"Crumps", The Plain Story Of A Canadian Who Went Part 10

This place isn't somewhere in France, it's somewhere in h.e.l.l! It has been the scene of a great many encounters; decayed French uniforms, old rifles, ammunition and leather equipment and bundles of mildewed tobacco leaves are strewn all over the place. I found the chin-strap of a German "Pickelhaube" in the grounds, the helmet of a French cuira.s.sier, and the red pants of a Zouave, close together. When digging in the trenches or anywhere near the firing line you have to be careful: corpses, dead horses, and cattle are buried everywhere. I'm building a trench to my emplacement and we have a stinking cow in the direct line; this will have to be buried before we can cut through.

Everybody is cheerful and going strong. Yesterday some of my men went swimming in the moat of the chateau; a sh.e.l.l dropped in the water near them, and threw up a lot of fish on to the bank. That kind of discouraged the Tommies swimming, so they cooked the fish and decided that safety comes before cleanliness out here.

It's hot and sticky, and when you have to wear thick clothes and equipment it makes you very uncomfortable, but it's all in the game.

All through the night we fired single shots from a machine gun; my orders were to fire between half-past eight at night and four o'clock in the morning. We have a number of guns doing this. It hara.s.ses the enemy and keeps them from sleeping; anything that will wear a man down is practiced here.

I've constructed a fire emplacement amongst the ruins underground; to get to it you have to travel through a tunnel eighteen feet long; inside it's very damp. I was working with my corporal, crouched up; we were both wet and cold, and so to cheer things up every now and again we let off a few rounds and warmed our hands on the barrel. Outside it poured with rain, and mosquitoes sought refuge inside and mealed off me. The corporal was immune. I had a water bottle full of whiskey and water. We used it to keep out the cold, but it wasn't strong enough. In a case like that you need wood alcohol. I would like to have had some Prohibitionists with me here.

We had no light except the flash of the gun and the enemy star sh.e.l.ls.

At daybreak I came home dead beat. I got into my cellar, was so tired that I threw myself down on the bed and wrapped myself up in my blankets, boots, mud, lice and all. I hadn't been asleep long before the Huns started "hating" the chateau. They have put over twenty-five large calibre sh.e.l.ls into my place, the grounds and the house. They are still at it.

Every time a sh.e.l.l bursts it makes a hole big enough to bury five horses, and it shakes the foundations all round. The sh.e.l.ls are bigger than usual.

The smoke and earth are blown up fifty or sixty feet in the air. The effect is a moral disruption. _Why can't they keep that cotton out of Germany?_

I have divided my section up into two teams, one in the cellars and one in the gun-pits. I relieve them every twenty-four hours, and I practically have to be in both places at once, but I have got a telephone in between the two places. I have it by my bed so that I can constantly know how things are going. However, the wire is cut two or three times a day by bullets and sh.e.l.l splinters, my linesman has a constant job.

Fired all night; came back at six o'clock this morning, very tired. Had a telegram from the general to fire two thousand rounds in twenty-four hours; this is quite hard work. Actually we could fire the lot in five minutes, but it would attract too much attention. The enemy use whole batteries of artillery to blot out machine guns which attract attention, so we have to fire single shots.

We have for neighbors four dead cows and an unexploded six-inch sh.e.l.l, liable to go off any time, all in a radius of one hundred yards. We have smashed holes through five walls so that we can go through the ruins un.o.bserved. In one place we pa.s.s over a dead cow, and in another we wade through several tons of rotten potatoes, and I believe we have a corpse handy; and part of our trench goes through another heap of rotten mangles.

I'm an authority on smells. I can almost tell the nationality of a corpse now by the smell. It will soon be necessary to wear our smoke-helmets to go into the emplacement. I don't think that I have told you that I cross the Yser ca.n.a.l about six times a day. I'd been up a week before I knew what it was. Now it only has a few feet of water in it, the rest being held in the German locks. The part I cross over is full of bulrushes, and is the home of moor-hens, water rats, mosquitoes and frogs.

On one side of the ca.n.a.l is a bank which is in great demand by the machine gunners, who are able to get a certain amount of height and observation of their fire. The general has ordered a field gun to take up a position on this bank. He refers to it as his "Sniping eighteen-pounder." It is firing at seven hundred yards right at the German line and smashes up their parapet in a style that is pretty to watch. The machine gunners are in a great state, because the enemy will soon be "searching" with his artillery for the eighteen-pounder and the lairs of the smaller hidden guns will suffer.

The men are hunting for lice in their underwear. This is the kind of conversation that is coming through from the next cellars: "I've got you beat-that's forty-seven." "Wait a minute"-a sound of tearing cloth-"but look at this lot, mother and young." "With my forty and these you'll have to find some more." They were betting on the number they could find. I peel off my shirt myself and burn them off with a candle. I glory in the little pop they make when the heat gets to them. All the insect powder in the world has been tried out on them and they've won.

All sentries here are doubled; one thing it's safer, and another it's company; even when things are quiet, rats and mice scamper about and it sets your nerves on end. Things which are inanimate during the day become alive at night. Trees seem to walk about. I wonder what it tastes like to have a real meal in which tinned food does not figure; fancy a tablecloth; my tablecloth is a double sheet of newspaper, and even then I can't have a new one every day.

Had a good night's rest; came in about twelve o'clock and slept until eight-thirty this morning. One eye is completely closed up by a sting.

A German aeroplane has been hovering over our positions looking for my gun, so we have stopped firing and all movement. I know just how the chicken feels when the hawk hovers over it. Few people realize how much aeroplanes figure in this war, for war would be much different without them. They do the work of Cavalry only in the sky. Whenever they come over, the sentries blow three blasts on their whistles and everybody runs for cover or freezes; guns stop firing and are covered up with branches made on frames. If men are caught in the open they stand perfectly still and do not look up, for on the aeroplane photographs faces at certain heights show light; dugouts are covered over with trees, straw or gra.s.s.

We use aeroplane photographs a great deal; they show trenches distinctly and look very like the ca.n.a.ls on Mars.

The Huns have been "hating" the road one quarter of a mile away all the morning. That doesn't worry us a bit as long as they don't come any closer. I'm willing always to share up on the sh.e.l.ling.

This order has just been issued. It speaks for itself:-

All ranks are warned that bombs and grenades must not be used for fishing and killing game.

I went over another farm to-day. It is one of the well-ventilated kind, punched full of holes. In the kitchen, stables and outhouses there was a most wonderful collection of junk: ammunition, British and French bandoliers, old sheepskin coats abandoned by the British troops from last winter, smashed rifles, bayonets, meat tins, parts of broken equipment, sandbags, stacks of rotten potatoes and three dead cows. The fruit trees are laden with fruit, and vines are growing up the houses with their bunches of green grapes.

In the garden several lonely graves are piled high with old boots, straw, American agricultural implements, rotting sacks and rubbish of every description, pieces of sh.e.l.ls, barrels, and in one room the rusty remains of a perambulator and sewing machine; rats are the only inhabitants now.

In the garret (the staircase leading up to it gone long ago) I found a British rifle, bayonet fixed, ten rounds in the magazine, and the bolt partly drawn out. Evidently the owner was in the act of reloading his chamber when something happened. The graves were dated second and third months of this year. The poor wooden crosses were made of pieces of ration cases and the names written with an indelible pencil. The wretchedness of this farm, which was flourishing only a short time ago, is very pathetic.

We have adopted an old Belgian mother cat with her family of three kittens in the dugout. Now we find that three more little wild kittens are living in the bricks which we have piled around the windows to protect us against sh.e.l.ls. They are all encouraged to live with us in the cellars. I like cats, and they will help to keep the rats down. Although some of the rats are nearly the size of cats.

It has been raining again and the trenches are filling up with slush. We carry a big trench stick, a thick sapling about four feet long with a ferrule made from a cartridge of a "very-light" (star sh.e.l.l), to help ourselves in walking; our feet are beginning to get wet and cold as a regular thing now, and we are revetting our trenches firm and solid for the winter. Eleven P.M. A mine under the Boche line has just been exploded. The fighting has just started for the crater.

I took a German Uhlan helmet from a gentleman who had no further use for it. It was pretty badly knocked about; still, if I can get it home it's a trophy.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Mr. Tommy Atkins.

It's about eight o'clock Sunday evening. All day long sh.e.l.ls have been coming over like locomotives. Every five seconds one goes over into the old town; every five seconds for the last two hours. The chateau has been sh.e.l.led again with "crumps"; they are such rotten shots; if only they would put in two good ones in the center it would blow it to bits and then they might leave us alone. The whole of the ground is pitted because they can't hit it squarely.

My work lies behind the front line and in front of the support, firing over the heads of the men in the main trenches. The emplacement was sh.e.l.led to-day; one sh.e.l.l hit the roof, burst and knocked over one of my men, cutting his head open. He is not very badly hurt, but has gone to the hospital. The sh.e.l.ling has been terrible to-day.

The Germans have been very quiet lately, and working parties are out all along their front lines at night-something's up. Dirty work can be expected at any time now. We have steel helmets to protect us from spent bullets and splinters. They look like the old Tudor steel helmets and they are fine to wash in.

You have no idea what a big part food plays in our life. Yesterday morning I went with the machine-gun officer of another outfit to crawl about looking for positions. We were in an orchard. I happened to look up and saw ripe plums! Terrified lest he should see them and forestall me, I said, "Let's beat it, this is too unhealthy," so we crawled back. Last night in the light of a big moon such as c.o.o.ns always steal watermelons by, a section officer and his cook crawled to the plum tree. The section officer, being large, stood underneath while the cook climbed the tree and dropped them into a sandbag held open by the S.O. They got about ten pounds. They go well stewed, believe me. The fact that bullets whistled through the trees most of the time made them taste better to-day. Sat the rest of the night in a hedge firing at the Boches with a Lewis gun. I struck for bed just as dawn broke.

To-day the guns are again "hating" the chateau, and they have put sixty sh.e.l.ls in the neighborhood. Still, "there's no cloud without a silver lining." I've got a new way home. Instead of going right around the kennels, stables, and through the yards, I go "through" the greenhouse direct, thereby saving a lot of time. The Huns' calendar is wrong. They have always sh.e.l.led me Sunday and Wednesday. To-day's Tuesday!

We use up the window frames and doorways for kindling, and consequently the doors have gone long ago. I have been smashing up mouldings this morning with an axe. We prefer the dry wood which is built into the walls; it burns better and doesn't cause smoke. As soon as smoke is seen rising, the enemy's range-finders get busy and then we suffer.

Another mine went up yesterday; n.o.body seems to know where. I think it came south from the French lines; it rocked the whole neighborhood for miles. The ground here is a kind of quicksand for a few feet down, and shock is easily transmitted, the whole ground being honeycombed with mines, old trenches, shafts, saps made by French, Belgians, Germans and our own people.

The use for timber of any description is manifold; every little bit is used up. Our chief source of supply of dry wood is from the smashed-up chateaux. Langhof, my home, has been punished almost every day, and after the bombardment lets up men from the neighborhood come to collect the wood torn up by the sh.e.l.ling. The men of the Tenth East Yorks came up this morning and climbed to the remains of the second story, ripping up the floor boards. The enemy evidently saw them, for the sh.e.l.ling soon started.

We have been sh.e.l.led often here before, but it was nothing compared to this. The sh.e.l.ls were carefully placed and came over with disgusting regularity. The buildings rocked and the whole neighborhood shook.

Fountains of bricks, mortar, and dirt were spewed up into the air. Trees were torn to shreds, a wall in front of me was. .h.i.t-and disappeared, a lead statue of Apollo in the garden was hurled through the air and landed fifty yards away crumpled up against the bal.u.s.trade of the moat.

We were in our cellars, and gradually the sh.e.l.ling crept up towards us.

Slowly a solemn dread which soon moulded into a sordid fear took possession of my being. In a flash I began to devise a philosophy of death for my chances were fading with every crash. I took out my pocketbook, containing some letters from my mother and some personal things, and put them on one of the beams, so that, being in another part of the building, they might perhaps be found some day. The sh.e.l.ling continued and sh.e.l.ls dropped completely round the cellars, demolishing nearly everything in sight. The enemy evidently wanted to obliterate the whole place. The smell of the smoke and the dirt from the debris was choking, and every minute we expected to be our last. Suddenly it stopped. Philosophy and fear disappeared simultaneously as I sputtered out a choking laugh of relief.

Then Hawkins, my servant, in a scared voice started, and the others joined in, singing the old marching refrain of the Training Camps:-

"Hail, hail, the gang's all here, What the h.e.l.l do we care!

What the h.e.l.l do we care!

Hail, hail, the gang's all here, What the h.e.l.l do we care NOW!"

When a man has lived night after night in a trench, he gradually finds it quite possible to s.n.a.t.c.h a good night's sleep. In other words, it is merely a case of becoming acclimated to rackets, smells and food. I had always been able to sleep, but on the night following the bombardment of the chateau I just could not doze off. I thrashed about continuously, and while in this restless state harbored the notion that trouble was brewing for me. Every one has had that feeling, the feeling that hangs in your bones and warns you to watch out. Well, that is how I felt.

At last the sun rose and with it came a beautiful morning, warm and sunny.

I walked out amongst the ruins to see the extent of the damage caused by the sh.e.l.ling of the previous day. I was waiting for the stew which was cooking on a little fire near the side of the cellar. The "dixie" was resting on two old bayonets, and they in turn rested on bricks at either side. Towards noon a big sh.e.l.l came over and landed in the moat, covering everything around with a coat of evil-smelling, black mud. This sh.e.l.l was followed by another, arriving in the part of the ruins where once a cow-shed stood. I was talking to Hawkins, my batman, when I saw him dive across my front and fall flat on his face. At the same time I was in the center of an explosion, a great flame of light and then bricks, wood and cement flew in all directions. For a few seconds I thought I was dead, then I picked myself up and saw that blood was pouring down the front of my jacket. I followed up the stream and found that my right hand was smashed and hanging limp. My men rushed out and I told them it was nothing, but promptly fell in a heap. When I came to, my hand was wrapped up in an emergency bandage, and a stretcher was coming down from Bedford House, an advanced dressing-station, the next house back. To the delight of the men who were carrying it, I waved them away and told them I could walk. a.s.sisted up to the dressing-station by one of my men, I made it. I then made a discovery. A soldier is a man until he's. .h.i.t, then he's a case. I first had an injection of "anti-teta.n.u.s" in the side, and the fact was recorded on a label tied to my left-hand top pocket b.u.t.ton. The doctor tied me up, then said: "You'll soon be all right. Will you have a bottle of English beer or a drop of whiskey?" I had the whiskey. I needed it. All the time I was there the wounded poured in. Seeing them I felt ashamed to be there with only a smashed hand. A corporal came in with both hands blown off and fifty-six other wounds. He had tried to save the men in his bay by throwing back a German bomb and it had gone off in his hands.

Hawkins came up later on with my helmet and the fuse head of the sh.e.l.l which blew me up. We were all collected together and waited in the dugouts of the dressing station until dusk. Several sh.e.l.ls came close to us. I tried to write to my mother with my left hand, so that when she received the War Office cable she would know I was able to write.