"Crumps", The Plain Story Of A Canadian Who Went Part 9

In one place they had stuck up a board with "Warsaw Captured" on it.

My section worked until two o'clock and then the sandbags gave out, so we had to come home. This was a disappointment to me. I wanted to get the job finished. My men went on filling sandbags from the same place last night and discovered the remains of the late owner of the sword bayonet. He has now been decently buried, with a little wooden cross marked-

TO AN UNKNOWN FRENCH SOLDIER R.I.P.

When you read in the newspapers, that a trench was lost or taken, just think what it means. Think what happens to the men in the trenches; that's the part of it we see. Stretchers pa.s.s by all day. Since I have been here the cemetery has grown-a new mound-a simple wooden cross. n.o.body talks about it, but everybody wonders who's next. The men here are splendid, the best in the world, and the officers are gentlemen.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

A French Soldier.

We have moved to the famous Langhof Chateau on the Lille road. This is supposed to have belonged to Hennessey of "Three Star" fame, but the Germans had been through the wine cellars. We looked very, very carefully, but only found empties. My batman has made me comfortable. I'm writing this on a washstand; in front of me I have a bunch of roses in a broken vase. My trench coat is hanging on a nail from a coat-hanger. A large piece of broken wardrobe mirror has been nailed up to a beam for my use.

One of the men just came in to ask if a trousers press would be of any use. We have a fine little bureau cupboard of carved oak; we use this for the rations. A pump, repaired with the leather from a German helmet, has been persuaded to work and has been busy ever since. The roof of my cellar is arched brick and has a few tons of fallen debris on the floor upstairs.

That strengthens it. It is sh.o.r.ed up from inside with rafters. This makes the roof sh.e.l.l-proof, except for big sh.e.l.ls, and the enemy always use big sh.e.l.ls. The cellar floors are concrete.

It is very strange the lightness with which serious things are taken by men here, and it took me some time to understand it. I met a young captain of the Royal Marine Artillery who was in charge of a battery of trench mortars. He was telling me of how one of his mortars and the crew were wiped out by a direct hit. He referred to it as though he had just missed his train.

Two days later I went up with the Machine-Gun Officer of the Second Gordons to look at a piece of ground. To get there we had to crawl on our hands and knees. In one part of our journey we came to a sunken road. The day was fine, so we lay there. He asked me about Canada. He wanted to know something about the settler's grant. He said: "Of course you know after a chap has been out here in the open, it will be impossible to go back again to office life." I boosted Canada and suddenly the irony of the situation occurred to me. Here we were lying down in a road quite close to the German lines, so close that it would be suicide to even stand up, and yet here we were calmly discussing the merits of Canadian emigration. I commented on this and he replied: "My dear fellow, when you have been out as long as I have, you will come to realize that being at the front is a period of intense boredom punctuated by periods of intense fear, and that if you allow yourself to be carried away by depression it will be your finish." He had been out since just after Mons.

I remembered this and I found that the nonchalant and care-free att.i.tude of the average British officer was really a mask and simulated to keep his mind off the whole beastly business: this great big dirty job which white people must do.

I was sitting one afternoon by the side of the ca.n.a.l bank about two hundred yards in front of my chateau having tea with the officers of the East Yorks when suddenly the chateau-smashing started again. To go back was dangerous and useless. My men were under cover, resting, so that they would be ready for the night work. The sh.e.l.ling was intermittent. One sh.e.l.l went over and presently I heard _crack_,-_crack_,-_boom_, _crack_, _crack_,-_crack_; my heart was in my boots and I was unable to move.

The colonel listened for a few seconds, then said: "Keene, do you know what that is?" I lied: "No, sir." I thought it was the explosion of my machine-gun bullets in their web belts and I dreaded to go up to see my section. I had worked with them and tried hard to be a good officer and the feeling that I should probably only find their mangled remains sickened me. The colonel said: "That's the 'Archie' in Bedford House. I think the last 'crump' got it. You two"-indicating myself and another officer-"go up and see if we can do anything. See if they want a working party and let me know."

We started to run. On the way up I looked into the cellars to see the men whom I, the minute previously, had mourned for, and found two asleep, three hunting through their shirts, and the rest breaking the army orders by "shooting c.r.a.ps." From Bedford House a long trail of smoke was rising and the explosions became louder. We suddenly discovered the "Archie" in flames. It was in the courtyard and for camouflage had been covered with branches. It was mounted on an armored Pierce-Arrow truck. The "crump" had hit it, and gasoline, paint, branches, and hubs were supplying the fuel which was cooking out the ammunition, the _crack_, _crack_, being the report of single sh.e.l.ls, whereas one loud _boom_ signified the explosion of an entire box. These sh.e.l.ls were going off in all directions and it became dangerous to stay too near.

The flames on the car were of pretty colors. It is surprising the amount of inflammable material there is on a car. The late owner of the car, a lieutenant in the Royal Marine Artillery, was cursing in a low, but emphatic, marine manner, and several other officers from nearby batteries were attracted by the noise and the pyrotechnic display. I spoke to the lieutenant and sympathized with him, and he retorted: "Gott strafe Germany. Why they should hit the 'bus' when I have a brand-new pair of trench boots that I had never worn, I dunno." Just then and there the case cooked out and a piece of sh.e.l.l cut between us and buried itself deep in the support of a dugout, so we got under cover.

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"Whiz-Bangs."

In the group was a splendid type of army chaplain. He came over almost at the start of the war and had seen a great deal of the open warfare at the commencement of hostilities. He said: "My friend Fritz is not through; he'll try to do some more yet." As the smoke died down and the cracking stopped, the enemy decided that an attempt would be made either to carry out salvage of whatever they had hit or else we would try to get the wounded away. So without any preliminary warning the whole area was covered by a battery fire of _whiz bangs_, and the shrapnel bullets came down like rain, several men being hit. The fire eventually died down and the wreck was allowed to cool off. The "Archies" are used so much to keep the aeroplanes up, and next to the loss of his boots the officer in charge was worried by the fact that the enemy would send an aeroplane over to see what they had hit. It was very necessary to keep the planes away, because at this time there were one hundred and fourteen batteries of artillery in the neighborhood.

Later on the battery commander came down, and as he looked at the red-hot armor plates he said: "Five thousand pounds gone up in smoke. Sorry I missed the fireworks." The Divisional general called him up at the dugout and gave him areas for the distribution of the four anti-aircraft guns and cars comprising his battery. After he was through the commander replied: "Very good, sir, that will be done with all the guns except the third gun." The voice over the wire became very dignified, a preliminary to becoming sulphuric. "What do you mean, all but the third gun?" "Because, sir, the enemy has just 'crumped' the third gun and all that remains of it is sc.r.a.p iron."

One of the battalions has a fine victrola in the officers' mess dugout with a good selection of records. I have heard Caruso accompanied on the outside by an orchestra of guns. It was a wonderful mixture. Speaking of canned music reminds me we have a small portable trench machine, which closes up like a valise, easily handled and carried about. One man near had a box full of needles distributed in his back by a bomb; he considers himself disgraced; he says it will be kind of foolish in years to come to show his grandchildren twenty-five or thirty needles and tell them that they were the cause of his wounds.

The Tommies play mouth organs a great deal and it is much easier to march to the sound of one, even

'Ere we are; 'ere we are, 'Ere we are agin.

We beat 'em on the Marne, We beat 'em on the Aisne, We gave 'em 'ELL at Neuve Chapelle, And 'ere we are agin-

sounds well with the addition of a little music.

Anything is used for trench work; often if we waited for the proper materials we should be uncomfortable, so it is one of the qualifications of a good soldier to find things. Sometimes we steal material belonging to other units, then stick around until the owners come back and help them look for them; however, it is always advisable to steal materials from juniors in rank; if they find it out, and are senior, then you are in for a one-sided strafe.

One of the other battery subalterns found a deserted carpenter's shop and he let his men loose to dismantle it. They took the parts of steel machines and used them for the construction of a dugout. One man said, "It's like coming home drunk and smashing up the grand piano with an axe."

They must have attracted the attention of the ever-alert Boche, for no sooner had they moved out than the place was sh.e.l.led to the ground.

Everything I now look at with an eye to its value for trench construction; thus, telegraph poles, doors, iron girders, and rails are more valuable to us out here than a Rolls Royce.

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The "Crump."

Slang or trench language is used universally. My own general talks about "Wipers," the Tommy's p.r.o.nunciation of Ypres, and I have seen a reference to "Granny" (the fifteen-inch howitzer) in orders "mother" is the name given to the twelve-inch howitzer. The trench language is changing so quickly that I think the staff in the rear are unable to keep up to date, because they have recently issued an order to the effect that slang must not be used in official correspondence. Now instead of reporting that a "dud Minnie" arrived over back of "mud lane," it is necessary to put, "I have the honor to report that a projectile from a German Minnenwerfer landed in rear of Trench F 26 and failed to explode."

Sometimes names of sh.e.l.ls go through several changes. For example, high explosives in the early part of the war were called "black Marias," that being the slang name for the English police patrol wagon. Then they were called "Jack Johnsons," then "coal boxes," and finally they were christened "crumps" on account of the sound they make, a sort of _cru-ump!_ noise as they explode. "Rum jar" is the trench mortar.

"Sausage" is the slow-going aerial torpedo, a beastly thing about six feet long with fins like a torpedo. It has two hundred and ten pounds of high explosive and makes a terrible hole. "Whiz bang" is shrapnel.

Sh.e.l.ling is continuous. We have thousands of pieces of sh.e.l.ls and fuse caps about the premises. I have in front of me a fragment of a sh.e.l.l about fourteen inches long and about four and one-half inches across, which came from a German gun. The edges are so sharp that it cuts your hand to hold it. I use it as a paper-weight.

This morning I experienced a wonderful surprise. I had gone up to one of the North Stafford Batteries to borrow a clinometer. The major, while he was getting the instrument for me, casually remarked: "There's yesterday's 'Times' on the bench if you care to look at it." I turned first to the casualty list and later to the "London Gazette" for the promotions, and wholly by accident perused carefully the Motor Machine Gun Service list and there noted the announcement, "Keene, Louis, 2d Lieut., to be 1st Lieut.," and for a fact this was the "official" intimation that I had been promoted. I had a couple of spare "pips", rank stars, in my pocket-book, so I got my corporal to sew them on right away.

We are all very happy at times, very dirty, and covered with stings and bites; have no idea how long we are to remain up. Getting used to the sh.e.l.l fire, and can sleep through it if it's not too close. When it comes near it makes you very thoughtful. Still working at night and resting during the day. Made another emplacement for one of my machine guns last night; had twenty men digging; surprising how fast men dig when the bullets are flying.

It's about 2 A.M. We have just come in. My new emplacement is splendid; we've made it sh.e.l.l-proof and have it ready for firing. I was coming home this afternoon after having been to the fire trenches when I heard a shout: "Keene!" I looked up on the ca.n.a.l bank and I saw the general with one of his A.D.C.'s sitting watching an aeroplane duel. "I've come up to see your gun position, Keene." I saluted, waited for him, and took him to it. It is below the level of the ground under tons of bricks in the ruins of a farmhouse. He was standing on the roof of it and said, "Well, where's the emplacement?" "You're standing on it, sir." "Tut, tut, 'pon my word, that's good." He was delighted and congratulated me on it. My preliminary work under the eyes of the general has gone off quite well. I start firing to-night.

Intimacy between generals and lieutenants is unusual, but it looks as if mine had taken an interest in me, because when he noticed my insect-bitten face, he sent me down some dope he had used with good effect in India. I expect the mosquitoes in India were the ordinary kind, but, believe me, trench "skeeters" are constructed differently and are proof against the general's pet concoction.

I have several miners in my section who take a personal pride in the digging and shoring up of dugouts. So far the other two sections of the Battery are always behind in this work but they may look better on parade.

The ca.n.a.l has one big lock suitable for swimming; a lot of "jocks" were bathing there to-day. I ordered a bathing parade for my section. Later I found that the swimming had livened three Germans, long submerged-the bathing parade is off.

A Belgian battery commander has just wakened up and his sh.e.l.ls are rattling overhead. From the fire trenches an incessant rattle of rifles is heard; all the bullets seem to come over here; constantly the whine of a musical ricochet bullet is heard. Otherwise things are dead quiet. It's getting on for three, so I'm going to bed in my blankets on one of the late chateau owner's splendid spring mattresses and carved oak bedstead.

Oh! how nice it would be to sleep without lice. From an adjoining cellar my section are snoring, and I'm going to add to the chorus. Good-night, everybody.

We have been having Sunday "hate." Eight-inch crumps are once more busting "up" the chateau. How they must detest this place. My tea and bully beef are covered with dust of the last sh.e.l.l. You have no idea how terrible the sh.e.l.l-fire is. First you hear the whistle and then a terrific burst which shakes the ground for a hundred yards around; when it clears away you find a hole ten feet across and six feet deep. At least fifteen have dropped around us in the last half hour.