A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire Part 2

As the firing grew heavier we made a circular route over fields, etc., to the trenches, for the rest of the way. The enemy made an attack on our second night in them--and their loss was pretty heavy.

PART II.

AT THE FRONT.

CHAPTER IV.

SOME SAMPLE EXCITEMENTS OF LIFE IN THE TRENCHES.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MY SKETCH BOOK.]

I don't think I'm a bit sentimental in the matter of souvenirs, and anyway I can't need anything to remind me of the unforgettable, but all the same there's one souvenir of my experiences in the trenches and the firing line that I shall never part with--and that's the little notebook (measuring 5-1/2 ins. by 3-1/2 ins., bought in Armentieres) which I carried with me through everything, and in which are the originals of the sketches here collected, taken "under fire," either literally or in the sense that they were taken within the zone of fire. In the nature of things I might have been finished myself by shot or sh.e.l.l before I could have finished any one of them. Sketched in circ.u.mstances that certainly had their own disadvantages as well as their special advantages, I present these drawings only for what they are. There were many happenings--repulsions of sudden attacks, temporary retirements, charges, and things of that sort--that would have made capital subjects, but of which my notebook holds no "pictured presentment," because I was taking part in them.

AT ARMENTIeRES.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map: La Ba.s.see-St. Julien]

We reached Armentieres (relieving the Leinster Regiment and the 9th Lancers in the first line trenches, distant from the first line German trenches 30 yards) at a critical time.

The effort in progress was to straighten out our line so as to get it level with Ypres, and the whole position all around was a very perilous one. We were short of men--very short--and had practically no reserves.

Almost every available man had to do the work and duty of three. For a month or so almost all the heavy work fell upon the line regiments, we doing the wiring, digging, and the usual work of the Royal Engineers, the number of these being relatively scanty indeed.

There was also some shortage of sh.e.l.ls and ammunition for guns and rifles, while of trench mortars a division had but few. We had to make our own bombs out of jam tins. These were charged and stuck down, a detonator being inserted, and we crawled out with them at night and heaved them into the German trenches. We had to time each heave with the most extreme accuracy, for the fraction of a moment too late meant the bursting of the bomb in our hands. The game we played with the Huns (keeping up a continuous fire all night, for instance) was one of pure bluff. They were ma.s.sed in, we estimated, four army corps, and could have walked through us--if they had only known.

As my ill.u.s.trations do not follow all the movements of my detachment, I will say here that from Armentieres we were shifted to Houplines, about 4-1/2 to 5 miles north-east, where we made an advance of a hundred yards or so to straighten up. From Houplines we were moved south to La Ba.s.see, and from La Ba.s.see to Neuve Chapelle (where our 3rd Battalion was almost wiped out in the indecisive victory that proved much and won little), and then back to Armentieres, whence we were sent north to St. Eloi, after making a short advance in the vicinity of Messines. From St. Eloi we were ordered to Hill 60, taking part in the now historic battle there. After Hill 60, Ypres, where shrapnel and poison gas put an end to my soldiering days--I am afraid for ever.

To come back to our first arrival at Armentieres, our position was in touch with a small village not marked on the map, in the direction of Houplines. This village, which became almost wholly destroyed, had been knocked about by the enemy fire, but the tall chimney of a distillery had been spared, no doubt because the Germans wanted it themselves, intact. However much they wished, and often and hard as they tried, to take it--especially as from it could be conned not only our lines but the lay of the surrounding country--they never did take it, and it never fell, though it was. .h.i.t in two places and cracked.

At 10.30 one morning I crawled over the parapet--that is, the sandbags--of our trench to sketch the picture of which this distillery shaft is the central feature. The trench also near the middle we had dug overnight for communication purposes. The enemy were to the left of the buildings shown, and our own men were occupying the position to the right of the chimney at a range of 250 yards.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUTSKIRTS OF A VILLAGE.]

Our boys in the trenches could never understand a bright light which in daytime issued from the garden adjoining the farm-buildings on the British side. But one day a spy, who did work disguised as a farmhand, was discovered. He used a tin bowl as a reflector to send the enemy signals. The rascal was duly attended to.

FETCHING WATER.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MY FIRST SNIPING PLACE.]

Here is a little view of the outskirts of the same village, made a few days later, when I was told off with two others to go to the house on the right of the sketch to get water from the pump, exposed to the enemy's fire. While pencilling the sketch I saw the wide gap made in the tree's branches, as shown by a sh.e.l.l pa.s.sing through it, which burst on the road some fifteen yards away from us. This was an indication the enemy had spotted figures moving in the direction of the house. However, having got the water, we all reached "home" safely, though we ran a further risk in rummaging in the orchard, where we found some beds of lettuces, of which welcome vegetables we brought back with us enough to supply the whole section.

The house on the left of the sh.e.l.led tree was the position from which I and two others were ordered to snipe. We climbed the ricketty building and fired from the eaves and from the cover of the chimney. The building was in a state of almost total ruin, but we took our places on the shaken beams and considered we made a quite successful bag, for we could guarantee that at least five or six occupants of the enemy's trenches would give us no more trouble. This in the course of one morning.

Finally the enemy saw us and we had to vacate our position, as both the building and the barricade across the road were being rapidly hit.

CAPTURE OF A GERMAN TRENCH.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAPTURED GERMAN TRENCH.]

Without their coveted observation post the German gunners got the range of the town beyond the village so completely that one day they poured a continuous stream of sh.e.l.ls over our heads from 4.30 in the morning till mid-day. It was, I remember, at day-break next morning that under cover of our own artillery, we made an advance and took the trench here depicted just as it was left by the turned-out. So hurried was their exit when faced by British bayonets that they left behind them in the trench quite a number of articles most useful to us--such as saws, sniper's rifles mounted on tripod stands, haversacks, and a quant.i.ty of other equipment, also a very fine selection of cigars, which came as quite a G.o.dsend to us. Personally, I clicked on a pair of German jack boots, which, as the weather was wet and the ground soft and muddy, as usual, came in very handy. I also came across a forage cap and a pocket knife, and picked up a photograph--that of a typical Fraulein, probably the sweetheart of Heinrich, Fritz or Karl.

A NIGHT RELIEF.

Duty in the trenches and rest and sleep in our billets in their rear alternated with something like regularity, but it was a regularity always liable to interruptions, such as were necessitated by not infrequent exigencies.

For instance, we had just got back to the latter one night, at exactly 10.30, after seven consecutive days in the trenches of our most advanced position, and were thinking that now we should get a few hours' quiet repose--subject, of course, to the disturbance of sh.e.l.ling--when a sudden order was given to fall in. We turned out, were numbered, "right turned," and marched off, singing and whistling merrily. After proceeding in this fashion for half a mile, word was pa.s.sed down to form Indian file, seven paces apart. We moved thus for about a quarter of a mile, and then word was again pa.s.sed down--"no smoking, whistling, or talking." The night was pitch dark, foggy, and a drizzle was beating in our faces.

We were now within range of the enemy's rifle fire and heard spent bullets as they pinged and spluttered into the mud. We crossed a railway line, and marched or crawled the best way we could along the ditch parallel with it--truth to tell, cursing and swearing. We pa.s.sed an old signal station, now just a pile of bricks, with one side wall still erect and one gla.s.s window intact. We had come to know well that wall and that window and the strewn bricks around, for we had pa.s.sed the spot so often in our little excursions from trench to billet and billet to trench. A little further along the whistle of the bullets grew louder and more continuous--their sound something like the sound of soft notes whistled by a boy. Machine guns--"motor bikes" in our nomenclature--rattled our left and right, our position being that of the far apex of a triangle, exposed to inflated fire all the way up.

Arriving within a few yards of the opening of the trench we were to occupy in relief of the North Staffords, the first section of whom were moving along the ditch, a star sh.e.l.l burst above as the searchlight was turned on, and every man stood stock still till all was dark again.

Between men of the incoming and outgoing battalions such casual greetings were exchanged as: "Wot's it like up here, matie?"; "'Ow are yer goin', son?"; "Yer want to keep your 'ead well down in this part--it's a bit 'ot"; "So long, sonnie." Sprawling, ducking and diving, we got in, and "safe" behind the sandbags. Just as my chum and I had entered the dug-out, and were preparing to make ourselves comfortable, as our turn for sentry-go would not be for two hours, the sergeant shoved his head in and shouted that we were wanted for a ration party.

RATION PARTIES.

A ration party consists of fourteen men--fewer sometimes, but fourteen if possible, as the proper full complement. The small carts in use are generally of rude and primitive construction. As everybody knows by now, rations comprise bully beef Spratt's biscuits--very large and rather hard--loaves of bread packed in sacks, bacon, jam, marmalade, Maconochies in tins, and, when possible, kegs of water. Let not the rum be forgotten. No soldier is more grateful for anything than for his tablespoonful of rum at half-past six in the evening and half-past four in the morning. His "tot" has saved many a man from a chill, and kept him going during long and dreary hours of wet and press. As to bread, by the bye, it is highly probable that one small loaf, about half the size of an ordinary loaf, will be divided between seven men. With the good things already enumerated, a plentiful supply of charcoal and c.o.ke is usually to be expected. The horse transports with these provisions never get nearer than, at the closest, say half-a-mile of the front trench itself, when the men in charge dump their loads down and get away back to their stores and billets as quickly as possible. There is a lot to risk, for as a rule the enemy have the road well set, and the sh.e.l.ling is often very severe.

It is the duty of a ration party to bring up the loads from where they have been left. On regaining the opening to the trench, they take the rations to the quartermaster-sergeant's hut or dug-out. The sergeants of each platoon come to this hut or dug-out, and to them the things are delivered in quant.i.ties proportionate with the number of men in the section each represents. The sergeants then send along two men to carry the whacks to the respective traverses in the trench. This goes on night after night. So on the occasion I am recalling we were very late--and the distance we had to go was as much as a mile and three-quarters.

This ration carrying, the final stage of ration transport, is an even more dangerous and risky job than the preceding stage, and, as usual, snipers got busy on us, hitting three men, though none was killed. The rattle of bullets from machine guns on the ricketty sides of the old cart added to the programme of the night's entertainment, and there were frequent intervals, not for refreshments, but for getting flat and waiting.

GATHERING IN OUR FIREWOOD.

Chopping up firewood was regarded not so much as work as it was regarded as one of our recreations in the trenches--of which I shall have a little to say presently. But it often happened that there was no recreation, but only the excitement of danger in the night-time job of bringing in the firewood for day-time chopping. It would happen that a man had spotted in some sh.e.l.led house or fallen farm-building a beam, plank, door, or something else wooden and burnable, that he couldn't carry without a.s.sistance, or that he couldn't stop to bring away at the time. It must be fetched, for fire we must have. It might be only a few score yards away measured by distance, but an hour measured by time--"thou art so near and yet so far" sort of thing. Fetchers might get hit at any moment, and had to creep and wriggle very cautiously over open ground all the way. By some strange twist of mental a.s.sociation, whenever I was a fetcher in these circ.u.mstances I found myself mentally quoting Longfellow's line in "Hiawatha"--"He is gathering in his firewood"!

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WOODCUTTER'S HUT.]

Our champion at the game was a Private Hyatt--quite a youngster, but of fine physique and fearless daring. His dug-out was called "The Woodcutter's Hut." He made a regular hobby of wood-getting. He was an expert, a specialist. On certain occasions he even went out after wood in the daylight, slithering along on all fours towards his objective, and would be fired at until recalled by one of his own officers. On one occasion when he had crawled out and into a building to collect wood, as he crawled back through the doorway we saw little clouds of dust rising from the brick-work surrounding him, which showed that the enemy's snipers had spotted him, and we shouted to him from the trench to "keep down." He took refuge behind the wall of the doorway, and lay there three-quarters of an hour, and then returned, bringing with him the much prized plank of which he had gone in search, and which, when chopped up, supplied our section with sufficient firewood for a whole day and night.

In the sketch it will be observed he is reading a letter. This he had received just after the above incident, and sat down on his valise quite unaware that I was sketching him. Later on I gave him a copy of the sketch, and he enclosed it in his affectionate reply to his folk at home.

"STAND TO."

The most anxious time a soldier can know is the time, be it long or short, that follows the command to stand to. Many a time we had to stand to the whole night--the entire battalion, from evening twilight till the full dawn of day--as an attack was expected. Everyone was at his firing position, with bayonet fixed and his rifle loaded--and in tip-top working condition, the daily rifle inspection having taken place at dusk. Sometimes our artillery would presently open fire for the enemy's first line, perhaps for five or six minutes--it might be more, it might be less. Then a wait of six or seven minutes, when the enemy returned the fire, and we all got well down. It was as well to keep as hard up against the parapet as possible, and to keep out of all dug-outs, for into them the forward impetus of bursting shrapnel was likely to throw a lot of splinters. Again silence, comrades and pals pa.s.sing a few remarks in antic.i.p.ation of what everybody knew was coming. The officers with us were one with us, and at their words, "Well, come on, lads," there was never a laggard in getting "over the tops" (in our own phraseology). As soon as we put our hands on the sandbags to clamber over the top of the parapet a hailstorm of bullets pelted us. It is impossible--at all events for me--to describe a charge. Speaking for myself, always my brain seemed to snap. It was simply a rush in a mad line--or as much of a line as could be kept--towards the enemy's barbed wire entanglements, which our guns had blown to smithereens in preparation for the a.s.sault.

We scrambled on to their parapet, each getting at the first man he could touch. When we had taken their position (we didn't always) we might have to wait some time till our artillery had sh.e.l.led the second line, but there was a lot of work to be done at once. The parapet had to be reversed.

After an attack there was generally a roll call--from which there were many absentees.