Private Peat Part 8

The other department is that of the Medical Corps, the R.A.M.C., or the Red Cross. It is all the same. It is all run with the precision of clockwork.

Its whole aim for the comfort and succor of Tommy. Of this department I speak in a later chapter.

The food for the millions of men in France is concentrated at what we may call the Great Base, and from there it is distributed to the different army corps. In each army corps there are two or more divisions. In a division there are three infantry and three artillery brigades, three field companies of engineers, three field ambulances and details. In each infantry brigade are four battalions and in each artillery four batteries.

To one company are four platoons, and about seventy men to a platoon.

Each body of men as I have named them is really a separate and distinct unit in itself, but cooperating with all others. The food from the base is brought to the army corps by rail, and is distributed to the divisional headquarters by divisional transports which are operated by the Army Service Corps or the Mechanical Transport. From the divisional headquarters the next step is to the brigades, and brigade transports collect the food and take it another few miles nearer to the boys.

Battalion transport wagons then bring the food and other supplies down to battalion headquarters. At these headquarters are the quartermaster sergeants of each company, and they, with their staff, during the daytime pack up and get ready for distribution supplies for each separate platoon.

At night the company wagons, already packed, are drawn up as close to the trenches as conditions will permit. If the country is too torn with sh.e.l.ls to permit the use of horses, men will drag them.

I have seen these wagons sometimes within five hundred yards of the front line trenches, and again ration parties may have to crawl back a mile before meeting them. It all depends on a number of circ.u.mstances. On a moonlight night it is not possible to come so close as on a dark night. In rain the wagons may sink into mud-holes, or in badly sh.e.l.led areas there is danger of their turning over into a hole. Everything depends on conditions and the good judgment of the man in charge.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Famous Players--Lasky Corporation. Scene from the Photo-Play_

THE HUN COMES TO TOWN.]

Each evening from each section, and there are four sections to a platoon, the corporal or sergeant in command will detail a couple of men for ration party. Ration party is no pleasant job; as Tommy terms it, it is "one of the rottenest ever."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Famous Players--Lasky Corporation. Scene from the Photo-Play_

"WHO'S THE GIRL, PEAT?"]

The two unhappy boys will crawl out as soon as it is dark. They reach the supply wagon, or it may be only a dump of goods. There they will find the quartermaster in charge, in all likelihood. To him they tell their platoon number--Number Sixteen Platoon, Section Four, perhaps--and the quartermaster will hand them the rations. One man will get half a dozen parcels, maybe more. His comrade never offers to relieve him of any--to the comrade there is designated a higher duty. The quartermaster takes up with care and hands with tenderness to the second man a jar, or possibly a jug.

On going back to the trenches a thoughtless sentry may halt the ration party. I have seen it done. I have heard the conversation. I dare not write it. There goes one of the boys, both arms hugging a miscellaneous a.s.sortment of packages. He slips and struggles and swears and falls, then picks himself up and gathers together the scattered bundles. But what of the other? A jug held tightly in both hands, he chooses his steps as would a dainty Coryphee. He dare not trip. He dare not fall. He MUST not spill one drop. Jugs are hard to replace in France; in fact, it is much easier to get a jug in Nebraska than in France.

The boys finally reach the trench in safety, and next morning the rations are issued at "stand-to." "Stand-to" is the name given to the sunrise hour, and again that hour at night when every man stands to the parapet in full equipment and with fixed bayonet. After morning stand-to bayonets are unfixed, for if the sunlight should glint upon the polished steel our position might be disclosed to some sniper.

To my mind stand-to is more or less a relic of the early days of the war, when these two hours were those most favored by the Germans for attack, and so it has become a custom to be in readiness.

A day's rations in the trenches consists of quite a variety of commodities.

First thing in the winter morning we have that controversial blind, rum. We get a "tot" which is about equal to a tablespoonful. It is not compulsory, and no man need take it unless he wishes. This is not the time or place to discuss the temperance question, but our commanders and the army surgeons believe that rum as a medicine, as a stimulant, is necessary to the health of the soldier, therefore the rum is issued.

We take this ration as a prescription. We gulp it down when half frozen, and nearly paralyzed after standing a night in mud and blood and ice, often to the waistline, rarely below the ankle, and it revives us as tea, cocoa or coffee could never do. We are not made drunkards by our rum ration. The great majority of us have never tasted medicinal rum before reaching the trenches; there is a rare chance that any of us will ever taste it, or want to taste it, again after leaving the trenches.

The arguments against rum make Mr. Tommy Atkins tired, and I may say in pa.s.sing that I have never yet seen a chaplain refuse his ration. And of the salt of the good G.o.d's earth are the chaplains. There was Major the Reverend John Pringle, of Yukon fame, whose only son Jack was killed in action after he had walked two hundred miles to enlist. No cant, no smug psalm-singing, mourners'-bench stuff for him. He believed in his Christianity like a man; he was ready to fight for his belief like a man; he cared for us like a father, and stood beside us in the mornings as we drank our stimulant. Again, I repeat if a man is found drunk while on active service, he is liable to court martial and death. A few years'

training of this kind will make the biggest pre-war drunkard come back home a sober man.

Each soldier carries into the trenches with him sufficient c.o.ke and wood to last for his four days in. Upon the brazier he cooks his own meals. For the first few months we were unable to place our braziers on the ground; they would have sunk into the mud. If we attempted to cook anything we would stick a bayonet into a sandbag and hang the brazier on it, then cook in our mess tins over that.

To-day there are dugouts, trench platforms and other conveniences which simplify the domestic arrangements of the trenches to a marvelous degree.

A soldier is at liberty to cook his own rations by himself, but as a rule we all chum in together. We may all take a hand in the cooking, or we may appoint a section cook for a day or for a week, according to his especial facility.

After the rum ration we receive some tea and sugar, lots of bully beef and biscuits. The bully beef is corned beef and has its origin, mysterious to us, in Chicago, Illinois, or so we believe. It is quite good. But you can get too much of a good thing once too often. So sometimes we eat it, and sometimes we use the unopened tins as bricks and line the trenches with them. Good solid bricks, too! We get soup powders and yet more soup powders. We get cheese that is not cream cheese, and we get a slice of raw bacon. Often we eat the bacon at once, sometimes we save it up to have a "good feed" at one time. One can plan one's own menu just as fancy dictates.

Then we get jam. The inevitable, haunting, horrific "plum and apple." This is made by Ticklers', Limited, of London, England, and after the tins are empty we use them to manufacture hand grenades. In those days our supply of hand bombs was like our supply of sh.e.l.ls, problematic to say the least.

After a time, back of the line, instruction schools were opened in bomb making and bomb throwing. One or two out of a platoon would go back and learn "how," and then instruct the rest of us to fill the tins with spent pieces of shrapnel, old sc.r.a.ps of iron, anything which came handy, insert the fuse, cotton and so forth, and thus form an effective weapon for close fighting.

We called those bombers "Ticklers' Artillery Brigade," and they tickled many a German with Ticklers' empty jam tins.

A stock of weak tea, some sugar, salt, some bully beef, biscuits crumbled down, the whole well stirred and brought to a boil, then thickened by several soup powders, is a recipe for a stew which, as the Irishman said, is "filling and feeding." Of its appearance I say nothing.

Regardless of any, we are the best fed troops in the field. While in the trenches the food may be rough and monotonous, but there is plenty of it, and it is of the best quality of its kind. No man need ever be hungry in the trenches. It is his own fault if he is.

We grouse at our rations, of course, and make jokes and laugh, but we never run short of supplies.

Behind the lines, when we go back for a rest and are in billets, we are supplied with well-cooked and comfortable meals. Three good squares a day.

We have here our field kitchens and our regular cooks, and Mulligan (stew) is not the daily portion, but variations of roast beef, mutton and so forth.

It is good food, and I have heard men exclaim that it was better than anything they had had at home. After investigation I usually found that the men who dilated thus on the gastronomic delights of billets were married men!

The authorities are just as careful about sending up a soldier's letters, his parcels and small gifts from home, as they are about the food and clothing supplies. They recognize that Tommy Atkins naturally and rightly wants to keep in touch with the home folks, and every effort is made to get communications up on time. But war is war, and there are days and even weeks when no letters reach the front line. Those are the days that try the mettle of the men. We do not tell our thoughts to one another. The soldier of to-day is rough of exterior, rough of speech and rough of bearing, but underneath he has a heart of gold and a spirit of untold gentleness.

We play poker, and we play with the sky the limit. Why not? Active service allowance is thirty francs a month--five dollars. Why put on any limit? You may owe a man a hundred, or even two hundred dollars, but what's the difference?--a sh.e.l.l may put an end to you, him and the poker board any old minute. There is no knowing.

Weeks pa.s.s and no letters. We play more wildly, squatting down in the mud with the board before us. I have sometimes seen a full house, a straight, three of a kind, or probably four big ones. "I raise you five," says Bill.

Bang!--a whiz bang explodes twenty yards away. "I raise you ten." Bang!--a wee willie takes the top off the parapet. "There's your ten, and ten better." Crash!--and several bits of shrapnel probably go through the board. "You're called. Gee, but that was a close one! Deal 'em out, Peat."

Suddenly down the trench will pa.s.s the word that the officer and sergeant are coming with letters and parcels. We kick the poker board high above the trench, cards and chips flying in all directions. No one cares, even though he's had a hand full of aces. The letters are in, and every man is dead sure there will be one for him.

We crowd around the officer with shining eyes like so many schoolboys.

Parcels are handed out first, but we throw these aside to be opened later, and s.n.a.t.c.h for the letters. But luck is not always good to all of us, and possibly it will be old Bill who has to turn away empty-handed and alone.

No letter. Are they all well, or--no letter.

But Bill is not left alone very long. A pal will notice him, notice him before he himself has had more than a glimpse of the heading of his own precious letter, and going over to Bill, will slap him a hearty blow on the shoulder and say: "Say, Bill, old boy, I've got a letter. Listen to this--"

And then, no matter how sacred the letter may be, he will read it aloud before he has a chance to glance at it himself. If it is from the girl, old Bill will be laughing before it is finished--girls write such amusing stuff; but, no matter whom it is from, it is all the same. It is a pleasure shared, and Bill forgets his trouble in the happiness of another.

Kindness, unselfishness and sympathy are all engendered by trench life.

There is no school on earth to equal the school of generous thoughtfulness which is found on the battle-fields of Europe to-day. There we men are finding ourselves in that we are finding true sympathy with our brother man. We have everything in common. We have the hardship of the trench, and the nearness of death. The man of t.i.tle, the Bachelor of Arts, the bootblack, the lumberjack and the millionaire's son meet on common ground.

We wear the same uniform, we think the same thoughts, we do not remember what we were, we only know what we are--soldiers fighting in the same great cause.

CHAPTER IX

ALL FUSSED UP AND NO PLACE TO GO

Some days in the trenches are dreariness itself. Sometimes we get discouraged to the point of exhaustion, but these days are rare and when they do occur there is always an alleviation. In every trench, in every section, there is some one who is a joker; who is a true humorist, and who can carry the spirits of the troops with him to the place where grim reality vanishes and troubles are forgotten.

The nights pa.s.s quickly enough because at night we have plenty to do. But even while carrying out duties at night many humorous things happen. Take, for instance, the pa.s.sing of messages up and down the line.

To the civilian message-sending might appear much the same day or night, but not so. In the day we can speak without fear of being overheard, but at night no one knows but that Hans or Fritz may be a few feet on the other side of the parapet with ears c.o.c.ked for all sounds. So communications have to be made with care. Sometimes the change of a syllable might alter the meaning of a sentence and cause disaster.

A message at night is whispered in lowest tones from man to man. This is a branch of the service for the young recruit to practise. It means much, and a thoughtless error is unpardonable. The first man receives the communication from the officer. Through the silence will come a soft "Hs-s-s." The next in line will creep up and get the words. He in turn calls to the next man and whispers on the order.

It was one night early in the fighting that Major Kirkpatrick sent the message down the line four hundred yards along: "Major Kirkpatrick says to tell Captain Parkes to send up reinforcements to the right in a hurry."