A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire Part 4

It was not only the dampness and the incessant maxim fire we had to contend with here, but an army of insects, which jumped about us in battalions, and saw to it we were never lonely. A c.o.c.kney member of our company, after catching a particularly active jumper, called out: "Now then, you blighter, where is your respirator?"

The enemy were only thirty yards away, and we could often hear them shouting at us and would answer back. Many of our men were hit by snipers, while the sh.e.l.ling was often terrific, but we stuck on, as we were holding a part of an important military position. I remember how on an occasion when the sh.e.l.ling was very heavy one man engaged himself in making soup as coolly as if nothing was happening until the earth knocked up by the sh.e.l.ls began to drop into the mess-tin, when he gave us his opinion of the Boches in his own forcible vernacular. We often laid for hours at the bottom of the trench--flat on the ground in the water and mud to escape the sh.e.l.ls.

THE BIRTH-PLACE OF A SONG.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BIRTH-PLACE OF A SONG.]

The third bit of trench of this chapter has a claim to fame as the birth-place of a song. The song was one which only British soldiers could have concocted, and none but British soldiers would have sung. It had no known author and no known composer. It sort of "growed," like Topsy. If it had had a t.i.tle given to it I suppose it would have been called "I want to go home," for that was its dirge-like refrain, always sung very cheerfully indeed, or with mock earnestness. Time and again I heard its chorus taken up with terrific gusto from end to end of this trench, and the whole extraordinary composition spread to other trenches like a contagion. Its popularity was instant and enduring--and as unaccountable as the popularity of many other popular songs. I think I quote the inspired words of the chorus correctly:--

"I want to go home, I want to go home-- Tho' the Jack Johnsons and shrapnel May whistle and roar, I don't want to go in the trenches no more; I want to be Where the Alleymonds can't catch me: Oh my!

I don't want to die-- I want--to go home."

Three rifles are deposited on the steps of the fireplace--the usual position for rifles when not in hand, dropped inside canvas bags, bayonets protruding--kept well greased, to prevent them from getting rusty.

TRENCH PERISCOPE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TRENCH PERISCOPE IN USE.]

The uses of a trench periscope are so well known that they need not be described. The feature of my last sketch of a trench from the inside is that it shows one in actual employment.

CHAPTER VII.

THE RUSE OF A GERMAN SNIPER.

Snipers on both sides exhibited the most extraordinary artfulness, cunning and ingenuity in the discovery, adaptation and invention of "cover." The great desideratum, of course, was to hide where we could see without being seen, to shoot from where there was least danger of being shot.

I helped to track and put an end at Houplines to one German sniper who had resorted to a ruse that I really think deserves the dignity of a short chapter all to itself. The story is tellable in a few words, and may be introduced by this drawing of "The White Farm," so christened because of the whiteness of the walls of its house; although, as will be noticed, there was little of this or anything else left upstanding when I drew my sketch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE WHITE FARM."]

The position shown is the entrance to the trench at this point, and the shovels, barrels, pails and water trough are all such implements as had been used in making and draining the cutting.

The cart shown is the "ration cart" used at night for bringing provisions from the Transport Corps wagon. It was usual for the ration parties (as elsewhere) to go out every night after dusk. These were even more than ordinarily dangerous excursions, as the enemy trenches commanded the road, we having captured the position from them shortly before. Hence sniping was continuous, and the cart was often hit and our men killed or wounded. We therefore took observations.

THE SNIPER WHO LIVED IN A TREE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GERMAN SNIPER'S NEST]

In course of time we came to notice that the most dangerous part of the road lay between a willow tree-stump and the White Farm. Our men were shot here nightly in getting back to the trenches. A party was formed to make a tour of the field in which the tree-trunk stood. The first thing we noticed was that after we entered this enclosure the shots were less numerous. We split up in open order and approached the willow, taking care to drop to the ground on our hands and knees. As we neared the tree, lo and behold! a shot rang out from it and only just missed the corporal. He jumped up at once and we all followed suit. All dashed on for the tree. What did we find? It was nothing but a purposely hollowed trunk used as a shielded nest for a German sniper, the inside being fitted with a shelf to rest his arm on as he coolly picked off our men through a hole. He endeavoured to make his escape in the darkness, but we brought him down. He had evidently been using this sniping place for weeks, though this was the first time we had located him.

CHAPTER VIII.

THREE DEATH TRAPS.

I suppose it may be said, without exaggeration, that we were in a death trap all the time, but I have sketches to show of three particular and "extra special" sort of death traps. The first is of:--

SUICIDE BRIDGE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SUICIDE BRIDGE."]

This bridge, made by the British, was called "Suicide Bridge," because it was, and was at, such a specially dangerous spot. The British trenches were in the foreground and beyond the bridge. We held these trenches for fourteen days against the enemy's attacks. The gap was nine feet deep at this corner, and the black hole on the left faintly showing a fireplace was our kitchen, scarred by bullet marks made by snipers.

The place was infested with rats. Great water-rats were continually getting at our food and cheese in the dug-outs. In one "rat hunt" we killed eighteen of these rodents in one morning. The stream itself supplied us with drinking water, but one day our men began to fall ill.

The doctor a.n.a.lysed the water and discovered that the dastardly Huns had poisoned the stream higher up, where it ran through their lines. We warned the rest of the battalion by the field telephone wires and saved them all from being poisoned.

An exasperating though _not_ murderous "kultur" trick was to send us insulting messages down the stream enclosed in bottles, calling us "dirty dogs," "English swine," etc., etc.

The final furious attempt of the Germans to dislodge us began in the daylight. Their snipers advanced first in an open field beyond the trees and took cover in a wagon, which we located by the ridge of flame.

At night they advanced in great ma.s.ses for hand-to-hand fights, which took place in the stream. The carnage was terrible. The poisoning tricks had worked our fellows up to a high pitch, and they fought with reckless bravery. We managed to explode a mine and caught their reserves. Then their artillery opened on the stream and we rushed out to meet them. They didn't get "Suicide Bridge" from us, but the losses were heavy on both sides and the stream itself was red with blood.

SUICIDE SIGNAL BOX.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SUICIDE SIGNAL BOX."]

The sketch of "Suicide Signal Box" takes us to a spot on the railway line close to the scene of one of the biggest battles of the war. Its chief feature is the dug-out actually under the line itself. Of course the line was not being used across the top of the dug-out. As a matter of fact, at this time a railway truck was run up to the edge nightly propelled by forty of our men, bringing filled sandbags for making a barricade across the line, thus affording the relieving party cover when getting out of trench. The position was known to us as "Suicide Signal Box," because it was so dangerous as to be almost suicidal to cross the line, as was necessary to reach the road only five yards beyond. The ruined building is the signal box itself, protected by the line of sandbags in front of telegraph poles and sh.e.l.led trees.

A most curious fact about this place was that, though it was being continually sh.e.l.led by the enemy and their maxim guns were trained day and night on this very important position to catch troops coming up as relieving parties, it was a wonderful place in which to hear the birds sing. The larks trilled at every dawn to herald the coming day, and never seemed in the least disturbed by the roar of artillery. In the left-hand corner of the sketch will be noticed the firing platform, over which is the "funk hole," so called from its being the refuge to run to when the sh.e.l.ls arrive. The soldier buries his head like the ostrich--only he beats the ostrich by getting his shoulders in as well--and then feels fairly secure.

A MILE-AND-A-HALF OF h.e.l.l.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GHASTLY PROMENADE.]

I show a little bit of a ghastly promenade near Messines, some six miles from Armentieres. The road of which the bit in the foreground leads to what remains of a very handsome gateway to a park is a mile-and-a-half in length, and had to be traversed by our men in order to get to the British position, which was placed beyond the left corner of the picture (where the broken tree slants). Relieving parties had to cover the whole of this distance exposed to the enemy's enfilading fire from two sides of the triangle right up to the apex. The apex was a British trench in the most advanced position we could possibly hold. Our determination to throw back the enemy made it absolutely necessary to hold it. The road was covered by the Germans' maxim guns from three points, both down each side and from the centre between the pillars of the gateway. Our method of advance was in Indian file at several paces apart, and instructions were given that whenever the maxims fired upon us we were to drop flat on the ground immediately, and when the searchlight was turned upon us (which it frequently was with blinding force) we were to stand stock still in whatever position we were, the reason being that even with such powerful searchlights as are used by the enemy, which have a perfect range of five miles, it is easier for them to distinguish a moving object than a stationary one. It was almost unendurable to have our rifles in our hands--the barrels frequently hit by the enemy's bullets--and to have to stand still unable to use them--by order; but of course it would have been fatal to have opened fire. We should all have been annihilated.

THE HOLE IN THE WALL.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HOLE IN THE WALL.]

As a pictorial sequel to "Suicide Bridge" and my little account of the great fight there, hand to hand in the darkness, the next ill.u.s.tration will not be out of place. The barricade across the road, at the entrance to a village, marks the spot to which we advanced from the stream after that struggle in it. The clean hole in a remaining wall of the almost demolished house on the left had been cut by a sh.e.l.l. The house in ruins on the right had been a mansion, and pictures and furniture were strewn about--some of which we used in the trenches. A case of wine had been left behind unbroached. A cat left behind, that refused to quit, bore a charmed life--never was. .h.i.t--and often ran about on the parapet. The parapet barricade of sandbags was called "The High Jump," because we had to mount it and get over it each night and jump for our lives, to take up our positions by our advanced listening and observation post. It was absolutely fatal for anyone to show himself on the road in the daytime.

Many a time we should have liked to have stretched our legs, but dared not. But after the fourth day we did actually get on the road, as the enemy shifted their position, and the relief was wonderful. It had been a speculation whether we or the Germans would get on the road, and after dislodging them we managed it. Our men ran about, some skipping with a piece of wire, others rolling on the ground, in their enjoyment of newly-found freedom, occasional spent bullets reaching us from a great distance. The position was always referred to as "Hole in the Wall."