclosed, and this was
replied to by all our Alf's and Bill's, until, in less time than it takes to tell,
half a dozen or so of each of the belligerents were outside their trenches
and were advancing towards each other in no-man's land.
A strange sight, truly!
I clambered up and over our parapet, and moved out across the field to
look. Clad in a muddy suit of khaki and wearing a sheepskin coat and
Balaclava helmet, I joined the throng about half-way across to the German
trenches.
It all felt most curious: here were these sausage-eating wretches, who had
elected to start this infernal European fracas, and in so doing had brought
us all into the same muddy pickle as themselves.
This was my first real sight of them at close quarters. Here they were—the
actual, practical soldiers of the German army. There was not an atom of
hate on either side that day; and yet, on our side, not for a moment was the
will to war and the will to beat them relaxed. It was just like the interval
between the rounds in a friendly boxing match. The difference in type
between our men and theirs was very marked. There was no contrasting
the spirit of the two parties. Our men, in their scratch costumes of dirty,
muddy khaki, with their various assorted headdresses of woollen helmets,
mufflers and battered hats, were a light-hearted, open, humorous collection
as opposed to the sombre demeanour and stolid appearance of the Huns in
their grey-green faded uniforms, top boots, and pork-pie hats.
The shortest effect I can give of the impression I had was that our men,
superior, broadminded, more frank, and lovable beings, were regarding
these faded, unimaginative products of perverted kulture as a set of
objectionable but amusing lunatics whose heads had got to be eventually
smacked.
"Look at that one over there, Bill," our Bert would say, as he pointed out
some particularly curious member of the party.
I strolled about amongst them all, and sucked in as many impressions as I
could. Two or three of the Boches seemed to be particularly interested in
me, and after they had walked round me once or twice with sullen
curiosity stamped on their faces, one came up and said "Offizier?" I nodded
my head, which means "Yes" in most languages, and, besides, I can't talk
German.
These devils, I could see, all wanted to be friendly; but none of them
possessed the open, frank geniality of our men. However, everyone was
talking and laughing, and souvenir hunting.
I spotted a German officer, some sort of lieutenant I should think, and
being a bit of a collector, I intimated to him that I had taken a fancy to some
of his buttons.
We both then said things to each other which neither understood, and
agreed to do a swap. I brought out my wire clippers and, with a few deft
snips, removed a couple of his buttons and put them in my pocket. I then
gave him two of mine in exchange.
Whilst this was going on a babbling of guttural ejaculations emanating
from one of the laager-schifters, told me that some idea had occurred to
someone.
Suddenly, one of the Boches ran back to his trench and presently
reappeared with a large camera. I posed in a mixed group for several
photographs, and have ever since wished I had fixed up some arrangement
for getting a copy. No doubt framed editions of this photograph are
reposing on some Hun mantelpieces, showing clearly and unmistakably to
admiring strafers how a group of perfidious English surrendered
unconditionally on Christmas Day to the brave Deutschers.
Slowly the meeting began to disperse; a sort of feeling that the authorities
on both sides were not very enthusiastic about this fraternizing seemed to
creep across the gathering. We parted, but there was a distinct and friendly
understanding that Christmas Day would be left to finish in tranquillity.
The last I saw of this little affair was a vision of one of my machine
gunners, who was a bit of an amateur hairdresser in civil life, cutting the
unnaturally long hair of a docile Boche, who was patiently kneeling on the
ground whilst the automatic clippers crept up the back of his neck.
 CHAPTER IX
SOUVENIRS—A RIDE TO NIEPPE—TEA AT

H.Q.—TRENCHES ONCE MORE

A couple of days after Christmas we left for billets. These two days were of
a very peaceful nature, but not quite so enthusiastically friendly as the day
itself. The Germans could be seen moving about in their trenches, and one
felt quite at ease sitting on the top of our parapet or strolling about the
fields behind our lines.
It was during these two days that I managed to get a German rifle that I
had had my eye on for a month. It lay out in the open, near one or two
corpses between our trenches and theirs, and until this Christmas truce
arrived, the locality was not a particularly attractive one to visit. Had I
fixed an earlier date for my exploit the end of it would most probably have
been—a battered second-lieutenant's cap and a rusty revolver hanging up
in the ingle-nook at Herr Someone-or-other's country home in East Prussia.
As it was, I was able to walk out and return with the rifle unmolested.
When we left the trenches to "go out" this time I took the rifle along with
me. After my usual perilous equestrian act I got back to the Transport
Farm, and having performed the usual routine of washing, shaving, eating
and drinking, blossomed forth into our four days' rest again.
The weather was splendid. I went out for walks in the fields, rehearsed the
machine-gun section in their drill, and conducted cheery sort of "Squire-of-
the-village" conversations with the farmer who owned our farm.
At this period, most of my pals in the regiment used to go into Armentières
or Bailleul, and get a breath of civilized life. I often wished I felt as they
did, but I had just the opposite desire. I felt that, to adequately stick out
what we were going through, it was necessary for me to keep well in the
atmosphere, and not to let any exterior influence upset it.
I was annoyed at having to take up this line, but somehow or other I had a
feeling that I could not run the war business with a spot of civilization in it.
Personally, I felt that, rather than leave the trenches for our periodic rests, I
would sooner have stayed there all the time consecutively, until I could
stick it out no longer.
During this after-Christmas rest, however, I so far relapsed from these
views as to decide to go into Nieppe to get some money from the Field
Cashier. That was my first fall, but my second was even more strange. In a
truculent tone I said I would ride!
"Smith, go and tell Parker to get my horse ready!" It just shows how
reckless warfare makes one.
A beautiful, fine, still afternoon. I started off. Enormous success. I walked
and trotted along, past all sorts of wagons, lorries, guns and despatch
riders. Nearly decided to take up hunting, when the time came for me to
settle in England once more. However, as I neared the outskirts of Nieppe,
and saw the flood of interlacing traffic, I decided to leave well alone—to tie
this quadruped of mine up at some outlying hostelry and walk the short
remaining distance into the town where the cashier had his office. I found a
suitable place and, letting myself down to the ground, strode off with a stiff
bandy-legged action to the office. Having got my 100 francs all right I made
the best of my short time on earth by walking about and having a good
look at the town. A squalid, uninteresting place, Nieppe; a dirty red-brick
town with a good sprinkling of factory chimneys and orange peel; rather
the same tone as one of the Potteries towns in England. Completing my
tour I returned to the horse, and finally, stiff but happy, I glided to the
ground in the yard of the Transport Farm.
Encouraged by my success I rode over to dinner one night with one of the
Companies in the Battalion which was in billets about a mile and a half
away. Riding home along the flat, winding, water-logged lane by the light
of the stars I nearly started off on the poetry lines again, but I got home just
in time.
During these rests from the trenches I was sometimes summoned to
Brigade Headquarters, where the arch machine gunner dwelt. He was a
captain of much engineering skill, who supervised the entire machine-gun
outfit of the Brigade. New men were being perpetually trained by him, and
I was sent for on occasion to discuss the state and strength of my section, or
any new scheme that might be on hand.
This going to Brigade Headquarters meant putting on a clean bib, as it
were; for it was here that the Brigadier himself lived, and after a machine-
gun séance it was generally necessary to have tea in the farm with the
Brigade staff.
I am little or no use on these social occasions. The red and gold mailed fist
of a General Staff reduces me to a sort of pulverized state of meekness,
which ends in my smiling at everyone and declining anything to eat.
As machine-gun officer to our Battalion I had to go through it, and as
everyone was very nice to me, it all went off satisfactorily.
On this time out we were wondering how we should find the Boches on
our return, and pleasant recollections of the time before filled us with a
curious keenness to get back and see. A wish like this is easily gratified at
the front, and soon, of course, the day came to go into trenches again, and
in we went.
 CHAPTER X
MY PARTIAL ESCAPE FROM THE MUD—THE

DESERTED VILLAGE—MY "COTTAGE"

Our next time up after our Christmas Day experiences were full of incident
and adventure. During the peace which came upon the land around the
25th of December we had, as I mentioned before, been able to stroll about
in an altogether unprecedented way. We had had the courage to walk into
the mangled old village just behind our front line trenches, and examine
the ruins. I had never penetrated into this gloomy wreck of a place, even at
night, until after Christmas. It had just occasionally caught our attention as
we looked back from our trenches; mutilated and deserted, a dirty skeleton
of what once had been a small village—very small—about twelve small
houses and a couple of farms. Anyway, during this time in after Christmas
we started thinking out plans, and in a few days we heard that it had been
decided to put some men into the village, and hold it, as a second line.
The platoon commander with whom I lived happened to be the man
selected to have charge of the men in the village. Consequently one night
he left our humble trench and, together with his servant and small
belongings from the dug-out, went off to live somewhere in the village.
About this time the conditions under which we lived were very poor. The
cold and rain were exceedingly severe, and altogether physical discomfort
was at its height. When my stable companion had gone I naturally
determined to pay him a call the next night, and to see what sort of a place
he had managed to get to live in. I well remember that next night. It was
the first on which I realized the chances of a change of life presented by the
village, and this was the start of two months' "village" life for me. I went off
from our old trench after dusk on my usual round of the machine guns.
When this was over I struck off back across the field behind our trench to
the village, and waded up what had been the one and only street. Out of
the dozen mangled wrecks of houses I didn't know which one my pal had
chosen as his residence, so I went along the shell-mutilated, water-logged
road, peering into this ruin and that, until, at the end of the street, about
four hundred yards from the Germans and two hundred yards from our
own trenches, I came across a damp and dark figure lurking in the
shadows: "'Alt! 'oo goes there?" "Friend!" "Pass, friend, all's well." The
sentry, evidently posted at end of village.
I got a tip from him as to my friend's new dwelling-place. "I say, Sentry,
which house does Mr. Hudson live in?" "That small 'un down t'other end
on the left, sir." "Thanks." I went back along the deserted ruin of a street,
and at the far end on the left I saw the dim outline of a small cottage,
almost intact it appeared, standing about five yards back from the road.
This was the place the sentry meant right enough, and in I went at the hole
in the plaster wall. The front door having apparently stopped something or
other previously, was conspicuous by its absence.
All was dark. I groped my way along round to the back, stumbling over
various bits of debris on the ground, until I found the opening into what
must be the room where Hudson had elected to live. Not a light showed
anywhere, which was as it should be, for a light would be easily seen by
the Boches not far away, and if they did see one there would be trouble.
I came to an opening covered with an old sack. Pulling this a little to one
side I was greeted with a volume of suffocating smoke. I proceeded further,
and diving in under the sack, got inside the room. In the midst of the
smoke, sitting beside a crushed and battered fire-bucket, sat a man, his face
illuminated by the flickering light from the fire. The rest of the room was
bathed in mysterious darkness. "Where's Mr. Hudson?" I asked. "He's out
havin' a look at the barbed wire in front of the village, I think, sir; but he'll
be back soon, as this is where 'e stays now." I determined to wait, and, to
fill in the time, started to examine the cottage.
It was the first house I had been into in the firing line, and, unsavoury
wreck of a place as it was, it gave one a delightful feeling of comfort to sit
on the stone-flagged floor and look upon four perforated walls and a
shattered roof. The worst possible house in the world would be an
improvement on any of those dug-outs we had in the trenches. The front
room had been blown away, leaving a back room and a couple of lean-tos
which opened out from it. An attic under the thatched roof with all one end
knocked out completed the outfit. The outer and inner walls were all made
of that stuff known as wattle and daub—sort of earth-like plaster worked
into and around hurdles. A bullet would, of course, go through walls of
this sort like butter, and so they had. For, on examining the outer wall on
the side which faced the Germans, I found it looking like the top of a
pepper-pot for holes.
A sound as of a man trying to waltz with a cream separator, suggested to
my mind that someone had tripped and fallen over that mysterious
obstacle outside, which I had noticed on entering, and presently I heard
Hudson's voice cursing through the sack doorway.
He came in and saw me examining the place. "Hullo, you're here too, are
you?" he exclaimed. "Are you going to stay here as well?"
"I don't quite know yet," I replied. "It doesn't seem a bad idea, as I have to
walk the round of all the guns the whole time; all I can and have to do is to
hitch up in some central place, and this is just as central as that rotten
trench we've just come from."
"Of course it is," he replied. "If I were you I'd come along and stay with me,
and go to all your places from here. If an attack comes you'll be able to get
from one place to another much easier than if you were stuck in that
trench. You'd never be able to move from there when an attack and
bombardment had started."
Having given the matter a little further consideration I decided to move
from my dug-out to this cottage, so I left the village and went back across
the field to the trench to see to the necessary arrangements.
I got back to my lair and shouted for my servant. "Here, Smith," I said, "I'm
going to fix up at one of the houses in the village. This place of ours here is
no more central than the village, and any one of those houses is a damn
sight better than this clay hole here. I want you to collect all my stuff and
bring it along; I'll show you the way." So presently, all my few belongings
having been collected, we set out for the village. That was my last of that
fearful trench. A worse one I know could not be found. My new life in the
village now started, and I soon saw that it had its advantages. For instance,
there was a slight chance of fencing off some of the rain and water. But my
knowledge of "front" by this time was such that I knew there were
corresponding disadvantages, and my instinct told me that the village
would present a fresh crop of dangers and troubles quite equal to those of
the trench, though slightly different in style. I had now started off on my
two months' sojourn in the village of St. Yvon.
 CHAPTER XI
STOCKTAKING—FORTIFYING—NEBULOUS FRAGMENTS

Hudson, myself, his servant and my servant, all crushed into that house
that night. What a relief it was! We all slept in our greatcoats on the floor,
which was as hard as most floors are, and dirtier than the generality; but
being out of the water and able to stretch oneself at full length made up for
all deficiencies. Hudson and I both slept in the perforated room; the
servants in the larger chamber, near the fire bucket.
I got up just before dawn as usual, and taking advantage of the grey light,
stole about the village and around the house, sizing up the locality and
seeing how my position stood with regard to the various machine-gun
emplacements. The dawn breaking, I had to skunk back into the house
again, as it was imperative to us to keep up the effect of "Deserted house in
village." We had to lurk inside all day, or if we went out, creep about with
enormous caution, and go off down a slight slope at the back until we got
to the edge of the wood which we knew must be invisible to the enemy. I
spent this day making a thorough investigation of the house, creeping
about all its component parts and thinking out how we could best utilize
its little advantages. Hudson had crept out to examine the village by
stealth, and I went on with plots for fortifying the "castle," and for being
able to make ourselves as snug as we could in this frail shell of a cottage. I
found a hole in the floor boards of the attic and pulled myself up into it
thereby.
This attic, as I have said before, had all one end blown away, but the two
sloping thatched sides remained. I cut a hole in one of these with my
pocket-knife, and thus obtained a view of the German trenches without
committing the error of looking out through the blown-out end, which
would have clearly shown an observer that the house was occupied.
Looking out through the slit I had made I obtained a panoramic view, more
or less, of the German trenches and our own. The view, in short, was this:
One saw the backs of our own trenches, then the "No man's land" space of
ground, and beyond that again the front of the German trenches. This is
best explained by the sketch map which I give on the opposite page. I saw
exactly how the house stood with regard to the position, and also noticed
that it had two dangerous sides, i.e., two sides which faced the Germans, as
our position formed two sides of a triangle.
I then proceeded to explore the house. In the walls I found a great many
bullets which had stuck in between the bricks of the solitary chimney or
imbedded themselves in the woodwork of the door or supporting posts at
the corners. Amongst the straw in the attic I found a typical selection of
pathetic little trifles: two pairs of very tiny clogs, evidently belonging to
some child about four or five years old, one or two old and battered hats,
and a quantity of spinning material and instruments. I have the small clogs
at my home now, the only souvenir I have of that house at St. Yvon, which
I have since learnt is no more, the Germans having reduced it to a
powdered up mound of brick-dust and charred straw. Outside, and lying
all around, were a miscellaneous collection of goods. Half a sewing
machine, a gaudy cheap metal clock, a sort of mangle with strange wooden
blades (which I subsequently cut off to make shelves with), and a host of
other dirty, rain-soaked odds and ends.
Having concluded my examination I crept out back to the wood and took a
look at it all from there. "Yes," I thought to myself, "it's all very nice, but, by
Gad, we'll have to look out that they don't see us, and get to think we're in
this village, or they'll give us a warm time." It had gone very much against
my thought-out views on trench warfare, coming to this house at all, for I
had learnt by the experiences of others that the best maxim to remember
was "Don't live in a house."
The reason is not far to seek. There is something very attractive to artillery
about houses. They can range on them well, and they afford a more
definite target than an open trench. Besides, if you can spot a house that
contains, say, half a dozen to a dozen people, and just plop a "Johnson"
right amidships, it generally means "exit house and people," which, I
suppose, is a desirable object to be attained, according to twentieth century
manners.
However, we had decided to live in the house, but as I crept back from the
wood, I determined to take a few elementary and common-sense
precautions. Hudson had returned when I got back, and together we
discussed the house, the position, and everything we could think of in
connection with the business, as we sat on the floor and had our midday
meal of bully beef and biscuits, rounded up by tea and plum and apple jam
spread neat from the tin on odd corners of broken biscuits. We thoroughly
talked over the question of possible fortifications and precautions. I said,
"What we really want is an emergency exit somewhere, where we can
stand a little chance, if they start to shell us."
He agreed, and we both decided to pile up all the odd bricks, which were
lying outside at the back of the house, against the perforated wall, and then
sleep there in a little easier state of mind. We contented ourselves with this
little precaution to begin with, but later on, as we lived in that house, we
thought of larger and better ideas, and launched out into all sorts of
elaborate schemes, as I will show when the time comes.
Anyway, for the first couple of sessions spent in that house in St. Yvon, we
were content with merely making ourselves bullet proof. The whole day
had to be spent with great caution indoors; any visit elsewhere had to be
conducted with still greater caution, as the one great thing to be
remembered was "Don't let 'em see we're in the village." So we had long
days, just lying around in the dirty old straw and accumulated dirt of the
cottage floor.
We both sat and talked and read a bit, sometimes slept, and through the
opening beneath the sack across the back door we watched the evenings
creeping on, and finally came the night, when we stole out like vampires
and went about our trench work. It was during these long, sad days that
my mind suddenly turned on making sketches. This period of my trench
life marked the start of Fragments from France, though it was not till the
end of February that a complete and presentable effort, suitable for
publication in a paper, emerged. It was nothing new to me to draw, as for a
very long time before the war I had drawn hundreds of sketches, and had
spent a great amount of time reading and learning about all kinds of
drawing and painting. I have always had an enormous interest in Art; my
room at home will prove that to anyone. Stacks of bygone efforts of mine
will also bear testimony to this. Yet it was not until January, 1915, that I
had sufficiently resigned myself to my fate in the war, to let my mind turn
to my only and most treasured hobby. In this cottage at St. Yvon the
craving came back to me. I didn't fight against it, and began by making a
few pencil scribbles with a joke attached, and pinned them up in our
cracked shell of a room. Jokes at the expense of our miserable surroundings
they were, and these were the first "Fragments." Several men in the local
platoon collared these spasms, and soon after I came across them, muddy
and battered, in various dug-outs near by. After these few sketches, which
were done on rough bits of paper which I found lying about, I started to
operate on the walls. With some bits of charcoal, I made a mess on all the
four walls of our back room. There was a large circular gash, made by a
spent bullet I fancy, on one of the walls, and by making it appear as though
this mark was the centre point of a large explosion, I gave an apparent
velocity to the figure of a German, which I drew above.
These daubs of mine provoked mirth to those who lived with me, and
others who occasionally paid us visits. I persisted, and the next
"masterpiece" was the figure of a soldier (afterwards Private Blobs, of
"Fragments") sitting up a tree staring straight in front of him into the
future, whilst a party of corpulent Boches are stalking towards him
through the long grass and barbed wire. He knows there's something not
quite nice going on, but doesn't like to look down. This was called "The
Listening Post," and the sensation described was so familiar to most that
this again was apparently a success. So what with scribbling, reading and
sleeping, not to mention time occupied in consuming plum and apple jam,
bully, and other delicacies which a grateful country has ordained as the
proper food for soldiers, we managed to pull through our days. Two doses
of the trenches were done like this, and then came the third time up, when
a sudden burst of enthusiasm and an increasing nervousness as to the
safety of ourselves and our house, caused us to launch out into really
trying to fortify the place. The cause of this decision to do something, to
our abode was, I think, attributable to the fact that for about a fortnight the
Germans had taken to treating us to a couple of dozen explosions each
morning—the sort of thing one doesn't like just before breakfast; but if
you've got to have it, the thing obviously to do is to try and defend
yourself; so the next time, up we started.
 CHAPTER XII
A BRAIN WAVE—MAKING A "FUNK HOLE"

—PLUGSTREET WOOD—SNIPING

On arriving up at St. Yvon for our third time round there, we—as usual
now—went into our cottage again, and the regiment spread itself out
around the same old trenches. There was always a lot of work for me to do
at nights, as machine guns always have to be moved as occasion arises, or
if one gets a better idea for their position. By this time I had one gun in the
remnant of a house about fifty yards away from our cottage. This was a
reserve gun, and was there carrying out an idea of mine, i.e., that it was in
a central position, which would enable it to be rapidly moved to any
threatened part of the line, and also it would form a bit of an asset in the
event of our having to defend the village.
The section for this gun lived in the old cellar close by, and it was this cellar
which gave me an idea. When I went into our cottage I searched to see if
we had overlooked a cellar. No, there wasn't one. Now, then, the idea. I
thought, "Why not make a cellar, and thus have a place to dive into when
the strafing begins." After this terrific outburst of sagacity I sat down in a
corner and, with a biscuitload of jam, discussed my scheme with my
platoon-commander pal. We agreed it was a good idea. I was feeling
energetic, and always liking a little tinkering on my own, I said I would
make it myself.
So Hudson retired into the lean-to and I commenced to plot this
engineering project. I scraped away as much as necessary of the
accumulated filth on the floor, and my knife striking something hard I
found it to be tiles. Up till then I had always imagined it to be an earth
floor, but tiled it was right enough—large, square, dark red ones of a very
rough kind. I called for Smith, my servant, and telling him to bring his
entrenching tool, I began to prize up some of the tiles. It wasn't very easy,
fitting the blade of the entrenching tool into the crevices, but once I had got
a start and had got one or two out, things were easier.
I pulled up all the tiles along one wall about eight feet long and out into the
room a distance of about four feet. I now had a bare patch of hard earth
eight feet by four to contend with. Luckily we had a pickaxe and a shovel
lying out behind the house, so taking off my sheepskin jacket and
balaclava, I started off to excavate the hole which I proposed should form a
sort of cellar.
It was a big job, and my servant and I were hard at it, turn and turn about,
the whole of that day. A dull, rainy day, a cold wind blowing the old sack
about in the doorway, and in the semi-darkness inside yours truly handing
up Belgian soil on a war-worn shovel to my servant, who held a sandbag
perpetually open to receive it. A long and arduous job it was, and one in
which I was precious near thinking that danger is preferable to digging.
Mr. Doan, with his back-ache pills, would have done well if he had sent
one of his travellers with samples round there that night. However, at the
end of two days, I had got a really good hole delved out, and now I was
getting near the more interesting feature, namely, putting a roof on, and
finally being able to live in this under-ground dug-out.
This roof was perhaps rather unique as roofs go. It was a large mattress
with wooden sides, a kind of oblong box with a mattress top. I found it
outside in a ruined cottage. Underneath the mattress part was a cavity
filled with spiral springs. I arranged a pile of sandbags at each side of the
hole in the floor in such a way as to be able to lay this curiosity on top to
form a roof, the mattress part downwards. I then filled in with earth all the
parts where the spiral springs were placed. Total result—a roof a foot thick
of earth, with a good backbone of iron springs. I often afterwards wished
that that mattress had been filleted, as the spiral springs had a nasty way of
bursting through the striped cover and coming at you like the lid of a Jack-
in-the-box. However, such is war.
Above this roof I determined to pile up sandbags against the wall, right
away up to the roof of the cottage.
This necessitated about forty sandbags being filled, so it may easily be
imagined we didn't do this all at once.
However, in time, it was done—I mean after we had paid one or two more
visits to the trenches.
We all felt safer after these efforts. I think we were a bit safer, but not
much. I mean that we were fairly all right against anything but a direct hit,
and as we knew from which direction direct hits had to come, we made
that wall as thick as possible. We could, I think, have smiled at a direct hit
from an 18-pounder, provided we had been down our funk hole at the
time; but, of course, a direct hit from a "Johnson" would have snuffed us
completely (mattress and all).
Life in this house and in the village was much more interesting and
energetic than in that old trench. It was possible, by observing great
caution, to creep out of the house by day and dodge about our position a
bit, crawl up to points of vantage and survey the scene. Behind the cottage
lay the wood—the great Bois de Ploegstert—and this in itself repaid a visit.
In the early months of 1915 this wood was in a pretty mauled-about state,
and as time went on of course got more so. It was full of old trenches, filled
with water, relies of the period when we turned the Germans out of it.
Shattered trees and old barbed wire in a solution of mud was the chief
effect produced by the parts nearest the trenches, but further back
"Plugstreet Wood" was quite a pretty place to walk about in. Birds singing
all around, and rabbits darting about the tangled undergrowth. Long paths
had been cut through the wood leading to the various parts of the trenches
in front. A very quaint place, take it all in all, and one which has left a
curious and not unpleasing impression on my mind.
This ability to wander around and creep about various parts of our
position, led to my getting an idea, which nearly finished my life in the
cottage, village, or even Belgium. I suddenly got bitten with the sniping
fever, and it occurred to me that, with my facilities for getting about, I
could get into a certain mangled farm on our left and remain in the roof
unseen in daylight. From there I felt sure that, with the aid of a rifle, I could
tickle up a Boche or two in their trenches hard by. I was immensely taken
with this idea. So, one morning (like Robinson Crusoe again) I set off with
my fowling-piece and ammunition, and crawled towards the farm. I got
there all right, and entering the dark and evil-smelling precincts, searched
around for a suitable sniping post. I saw a beam overhead in a corner from
which, if I could get on to it, I felt sure I should obtain a view of the enemy
trenches through a gap in the tiled roof. I tied a bit of string to my rifle and
then jumping for the beam, scrambled up on it and pulled the rifle up after
me. When my heart pulsations had come down to a reasonable figure I
peered out through the hole in the tiles. An excellent view! The German
parapet a hundred yards away! Splendid!
Now I felt sure I should see a Boche moving about or something; or I might
possibly spot one looking over the top.
I waited a long time on that beam, with my loaded rifle lying in front of
me. I was just getting fed up with the waiting, and about to go away, when
I thought I saw a movement in the trench opposite. Yes! it was. I saw the
handle of something like a broom or a water scoop moving above the
sandbags. Heart doing overtime again! Most exciting! I felt convinced I
should see a Boche before long. And then, at last, I saw one—or rather I
caught a glimpse of a hat appearing above the line of the parapet. One of
those small circular cloth hats of theirs with the two trouser buttons in
front.
Up it came, and I saw it stand out nice and clear against the skyline. I
carefully raised my rifle, took a steady aim, and fired. I looked:
disappearance of hat! I ejected the empty cartridge case, and was just about
to reload when, whizz, whistle, bang, crash! a shell came right at the farm,
and exploded in the courtyard behind. I stopped short on the beam. Whizz,
whistle, bang, crash! Another, right into the old cowshed on my left.
Without waiting for any more I just slithered down off that beam, grabbed
my rifle and dashing out across the yard back into the ditch beyond,
started hastily scrambling along towards the end of one of our trenches. As
I went I heard four more shells crash into that farm. It was at this moment
that I coined the title of one of my sketches, "They've evidently seen me,"
for which I afterwards drew the picture near Wulverghem. I got back to
our cottage, crawled into the hole in the floor, and thought things over.
They must have seen the flash of my rifle through the tiles, and, suspecting
possible sniping from the farm, must have wired back to their artillery,
"Snipingberg from farmenhausen hoch!" or words to that effect.
Altogether a very objectionable episode.
 CHAPTER XIII
ROBINSON CRUSOE—THAT TURBULENT TABLE

By this time we had really got our little house quite snug. A hole in the
floor, a three-legged chair, and brown paper pushed into the largest of the
holes in the walls—what more could a man want? However, we did want
something more, and that was a table. One gets tired of balancing tins of
pl—(nearly said it again)—marmalade on one's knee and holding an
enamel cup in one hand and a pocket-knife in the other. So we all said how
nice a table would be. I determined to say no more, but to show by deeds,
not by words, that I would find a table and have one there by the next day,
like a fairy in a pantomime. I started off on my search one night. Take it
from me—a fairy's is a poor job out there, and when you've read the next
bit you'll agree.
Behind our position stood the old ruined chateau, and beyond it one or two
scattered cottages. I had never really had a good look at all at that part, and
as I knew some of our reserve trenches ran around there, and that it would
be a good thing to know all about them, I decided to ask the Colonel for
permission to creep off one afternoon and explore the whole thing;
incidentally I might by good luck find a table. It was possible, by wriggling
up a mud valley and crawling over a few scattered remnants of houses and
bygone trenches to reach the Colonel's headquarter dug-out in daytime. So
I did it, and asked leave to go off back to have a look at the chateau and the
land about it. He gave me permission, so armed with my long walking-
stick (a billiard cue with the thin part cut off, which I found on passing
another chateau one night) I started off to explore.
I reached the chateau. An interesting sight it was. How many shells had hit
it one couldn't even guess, but the results indicated a good few. What once
had been well-kept lawns were now covered with articles which would
have been much better left in their proper places. One suddenly came upon
half a statue of Minerva or Venus wrapped in three-quarters of a stair
carpet in the middle of one of the greenhouses. Passing on, one would find
the lightning conductor projecting out through the tapestried seat of a
Louis Quinze chair. I never saw such a mess.
Inside, the upstairs rooms were competing with the ground-floor ones, as
to which should get into the cellars first. It was really too terrible to
contemplate the fearful destruction.
I found it impossible to examine much of the interior of the chateau, as
blocks of masonry and twisted iron girders closed up most of the doors
and passages. I left this melancholy ruin, full of thought, and proceeded
across the shell-pitted gardens towards the few little cottages beyond.
These were in a better state of preservation, and were well worth a visit. In
the first one I entered I found a table! the very thing I wanted. It was stuck
away in a small lean-to at the back. A nice little green one, just the size to
suit us.
I determined to get it back to our shack somehow, but before doing so went
on rummaging about these cottages. In the second cottage I made an
enormously lucky find for us. Under a heap of firewood in an outhouse I
found a large pile of coal. This was splendid, and would be invaluable to
us and our fire-bucket. Nothing pleased me more than this, as the cold was
very severe, and a fire meant so much to us. When I had completed my
investigations and turned over all the oddments lying about to see if there
was anything else of use to us, I started off on the return journey. It was
now dark, and I was able to walk along without fear of being seen. Of
course, I was taking the table with me. I decided to come back later for the
coal, with a few sandbags for filling, so I covered it over and hid it as much
as possible. (Sensation: Ali Baba returns from the forest.) I started off with
the table. I had about three-quarters of a mile to go. Every hundred yards I
had to sit down and rest. A table is a horrible thing to accompany one on a
mile walk.
I reached the chateau again, and out into the fields beyond, resting with my
burden about three times before I got to the road which led straight on to
our trenches. My task was a bit harder now, as I was in full view of the
German trenches. Had it been daylight they could have seen me quite
easily.
Fortunately it was dark, but, of course, star shells would show one up quite
distinctly. I staggered on down the road with the green table on my back,
pausing as little as possible, but a rest had to be taken, and this at a very
exposed part of the road. I put the table down and sat panting on the top. A
white streak shot into the air—a star shell. Curse! I sprang off the green top
and waltzed with my four-legged wooden octopus into the ditch at the
side, where I lay still, waiting for the light to die out. Suspense over. I went
on again.
At last I got back with that table and pushed it into our hovel under the
sack doorway.
Immense success! "Just the thing we wanted!"
We all sat down to dinner that night in the approved fashion, whilst I, with
the air of a conspirator, narrated the incredible story of the vast Eldorado of
coal which I had discovered, and, over our shrimp paste and biscuits we
discussed plans for its removal.
 CHAPTER XIV
THE AMPHIBIANS—FED UP, BUT DETERMINED

—THE GUN PARAPET

So you see, life in our cottage was quite interesting and adventurous in its
way. At night our existence was just the same as before; all the normal
work of trench life. Making improvements to our trenches led to endless
work with sandbags, planks, dug-outs, etc. My particular job was mostly
improving machine-gun positions, or selecting new sites and carrying out
removals,
"BRUCE BAIRNSFATHER.
MACHINE GUNS REMOVED AT SHORTEST NOTICE.
ATTACKS QUOTED FOR."
And so the long dark dreary nights went on. The men garrisoning the little
cracked-up village lived mostly in cellars. Often on my rounds, during a
rainy, windy, mournful night, I would look into a cellar and see a
congested mass of men playing cards by the light of a candle stuck on a tin
lid. A favourite form of illumination I came across was a lamp made out of
an empty tobacco tin, rifle oil for the illuminant, and a bit of a shirt for a
wick!
People who read all these yarns of mine, and who have known the war in
later days, will say, "Ah, how very different it was then to now." In my last
experiences in the war I have watched the enormous changes creeping in.
They began about July, 1915. My experiences since that date were very
interesting; but I found that much of the romance had left the trenches. The
old days, from the beginning to July, 1915, were all so delightfully
precarious and primitive. Amateurish trenches and rough and ready life,
which to my mind gave this war what it sadly needs—a touch of romance.
Way back there, in about January, 1915, our soldiers had a perfectly unique
test of human endurance against appalling climatic conditions. They lived
in a vast bog, without being able to utilize modern contrivances for making
the tight against adverse conditions anything like an equal contest. And yet
I wouldn't have missed that time for anything, and I'm sure they wouldn't
either.
Those who have not actually had to experience it, or have not had the
opportunity to see what our men "stuck out" in those days, will never fully
grasp the reality.
One night a company commander came to me in the village and told me he
had got a bit of trench under his control which was altogether impossible
to hold, and he wanted me to come along with him to look at it, and see if I
could do anything in the way of holding the position by machine guns. His
idea was that possibly a gun might be fixed in such a place behind so as to
cover the frontage occupied by this trench. I came along with him to have a
look and see what could be done. He and I went up the rain-soaked village
street and out on to the field beyond. It was as dark as pitch, and about 11
p.m. Occasional shots cracked out of the darkness ahead from the German
trenches, and I remember one in particular that woke us up a bit. A kind of
derelict road-roller stood at one side of the field, and as we passed this,
walking pretty close together, a bullet whizzed between us. I don't know
which head it was nearest to, but it was quite near enough for both of us.
We went on across the field for about two hundred yards, out towards a
pile of ruins which had once been a barn, and which stood between our
lines and the Germans.
Near this lay the trench which he had been telling me about. It was quite
the worst I have ever seen. A number of men were in it, standing and
leaning, silently enduring the following conditions. It was quite dark. The
enemy was about two hundred yards away, or rather less. It was raining,
and the trench contained over three feet of water. The men, therefore, were
standing up to the waist in water. The front parapet was nothing but a
rough earth mound which, owing to the water about, was practically non-
existent. Their rifles lay on the saturated mound in front. They were all wet
through and through, with a great deal of their equipment below the water
at the bottom of the trench. There they were, taking it all as a necessary
part of the great game; not a grumble nor a comment.
The company commander and I at once set about scheming out an
alternative plan. Some little distance back we found a cellar which had
once been below a house. Now there was no house, so by standing in the
cellar one got a view along the ground and level with it. This was the very
place for a machine gun. So we decided on fixing one there and making a
sort of roof over a portion of the cellar for the gunners to live in. After
about a couple of hours' work we completed this arrangement, and then
removed the men, who, it was arranged, should leave the trenches that
night and go back to our billets for a rest, till the next time up. We weren't
quite content with the total safety of our one gun in that cellar, so we
started off on a further idea.
Our trenches bulged out in a bit of a salient to the right of the rotten trench,
and we decided to mount another gun at a certain projection in our lines so
as to enfilade the land across which the other gun would fire.
On inspecting the projected site we found it was necessary to make rather
an abnormally high parapet to stand the gun on. No sandbags to spare, of
course, so the question was, "What shall we make a parapet of?"
We plodded off back to the village and groped around the ruins for
something solid and high enough to carry the gun. After about an hour's
climbing about amongst debris in the dark, and hauling ourselves up into
remnants of attics, etc., we came upon a sewing machine. It was one of that
sort that's stuck on a wooden table with a treadle arrangement underneath.
We saw an idea at a glance. Pull off the sewing machine, and use the table.
It was nearly high enough, and with just three or four sandbags we felt
certain it would do. We performed the necessary surgical operation on the
machine, and taking it in turns, padded off down to the front line trench.
We had a bit of a job with that table. The parapet was a jumbled assortment
of sandbags, clay, and old bricks from the neighbouring barn: but we
finally got a good sound parapet made, and in about another hour's time
had fixed a machine gun, with plenty of ammunition, in a very unattractive
position from the Boche point of view. We all now felt better, and I'm
certain that the men who held that trench felt better too. But I am equally
certain that they would have stayed there ad lib even if we hadn't thought
of and carried out an alternative arrangement. A few more nights of rain,
danger and discomfort, then the time would come for us to be relieved, and
those same men would be back at billets, laughing, talking and smoking,
buoyant as ever.
 CHAPTER XV
ARRIVAL OF THE "JOHNSONS"—"WHERE

DID THAT ONE GO?"—THE FIRST FRAGMENT

DISPATCHED—THE EXODUS—WHERE?

Shortly after these events we experienced rather a nasty time in the village.
It had been decided, way back somewhere at headquarters, that it was
essential to hold the village in a stronger way than we had been doing.
More men were to be kept there, and a series of trenches dug in and
around it, thus forming means for an adequate defence should disaster
befall our front line trenches, which lay out on a radius of about five
hundred yards from the centre of the village. This meant working parties at
night, and a pretty considerable collection of soldiers lurking in cavities in
various ruined buildings by day.
Anyone will know that when a lot of soldiers congregate in a place it is
almost impossible to prevent someone or other being seen, or smoke from
some fire showing, or, even worse, a light visible at night from some
imperfectly shuttered house.
At all events, something or other gave the Boches the tip, and we soon
knew they had got their attention on our village.
Each morning as we clustered round our little green table and had our
breakfast, we invariably had about half a dozen rounds of 18-pounders
crash around us with varying results, but one day, as we'd finished our
meal and all sat staring into the future, we suddenly caught the sound of
something on more corpulent lines arriving. That ponderous, slow rotating
whistle of a "Johnson" caught our well-trained ears; a pause! then a
reverberating, hollow-sounding "crumph!" We looked at each other.
"Heavies!" we all exclaimed.
"Look out! here comes another!" and sure enough there it was, that
gargling crescendo of a whistle followed by a mighty crash, considerably
nearer.
We soon decided that our best plan was to get out of the house, and stay in
the ditch twenty yards away until it was over.
A house is an unwholesome spot to be in when there's shelling about. Our
funk hole was all right for whizz-bangs and other fireworks of that sort,
but no use against these portmanteaux they were now sending along.
Well, to resume; they put thirteen heavies into that village in pretty quick
time. One old ruin was set on fire, and I felt the consequent results would
be worse than just losing the building; as all the men in it had to rush
outside and keep darting in and out through the flames and smoke, trying
to save their rifles and equipment.
After a bit we returned into the house—a trifle prematurely, I'm afraid—as
presently a pretty large line in explosive drainpipes landed close outside,
and, as we afterwards discovered, blew out a fair-sized duck pond in the
road. We were all inside, and I think nearly every one said a sentence
which gave me my first idea for a Fragment from France. A sentence which
must have been said countless times in this war, i.e., "Where did that one
go?"
We were all inside the cottage now, with intent, staring faces, looking
outside through the battered doorway. There was something in the whole
situation which struck me as so pathetically amusing, that when the ardour
of the Boches had calmed down a bit, I proceeded to make a pencil sketch
of the situation. When I got back to billets the next time I determined to
make a finished wash drawing of the scene, and send it to some paper or
other in England. In due course we got back to billets, and the next
morning I fished out my scanty drawing materials from my valise, and
sitting at a circular table in one of the rooms at the farm, I did a finished
drawing of "Where did that one go," occasionally looking through the
window on to a mountain of manure outside for inspiration.
The next thing was to send it off. What paper should I send it to? I had had
a collection of papers sent out to me at Christmas time from some one or
other. A few of these were still lying about. A Bystander was amongst
them. I turned over the pages and considered for a bit whether my
illustrated joke might be in their line. I thought of several other papers, but
on the whole concluded that the Bystander would suit for the purpose, and
so, having got the address off the cover, I packed up my drawing round a
roll of old paper, enclosed it in brown paper, and put it out to be posted at
the next opportunity. In due course it went to the post, and I went to the
trenches again, forgetting all about the incident.
Next time in the trenches was full of excitement. We had done a couple of
days of the endless mud, rain, and bullet-dodging work when suddenly
one night we heard we were to be relieved and go elsewhere. Every one
then thought of only one thing—where were we going? We all had
different ideas. Some said we were bound for Ypres, which we heard at
that time was a pretty "warm" spot; some said La Bassee was our
destination—"warm," but not quite as much so as Ypres. Wild rumours
that we were going to Egypt were of course around; they always are. There
was another beauty: that we were going back to England for a rest!
The night after the news, another battalion arrived, and, after handing over
our trenches, we started off on the road to "Somewhere in France." It was
about 11.30 p.m. before we had handed over everything and finally parted
from those old trenches of ours. I said good-bye to our little perforated
hovel, and set off with all my machine gunners and guns for the road
behind the wood, to go—goodness knows where. We looked back over our
shoulders several times as we plodded along down the muddy road and
into the corduroy path which ran through the wood. There, behind us, lay
St. Yvon, under the moonlight and drifting clouds; a silhouetted mass of
ruins beyond the edge of the wood. Still the same old intermittent cracking
of the rifle shots and the occasional star shell. It was quite sad parting with
that old evil-smelling, rain-soaked scene of desolation. We felt how
comfortable we had all been there, now that we were leaving. And leaving
for what?—that was the question. When I reached the road, and had
superintended loading up our limbers, I got instructions from the transport
officer as to which way we were to go. The battalion had already gone on
ahead, and the machine-gun section was the last to leave. We were to go
down the road to Armentières, and at about twelve midnight we started on
our march, rattling off down the road leading to Armentières, bound for
some place we had never seen before. At about 2 a.m. we got there; billets
had been arranged for us, but at two in the morning it was no easy task to
find the quarters allotted to us without the assistance of a guide. The
battalion had got there first, had found their billets and gone to bed. I and
the machine-gun section rattled over the cobbles into sleeping Armentières,
and hadn't the slightest idea where we had to go. Nobody being about to
tell us, we paraded the town like a circus procession for about an hour
before finally finding out where we were to billet, and ultimately we
reached our destination when, turning into the barns allotted to us, we
made the most of what remained of the night in well-earned repose.
 CHAPTER XVI
NEW TRENCHES—THE NIGHT INSPECTION—

LETTER FROM THE "BYSTANDER"

Next day we discovered the mystery of our sudden removal. The battle of
Neuve Chapelle was claiming considerable attention, and that was where
we were going. We were full of interest and curiosity, and were all for
getting there as soon as possible. But it was not to be. Mysterious moves
were being made behind the scenes which I, and others like me, will never
know anything about; but, anyway, we now suddenly got another
bewildering order. After a day spent in Armentières we were told to stand
by for going back towards Neuve Eglise again, just the direction from
which we had come. We all knew too much about the war to be surprised
at anything, so we mutely prepared for another exit. It was a daylight
march this time, and a nice, still, warm day. Quite a cheery, interesting
march we had, too, along the road from Armentières to Neuve Eglise. We
were told that we were to march past General Sir Horace Smith Dorrien,
whom we should find waiting for us near the Pont de Nieppe—a place we
had to pass en route. Every one braced up at this, and keenly looked
forward to reaching Nieppe. I don't know why, but I had an idea he would
be in his car on the right of the road. To make no mistake I muttered "Eyes
right" to myself for about a quarter of a mile, so as to make a good thing of
the salute. We came upon the Pont de Nieppe suddenly, round the corner,
and there was the General—on the left! All my rehearsing useless.
Annoying, but I suppose one can't expect Generals to tell you where they
are going to stand.
We reached Neuve Eglise in time, and went into our old billets. We all
thought our fate was "back into those —— old Plugstreet trenches again,"
butmirabile dictu—it was not to be so. The second day in billets I received a
message from the Colonel to proceed to his headquarter farm. I went, and
heard the news. We were to take over a new line of trenches away to the
left of Plugstreet, and that night I was to accompany him along with all the
company commanders on a round of inspection.
A little before dusk we started off and proceeded along various roads
towards the new line. All the country was now brand new to me, and full
of interest. After we had gone about a mile and a half the character of the
land changed. We had left all the Plugstreet wood effect behind, and now
emerged on to far more open and flatter ground. By dusk we were going
down a long straight road with poplar trees on either side. At the end of
this stood a farm on the right. We walked into the courtyard and across it
into the farm. This was the place the battalion we were going to relieve had
made its headquarters. Not a bad farm. The roof was still on, I noticed, and
concluded from that that life there was evidently passable. We had to wait
here some time, as we were told that the enemy could see for a great
distance around there, and would pepper up the farm as sure as fate if they
saw anyone about. Our easy-going entry into the courtyard had not been
received with great favour, as it appeared we were doing just the very
thing to get the roof removed. However, the dusk had saved us, I fancy.
As soon as it was really dark we all sallied forth, accompanied by guides
this time, who were to show us the trenches. I crept along behind our
Colonel, with my eyes peeled for possible gun positions, and drinking in as
many details of the entire situation as I could.
We walked about ten miles that night, I should think, across unfamiliar
swamps and over unsuspected antique abandoned trenches, past dead
cows and pigs. We groped about the wretched shell-pitted fields,
examining the trenches we were about to take over. You would be
surprised to find how difficult a simple line of trenches can seem at night if
you have never seen them before.
You don't seem able to get the angles, somehow, nor to grasp how the
whole situation faces, or how you get from one part to another, and all that
sort of thing. I know that by the time I had been along the whole lot, round
several hundred traverses, and up dozens of communication trenches and
saps, all my mariner-like ability for finding my way back to Neuve Eglise
had deserted me. Those guides were absolutely necessary in order to get us
back to the headquarter farm. One wants a compass, the pole star, and
plenty of hope ever to get across those enormous prairies—known as fields
out there—and reach the place at the other side one wants to get to. It is a
long study before you really learn the simplest and best way up to your
own bit of trench; but when it comes to learning everybody else's way up
as well (as a machine gunner has to), it needs a long and painful course of
instruction—higher branches of this art consisting of not only knowing the
way up, but the safest way up.
The night we carried out this tour of inspection we were all left in a fog as
to how we had gone to and returned from the trenches. After we had got in
we knew, by long examination of the maps, how everything lay, but it was
some time before we had got the real practical hang of it all.
Our return journey from the inspection was a pretty silent affair. We all
knew these were a nasty set of trenches. Not half so pleasant as the
Plugstreet ones. The conversations we had with the present owners made it
quite clear that warm times were the vogue round there. Altogether we
could see we were in for a "bit of a time."
We cleared off back to Neuve Eglise that night, and next day took those
trenches over. This was the beginning of my life at Wulverghem. When we
got in, late that night, we found that the post had arrived some time before.
Thinking there might be something for me, I went into the back room
where they sorted the letters, to get any there might be before going off to
my own billets. "There's only one for you, sir, to-night," said the corporal
who looked after the letters. He handed me an envelope. I opened it.
Inside, a short note and a cheque.
"We shall be very glad to accept your sketch, 'Where did that one go to?'
From the Bystander"—the foundation-stone of Fragments from France.
 CHAPTER XVII
WULVERGHEM—THE DOUVE—CORDUROY

BOARDS—BACK AT OUR FARM

We got out of the frying-pan into the fire when we went to Wulverghem—
a much more exciting and precarious locality than Plugstreet. During all
my war experiences I have grown to regard Plugstreet as the unit of
tranquillity. I have never had the fortune to return there since those times
mentioned in previous chapters. When you leave Plugstreet you take away
a pleasing memory of slime and reasonable shelling, which is more than
you can say for the other places. If you went to Plugstreet after, say, the
Ypres Salient, it would be more or less like going to a convalescent home
after a painful operation.
But, however that may be, we were now booked for Wulverghem, or rather
the trenches which lie along the base of the Messines ridge, about a mile in
front of that shattered hamlet. Two days after our tour of inspection we
started off to take over. The nuisance about these trenches was that the
point where one had to unload and proceed across country, man-handling
everything, was abnormally far away from the firing line. We had about a
mile and a half to do after we had marched collectively as a battalion, so
that my machine-gunners were obliged to carry the guns and all the tackle
we needed all that distance to their trenches. This, of course, happened
every time we "came in."
The land where these trenches lay was a vast and lugubrious expanse of
mud, with here and there a charred and ragged building. On our right lay
the River Douve, and, on our left, the trenches turned a corner back
inwards again. In front lay the long line of the Messines ridge. The Boches
had occupied this ridge, and our trenches ran along the valley at its foot.
The view which the Boches got by being perched on this hill rendered them
exactly what their soul delights in, i.e., "uber alles." They can see for miles.
However, those little disadvantages have not prevented us from efficiently
maintaining our trenches at the far end of the plain, in spite of the difficulty
of carrying material across this flat expanse.
I forget what night of the week we went in and took over those trenches,
but, anyhow, it was a precious long one. I had only seen the place once
before, and in the darkness of the night had a long and arduous job finding
the way to the various positions allotted for my guns, burdened as I was
with all my sections and impedimenta. I imagine I walked about five or six
miles that night. We held a front of about a mile, and, therefore, not only
did I have to do the above-mentioned mile and a half, but also two or three
miles going from end to end of our line. It was as dark as could be, and the
unfamiliar ground seemed to be pitted like a Gruyère cheese with shell
holes. Unlimbering back near a farm we sloshed off across the mud flat
towards the section of trench which we had been ordered to occupy. I
trusted to instinct to strike the right angles for coming out at the trenches
which henceforth were to be ours. In those days my machine guns were the
old type of Maxim—a very weighty concern. To carry these guns and all
the necessary ammunition across this desert was a long and very
exhausting process. Occasional bursts of machine-gun fire and spent
bullets "zipping" into the mud all around hardly tended to cheer the
proceedings. The path along to the right-hand set of trenches, where I
knew a couple of guns must go, was lavishly strewn with dead cows and
pigs. When we paused for a rest we always seemed to do so alongside
some such object, and consequently there was no hesitation in moving on
again. None of us had the slightest idea as to the nature of the country on
which we were now operating. I myself had only seen it by night, and
nobody else had been there at all.
The commencement of the journey from the farm of disembarkation lay
along what is known as corduroy boards. These are short, rough, wooden
planks, nailed crossways on long baulks of timber. This kind of path is a
very popular one at the front, and has proved an immense aid in saving the
British army from being swallowed up in the mud.
The corduroy path ran out about four hundred yards across the grassless,
sodden field. We then came suddenly to the beginning of a road. A small
cottage stood on the right, and in front of it a dead cow. Here we
unfortunately paused, but almost immediately moved on (gas masks
weren't introduced until much later!).
From this point the road ran in a long straight line towards Messines. At
intervals, on the right-hand side only, stood one or two farms, or, rather,
their skeletons. As we went along in the darkness these farms silhouetted
their dreary remains against the faint light in the sky, and looked like vast
decayed wrecks of antique Spanish galleons upside down. On past these
farms the road was suddenly cut across by a deep and ugly gash: a reserve
trench. So now we were getting nearer to our destination. A particularly
large and evil-smelling farm stood on the right. The reserve trench ran into
its back yard, and disappeared amongst the ruins. From the observations I
had made, when inspecting these trenches, I knew that the extreme right of
our position was a bit to the right of this farm, so I and my performing
troupe decided to go through the farmyard and out diagonally across the
field in front. We did this, and at last could dimly discern the line of the
trenches in front. We were now on the extreme right of the section we had
to control, close to the River Douve, and away to the left ran the whole line
of our trenches. Along the whole length of this line the business of taking
over from the old battalion was being enacted. That old battalion made a
good bargain when they handed over that lot of slots to us. The trenches
lay in a sort of echelon formation, the one on the extreme right being the
most advanced. This one we made for, and as we squelched across the mud
to it a couple of German star shells fizzed up into the air and illuminated
the whole scene. By their light I could see the whole position, but could
only form an approximate idea of how our lines ran, as our parapets and
trenches merged into the mud so effectively as to look like a vast, tangled,
disorderly mass of sandbags, slime and shell holes. We reached the right-
hand trench. It was a curious sort of a trench too, quite a different pattern
to those we had occupied at St. Yvon, The first thing that struck me about
all these trenches was the quantity of sandbags there were, and the
geometrical exactness of the attempts at traverses, fire steps, bays, etc.
Altogether, theoretically, much superior trenches, although very cramped
and narrow. I waited for another star shell in order to see the view out in
front. One hadn't long to wait around there for star shells. One very soon
sailed up, nice and white, into the inky sky, and I saw how we were placed
with regard to the Germans, the hill and Messines. We were quite near a
little stream, a tributary of the Douve, in fact it ran along the front of our
trenches. Immediately on the other side the ground rose in a gradual slope
up the Messines hill, and about three-quarters way up this slope were the
German trenches.
When I had settled the affairs of the machine guns in the right-hand trench
I went along the line and fixed up the various machine-gun teams in the
different trenches as I came to them. The ground above the trenches was so
eaten away by the filling of sandbags and the cavities caused by shell fire,
that I found it far quicker and simpler to walk along in the trenches
themselves, squeezing past the men standing about and around the thick
traverses. Our total frontal length must have been three-quarters of a mile,
I should think. This, our first night in, was a pretty busy one. Dug-outs had
to be found to accommodate every one; platoons arranged in all the
sections of trench, all the hundred-and-one details which go to making
trench life as secure and comfortable as is possible under the
circumstances, had to be seen to and arranged. I had fixed up all the
sections by about ten o'clock and then started along the lines again trying
to get as clear an idea as possible of the entire situation of the trenches, the
type of land in front of each, the means of access to each trench, and
possible improvements in the various gun positions. All this had to be
done to the accompaniment of a pretty lively mixture of bullets and star
shells. Sniping was pretty severe that night, and, indeed, all the time we
were in those Douve trenches. There was an almost perpetual succession of
rifle shots, intermingled with the rapid crackling of machine-gun fire.
However, you soon learn out there that you can just as easily "get one" on
the calmest night by an accidental spent bullet as you can when a little hate
is on, and bullets are coming thick and fast. The first night we came to the
Douve was a pretty calm one, comparatively speaking; yet one poor chap
in the leading platoon, going through the farm courtyard I mentioned, got
shot right through the forehead. No doubt whatever it was an accidental
bullet, and not an aimed shot, as the Germans could not have possibly seen
the farm owing to the darkness of the night.
Just as I was finishing my tour of inspection I came across the Colonel, who
was going round everything, and thoroughly reconnoitring the position.
He asked me to show him the gun positions. I went with him right along
the line. We stood about on parapets, and walked all over the place,
stopping motionless now and again as a star shell went up, and moving on
again just in time to hear a bullet or two whizz past behind and go "smack"
into a tree in the hedge behind, or "plop" into the mud parados. When the
Colonel had finished his tour of inspection he asked me to walk back with
him to his headquarters. "Where are you living, Bairnsfather?" said the
Colonel to me. "I don't know, sir," I replied. "I thought of fixing up in that
farm (I indicated the most aromatized one by the reserve trench) and
making some sort of a dug-out if there isn't a cellar; it's a fairly central
position for all the trenches."
The Colonel thought for a moment: "You'd better come along back to the
farm on the road for to-night anyway, and you can spend to-morrow
decorating the walls with a few sketches," he said. This was a decidedly
better suggestion, a reprieve, in fact, as prior to this remark my bedroom
for the night looked like being a borrowed ground sheet slung over some
charred rafters which were leaning against a wall in the yard.
I followed along behind the Colonel down the road, down the corduroy
boards, and out at the old moated farm not far from Wulverghem. Thank
goodness, I should get a floor to sleep on! A roof, too! Straw on the floor!
How splendid!
It was quite delightful turning into that farm courtyard, and entering the
building. Dark, dismal and deserted as it was, it afforded an immense,
glowing feeling of comfort after that mysterious, dark and wintry plain,
with its long lines of grey trenches soaking away there under the inky sky.
Inside I found an empty room with some straw on the floor. There was
only one shell hole in it, but some previous tenant had stopped it up with a
bit of sacking. My word, I was tired! I rolled myself round with straw, and
still retaining all my clothes, greatcoat, balaclava, muffler, trench boots, I
went to sleep.
 CHAPTER XVIII
THE PAINTER AND DECORATOR—FRAGMENTS

FORMING—NIGHT ON THE MUD PRAIRIE

Had a fairly peaceful night. I say fairly because when one has to get up
three or four times to see whether the accumulated rattle of rifle fire is
going to lead to a battle, or turn out only to be merely "wind up," it rather
disturbs one's rest. You see, had an attack of some sort come on, yours
truly would have had to run about a mile and a half to some central spot to
overlook the machine-gun department. I used to think that to be actually
with one gun was the best idea, but I subsequently found that this plan
hampered me considerably from getting to my others; the reason being
that, once established in one spot during an open trench attack, it is
practically impossible to get to another part whilst the action is on.
At the Douve, however, I discovered a way of getting round this which I
will describe later.
On this first night, not being very familiar with the neighbourhood, I found
it difficult to ignore the weird noises which floated in through the sack-
covered hole. There is something very eerie and strange about echoing rifle
shots in the silence of the night. Once I got up and walked out into the
courtyard of the farm, and passing through it came out on to the end of the
road. All as still as still could be, except the distant intermittent cracking of
the rifles coming from away across the plain, beyond the long straight row
of lofty poplar trees which marked the road. A silence of some length
might supervene, in which one would only hear the gentle rustling of the
leaves; then suddenly, far away on the right, a faint surging roar can be
heard, and then louder and louder. "Wind up over there." Then, gradually,
silence would assert itself once more and leave you with nothing but the
rustling leaves and the crack of the sniper's rifle on the Messines ridge.
My first morning at this farm was, by special request, to be spent in
decorating the walls.
There wasn't much for anyone to do in the day time, as nobody could go
out. The same complaint as the other place in St. Yvon: "We mustn't look as
if anyone lives in the farm." Drawing, therefore, was a great aid to me in
passing the day. Whilst at breakfast I made a casual examination of the
room where we had our meals. I was not the first to draw on the walls of
that room. Some one in a previous battalion had already put three or four
sketches on various parts of the fire-place. Several large spaces remained
all round the room, however; but I noticed that the surface was very poor
compared with the wall round the fire-place.
The main surface was a rough sort of thing, and, on regarding it closely, it
looked as if it was made of frozen porridge, being slightly rough, and of a
grey-brown colour. I didn't know what on earth I could use to draw on this
surface, but after breakfast I started to scheme out something. I went into
the back room, which we were now using as a kitchen, and finding some
charcoal I tried that. It was quite useless—wouldn't make a mark on the
wall at all. Why, I don't know; but the charcoal just glided about and
merely seemed to make dents and scratches on the "frozen porridge." I then
tried to make up a mixture. It occurred to me that possibly soot might be
made into a sort of ink, and used with a paint brush. I tried this, but drew a
blank again. I was bordering on despair, when my servant said he thought
he had put a bottle of Indian ink in my pack when we left to come into the
trenches this time. He had a look, and found that his conjecture was right;
he had got a bottle of Indian ink and a few brushes, as he thought I might
want to draw something, so had equipped the pack accordingly.
I now started my fresco act on the walls of the Douve farm.
I spent most of the day on the job, and discovered how some startling
effects could be produced.
Materials were: A bottle of Indian ink, a couple of brushes, about a
hundredweight of useless charcoal, and a G.S. blue and red pencil.
Amongst the rough sketches that I did that day were the original drawings
for two subsequent "Fragments" of mine.
One was the rough idea for "They've evidently seen me," and the other was
"My dream for years to come." The idea for "They've evidently seen me"
came whilst carrying back that table to St. Yvon, as I mentioned in a
previous chapter, but the scenario for the idea was not provided for until I
went to this farm some time later. In intervals of working at the walls I
rambled about the farm building, and went up into a loft over a barn at the
end of the farm nearest the trenches. I looked out through a hole in the tiles
just in time to hear a shell come over from away back amongst the
Germans somewhere, and land about five hundred yards to the left. The
sentence, "They've evidently seen me," came flashing across my mind
again, and I now saw the correct setting in my mind: i.e., the enthusiastic
observer looking out of the top of a narrow chimney, whilst a remarkably
well-aimed shell leads "him of the binoculars" to suppose that theyhave
seen him.
I came downstairs and made a pencil sketch of my idea, and before I left
the trenches that time I had done a wash drawing and sent it to England.
This was my second "Fragment."
The other sketch, "My dream for years to come," was drawn on one wall of
a small apple or potato room, opening off our big room, and the drawing
occupied the whole wall.
I knocked off drawing about four o'clock, and did a little of the alternative
occupation, that of looking out through the cracked windows on to the
mutilated courtyard in front. It was getting darker now, and nearing the
time when I had to put on all my tackle, and gird myself up for my round
of the trenches. As soon as it was nearly dark I started out. The other
officers generally left a bit later, but as I had such a long way to go, and as I
wanted to examine the country while there was yet a little light, I started at
dusk. Not yet knowing exactly how much the enemy could see on the open
mud flat, I determined to go along by the river bank, and by keeping
among the trees I hoped to escape observation. I made for the Douve, and
soon got along as far as the row of farms. I explored all these, and a
shocking sight they were. All charred and ruined, and the skeleton remains
slowly decomposing away into the unwholesome ground about them. I
went inside several of the dismantled rooms. Nearly all contained old and
battered bits of soldiers' equipment, empty tins, and remnants of Belgian
property. Sad relics of former billeting: a living reminder of the rough
times that had preceded our arrival in this locality. I passed on to another
farm, and entered the yard near the river. It was nearly full of black
wooden crosses, roughly made and painted over with tar. All that was left
to mark the graves of those who had died to get our trenches where they
were—at the bottom of the Messines ridge. A bleak and sombre winter's
night, that courtyard of the ruined farm, the rows of crosses—I often think
of it all now.
As the darkness came on I proceeded towards the trenches, and when it
had become sufficiently dark I entered the old farm by the reserve trench
and crossed the yard to enter the field which led to the first of our trenches.
At St. Yvon it was pretty airy work, going the rounds at night, but this was
a jolly sight more so. The country was far more open, and although the
Boches couldn't see us, yet they kept up an incessant sniping
demonstration. Picking up my sergeant at Number 1 trench, he and I
started on our tour.
We made a long and exhaustive examination that night, both of the
existing machine-gun emplacements and of the entire ground, with a view
to changing our positions. It was a long time before I finally left the
trenches and started off across the desolate expanse to the Douve farm, and
I was dead beat when I arrived there. On getting into the big room I found
the Colonel, who had just come in. "Where's that right-hand gun of yours,
Bairnsfather?" he asked. "Down on the right of Number 2 trench, sir," I
answered; "just by the two willows near the sap which runs out towards
Number 1." "It's not much of a place for it," he said; "where we ought to
have it is to the right of the sap, so that it enfilades the whole front of that
trench." "When do you want it moved, sir?" I asked. "Well, it ought to be
done at once; it's no good where it is."
That fixed it. I knew what he wanted; so I started out again, back over the
mile and a half to alter the gun. It was a weary job; but I would have gone
on going back and altering the whole lot for our Colonel, who was the best
line in commanding officers I ever struck. Every one had the most perfect
confidence in him. He was the most shell, bullet, and bomb defying person
I have ever seen. When I got back for the second time that night I was quite
ready to roll up in the straw, and be lulled off to sleep by the cracking rifle
fire outside.
 CHAPTER XIX
VISIONS OF LEAVE—DICK TURPIN—LEAVE!

Our first time in the Douve trenches was mainly uneventful, but we all
decided it was not as pleasant as St. Yvon. For my part, it was fifty per cent.
worse than St. Yvon; but I was now buoyed up by a new light in the sky,
which made the first time in more tolerable than it might otherwise have
been. It was getting near my turn for leave! I had been looking forward to
this for a long time, but there were many who had to take their turn in
front of me, so I had dismissed the case for a bit. Recently, however, the
powers that be had been sending more than one officer away at a time;
consequently my turn was rapidly approaching. We came away back to
billets in the usual way after our first dose of the Douve, and all wallowed
off to our various billeting quarters. I was hot and strong on the leave idea
now. It was really getting close and I felt disposed to find everything
couleur de rose. Even the manure heap in the billeting farm yard looked
covered with roses. I could have thrown a bag of confetti at the farmer's
wife—it's most exhilarating to think of the coming of one's first leave. One
maps out what one will do with the time in a hundred different ways. I
was wondering how I could manage to transport my souvenirs home, as I
had collected a pretty good supply by this time—shell cases, fuse tops,
clogs, and that Boche rifle I got on Christmas Day.
One morning (we had been about two days out) I got a note from the
Adjutant to say I could put in my application. I put it in all right and then
sat down and hoped for the best.
My spirits were now raised to such a pitch that I again decided to ride to
Nieppe—just for fun.
I rode away down the long winding line, smiling at everything on either
side—the three-sailed windmill with the top off; the estaminet with the
hole through the gable end—all objects seemed to radiate peace and
goodwill. There was a very bright sun in the sky that day. I rode down to
the high road, and cantered along the grass at the side into Nieppe. Just as I
entered the town I met a friend riding out. He shouted something at me. I
couldn't hear what he said. "What?" I yelled.
"All leave's cancelled!"
That was enough for me. I rode into Nieppe like an infuriated cowboy. I
went straight for the divisional headquarters, flung away the horse and
dashed up into the building. I knew one or two of the officers there.
"What's this about leave?" I asked. "All about to be cancelled," was the
reply. "If you're quick, you may get yours through, as you've been out here
long enough, and you're next to go." "What have I got to do?" I screamed.
"Go to your Colonel, and ask him to wire the Corps headquarters and ask
them to let you go; only you'll have to look sharp about it."
He needn't have told me that. He had hardly finished before I was outside
and making for my horse. I got out of Nieppe as quickly as I could, and lit
out for our battalion headquarters. About four miles to go, but I lost no
time about it. "Leave cancelled!" I hissed through the triangular gap in my
front tooth, as I galloped along the road; "leave cancelled!"
I should have made a good film actor that day: "Dick Turpin's ride to York"
in two reels. I reached the turning off the high road all right, and pursued
my wild career down the lanes which led to the Colonel's headquarters.
The road wound about in a most ridiculous way, making salients out of
ploughed fields on either side. I decided to throw all prudence to the
winds, and cut across these. My horse evidently thought this an excellent
idea, for as soon as he got on the fields he was off like a trout up stream.
Most successful across the first salient, then, suddenly, I saw we were
approaching a wide ditch. Leave would be cancelled as far as I was
concerned if I tried to jump that, I felt certain. I saw a sort of a narrow
bridge about fifty yards to the right. Tried to persuade the horse to make
for it. No, he believed in the ditch idea, and put on a sprint to jump it.
Terrific battle between Dick Turpin and Black Bess!
A foaming pause on the brink of the abyss. Dick Turpin wins the
argument, and after a few prancing circles described in the field manages
to cross the bridge with his fiery steed. I then rode down the road into the
little village. The village school had been turned into a battalion stores, and
the quartermaster-sergeant was invariably to be found there. I dismounted
and pulled my horse up a couple of steps into the large schoolroom. Tied
him up here, and last saw him blowing clouds of steam out of his nose on
to one of those maps which show interesting forms of vegetable life with
their Latin names underneath. Now for the Colonel. I clattered off down
the street to his temporary orderly room. Thank heaven, he was in! I
explained the case to him. He said he would do his best, and there and then
sent off a wire. I could do no more now, so after fixing up that a message
should be sent me, I slowly retraced my steps to the school, extracted the
horse, and wended my way slowly back to the Transport Farm. Here I
languished for the rest of the day, feeling convinced that "all leave was
cancelled." I sat down to do some sketching after tea, full of marmalade
and depression. About 6 p.m. I chucked it, and went and sat by the stove,
smoking a pipe. Suddenly the door opened and a bicycle orderly came in:
"There's a note from the Adjutant for you, sir."
I tore it open. "Your leave granted; you leave to-morrow. If you call here in
the morning, I'll give you your pass."
LEAVE!!
 CHAPTER XX
THAT LEAVE TRAIN—MY OLD PAL—LONDON

AND HOME—THE CALL OF THE WILD

One wants to have been at the front, in the nasty parts, to appreciate fully
what getting seven days' leave feels like. We used to have to be out at the
front for three consecutive months before being entitled to this privilege. I
had passed this necessary apprenticeship, and now had actually got my
leave.
The morning after getting my instructions I rose early, and packed the few
things I was going to take with me. Very few things they were, too. Only a
pack and a haversack, and both contained nothing but souvenirs. I decided
to go to the station via the orderly room, so that I could do both in one
journey. I had about two miles to go from my billets to the orderly room in
the village, and about a mile on from there to the station. Some one
suggested my riding—no fear; I was running no risks now. I started off
early with my servant. We took it in shifts with my heavy bags of
souvenirs. One package (the pack) had four "Little Willie" cases inside, in
other words, the cast-iron shell cases for the German equivalent of our 18-
pounders. The haversack was filled with aluminium fuse tops and one
large piece of a "Jack Johnson" shell case. My pockets—and I had a good
number, as I was wearing my greatcoat—were filled with a variety of
objects. A pair of little clogs found in a roof at St. Yvon, several clips of
German bullets removed from equipment found on Christmas Day, and a
collection of bullets which I had picked out with my pocket knife from the
walls of our house in St. Yvon. The only additional luggage to this
inventory I have given was my usual copious supply of Gold Flake
cigarettes, of which, during my life in France, I must have consumed
several army corps.
It was a glorious day—bright, sunny, and a faint fresh wind. Everything
seemed bright and rosy. I felt I should have liked to skip along the road
like a young bay tree—no, that's wrong—like a ram, only I didn't think it
would be quite the thing with my servant there (King's Regulations:
Chapter 158, paragraph 96, line 4); besides, he wasn't going on leave, so it
would have been rather a dirty trick after all.
We got to the village with aching arms and souvenirs intact. I got my pass,
and together with another officer we set out for the station. It was a leave
train. Officers from all sorts of different battalions were either in it or going
to get in, either here or at the next stop.
Having no wish to get that station into trouble, or myself either, by
mentioning its name, I will call it Crême de Menthe. It was the same rotten
little place I had arrived at. It is only because I am trying to sell the "station-
master" a copy of this book that I call the place a station at all. It really is a
decomposing collection of half-hearted buildings and moss-grown rails,
with an apology for a platform at one side.
We caught the train with an hour to spare. You can't miss trains in France:
there's too much margin allowed on the time-table. The 10.15 leaves at
11.30, the 11.45 at 2.20, and so on; besides, if you did miss your train, you
could always catch it up about two fields away, so there's nothing to worry
about.
We started. I don't know what time it was.
If you turn up the word "locomotion" in a dictionary, you will find it means
"the act or power of moving from place to place"; from locus, a place,
andmotion, the act of moving. Our engine had got the locus part all right,
but was rather weak about the motion. We creaked and squeaked about up
the moss-grown track, and groaned our way back into the station time after
time, in order to tie on something else behind the train, or to get on to a
siding to let a trainload of trench floorboards and plum and apple jangle
past up the line. When at last we really started, it was about at the speed of
the "Rocket" on its trial trip.
Our enthusiastic "going on leave" ardour was severely tested, and nearly
broke down before we reached Boulogne, which we did late that night. But
getting there, and mingling with the leave-going crowd which thronged
the buffet, made up for all travelling shortcomings. Every variety of officer
and army official was represented there. There were colonels, majors,
captains, lieutenants, quantities of private soldiers, sergeants and
corporals, hospital nurses and various other people employed in some war
capacity or other. Representatives from every branch of the Army, in fact,
whose turn for leave had come.
I left the buffet for a moment to go across to the Transport Office, and
walking along through the throng ran into my greatest friend. A most
extraordinary chance this! I had not the least idea whereabouts in France he
was, or when he might be likely to get leave. His job was in quite a
different part, many miles from the Douve. I have known him for many
years; we were at school together, and have always seemed to have the
lucky knack of bobbing up to the surface simultaneously without prior
arrangement. This meeting sent my spirits up higher than ever. We both
adjourned to the buffet, and talked away about our various experiences to
the accompaniment of cold chicken and ham. A merry scene truly, that
buffet—every one filled with thoughts of England. Nearly every one there
must have stepped out of the same sort of mud and danger bath that I had.
And, my word! it is a first-class feeling: sitting about waiting for the boat
when you feel you've earned this seven days' leave. You hear men on all
sides getting the last ounce of appreciation out of the unique sensation by
saying such things as, "Fancy those poor blighters, sitting in the mud up
there; they'll be just about getting near 'Stand to' now."
You rapidly dismiss a momentary flash in your mind of what it's going to
be like in that buffet on the return journey.
Early in the morning, and while it was still dark, we left the harbour and
ploughed out into the darkness and the sea towards England.
I claim the honoured position of the world's worst sailor. I have covered
several thousand miles on the sea, "brooked the briny" as far as India and
Canada. I have been hurtled about on the largest Atlantic waves; yet I am,
and always will remain, absolutely impossible at sea. Looking at the docks
out of the hotel window nearly sends me to bed; there's something about a
ship that takes the stuffing out of me completely. Whether it's that horrible
pale varnished woodwork, mingled with the smell of stuffy upholstery, or
whether it's that nauseating whiff from the open hatch of the engine-room,
I don't know; but once on a ship I am as naught ... not nautical.
Of course the Channel was going to be rough. I could see that at a glance. I
know exactly what to do about the sea now. I go straight to a bunk, and
hope for the best; if no bunk—bribe the steward until there is one.
I got a bunk, deserted my friend in a cheerless way, and retired till the
crossing was over. It was very rough....
In the cold grey hours we glided into Dover or Folkestone (I was too
anaemic to care which) and fastened up alongside the wharf. I had a dim
recollection of getting my pal to hold my pack as we left Boulogne, and
now I could see neither him nor the pack. Fearful crush struggling up the
gangway. I had to scramble for a seat in the London train, so couldn't
waste time looking for my friend. I had my haversack—he had my pack.
The train moved off, and now here we all were back in clean, fresh,
luxurious England, gliding along in an English train towards London. It's
worth doing months and months of trenches to get that buoyant, electrical
sensation of passing along through English country on one's way to
London on leave.
I spent the train journey thinking over what I should do during my seven
days. Time after time I mentally conjured up the forthcoming performance
of catching the train at Paddington and gliding out of the shadows of the
huge station into the sunlit country beyond—the rapid express journey
down home, the drive out from the station, back in my own land again!
We got into London in pretty quick time, and I rapidly converted my
dreams into facts.
Still in the same old trench clothes, with a goodly quantity of Flanders mud
attached, I walked into Paddington station, and collared a seat in the train
on Number 1 platform. Then, collecting a quantity of papers and
magazines from the bookstalls, I prepared myself for enjoying to the full
the two hours' journey down home.
I spent a gorgeous week in Warwickshire, during which time my friend
came along down to stay a couple of days with me, bringing my missing
pack along with him. He had had the joy of carrying it laden with shell
cases across London, and taking it down with him to somewhere near
Aldershot, and finally bringing it to me without having kept any of the
contents ... Such is a true friend.
As this book deals with my wanderings in France I will not go into details
of my happy seven days' leave. I now resume at the point where I was due
to return to France. In spite of the joys of England as opposed to life in
Flanders, yet a curious phenomenon presented itself at the end of my leave.
I was anxious to get back. Strange, but true. Somehow one felt that
slogging away out in the dismal fields of war was the real thing to do. If
some one had offered me a nice, safe, comfortable job in England, I
wouldn't have taken it. I claim no credit for this feeling of mine. I know
every one has the same. That buccaneering, rough and tumble life out there
has its attractions. The spirit of adventure is in most people, and the desire
and will to biff the Boches is in every one, so there you are.
I drifted back via London, Dover and Boulogne, and thence up the same
old stagnant line to Crême de Menthe. Once more back in the land of mud,
bullets, billets, and star shells.
It was the greyest of grey days when I arrived at my one-horse terminus. I
got out at the "station," and had a solitary walk along the empty, muddy
lanes, back to the Transport Farm.
Plodding along in the thin rain that was falling I thought of home, London,
England, and then of the job before me. Another three months at least
before any further chance of leave could come my way again. Evening was
coming on. Across the flat, sombre country I could see the tall, swaying
poplar trees standing near the farm. Beyond lay the rough and rugged road
which led to the Douve trenches.
How nice that leave had been! To-morrow night I should be going along
back to the trenches before Wulverghem.
 CHAPTER XXI
BACK FROM LEAVE—THAT "BLINKIN' MOON"

—JOHNSON 'OLES—TOMMY AND "FRIGHTFULNESS"

—EXPLORING EXPEDITION

As I had expected, the battalion were just finishing their last days out in
rest billets, and were going "in" the following night.
Reaction from leave set in for me with unprecedented violence. It was
horrible weather, pouring with rain all the time, which made one's
depression worse.
Leave over; rain, rain, rain; trenches again, and the future looked like being
perpetually the same, or perhaps worse. Yet, somehow or other, in these
times of deep depression which come to every one now and again, I cannot
help smiling. It has always struck me as an amusing thing that the world,
and all the human beings thereon, do get themselves into such curious and
painful predicaments, and then spend the rest of the time wishing they
could get out.
My reflections invariably brought me to the same conclusion, that here I
was, caught up in the cogs of this immense, uncontrollable war machine,
and like every one else, had to, and meant to stick it out to the end.
The next night we went through all the approved formula for going into
the trenches. Started at dusk, and got into our respective mud cavities a
few hours later. I went all round the trenches again, looking to see that
things were the same as when I left them, and, on the Colonel's
instructions, started a series of alterations in several gun positions. There
was one trench that was so obscured along its front by odd stumps of trees
that I decided the only good spot for a machine gun was right at one end,
on a road which led up to Messines. From here it would be possible for us
to get an excellent field of fire. To have this gun on the road meant making
an emplacement there somehow. That night we started scheming it out,
and the next evening began work on it. It was a bright moonlight night, I
remember, and my sergeant and I went out in front of our parapet, walked
along the field and crept up the ditch a little way, considering the machine-
gun possibilities of the land. That moonlight feeling is very curious. You
feel as if the enemy can see you clearly, and that all eyes in the opposite
trench are turned on you. You can almost imagine a Boche smilingly taking
an aim, and saying to a friend, "We'll just let him come a bit closer first."
Every one who has had to go "out in front," wiring, will know this feeling.
As a matter of fact, it is astonishing how little one can see of men in the
moonlight, even when the trenches are very close together. One gets quite
used to walking about freely in this light, going out in front of the parapet
and having a look round. The only time that really makes one
apprehensive is when some gang of men or other turn up from way back
somewhere, and have come to assist in some operation near the enemy.
They, being unfamiliar with the caution needed, and unappreciative of
what it's like to have neighbours who "hate" you sixty yards away,
generally bring trouble in their wake by one of the party shouting out in a
deep bass or a shrill soprano, "'Ere, chuck us the 'ammer, 'Arry," or
something like that, following the remark up with a series of vulcan-like
blows on the top of an iron post. Result: three star shells soar out into the
frosty air, and a burst of machine-gun fire skims over the top of your head.
We made a very excellent and strong emplacement on the road, and used it
henceforth. I had a lot of bother with one gun in those trenches, which was
placed at very nearly the left-hand end of the whole line. I had been
obliged to fix the gun there, as it was very necessary for dominating a
certain road. But when I took the place over from the previous battalion, I
thought there might be difficulties about this gun position, and there were.
The night before we had made our inspection of these trenches, a shell had
landed right on top of the gun emplacement and had "outed" the whole
concern, unfortunately killing two of the gun
All round that neighbourhood it seemed to have been the fashion, past and
present, to use the largest shells. In going along the Douve one day, I made
a point of measuring and examining several of the holes. I took a
photograph of one, with my cap resting on one side of it, to show the
relative proportion and give an idea of the size. It was about fourteen feet
in diameter, and seven feet deep. The largest shell hole I have ever seen
was over twenty feet in diameter and about twelve feet deep. The largest
hole I have seen, made by an implement of war, though not by a gun or a
howitzer, was larger still, and its size was colossal. I refer to a hole made by
one of our trench mortars, but regret that I did not measure it. Round about
our farm were a series of holes of immense size, showing clearly the odium
which that farm had incurred, and was incurring; but, whilst I was in it,
nothing came in through the roof or walls. I have since learnt that that old
farm is no more, having been shelled out of existence. All my sketches on
those plaster walls form part of a slack heap, surrounded by a moat.
Well, this persistent shelling of the left-hand end of our trenches meant a
persistent readjustment of our parapets, and putting things back again.
Each morning the Boches would knock things down, and each evening we
would put them up again. Our soldiers are only amused by this procedure.
Their humorously cynical outlook at the Boche temper renders them
impervious to anything the Germans can ever do or think of. Their outlook
towards a venomous German attempt to do something "frightfully" nasty,
is very similar to a large and powerful nurse dealing with a fractious
child—sort of: "Now, then, Master Frankie, you mustn't kick and scream
like that."
One can almost see a group of stolid, unimaginative, non-humorous
Germans, taking all things with their ridiculous seriousness, sending off
their shells, and pulling hateful faces at the same time. You can see our
men sending over a real stiff, quietening answer, with a sporting twinkle in
the eye, perhaps jokingly remarking, as a shell is pushed into the gun,
"'Ere's one for their Officers' Mess, Bert."
On several evenings I had to go round and arrange for the reconstruction
of the ruined parapet or squashed-in dug-outs. It was during one of these
little episodes that I felt the spirit of my drawing, "There goes our blinking
parapet again," which I did sometime later. I never went about looking for
ideas for drawings; the whole business of the war seemed to come before
me in a series of pictures. Jokes used to stick out of all the horrible
discomfort, something like the points of a harrow would stick into you if
you slept on it.
I used to visit all the trenches, and look up the various company
commanders and platoon commanders in the same way as I did at St.
Yvon. I got a splendid idea of all the details of our position; all the various
ways from one part of it to another. As I walked back to the Douve farm at
night, nearly always alone, I used to keep on exploring the wide tract of
land that lay behind our trenches. "I'll have a look at that old cottage up on
the right to-night," I used to say to myself, and later, when the time came
for me to walk back from the trenches, I would go off at a new angle across
the plain, and make for my objective. Once inside, and feeling out of view
of the enemy, I would go round the deserted rooms and lofts by the light of
a few matches, and if the house looked as if it would prove of interest, I
would return the next night with a candle-end, and make an examination
of the whole thing. They are all very much alike, these houses in Flanders;
all seem to contain the same mangled remains of simple, homely
occupations. Strings of onions, old straw hats, and clogs, mixed with an
assortment of cheap clothing, with perhaps here and there an umbrella or a
top hat. That is about the class of stuff one found in them. After one of
these expeditions I would go on back across the plain, along the corduroy
boards or by the bank of the river, to our farm.
 CHAPTER XXII
A DAYLIGHT STALK—THE DISUSED TRENCH—

"DID THEY SEE ME?"—A GOOD SNIPING

POSITION

Our farm was, as I have remarked, a mile from the trenches at the nearest
part, and about a mile and a half from the furthest. Wulverghem was about
half a mile behind the farm.
As time went on at these Douve trenches, I became more and more familiar
with the details of the surrounding country, for each day I used to creep
out of the farm, and when I had crossed the moat by a small wooden
bridge at the back, I would go off into the country near by looking at
everything. One day the Colonel expressed a wish to know whether it was
possible to get up into our trenches in day time without being seen. Of
course any one could have gone to the trenches, and been momentarily
seen here and there, and could have done so fairly safely and easily by
simply walking straight up, taking advantage of what little cover there
was; but to get right up without showing at all, was rather a poser, as all
cover ceased about a hundred yards behind the trenches.
The idea of trying attracted me. One morning I crept along the ragged
hedge, on the far side of the moat which led to the river, and started out for
the trenches. I imagined a German with a powerful pair of binoculars
looking down on the plain from the Messines Hill, with nothing better to
do than to see if he could spot some one walking about. Keeping this
possibility well in mind, I started my stalk up to the trenches with every
precaution.
I crept along amongst the trees bordering the river for a considerable
distance, but as one neared the trenches, these got wider apart, and as the
river wound about a lot there were places where to walk from one tree to
the next, one had to walk parallel to the German trenches and quite
exposed, though, of course, at a considerable range off. I still bore in mind
my imaginary picture of the gentleman with binoculars, though, so I got
down near the water's edge and moved along, half-concealed by the bank.
Soon I reached the farms, and by dodging about amongst the scattered
shrubs and out-houses, here and there crawling up a ditch, I got into one of
the farm buildings. I sat in it amongst a pile of old clothes, empty tins and
other oddments, and had a smoke, thinking the while on how I could get
from these farms across the last bit of open space which was the most
difficult of all.
I finished my cigarette, and began the stalk again. Another difficulty
presented itself. I found that it was extremely difficult to cross from the
second last farm to the last one, as the ground was completely open, and
rather sloped down towards the enemy. This was not apparent when
looking at the place at night, for then one never bothers about concealment,
and one walks anywhere and anyhow. But now the question was, how to
do it. I crept down to the river again, and went along there for a bit,
looking for a chance of leaving it under cover for the farm.
Coming to a narrow, cart-rutted lane a little further on, I was just starting
to go up it when, suddenly, a bright idea struck me. An old zig-zag
communication trench (a relic of a bygone period) left the lane on the right,
and apparently ran out across the field to within a few yards of the furthest
farm. Once there, I had only a hundred yards more to do.
I entered the communication trench. It was just a deep, narrow slot cut
across the field, and had, I should imagine, never been used. I think the
enormous amount of water in it had made it a useless work. I saw no sign
of it ever having been used. A fearful trench it was, with a deep deposit of
dark green filthy, watery mud from end to end.
This, I could see, was the only way up to the farm, so I made the best of it. I
resigned myself to getting thoroughly wet through. Quite unavoidable. I
plunged into this unwholesome clay ditch and went along, each step taking
me up to my thighs in soft dark ooze, whilst here and there the water was
so deep as to force me to scoop out holes in the clay at the side when, by
leaning against the opposite side, with my feet in the holes, I could slowly
push my way along. In time I got to the other end, and sat down to think a
bit. As I sat, a bullet suddenly whacked into the clay parapet alongside of
me, which stimulated my thinking a bit. "Had I been seen?" I tried to find
out, and reassure myself before going on. I put my hat on top of a stick and
brought it up above the parapet at two or three points to try and attract
another shot; but no, there wasn't another, so I concluded the first one had
been accidental, and went on my way again. By wriggling along behind an
undulation in the field, and then creeping from one tree to another, I at last
managed to get up into our reserve trenches, where I obtained my first
daylight, close-up view of our trenches, German trenches, and general
landscape; all laid out in panorama style.
In front of me were our front-line trenches, following the line of the little
stream which ran into the Douve on the right. On the far side of the stream
the ground gently rose in a long slope up to Messines, where you could see
a shattered mass of red brick buildings with the old grey tower in the
middle. At a distance of from about two to four hundred yards away lay
the German trenches, parallel to ours, their barbed wire glistening in the
morning sunlight.
"This place I'm in is a pretty good place for a sniper to hitch up," I thought
to myself. "Can see everything there is to be seen from here."
After a short stocktaking of the whole scene, I turned and wallowed my
way back to the farm. Some few days later they did make a sniper's post of
that spot, and a captain friend of mine, with whom I spent many quaint
and dismal nights in St. Yvon, occupied it. He was the "star" shot of the
battalion, an expert sniper, and, I believe, made quite a good bag.
 CHAPTER XXIII
OUR MOATED FARM—WULVERGHEM—THE

CURÉ'S HOUSE—A SHATTERED CHURCH

—MORE "HEAVIES"—A FARM ON FIRE

Our farm was one of a cluster of three or four, each approximately a couple
of hundred yards apart. It was perhaps the largest and the most preserved
of the lot. It was just the same sort of shape as all Flemish farms—a long
building running round three sides of the yard, in the middle of which
there was an oblong tank, used for collecting all the rubbish and drainage.
The only difference about our farm was, we had a moat. Very superior to
all the cluster in consequence. Sometime or other the moat must have been
very effective; but when I was there, only about a quarter of it contained
water. The other three-quarters was a sort of bog, or marsh, its surface
broken up by large shell holes. On the driest part of this I discovered a row
of graves, their rough crosses all battered and bent down. I just managed to
discern the names inscribed; they were all French. Names of former heroes
who had participated in some action or other months before. Going out
into the fields behind the farm, I found more French graves, enclosed in a
rectangular graveyard that had been roughly made with barbed wire and
posts, each grave surmounted with the dead soldier's hat. Months of rough
wintry weather had beaten down the faded cloth cap into the clay mound,
and had started the obliteration of the lettering on the cross. A few more
months; and cross, mound and hat will all have merged back into the fields
of Flanders.
Beyond these fields, about half a mile distant, lay Wulverghem. Looking at
what you can see of this village from the Douve farm, it looks exceedingly
pretty and attractive. A splendid old church tower could be seen between
the trees, and round about it were clustered the red roofs of a fair-sized
village. It has, to my mind, a very nice situation. In the days before the war
it must have been a pleasing place to live in. I went to have a look at it one
day. It's about as fine a sample of what these Prussians have brought upon
Belgian villages as any I have seen. The village street is one long ruin. On
either side of the road, all the houses are merely a collection of broken tiles
and shattered bricks and framework. Huge shell holes punctuate the street.
I had seen a good many mutilated villages before this, but I remember
thinking this was as bad, if not worse, than any I had yet seen. I
determined to explore some of the houses and the church.
I went into one house opposite the church. It had been quite a nice house
once, containing about ten rooms. It was full of all sorts of things. The
evacuation had evidently been hurried. I went into the front right-hand
room first, and soon discovered by the books and pictures that this had
been the Curé's house. It was in a terrible state. Religious books in French
and Latin lay about the floor in a vast disorder, some with the cover and
half the book torn off by the effect of an explosion. Pictures illustrating
Bible scenes, images, and other probably cherished objects, smashed and
ruined, hung about the walls, or fragmentary portions of them lay littered
about on the floor.
A shell hole of large proportions had rent a gash in the outer front wall,
leaving the window woodwork, bricks and wall-paper piled up in a heap
on the floor, partially obliterating a large writing desk. Private papers lay
about in profusion, all dirty, damp and muddy. The remains of a window
blind and half its roller hung in the space left by the absent window, and
mournfully tapped against the remnant of the framework in the light, cold
breeze that was blowing in from outside. Place this scene in your
imagination in some luxuriant country vicarage in England, and you will
get an idea of what Belgium has had to put up with from these Teutonic
madmen. I went into all the rooms; they were in very much the same state.
In the back part of the house the litter was added to by empty tins and old
military equipment. Soldiers had evidently had to live there temporarily on
their way to some part of our lines. I heard a movement in the room
opposite the one I had first gone into; I went back and saw a cat sitting in
the corner amongst a pile of leather-backed books. I made a movement
towards it, but with a cadaverous, wild glare at me, it sprang through the
broken window and disappeared.
The church was just opposite the priest's house. I went across the road to
look at it. It was a large reddish-grey stone building, pretty old, I should
say, and surrounded by a graveyard. Shell holes everywhere; the old, grey
grave stones and slabs cracked and sticking about at odd angles. As I
entered by the vestry door I noticed the tower was fairly all right, but that
was about the only part that was. Belgium and Northern France are full of
churches which have been sadly knocked about, and all present very much
the same appearance. I will describe this one to give you a sample. I went
through the vestry into the main part of the church, deciding to examine
the vestry later. The roof had had most of the tiles blown off, and
underneath them the roofing-boards had been shattered into long narrow
strips. Fixed at one end to what was left of the rafters they flapped slowly
up and down in the air like lengths of watch-spring. Below, on the floor of
the church, the chairs were tossed about in the greatest possible disorder,
and here and there a dozen or so had been pulverized by the fall of an
immense block of masonry. Highly coloured images were lying about,
broken and twisted. The altar candelabra and stained-glass windows lay in
a heap together behind a pulpit, the front of which had been knocked off
by a falling pillar. One could walk about near some of the broken images,
and pick up little candles and trinkets which had been put in and around
the shrine, off the floor and from among the mass of broken stones and
mortar. The vestry, I found, was almost complete. Nearly trodden out of
recognition on the floor, I found a bright coloured hand-made altar cloth,
which I then had half a mind to take away with me, and post it back to
some parson in England to put in his church. I only refrained from carrying
out this plan as I feared that the difficulties of getting it away would be too
great. I left the church, and looked about some of the other houses, but
none proved as pathetically interesting as the church and the vicar's house,
so I took my way out across the fields again towards the Douve farm.
Not a soul about anywhere. Wulverghem lay there, empty, wrecked and
deserted. I walked along the river bank for a bit, and had got about two
hundred yards from the farm when the quiet morning was interrupted in
the usual way, by shelling. Deep-toned, earth-shaking crashes broke into
the quiet peaceful air. "Just in the same place," I observed to myself as I
walked along behind our left-hand trenches. I could see the cloud of black
smoke after each one landed, and knew exactly where they were. "Just in
the same old—hullo! hullo!" With that rotating, gurgling whistle a big one
had just sailed over and landed about fifty yards from our farm! I nipped
in across the moat, through the courtyard, and explained to the others
where it had landed. We all remained silent, waiting for the next. Here it
came, gurgling along through the air; a pause, then "Crumph!"—nearly in
the same place again, but, if anything, nearer the next farm. The Colonel
moved to the window and looked out. "They're after that farm," he said, as
he turned away slowly and struck a match by the fireplace to light his pipe
with. About half a dozen shells whizzed along in close succession, and
about four hit and went into the roof of the next farm.
Presently I looked out of the window again, and saw a lot of our men
moving out of the farm and across the road into the field beyond. There
was a reserve trench here, so they went into it. I looked again, and soon
saw the reason. Dense columns of smoke were coming out of the straw
roof, and soon the whole place was a blazing ruin. Nobody in the least
perturbed; we all turned away from the window and wondered how soon
they'd "have our farm."
 CHAPTER XXIV
THAT RATION FATIGUE——SKETCHES IN

REQUEST—BAILLEUL—BATHS AND

LUNATICS—HOW TO CONDUCT A WAR

They seemed to me long, dark, dismal days, those days spent in the Douve
trenches; longer, darker and more dismal than the Plugstreet ones. Night
after night I crossed the dreary mud flat, passed the same old wretched
farms, and went on with the same old trench routine. We all considered the
trenches a pretty rotten outfit; but every one was fully prepared to accept
far rottener things than that. There was never the least sign of flagging
determination in any man there, and I am sure you could say the same of
the whole front.
And, really, some jobs on some nights wanted a lot of beating for
undesirability. Take the ration party's job, for instance. Think of the
rottenest, wettest, windiest winter's night you can remember, and add to it
this bleak, muddy, war-worn plain with its ruined farms and shell-torn
lonely road. Then think of men, leaving the trenches at dusk, going back
about a mile and a half, and bringing sundry large and heavy boxes up to
the trenches, pausing now and again for a rest, and ignoring the
intermittent crackling of rifle fire in the darkness, and the sharp "phit" of
bullets hitting the mud all around. Think of that as your portion each night
and every night. When you have finished this job, the rest you get consists
of coiling yourself up in a damp dug-out. Night after night, week after
week, month after month, this job is done by thousands. As one sits in a
brilliantly illuminated, comfortable, warm theatre, having just come from a
cosy and luxurious restaurant, just think of some poor devil half-way along
those corduroy boards struggling with a crate of biscuits; the ration
"dump" behind, the trenches on in front. When he has finished he will step
down into the muddy slush of a trench, and take his place with the rest,
who, if need be, will go on doing that job for another ten years, without
thinking of an alternative. The Germans made a vast mistake when they
thought they had gauged the English temperament.
We went "in" and "out" of those trenches many times. During these
intervals of "out" I began to draw pictures more and more. It had become
known that I drew these trench pictures, not only in our battalion but in
several others, and at various headquarters I got requests for four or five
drawings at a time. About three weeks after I returned from leave, I had to
move my billeting quarters. I went to a farm called "La petite Monque"; I
don't know how it's really spelt, but that's what the name sounded like.
Here I lived with the officers of A Company, and a jolly pleasant crew they
were. We shared a mess together, and had one big room and one small
room between us. There were six of us altogether. The Captain had the
little room and the bed in it, whilst we all slept round the table on the floor
in the big room. Here, in the daytime, when I was not out with the
machine-gun sections, I drew several pictures. The Brigadier-General of
our brigade took a particular fancy to one which he got from me. The
divisional headquarters had half a dozen; whilst I did two sets of four each
for two officers in the regiment.
Sometimes we would go for walks around the country, and occasionally
made an excursion as far as Bailleul, about five miles away. Bailleul held
one special attraction for us. There were some wonderfully good baths
there. The fact that they were situated in the lunatic asylum rather added to
their interest.
The first time I went there, one of the subalterns in A Company was my
companion. We didn't particularly want to walk all the way, so we decided
to get down to the high road as soon as we could, and try and get a lift in a
car. With great luck we managed to stop a fairly empty car, and got a lift. It
was occupied by a couple of French soldiers who willingly rolled us along
into Bailleul. Once there, we walked through the town and out to the
asylum close by. I expect by now the lunatics have been called up under
the group system; but in those days they were there, and pulled faces at us
as we walked up the wide gravel drive to the grand portals of the building.
They do make nice asylums over there. This was a sort of Chatsworth or
Blenheim to look at. Inside it was fitted up in very great style: long
carpeted corridors opening out into sort of domed winter gardens,
something like the snake house at the Zoo. We came at length to a
particularly lofty, domed hall, from which opened several large bathrooms.
Splendid places. A row of large white enamelled baths along one wall, cork
mats on the floor, and one enormous central water supply, hot and cold,
which you diverted to whichever bath you chose by means of a long
flexible rubber pipe. Soap, sponges, towels, ad lib. You can imagine what
this palatial water grotto meant to us, when, at other times, our best bath
was of saucepan capacity, taken on the cold stone floor of a farm room. We
lay and boiled the trenches out of our systems in that palatial asylum.
Glorious! lying back in a long white enamel bath in a warm foggy
atmosphere of steam, watching one's toes floating in front. When this was
over, and we had been grimaced off the premises by "inmates" at the
windows, we went back into Bailleul and made for the "Faucon d'Or," an
old hotel that stands in the square. Here we had a civilized meal.
Tablecloth, knives, forks, spoons, waited on, all that sort of thing. You
could have quite a good dinner here if you liked. A curious thought
occurred to me then, and as it occurs again to me now I write it down. Here
it is: If the authorities gave one permission, one could have rooms at the
Faucon d'Or and go to the war daily. It would be quite possible to, say,
have an early dinner, table d'hote (with, say, a half-bottle of Salmon and
Gluckstein), get into one's car and go to the trenches, spend the night
sitting in a small damp hole in the ground, or glaring over the parapet, and
after "stand to" in the morning, go back in the car in time for breakfast. Of
course, if there was an attack, the car would have to wait—that's all; and of
course you would come to an understanding with the hotel management
that the terms were for meals taken in the hotel, and that if you had to
remain in the trenches the terms must be reduced accordingly.
A curious war this; you can be at a table d'hote dinner, a music-hall
entertainment afterwards, and within half an hour be enveloped in the
most uncomfortable, soul-destroying trench ever known. I said you can be;
I wish I could say you always are.
The last time I was at Bailleul, not many months ago, I heard that we could
no longer have baths at the asylum; I don't know why. I think some one
told me why, but I can't remember. Whether it was the baths had been
shelled, or whether the lunatics objected, it is impossible for me to say; but
there's the fact, anyway. "Na Pu" baths at Bailleul.
 CHAPTER XXV
GETTING STALE—LONGING FOR CHANGE—

WE LEAVE THE DOUVE—ON THE MARCH—

SPOTTED FEVER—TEN DAYS' REST

The Douve trenches claimed our battalion for a long time. We went in and
out with monotonous regularity, and I went on with my usual work with
machine guns. The whole place became more and more depressing to me,
and yet, somehow, I have got more ideas for my pictures from this part of
the line than any other since or before. One's mental outlook, I find, varies
very much from day to day. Some days there were on which I felt quite
merry and bright, and strode along on my nightly rambles, calmly ignoring
bullets as they whisked about. At other times I felt thoroughly depressed
and weary. As time wore on at the Douve, I felt myself getting into a state
when it took more and more out of me to keep up my vigour, and suppress
my imagination. There were times when I experienced an almost
irresistible desire to lie down and sleep during some of my night walks. I
would feel an overwhelming desire to ignore the rain and mud, and just
coil up in a farm amongst the empty tins and rubbish and sleep, sleep,
sleep. I looked forward to sleep to drown out the worries of the daily and
nightly life. In fact, I was slowly getting ill, I suppose. The actual rough and
ready life didn't trouble me at all. I was bothered with the idea of the whole
thing. The unnatural atmosphere of things that one likes and looks upon as
pleasing, peaceful objects in ordinary times, seemed now to obsess me. It's
hard to describe; but the following gives a faint idea of my feelings at this
time. Instead of deriving a sense of peace and serenity from picturesque
country farms, old trees, setting suns, and singing birds, here was this
wretched war business hashing up the whole thing. A farm was a place
where you expected a shell through the wall any minute; a tree was the
sort of thing the gunners took to range on; a sunset indicated a quantity of
light in which it was unsafe to walk abroad. Birds singing were a mockery.
All this sort of thing bothered me, and was slowly reducing my physical
capacity to "stick it out." But I determined I would stick to the ship, and so I
did. The periodical going out to billets and making merry there was a thing
to look forward to. Every one comes up in a rebound of spirits on these
occasions. In the evenings there, sitting round the table, writing letters,
talking, and occasionally having other members of the regiment in to a
meal or a call of some sort, made things quite pleasant. There was always
the post to look forward to. Quite a thrill went round the room when the
door opened and a sergeant came in with an armful of letters and parcels.
Yet during all this latter time at the Douve I longed for a change in trench
life. Some activity, some march to somewhere or other; anything to smash
up the everlasting stagnant appearance of life there. Suddenly the change
came. We were told we had to go out a day before one of our usual
sessions in the trenches was ended. We were all immensely pleased. We
didn't know where we were bound for, but, anyway, we were going. This
news revived me enormously, and everything looked brighter. The
departure-night came, and company by company we handed over to a
battalion that had come to relieve us, and collected on the road leading
back to Neuve Eglise. I handed over all my gun emplacements to the
incoming machine-gun officer, and finally collected my various sections
with all their tackle on the road as well. We merely marched back to our
usual billets that night, but next morning had orders to get all our baggage
ready for the transport wagons. We didn't know where we were going, but
at about eleven o'clock in the morning we started off on the march, and
soon realized that our direction was Bailleul.
On a fine, clear, warm spring day we marched along, all in the best of
spirits, songs of all sorts being sung one after the other. As I marched along
in the rear of the battalion, at the head of my machine-gun section, I
selected items from their repertoire and had them sung "by request." I had
some astonishingly fine mouth-organists in my section. When we had "In
the trail of the Lonesome Pine" sung by half the section, with mouth-organ
accompaniment by the other half, the effect was enormous. We passed
several battalions of my regiment on the road, evidently bound for the
Armentières direction. Shouts, jokes and much mirth showed the kindred
spirits of the passing columns. All battalions of the same regiment, all more
or less recruited in the same counties. When we reached Bailleul we halted
in the Square, and then I learnt we were to be billeted there. There was
apparently some difficulty in getting billets, and so I was faced with the
necessity of finding some for my section myself. The transport officer was
in the same fix; he wanted a large and commodious farm whenever he
hitched up anywhere, as he had a crowd of horses, wagons and men to put
up somehow. He and I decided to start out and look for billets on our own.
I found a temporary rest for my section in an old brickyard on the outskirts
of the town, and the transport officer and I started out to look for a good
farm which we could appropriate.
Bailleul stands on a bit of a hill, so you can get a wide and extensive view
of the country from there. We could see several farms perched about in the
country. We fixed on the nearest, and walked out to it. No luck; they were
willing to have us, but it wasn't big enough. We tried another; same result.
I then suggested we should separate, and each try different roads, and thus
we should get one quicker. This we did, I going off up a long straight road,
and finally coming to a most promising looking edifice on one side—a real
large size in farms.
I went into the yard and walked across the dirty cobbles to the front door.
The people were most pleasant. I didn't understand a word they said; but
when a person pushes a flagon of beer into one of your hands and an apple
into the other, one concludes he means to be pleasant, anyway.
I mumbled a lot of jargon to them for some time, and I really believe they
saw that I wanted to use their place for a billet. The owner, a man of about
forty-five, then started a long and hardy discussion right at me. He put on
a serious face at intervals, so I guessed there was something rather
important he was trying to convey to me. I was saved from giving my
answer by catching sight of my pal, the transport officer, crossing the yard.
He came in. "I've brought Jean along to talk," he announced. (Jean was our
own battalion interpreter.) "I can't find a place; but this looks all right." Jean
and the owner at once dived off into a labyrinth of unintelligible words,
from which they emerged five minutes later. We sat around and listened.
Jean turned to us and remarked: "They have got fever here, he says, what
you call the spotted fever—how you say, spotted fever?—and this farm is
out of bounds."
"Oh! spotted fever! I see!" we both said, and slid away out of that farm
pretty quick. So that was what that farmer was trying to say to me: spotted
fever!
I went down the road wondering whether cerebral meningitis germs
preferred apples or beer, or perhaps they liked both; awful thought!
We went back to our original selection and decided to somehow or other
squeeze into the farm which we thought too small. Many hours later we
got the transport and the machine-gun section fixed up. We spent two
nights there. On the second day I went up into Bailleul. Walking along in
the Square, looking at the shops and market stalls, I ran into the brigade
machine-gun officer.
"Topping about our brigade, isn't it?" he said.
"What's topping?" I asked.
"Why, we're going to have about ten day's rest; we clear off out of here to-
morrow to a village about three miles away, and our battalion will billet
there. Where we go after that I don't know; but, anyway, ten days' rest. Ten
days' rest!!"
"Come and split one at the Faucon d'Or?"
"No thanks, I've just had one."
"Well, come and have another."
 CHAPTER XXVI
A PLEASANT CHANGE—SUZETTE, BERTHE AND

MARTHE—"LA JEUNE FILLE FAROUCHE"—ANDRÉ

On the next morning we left Bailleul, and the whole of our battalion
marched off down one of the roads leading out into the country in a
westerly direction. The weather was now excellent; so what with a
prospect of a rest, fine weather and the departure from the Wulverghem
trenches, we were all very merry and bright, and "going strong" all round.
It seemed to us as if we had come out of some dark, wet under-world into a
bright, wholesome locality, suitable for the habitation of man.
Down the long, straight, dusty road we marched, hop yards and bright
coloured fields on either side, here and there passing prosperous looking
farms and estaminets: what a pleasant change it was from that ruined,
dismal jungle we had so recently left! About three or four miles out we
came to a village; the main road ran right through it, forming its principal
street. On either side small lanes ran out at right angles into the different
parts of the village. We received the order to halt, and soon learnt that this
was the place where we were to have our ten days' rest. A certain amount
of billets had been arranged for, but, as is generally the case, the machine-
gun section have to search around for themselves; an advantage really, as
they generally find a better crib this way than if somebody else found it for
them. As soon as we were "dismissed," I started off on a billet search. The
transport officer was again with me on the same quest. We separated, and
each searched a different part of the village. The first house I went into was
a dismal failure. An old woman of about 84 opened the door about six
inches, and was some time before she permitted the aperture to widen
sufficiently to allow me to go inside the house. A most dingy, poky sort of
a place, so I cleared off to search for something better. As I crossed the
farmyard behind, my servant, who had been conducting a search on his
own, suddenly appeared round the corner of the large barn at the end of
the yard, and came towards me.
"I've found a place over 'ere, Sir, I expect you'll like."
"Where?" I asked.
"This way, Sir!" and he led the way across a field to a gate, which we
climbed. We then went down a sort of back lane to the village, and turned
in at a small wicket-gate leading to a row of cottages. He led me up to one
in the centre, and knocked at the door. A woman opened it, and I told her
what I was looking for. She seemed quite keen for us to go there, and asked
if there was anyone else to come there with me. I told her the transport
officer would be coming there too, and our two servants. She quite agreed
to this, and showed me the rooms we could have. They were extremely
small, but we decided to have them. "Them" consisted of one bedroom,
containing two beds, the size of the room being about fourteen feet by
eight, and the front kitchen-sitting-room place, which was used by
everybody in the house, and was about twice the size of the bedroom. I
went away and found the transport officer, brought him back and showed
him the place. He thought it a good spot, so we arranged to fix up there.
Our servants started in to put things right for us, get our baggage there,
and so on, whilst I went off to see to billets for the machine-gun section. I
had got them a pretty good barn, attached to the farm I first called at, but I
wanted to go and see that it was really large enough and suitable when
they had all got in and spread themselves. I found that it did suit pretty
well. The space was none too large, but I felt sure we wouldn't find a
better. There was a good field for all the limbers and horses adjoining, so
on the whole it was quite a convenient place. The section had already got to
work with their cooking things, and had a fire going out in the field. Those
gunners were a very self-contained, happy throng; they all lived together
like a family, and were all very keen on their job.
I returned to my cottage to see how things were progressing. My man had
unrolled my valise, and put all my things out and about in the bedroom. I
took off all my equipment, which I was still wearing, pack, haversacks,
revolver, binoculars, map case, etc., and sat down in the kitchen to take
stock of the situation. I now saw what the family consisted of; and by airing
my feeble French, I found out who they were and what they did. The
woman who had come to the door was the wife of a painter and decorator,
who had been called up, and was in a French regiment somewhere in
Alsace.
Another girl who was there was a friend, and really lived next door with
her sister, but owing to overcrowding, due to our servants and some
French relatives, she spent most of her time in the house I was in.
The owner of the place was Madame Charlet-Flaw, Christian name Suzette.
The other two girls were, respectively, Berthe and Marthe. Ages of all three
in the order I have mentioned them were, I should say, twenty-eight,
twenty-four, and twenty. The place had, I found, been used as billets
before. I discovered this in two ways.
Firstly: On the mantelpiece over the old stove I saw a collection of many
kinds of regimental badges, with a quantity of English magazines.
Secondly, after I had been talking for some time, Suzette answered my
remarks with one of her stock English sentences, picked up from some
former lodgers, "And very nice too," a phrase much in vogue at that time.
The transport officer, who had been out seeing about something or other,
soon returned, and with him came the regimental doctor, who had got his
billets all right, but had come along to see how we were fixed up. A real
good chap he was, one of the best. All six of us now sat about in the kitchen
and talked over things in general. We were a very cheery group. The
transport officer, doctor and myself were all thoroughly in the mood for
enjoying this ten days' rest. To live amongst ordinary people again, and see
the life of even a village, was refreshing to us. We had a pretty easy
afternoon, and all had tea in that kitchen, after which I went out and round
to look up my old pals in A company. They had, I found, got hold of the
Curé's house, the village parson's rectory, in fact. It was a square, plain-
looking house, standing very close to the church, and they all seemed very
comfortable there. The Curé himself and his housekeeper only had three
rooms reserved for themselves, the rest being handed over to the officers of
A company. I stayed round there for a bit, having a talk and a smoke, and
we each of us remarked in turn, about every five minutes, what a top-hole
thing it was that we had got this ten days' rest.
I then went back to our cottage, where I had a meal with the transport
officer, conversing the while with Suzette, Berthe and Marthe. I don't know
which I liked the best of these three, they were all so cheery and hospitable.
Marthe was the most interesting from the pictorial point of view. She was
so gipsy-like to look at: brown-skinned, large dark eyes, exceeding bright,
with a sort of sparkling, wild look about her. I called her "La jeune fille
farouche" (looked this up first before doing so), and she was always called
this afterwards. It means "the young wild girl"; at least I hope it means that.
The doctor came back again after dinner, and we all proceeded to fill the
air in the small kitchen with songs and tobacco-smoke. The transport
officer was a "Corona Corona" expert, and there he would sit with his feet
up on the rail at the side of the stove, smoking one of these zeppelins of a
cigar, till we all went to bed.
There was an heir to the estate in that cottage—one André, Suzette's son,
aged about five. He went to bed early, and slept with wonderful precision
and persistence whilst we were making noise enough to wake the Curé a
hundred yards away. But, when we went to bed, this little demon saw fit to
wake, and continue a series of noises for several hours. He slept in a small
cot alongside Suzette's bed, so it was her job, and not mine, to smack his
head.
Anyway, we all managed very comfortably and merrily in those billets,
and I look back on them very much as an oasis in a six months' desert.
 CHAPTER XXVII
GETTING FIT—CARICATURING THE CURÉ—

"DIRTY WORK AHEAD"—A PROJECTED

ATTACK—UNLOOKED-FOR ORDERS

Military life during our ten days was to consist of getting into good
training again in all departments. After long spells of trench life, troops get
very much out of strong, efficient marching capabilities, and are also apt to
get slack all round. These rests, therefore, come periodically to all at the
front, and are, as it were, tonics. If men stayed long enough in trenches, I
should say, from my studies in evolution, that their legs would slowly
merge into one sort of fin-like tail, and their arms into seal-like flappers. In
fact, time would convert them into intelligent sea-lions, and render them
completely in harmony with their natural life.
Our tonic began by being taken, one dose after meals, twice daily. In the
morning the battalion generally went for a long route march, and in the
afternoon practised military training of various kinds in the fields about
the village. My whole time was occupied with machine-gun training.
Morning and afternoon I and my sections went off out into the country,
and selecting a good variegated bit of land proceeded to go through every
phase of machine-gun warfare. We practised the use of these weapons in
woods, open fields, along hedges, etc. It was an interesting job. We used to
decide on some section of ground with an object to be attacked in the
distance, and approach it in all kinds of ways. Competitions would follow
between the different sections. The days were all bright, warm and sunny,
so life and work out in the fields and roads there was quite pleasant. Each
evening we assembled in our cheerful billet, and thus our rest went on. My
sketching now broke out like a rash. I drew a great many sketches. I joked
in pencil for every one, including Suzette, Berthe and Marthe. I am sorry to
say I plead guilty to having cast a certain amount of ridicule at the Curé.
He was so splendidly austere, and wore such funny clothes, that I couldn't
help perpetrating several sketches of him. The disloyalty of his
parishioners was very marked in the way they laughed at these drawings,
which were pinned up in the row of cottages. Sometimes I would let him
off for a day, and then he would come drifting past the window again, with
his "Dante" face, surmounted by a large curly, faded black hat, and I gave
way to temptation again.
He didn't like soldiers being billeted in his village, so Suzette told me. I
think he got this outlook from his rather painful experiences when the
Germans were in the same village, prior to being driven north. They had
locked him up in his own cellar for four or five days, after removing his
best wine, which they drank upstairs. This sort of thing does tend towards
giving one a bitter outlook. He preached a sermon whilst we were there. I
didn't hear it, but was told about it simultaneously by Suzette, Berthe and
Marthe, who informed me that it was directed against soldiery in general.
His text had apparently been "Do not trust them, gentle ladies." A gross
libel. I retaliated immediately by drawing a picture of him, with a girl
sitting on each knee, singing "The soldiers are going, hurrah! hurrah!"
(tune—"The Campbells are coming").
I'm afraid I was rather a canker in his village.
One day, my dear old friend turned up, the same who accompanied me on
leave to England. He didn't know we were having our rest, and searched
for me first behind Wulverghem. He there heard where we were, and came
on. He was rather a star in a military way, and could, therefore, get hold of
a car now and again. I was delighted to see him, as it was possible for me to
go into Bailleul with him for the afternoon. We went off and had a real
good time at the "Faucon d'Or." We went out for a short drive round in the
evening, and then parted. He was obliged to get back to somewhere near
Bethune that night. The next day I was just starting off on my machine-gun
work when an orderly arrived with a message for me. The Colonel wanted
to see me at headquarters. I went along, and arriving at his house found all
the company commanders, the second in command, and the Adjutant,
already assembled there.
"Dirty work ahead," I thought to myself, and went into the Colonel's room
with the others. Enormous maps were produced, and we all stood and
listened.
"We are going to make an attack," started the Colonel, so I saw that my
conjecture wasn't far wrong. He explained the details to us all there, and
pointed out on the maps as many of the geographical features of the
forthcoming "show" as he could, after which he told us that, that very
afternoon, we were all to go on a motor-bus, that would come for us, down
to the allotted site for the "scrap," to have a look at the ground. This was
news, if you like: a thunderbolt in the midst of our rural serenity. At two
o'clock the bus arrived, and we, the chosen initiated few, rattled off down
the main street of the village and away to the scene of operations. Where it
was I won't say (cheers from Censor), but it took us about an hour to get
there. We left the motor-bus well back, and walked about a couple of miles
up roads and communication trenches until we reached a line of trenches
we had never seen before. A wonderful set of trenches they were, it seemed
to us; beautifully built, not much water about, and nice dug-outs. The
Colonel conferred with several authorities who had the matter in hand,
and then, pointing out the sector in front which affected us, told us all to
study it to the best of our ability. I spent the time with a periscope and a
pair of binoculars drinking in the scene. It's difficult to get a good view of
the intervening ground between opposing lines of trenches in the day time,
when one's only means of doing so is through a periscope. Night is the
time for this job, when you can go in front and walk about. This ground
which we had come to see was completely flat, and one had to put a
periscope pretty high over the parapet to see the sort of thing it was. It was
no place to put your head up to have a look. A bullet went smack into the
Colonel's periscope and knocked it out of his hand. However, with time
and patience, we formed a pretty accurate idea of the appearance of the
country opposite. Behind the German trench was the remains of a village, a
few of the houses of which were up level with the Boche front line. A great
scene of wreckage. Every single house was broken, and in a crumbling
state. This was the place we had to take. Other regiments were to take other
spots on the landscape on either side, but this particular spot was our
objective. I stared long and earnestly at the wrecks in front and the
intervening ground. "About a two-hundred yard sprint," I thought to
myself. We stayed in the trenches an hour or two, and then all went back to
a spot a couple of miles away and had tea, after which we mounted the
motor-bus and drove back home to our village. We had got something to
think about now all right;—the coming "show" was the feature uppermost
in our lives now. Every one keen to get at it, as we all felt sure we could
push the Boches out of that place when the time came. We, the initiated
few, had to keep our "inside" information to ourselves, and it was
supposed to be a dark mystery to the rest of the battalion. But I imagine
that anyone who didn't guess what the idea was must have been pretty
dense. When a motor-bus comes and takes off a group of officers for the
day, and brings them back at night, one would scarcely imagine that they
had been to a cricket match, or on the annual outing.
Well, the "tumbril," as we called it, arrived each day for nearly a week, and
we drove off gaily to the appointed spot and saturated ourselves in the
characteristics of the land we were shortly to attack. In the mornings,
before we started, I took the machine-gun sections out into the fields, and
by mapping out a similar landscape to the one we were going to attack, I
rehearsed the coming tribulation as far as possible. My gunners were a
pretty efficient lot, and I was sure they would give a good account of
themselves on "der Tag." We practised bolting across a ploughed field, and
coming into action, until we could do it in record time. My sergeant and
senior corporal were both excellent men.
The whole battalion were now in excellent trim, and ready for anything
that came along. A date had been fixed for the "show," and now, day by
day, we were rapidly approaching it. It was Friday, I remember, when, as
we were all sitting in our billets thinking that we were to leave on Sunday,
a fresh thunderbolt arrived. A message was sent round to us all to stand-to
and be ready to move off that evening. Before the appointed day! What
could be up now? I was full of enthusiasm and curiosity, but was rather
hampered by having been inoculated the day before, and was feeling a bit
quaint in consequence. However, I pulled myself together, and set about
collecting all the machine gunners, guns and accessories. We said good-bye
to the fair ones at the billets, and by about five o'clock in the evening the
whole battalion, transport and all, was lined up on the main road. Soon we
moved off. Why were we going before our time? Where were we going to?
Nobody knew except the Colonel, but it was not long before we knew as
well.
 CHAPTER XXVIII
WE MARCH FOR YPRES—HALT AT LOCRE—A

BLEAK CAMP AND MEAGRE FARE—SIGNS OF

BATTLE—FIRST VIEW OF YPRES

We marched off in the Bailleul direction, and ere long entered Bailleul. We
didn't stop, but went straight on up the road, out of the town, past the
Asylum with the baths. It was getting dusk now as we tramped along.
"The road to Locre," I muttered to myself, as I saw the direction we had
taken. We were evidently not going to the place we had been rehearsing
for.
"Locre? Ah, yes; and what's beyond Locre?" I pulled out my map as we
went along. "What's on beyond Locre?" I saw it at a glance now, and had all
my suspicions confirmed. The word YPRES stood out in blazing letters
from the map. Ypres it was going to be, sure enough.
"It looks like Ypres," I said, turning to my sergeant, who was silently
trudging along behind me. He came up level with me, and I showed him
the map and the direction we were taking. I was mighty keen to see this
famous spot. Stories of famous fights in that great salient were common
talk amongst us, and had been for a long time. The wonderful defence of
Ypres against the hordes of Germans in the previous October had filled our
lines of trenches with pride and superiority, but no wonderment. Every
one regarded Ypres as a strenuous spot, but every one secretly wanted to
go there and see it for themselves. I felt sure we were now bound for there,
or anyway, somewhere not far off. We tramped along in the growing
darkness, up the winding dusty road to Locre. When we arrived there it
was quite dark. The battalion marched right up into the sort of village
square near the church and halted. It was late now, and apparently not
necessary for us to proceed further that night. We got orders to get billets
for our men. Locre is not a large place, and fitting a whole battalion in is
none too easy an undertaking. I was standing about a hundred yards down
the road leading from the church, deciding what to do, when I got orders
to billet my men in the church. I marched the section into a field, got my
sergeant, and went to see what could be done in the church. It was a queer
sight, this church; a company of ours had had orders to billet there too, and
when I got there the men were already taking off their equipment and
making themselves as comfortable as possible under the circumstances, in
the main body of the church. The French clergy had for some time granted
permission for billeting there; I found this out the next morning, when I
saw a party of nuns cleaning it up as much as possible after we had left it.
The only part I could see where I could find a rest for my men was the part
where the choir sits. I decided on this for our use, and told the sergeant to
get the men along, and move the chairs away so as to get a large enough
space for them to lie down in and rest.
It was a weird scene, that night in the church. Imagine a very lofty
building, and the only light in the place coming from various bits of
candles stuck about here and there on the backs of the chairs. All was dark
and drear, if you like: a fitting setting for our entry into the Ypres salient.
When I had fixed up my section all right, I left the church and went to look
about for the place I was supposed to sleep in. It turned out to be a room at
the house occupied by the Colonel. I got in just in time to have a bit of a
meal before the servants cleared the things away to get ready for the early
start the next day. I spent that night in my greatcoat on the stone floor of
the room, and not much of a night at that. We were all up and paraded at
six, and ready to move off. We soon started and trekked off down the road
out of Locre towards Ypres. I noticed a great change in the scenery now.
The land was flatter and altogether more uninteresting than the parts we
had come from. The weather was fine and hot, which made our march
harder for us. We were all strapped up to the eyes with equipment of every
description, so that we fully appreciated the short periodic rests when they
came. The road got less and less attractive as we went on, added to which a
horrible gusty wind was blowing the dust along towards us, too, which
made it worse. It was a most cheerless, barren, arid waste through which
we were now passing. I wondered why the Belgians hadn't given it away
long ago, and thus saved any further dispute on the matter. We were now
making for Vlamertinghe, which is a place about half-way between Locre
and Ypres, and we all felt sure enough now that Ypres was where we were
going; besides, passers-by gave some of us a tip or two, and rumours were
current that there was a bit of a bother on in the salient. Still, there was
nothing told us definitely, and on we went, up the dusty, uninteresting
road. Somewhere about midday we halted alongside an immense grassless
field, on which were innumerable wooden huts of the simplest and most
unattractive construction. The dust whirled and swirled around them,
making the whole place look as uninviting as possible. It was the rottenest
and least encouraging camp I have ever seen. I've seen a few monstrosities
in the camp line in England, and in France, but this was far and away a
champion in repulsion. We halted opposite this place, as I have said, and in
a few moments were all marched into the central, baked-mud square, in
the midst of the huts. I have since learnt that this camp is no more, so I
don't mind mentioning it. We were now dismissed, whereupon we all
collared huts for our men and ourselves, and sat down to rest.
We had had a very early and scratch sort of a breakfast, so were rather
keen to get at the lunch question. The limbers were the last things to turn
up, being in the rear of the battalion, but when they did the cooks soon
pulled the necessary things out and proceeded to knock up a meal.
I went outside my hut and surveyed the scene whilst they got the lunch
ready. It was a rotten place. The huts hadn't got any sides to them, but
were made by two slopes of wood fixed at the top, and had triangular
ends. There were just a few huts built with sides, but not many. Apart from
the huts the desert contained nothing except men in war-worn, dirty khaki,
and clouds of dust. It reminded me very much of India, as I remembered it
from my childhood days. The land all around this mud plain was flat and
scrubby, with nothing of interest to look at anywhere. But, yes, there was—
just one thing. Away to the north, I could just see the top of the towers of
Ypres.
I wondered how long we were going to stay in this Sahara, and turned
back into the hut again. Two or three of us were resting on a little scanty
straw in that hut, and now, as we guessed that it was about the time when
the cooks would have got the lunch ready, we crossed to another larger
hut, where a long bare wooden table was laid out for us. With sore eyes
and a parched throat I sat down and devoured two chilly sardines,
reposing on a water biscuit, drank about a couple of gallons of water, and
felt better. There wasn't much conversation at that meal; we were all too
busy thinking. Besides, the C.O. was getting messages all the time, and was
immersed in the study of a large map, so we thought we had better keep
quiet.
Our Colonel was a splendid person, as good a one as any battalion could
wish to have. (He's sure to buy a copy of this book after that.) He was with
the regiment all through that 1914-15 winter, and is now a Brigadier.
We had made all preparations to stay in the huts at that place for the night,
when, at about four o'clock in the afternoon, another message arrived and
was handed to the C.O.
He issued his orders. We were to march off at once. Every one was
delighted, as the place was unattractive, and what's more, now that we
were on the war-path, we wanted to get on with the job, whatever it was.
Now we were on the road once more, and marching on towards Ypres. The
whole brigade was on the road somewhere, some battalions in front of us
and some behind. On we went through the driving dust and dismal
scenery, making, I could clearly see, for Ypres. We ticked off the miles at a
good steady marching pace, and in course of time turned out of our long,
dusty, winding lane on to a wide cobbled main road, leading evidently into
the town of Ypres itself, now about two miles ahead. It was a fine sight,
looking back down the winding column of men. A long line of sturdy,
bronzed men, in dust-covered khaki, tramping over the grey cobbled road,
singing and whistling at intervals; the rattling and clicking of the various
metallic parts of their equipment forming a kind of low accompaniment to
their songs. We halted about a mile out of the city, and all "fell out" on the
side of the road, and sat about on heaps of stones or on the bank of the
ditch at the road-side. It was easy enough to see now where we were going,
and what was up. There was evidently a severe "scrap" on. Parties of
battered, dishevelled looking men, belonging to a variety of regiments,
were now streaming past down the road—many French-African soldiers
amongst them. From these we learnt that a tremendous attack was in
progress, but got no details. Their stories received corroboration by the fact
that we could see many shells bursting in and around the city of Ypres.
These vagrant men were wounded in a degree, inasmuch as most of them
had been undergoing some prodigious bombardment and were dazed
from shell-shock. They cheered us with the usual exaggerated and
harrowing yarns common to such people, and passed on. This was what
we had come here for—to participate in this business; not very nice, but we
were all "for it," anyway. If we hadn't come here, we would have been
attacking at that other place, and this was miles more interesting. If one has
ever participated in an affair of arms at Ypres, it gives one a sort of
honourable trade-mark for the rest of the war as a member of the accepted
successful Matadors of the Flanders Bull-ring.
We sat about at the side of the road for about half an hour, then got the
order to fall in again. Stiff and weary, I left my heap of stones, took my
place at the head of the section, and prepared for the next act. On we went
again down the cobbled road, crossed a complicated mixture of ordinary
rails and tram-lines, and struck off up a narrow road to the left, which
apparently also ended in the city. It was now evening, the sky was grey
and cloudy. Ypres, only half a mile away, now loomed up dark and grey
against the sky-line. Shells were falling in the city, with great hollow
sounding crashes. We marched on up the road.
 CHAPTER XXIX
GETTING NEARER——A LUGUBRIOUS PARTY—STILL

NEARER—BLAZING YPRES—ORDERS FOR ATTACK

After about another twenty minutes' march we halted again. Something or

other was going on up the road in front, which prevented our moving. We
stood about in the lane, and watched the shells bursting in the town. We
were able to watch shells bursting closer before we had been there long.
With a screeching whistle a shell shot over our heads and exploded in the
field on our left. This was the signal, apparently, for shrapnel to start
bursting promiscuously about the fields in all directions, which it did.
Altogether the lane was an unwholesome spot to stand about in. We were
there some time, wondering when one of the bursts of shrapnel would
strike the lane, but none did. Straggling, small groups of Belgian civilians
were now passing down the lane, driven out no doubt from some cottage
or other that until now they had managed to persist in living in. Mournful
little groups would pass, wheeling their total worldly possessions on a
barrow.
Suddenly we were moved on again, and as suddenly halted a few yards
further on. Without a doubt, strenuous operations and complications were
taking place ahead. A few of the officers collected together by a gate at the
side of the lane and had a smoke and a chat. "I wonder how much longer
we're going to stick about here" some one said. "What about going into that
house over there and see if there's a fire?" He indicated a tumbled down
cottage of a fair size, which stood nearly opposite us on the far side of the
lane. It was almost dark by now, and the wind made it pretty cold work,
standing and sitting about in the lane. Four of us crossed the roadway and
entered the yard of the cottage. We knocked at the door, and asked if we
might come in and sit by the fire for a bit. We asked in French, and found
that it was a useless extravagance on our part, as they only spoke Flemish,
and what a terrible language that is! These were Flemish people—the real
goods; we hadn't struck any before.
They seemed to understand the signs we made; at all events they let us into
the place. There was a dairy alongside the house belonging to them, and in
here our men were streaming, one after another, paying a few coppers for a
drink of milk. The woman serving it out with a ladle into their mess tins
was keeping up a flow of comment all the time in Flemish. Nobody except
herself understood a word of what she was saying. Hardy people, those
dwellers in that cottage. Shrapnel was dropping about here and there in the
fields near by, and at any moment might come into the roof of their cottage,
or through the flimsy walls.
We four went inside, and into their main room—the kitchen. It was in the
same old style which we knew so well. A large square, dark, and dingy
room, with one of their popular long stoves sticking out from one wall.
Round this stove, drawn up in a wide crescent formation, was a row of
chairs with high backs. On each chair sat a man or a woman, dressed in
either black or very dark clothes. Nobody spoke, but all were staring into
the stove. I wished, momentarily, I had stayed in the lane. It was like
breaking in on some weird sect—"Stove Worshippers." One wouldn't have
been surprised if, suddenly, one member of the party had removed the lid
of the stove and thrown in a "grey powder," or something of the sort. This
to be followed by flames leaping high into the air, whilst low-toned
monotonous chanting would break out from the assembly. Feast in honour
of their god "Shrapnel," who was "angry." I suppose I shouldn't make fun
of these people though. It was enough to make them silent and lugubrious,
to have all their country and their homes destroyed. We sat around the
stove with them, and offered them cigarettes. We talked to each other in
English; they sat silently listening and understanding nothing. I am sure
they looked upon all armies and soldiers, irrespective of nationality, as a
confounded nuisance. I am sure they wished we'd go and fight the matter
out somewhere else. And no wonder.
We sat in there for a short time, and stepped out into the road again just in
time to hear the order to advance. We hadn't far to go now. It was quite
dark as we turned into a very large flat field at the back of Ypres, right
close up against the outskirts of the town. Just the field, I felt sure, that a
circus would choose, if visiting that neighbourhood.
The battalion spread itself out over the field and came to the conclusion
that this was where it would have to stay for the night. It was all very cold
and dark now. We sat about on the great field in our greatcoats and waited
for the field kitchens and rations to arrive. As we sat there, just at the back
of Ypres, we could hear and see the shells bursting in the city in the
darkness. The shelling was getting worse, fires were breaking out in the
deserted town, and bright yellow flames shot out here and there against
the blackened sky. On the arrival of the field kitchens we all managed to
get some tea in our mess tins; and the rum ration being issued we were a
little more fortified against the cold. We sat for the most part in greatcoats
and silence, watching the shelling of Ypres. Suddenly a huge fire broke out
in the centre of the town. The sky was a whirling and twisting mass of red
and yellow flames, and enormous volumes of black smoke. A truly grand
and awful spectacle. The tall ruins of the Cloth Hall and Cathedral were
alternately silhouetted or brightly illuminated in the yellow glare of flames.
And now it started to rain. Down it came, hard and fast. We huddled
together on the cold field and prepared ourselves to expect anything that
might come along now. Shells and rain were both falling in the field. I
think a few shells, meant for Ypres, had rather overshot the mark and had
come into our field in consequence.
I leant up as one of a tripod of three of us, my face towards the burning
city. The two others were my old pal, the platoon commander at St. Yvon,
and a subaltern of one of the other companies. I sat and watched the flames
licking round the Cloth Hall. I remember asking a couple of men in front to
shift a bit so that I could get a better view. It poured with rain, and we went
sitting on in that horrible field, wondering what the next move was to be.
At about eleven o'clock, an orderly came along the field with a mackintosh
ground-sheet over his head, and told me the Colonel wished to see me.
"Where is he?" I asked. "In that little cottage place at the far corner of the
field, near the road, sir." I rose up and thus spoilt our human tripod.
"Where are you going 'B.B.'?" asked my St. Yvon friend. "Colonel's sent for
me," I replied. "Well, come back as soon as you can." I left, and never saw
him again. He was killed early the next morning; one of the best chaps I
ever knew.
I went down the field to the cottage at the corner, and, entering, found all
the company commanders, the second in command, the Adjutant and the
Colonel. "We shall attack at 4 a.m. to-morrow," he was saying. This was the
moment at which I got my Fragment idea, "The push, by one who's been
pushed!" "We shall attack at dawn!"
The Colonel went on to explain the plans. We stood around in the semi-
darkness, the only light being a small candle, whose flame was being
blown about by the draught from the broken window.
"We shall move off from here at midnight, or soon after," he concluded,
"and go up the road to St. Julien."
We all dispersed to our various commands. I went and got my sergeant
and section commanders together. I explained the coming operations to
them. Sitting out in the field in the rain, the map on my knees being
occasionally brightly illuminated by the burning city, I looked out the road
to St. Julien.
 CHAPTER XXX
RAIN AND MUD—A TRYING MARCH—IN THE

THICK OF IT—A WOUNDED OFFICER—HEAVY

SHELLING—I GET MY "QUIETUS!"

At a little after midnight we left the field, marching down the road which
led towards the Yser Canal and the village of St. Jean. Our transport
remained behind in a certain field that had been selected for the purpose.
The whole brigade was on the road, our battalion being the last in the long
column. The road from the field in which we had been resting to the village
of St. Jean passes through the outskirts of Ypres, and crosses the Yser Canal
on its way. I couldn't see the details as it was a dark night, and the rain was
getting worse as time went on. I knew what had been happening now in
the last forty-eight hours, and what we were going to do. The Germans had
launched gas in the war for the first time, and, as every one knows now,
had by this means succeeded in breaking the line on a wide front to the
north of Ypres. The Germans were directing their second great effort
against the Salient.
The second battle of Ypres had begun. We were making for the threatened
spot, and were going to attack them at four o'clock in the morning.
Ypres, at this period, ought to have been seen to get an accurate realization
of what it was like. All other parts of the front faded into a pleasing
memory; so it seemed to me as I marched along. I thought of our rest at the
village, the billets, the Curé, the bright sunny days of our country life there,
and then compared them with this wretched spot we were in now. A
ghastly comparison.
We were marching in pouring rain and darkness down a muddy, mangled
road, shattered poplar trees sticking up in black streaks on either side.
Crash after crash, shells were falling and exploding all around us, and
behind the burning city. The road took a turn. We marched for a short time
parallel to now distant Ypres. Through the charred skeleton wrecks of
houses one caught glimpses of the yellow flames mounting to the sky. We
passed over the Yser Canal, dirty, dark and stagnant, reflecting the yellow
glow of the flames. On our left was a church and graveyard, both blown to
a thousand pieces. Tombstones lying about and sticking up at odd angles
all over the torn-up ground. I guided my section a little to one side to avoid
a dead horse lying across the road. The noise of shrapnel bursting about us
only ceased occasionally, making way for ghastly, ominous silences. And
the rain kept pouring down.
What a march! As we proceeded, the road got rougher and narrower:
debris of all sorts, and horrible to look upon, lay about on either side. We
halted suddenly, and were allowed to "fall out" for a few minutes.
I and my section had drawn up opposite what had once been an estaminet.
I entered, and told them all to come in and stay there out of the rain. The
roof still had a few tiles left on it, so the place was a little drier than the
road outside. The floor was strewn with broken glass, chairs, and bottles. I
got hold of a three-legged chair, and by balancing myself against one of the
walls, tried to do a bit of a doze. I was precious near tired out now, from
want of sleep and a surfeit of marching. I told my sergeant to wake me
when the order came along, and then and there slept on that chair for
twenty minutes, lulled off by the shrapnel bursting along the road outside.
My sergeant woke me. "We are going on again, sir!" "Right oh!" I said, and
left my three-legged chair. I shouted to the section to "fall in," and followed
on after the battalion up the road once more. After we had covered another
horrible half-mile we halted again, but this time no houses were near. How
it rained! A perfect deluge. I was wearing a greatcoat, and had all my
equipment strapped on over the top. The men all had macintosh capes. We
were all wet through and through, but nobody bothered a rap about that.
Anyone trying to find a fresh discomfort for us now, that would make us
wince, would have been hard put to it.
People will scarcely credit it, but times like these don't dilute the tenacity or
light-heartedness of our soldiers. You can hear a joke on these occasions,
and hear the laughter at it too.
In the shattered estaminet we had just left, one of the men went behind the
almost unrecognizable bar-counter, and operating an imaginary handle,
asked a comrade, "And what's yours, mate?"
Again we got the order to advance, and on we went. We were now nearing
the village of Wieltj, about two miles from St. Jean, which we had passed.
The ruined church we had seen was at St. Jean.
The road was now perfectly straight, bordered on either side by broken
poplar trees, beyond which large flat fields lay under the mysterious
darkness. As we went on we could see a faint, red glow ahead. This turned
out to be Wieltj. All that was left of it, a smouldering ruin. Here and there
the bodies of dead men lay about the road. At intervals I could discern the
stiffened shapes of corpses in the ditches which bordered the road. We
went through Wieltj without stopping. Passing out at the other side we
proceeded up this awful, shell-torn road, towards a slight hill, at the base
of which we stopped. Now came my final orders. "Come on at once, follow
up the battalion, who, with the brigade, are about to attack."
"Now we're for it," I said to myself, and gave the order to unlimber the
guns. One limber had been held up some little way back I found, by getting
jammed in a shell-hole in the road. I couldn't wait for it to come up, so sent
my sergeant back with some men to get hold of the guns and tackle in it,
and follow on as soon as they could. I got out the rest of the things that
were there with us and prepared to start on after the battalion. "I'll go to
the left, and you'd better go to the right," I shouted to my sergeant. "Here,
Smith, let's have your rifle," I said, turning to my servant. I had decided
that he had best stay and look after the limbers. I seized his rifle, and
slipping on a couple of bandoliers of cartridges, led on up the slight hill,
followed by my section carrying the machine guns. I felt that a rifle was
going to be of more use to me in this business than a revolver, and,
anyway, it was just as well to have both.
It was now just about four o'clock in the morning. A faint light was
creeping into the sky. The rain was abating a bit, thank goodness!
We topped the rise, and rushed on down the road as fast as was possible
under the circumstances. Now we were in it! Bullets were flying through
the air in all directions. Ahead, in the semi-darkness, I could just see the
forms of men running out into the fields on either side of the road in
extended order, and beyond them a continuous heavy crackling of rifle-fire
showed me the main direction of the attack. A few men had gone down
already, and no wonder—the air was thick with bullets. The machine-gun
officer of one of the other regiments in the brigade was shot right through
the head as he went over the brow of the hill. I found one of his machine-
gun sections a short time later, and appropriated them for our own use.
After we had gone down the road for about two hundred yards I thought
that my best plan was to get away over to the left a bit, as the greatest noise
seemed to come from there. "Come on, you chaps," I shouted, "we'll cross
this field, and get to that hedge over there." We dashed across,
intermingled with a crowd of Highlanders, who were also making to the
left. Through a cloud of bullets, flying like rice at a wedding, we reached
the other side of the field. Only one casualty—one man with a shot in the
knee.
Couldn't get a good view of the enemy from the hedge, so I decided to
creep along further to the left still, to a spot I saw on the left front of a large
farm which stood about two hundred yards behind us. The German
machine guns were now busy, and sent sprays of bullets flicking up the
ground all round us. Lying behind a slight fold in the ground we saw them
whisking through the grass, three or four inches over our heads. We slowly
worked our way across to the left, past an old, wide ditch full of stagnant
water, and into a shallow gully beyond. Dawn had come now, and in the
cold grey light I saw our men out in front of me advancing in short rushes
towards a large wood in front. The Germans were firing star shells into the
air in pretty large numbers, why, I couldn't make out, as there was quite
enough light now to see by. I ordered the section out of the gully, and ran
across the open to a bit of old trench I saw in the field. This was the only
suitable spot I could see for bringing our guns to bear on the enemy, and
assist in the attack. We fixed up a couple of machine guns, and awaited a
favourable opportunity. I could see a lot of Germans running along in front
of the wood towards one end of it. We laid our aim on the wood, which
seemed to me the chief spot to go for. One or two of my men had not
managed to get up to the gun position as yet. They were ammunition
carriers, and had had a pretty hard job with it. I left the guns to run back
and hurry them on. The rifle-fire kept up an incessant rattle the whole time,
and now the German gunners started shelling the farm behind us. Shell
after shell burst beyond, in front of, and on either side of the farm. Having
got up the ammunition, I ran back towards the guns past the farm. In front
of me an officer was hurrying along with a message towards a trench
which was on the left of our new-found gun position. He ran across the
open towards it. When about forty yards from me I saw him throw up his
hands and collapse on the ground. I hurried across to him, and lifted his
head on to my knee. He couldn't speak and was rapidly turning a deathly
pallor. I undid his equipment and the buttons of his tunic as fast as I could,
to find out where he had been shot. Right through the chest, I saw. The left
side of his shirt, near his heart, was stained deep with blood. A captain in
the Canadians, I noticed. The message he had been carrying lay near him. I
didn't know quite what to do. I turned in the direction of my gun section
without disturbing his head, and called out to them to throw me over a
water-bottle. A man named Mills ran across with one, and took charge of
the captain, whilst I went through his pockets to try and discover his name.
I found it in his pocket-book. His identity disc had apparently been lost.
With the message I ran back to the farm, and, as luck would have it, came
across a colonel in the Canadians. I told him about the captain who had
been carrying the message, and said if there was a stretcher about I could
get him in. All movement in the attack had now ceased, but the rifle and
shell fire was on as strong as ever. My corporal was with the two guns, and
had orders to fire as soon as an opportunity arose, so I thought my best
plan was to see to getting this officer in while there was a chance. I got hold
of another subaltern in the farm, and together we ran back with a stretcher
to the spot where I had left Mills and the captain. We lifted him on to the
stretcher. He seemed a bit better, but his breathing was very difficult. How
I managed to hold up that stretcher I don't know; I was just verging on
complete exhaustion by this time. I had to take a pause about twenty yards
from the farm and lie flat out on the ground for a moment or two to
recuperate sufficiently to finish the journey. We got him in and put him
down in an outbuilding which had been turned into a temporary dressing
station. Shells were crashing into the roof of the farm and exploding round
it in great profusion. Every minute one heard the swirling rush overhead,
the momentary pause, saw the cloud of red dust, then "Crumph!" That
farm was going to be extinguished, I could plainly see. I went along the
edge of the dried-up moat at the back, towards my guns. I couldn't stand
up any longer. I lay down on the side of the moat for five minutes. Twenty
yards away the shells burst round and in the farm, but I didn't care, rest
was all I wanted. "What about my sergeant and those other guns?" I
thought, as I lay there. I rose, and cut across the open space again to the
two guns.
"You know what to do here, Corporal?" I said. "I am going round the farm
over to the right to see what's happened to the others."
I left him, and went across towards the farm. As I went I heard the
enormous ponderous, gurgling, rotating sound of large shells coming. I
looked to my left. Four columns of black smoke and earth shot up a
hundred feet into the air, not eighty yards away. Then four mighty
reverberating explosions that rent the air. A row of four "Jack Johnsons"
had landed not a hundred yards away, right amongst the lines of men,
lying out firing in extended order. I went on, and had nearly reached the
farm when another four came over and landed fifty yards further up the
field towards us.
"They'll have our guns and section," I thought rapidly, and hurried on to
find out what had become of my sergeant. The shelling of the farm
continued; I ran past it between two explosions and raced along the old
gulley we had first come up. Shells have a way of missing a building, and
getting something else near by. As I was on the sloping bank of the gully I
heard a colossal rushing swish in the air, and then didn't hear the resultant
crash....
All seemed dull and foggy; a sort of silence, worse than all the shelling,
surrounded me. I lay in a filthy stagnant ditch covered with mud and slime
from head to foot. I suddenly started to tremble all over. I couldn't grasp
where I was. I lay and trembled ... I had been blown up by a shell.
I lay there some little time, I imagine, with a most peculiar sensation. All
fear of shells and explosions had left me. I still heard them dropping about
and exploding, but I listened to them and watched them as calmly as one
would watch an apple fall off a tree. I couldn't make myself out. Was I all
right or all wrong? I tried to get up, and then I knew. The spell was broken.
I shook all over, and had to lie still, with tears pouring down my face.
I could see my part in this battle was over.
 CHAPTER XXXI
SLOWLY RECOVERING—FIELD HOSPITAL—AMBULANCE

TRAIN—BACK IN ENGLAND

How I ever got back I don't know. I remember dragging myself into a
cottage, in the garden of which lay a row of dead men. I remember some
one giving me a glass of water there, and seeing a terribly mutilated body
on the floor being attended to. And, finally, I remember being helped down
the Wieltj road by a man into a field dressing station. Here I was labelled
and sent immediately down to a hospital about four miles away. Arrived
there, I lay out on a bench in a collapsed state, and I remember a cheery
doctor injecting something into my wrist. I then lay on a stretcher awaiting
further transportation. My good servant Smith somehow discovered my
whereabouts, and turned up at this hospital. He sat beside me and gave me
a writing-pad to scribble a note on. I scrawled a line to my mother to say I
had been knocked out, but was perfectly all right. Smith went back to the
battalion, and I lay on the stretcher, partially asleep. Night came on and I
went off into a series of agonizing dreams. I awoke with a start. I was being
lifted up from the floor on the stretcher. They carried me out. It was bright
moonlight, and looking up I saw the moon, a dazzling white against the
dark blue sky. The stretcher and I were pushed into an ambulance in which
were three other cases beside myself. We were driven off to some station or
other. I stared up at the canvas bottom of the stretcher above me, trying to
realize it all. Presently we reached the train. Another glimpse of the moon,
and I was slid into the ambulance car....
In three days I was back in England at a London hospital—"A fragment
from France."