throughout october and november our battalion was in the firing-line. this meant that we spent life in an everlasting alternation between the trenches and our billets behind, just far enough behind, that is, to be out of the range of the light artillery; always, though, liable to be called suddenly into the firing-line, and never out of the atmosphere of the trenches. always before us was dangled a promised “rest,” and always it was being postponed. rumours were spread, dissected, laughed at, and eventually treated with bored incredulity. the battalion had had no rest, i believe, since may. men, and especially n.c.o.‘s, who had been out since october, 1914, were tired out in body and spirit.
with the officers and certain new drafts of men, it was different. we came out enthusiastic and keen. on the whole, i thoroughly enjoyed those first two months. i am surprised now to see how much detail i wrote in my letters home. everything was fresh, everything new and interesting. and things were on the whole very quiet. we had a few casualties, but underwent no serious bombardment. 20 and, most important to us, of course, we had no casualties among the officers.
givenchy and cuinchy are two small villages, north and south, respectively, of the la bassée canal, which runs almost due east and west between la bassée and béthune. givenchy stands on a slight rise in the flattest of flat countries. a church tower of red brick must have been the most noticeable feature as one walked in pre-war days from the suburbs of béthune along the la bassée road. cuinchy is a village straggling along a road. both are as completely reduced to ruins as villages can be, the firing-line running just east of them. between them flows the great sluggish canal.
during an afternoon in béthune one could do all the shopping one required, and get a hair-cut and shampoo as well. expensive cocktails were obtainable at the local bar; there was also a famous tea-shop. we were billeted in one of the small villages around. sometimes we only stayed one night at a billet: there was always change, always movement. sometimes i got a bed; often i did not; but a valise is comfortable enough, when once its tricks are mastered. anyhow it is “billets” and not “trenches,” that is the point; a continuous night’s rest in pyjamas, the facilities of a bath, very often a free afternoon and evening, and no equipment and revolver to carry night and day! it was in billets the following letters were written, which are really the best description of my life at this period. 21
“19th october, 1915. our battalion went into the trenches on the 14th and came out on the 17th. our company, ‘b,’ was in support. the front line was about 300 yards ahead, and we held the second line, everything prepared to meet an attack in case the enemy broke through the first line. half-way between our first and second lines was a kind of redoubt, to be held at all costs. here you are:
the arrows indicate the direction in which the fire-trenches point.
the line here forms a big salient, so that we often used to get spent bullets dropping into the redoubt, from right behind, it seemed. here, another drawing will show what i mean:
22
the dotted line is the german front trench. if the enemy a fires at the english b, the bullet will go on and fall at about c, who is facing in the direction of the arrow, in the support line. so c has to look out for enfilading spent bullets.
for three days and nights i was in command of this redoubt, isolated, and ready with stores, ammunition, water, barbed wire and pickets, bombs, and tools, to hold out a little siege for several days if necessary. i used to leave it to get meals at company h.q. in the support line; otherwise, i had always to be there, ready for instant action. no one used to get more than two or three hours’ consecutive sleep, and i could never take off boots, equipment, or revolver.
here is a typical scene in the redoubt.
scene. a dug-out, 6′ × 4′ × 4′: smell, earthy.
time. 2.30 a.m.
i awake and listen. deathly stillness.
a voice. ‘what’s the time, kid?’
another voice. ‘dunno. about 2 o’clock, i reckon.’
‘past that.’
long silence.
‘rum job, this, ain’t it, kid?’
‘why?’
‘well, i reckon if the —— huns were coming over, we’d know it long afore they got ’ere. i reckon we’d ’ear the boys in front firing.’
long pause. 23
‘i dunno. ’spose there’s some sense in it, else we wouldn’t be ’ere.’
silence.
‘—— cold on this —— fire step. guess it’s time they relieved us.’
long silence.
‘don’t them flares look funny in the mist?’
‘yus, i guess old fritz uses some of them every night. hullo, there they go again. ’ear that machine-gun?’
long pause, during which machine-guns pop, and snipers snipe merrily, and flares light up the sky. trench-mortars begin behind us ‘whizz-sh-sh-sh-h-h’—silence—‘thud.’ then the germans reply, sending two or three over which thud harmlessly behind. the invisible sentries have now become clearly visible to me as i look out of my dug-out. two of them are about ten yards apart standing on the fire-platform. theirs is the above dialogue.
with a sudden thud, a trench-mortar shell drops fifteen yards behind us.
‘hullo, fritz is getting the wind up.’
‘getting the wind up’ is slang for getting nervous: this stolid comment from a sentry is typical of the attitude adopted towards ‘fritz’ (the german) when he starts shelling or finding. he is supposed to be a bit jumpy! it seems hard to realise that fritz is really trying to kill these sentries: the whole thing seems a weird, strange play. 24
i make an effort, and crawl out of the dug-out. the ‘strafing’ has died down. only occasional flares climb up from the german lines, and ‘pop,’ ‘pop’ in the morning mist. i go round the sentries, standing up by them and looking over the parapet. it is cold and raw, and the sentries are looking forward to the next relief. ah! there is the corporal on trench duty coming. i can hear him routing out the snoring relief.
‘ping-g-g-g’ goes a stray bullet singing by—a ricochet by its sound.
‘a near one, sir.’
‘yes, evans. safer in the front line.’
‘i guess it is, sir.’
then, the sentries changed, i turn back again to my dug-out. sleeping with revolvers and equipment requires some care of position.
‘half-past four, sir,’ comes after a pause and some sleep.
out i get, and everybody ‘stands to’ arms for an hour, each man taking up the position allotted to him along the fire-platform. gradually it gets light. some brick-stacks grow out of the mist in front, and ruined cottages loom up in the rear, and what was a church. the fire-platform being here pretty high, one can look back over the parados over bare flat country, cut up by trenches and run to waste terribly. ‘parados,’ by the way, is the name given to the back of a trench; here is a drawing in section: 25
a. bottom of trench. c. parapet.
b. fire-step. d. parados.
at 5.30 ‘stand down and clean rifles’ is the order given; and the cleaning commences—a process as oft-repeated as ‘washing up’ in civilised lands, and as monotonous and unsatisfactory, for a few hours later the rifles are a bit rusty and muddy again, and need another inspection.
7.30. ‘tell sergeant summers i’m going down to company headquarters.’
‘very good, sir.’ then i take a long mazy journey down the communication trench, which is six feet deep at least, and mostly paved with bricks from a neighbouring brick-field. there are an amazing lot of mice about the trenches, and they fall in and can’t get out. most of them get squashed. frogs too, which make a green and worse mess than the mice. our c.o. always stops and throws a frog out if he meets one. tommy, needless to say, is not so sentimental. these trenches have been built a long time, and grass-stalks, dried scabious, and plantain-stalks grow over the edges, which must make them very invisible from above. ‘h—— street,’ ‘l—— lane,’ ‘c—— road,’ ‘p—— lane’ 26 are traversed, and so into ‘s—— street,’ where, in the cellar of what was once a house, are two hungry officers already started on bacon and eggs, coffee (with condensed milk), and bread and tinned jam. we are lucky with three chairs and a table. a newspaper makes an admirable tablecloth, and a bottle a good candlestick, and there is room in a cellar to stand up. breakfast done, a shave is manipulated, meadows, my servant, getting ready my tackle and producing a mug of hot water.
9.30 finds me back in the redoubt and starting a ‘working party’ on repairing a communication trench and generally improving the trenches. working parties are unpopular; tommy does not believe in improving trenches he may never see again. and so the day goes on. sentries change and take their place, sitting gazing into a scrap of mirror. ration parties come up with dixies carried on wooden pickets, and the pioneer generally cleans up, sprinkling chloride of lime about in white showers, which seems as plentiful as the sand of the seashore, and the odour of which clings to the trenches, as the smell of seaweed does to the beach.
the redoubt was in the cuinchy trenches, and that old cellar was really a delightful headquarters. the first time we were in it we found a cat there; on the second occasion the same cat appeared with three lusty kittens! these used to keep the place clear of rats and get sat on every half-hour or so. 27 i soon learned to get used to smoke; on one occasion the smoke from our brazier became so thick that gray, the cook, threatened to resign. for all the smoke gathers at the top of a dug-out and seems impossibly suffocating to anyone first entering; yet it is often practically clear two or three feet from the ground, so that when lying or sitting one does not notice the smoke at all; but a new-comer gets his eyes so stung that it seems impossible that anyone can live in the dug-out at all! (gray, by the way, was not allowed to resign.)”
here follows a letter describing the front trenches at givenchy:
“7th november. on the 29th we marched off at 9.0 and halted at 11.0 for dinner. luckily it was fine, and the piled arms, the steaming dixies, and the groups of men sitting about eating and smoking formed a pleasant sight. our grub was put by mistake on the mess-cart which went straight on to the trenches! edwards, however, our company mess-president, came up to the scratch with bread, butter, and eggs. tea was easily procured from the cookers. then off we went to our h.q. there we got down into the communication trench, and in single file were taken by guides into our part of the trenches: these guides were sent by the battalion we were relieving. i told you that all the trenches have names (which are painted on boards hung up at the trench corners). the first 28 thing done was to post sentries along our company front: until this was done the outgoing battalion could not ‘out-go.’ each man has his firing position allotted to him, and he always occupies it at ‘stand to’ and ‘stand down.’ we were three days and three nights in the trenches. each officer was on duty for eight hours, during which he was responsible for a sector of firing-line and must be actually in the front trench. my watch was 12 to 4, a.m. and p.m. work that out with ‘stand to’ in the morning and also in the evening and you will see that consecutive sleep is not easy! on paper 6-12 (midnight) looks good; but then, remember, dinner at 7.0 or 7.30 according to the fire, while you may have to turn out any time if you are being shelled at all. for instance, one night i was just turning in early at 7.0, when a mine went up on our right, and shelling and general ‘strafing’ kept me out till 9.30, after which i couldn’t sleep! so at midnight i was tired when i started my four hours, turned in at 4.0, out again for ‘stand to,’ 8.0 breakfast, 9.0 rifle inspection, and so it goes on! that is why you can appreciate billets, and bed from 9.0 to 7.0 if you want it.
imagine a cold november night—with a ground fog. what bliss to be roused from a snug dug-out at midnight, and patrol the company’s line for four interminable hours. it is deathly quiet. has the war stopped? i stand up on the fire-step beside the sentry and try to see through the fog. ‘pip-pip-pip-pip-pip’ 29 goes a machine-gun. so the war’s still on.
‘cold?’ i ask a sentry. ‘only me feet, sir.’ ‘why don’t you stamp your feet, then?’ this being equivalent to an order, tommy stamps feebly a few times until made to do so energetically. unless you make him stamp, he will not stamp; would infinitely prefer to let his feet get cold as ice. of course, when you have gone into the next bay, he immediately stops. still, that is tommy.
i gaze across into no man’s land. i can just see our wire, and in front a collection of old tins—bully tins, jam tins, butter tins—paper, old bits of equipment. other regiments always leave places so untidy. you clean up, but when you come into trenches you find the other fellows have left things about. you work hard repairing the trenches: the relieving regiment, you find on your return, has done ‘damn all,’ which is military slang for ‘nothing.’ and all other regiments, it seems, have the same complaint.
‘swish.’ a german flare rocket lights up everything. you see our trenches all along. everything is as clear as day. you feel as conspicuous as a cromlech on a hill. but the enemy can’t see you, fog or no fog, if you only keep still. the light has fallen on the parapet this time, and lies sizzling on the sand-bags. a flicker, and it is gone; and in the fog you see black blobs, the size and shape of the dazzling light you’ve just been staring at. 30
‘crack—plop.’ ‘crack—plop.’ a couple of bullets bury themselves in the sand-bags, or else with a long-drawn ‘ping’ go singing over the top. why the sentries never get hit seems extraordinary. i suppose a mathematician would by combination and permutation tell you the chances against bullets aimed ‘at a venture’ hitting sentries exposing one-fourth of their persons at a given elevation at so many paces interval. personally i won’t try, as my whole object is to keep awake till four o’clock. and then i shall be too sleepy. only remember, it is night and the sentries are invisible.
‘tap—tap—tap.’ ‘there’s a wiring party out, sir. i’ve heard ’em these last five minutes.’ undoubtedly there are a few men out in no man’s land, repairing their wire. i tell the sentries near to look out and be ready to fire, and then i send off a ‘very’ flare, fired by a thick cartridge from a thick-barrelled brass pistol. it makes a good row, and has a fair kick, so it is best to rest the butt on the parapet and hold it at arm’s length. even so it leaves your ears singing for hours. the first shot was a failure—only a miserable rocket tail which failed to burst. the second was a magnificent shot. it burst beautifully, and fell right behind the party, two germans, and silhouetted them, falling and burning still incandescent on the ground behind. a volley of fire followed from our waiting sentries. i could not see if the party were hit; most of the shots were fired after the light had died out. anyhow, 31 the working party stopped. the two figures stood quite motionless while the flare burned.
the germans opposite us were very lively. one could often hear them whistling, and one night they were shouting to one another like anything. they were saxons, who are always at that game. no one knows exactly what it means. it was quite cold, almost frosty, and the sound came across the 100 yards or so of no man’s land with a strange clearness in the night air. the voices seemed unnaturally near, like voices on the water heard from a cliff. ‘tommee—tommee. allemands bon—engleesh bon.’ ‘we hate ze kronprinz.’ (i can hear now the nasal twang with which the ‘kron’ was emphasised.) ‘d—— the kaiser.’ ‘deutschland unter alles.’ i could hear these shouts most distinctly: the same sentences were repeated again and again. they shouted to one another from one part of the line to another, generally preceding each sentence by ‘kamerad.’ often you heard loud hearty laughter. as ‘comic cuts’ (the name given to the daily intelligence reports) sagely remarked, ‘either this means that there is a spirit of dissatisfaction among the saxons, or it is a ruse to try and catch us unawares, or it is mere foolery.’ wisdom in high places!
really it was intensely interesting. ‘come over,’ shouted tommy. ‘we—are—not—coming—over,’ came back. loud clapping and laughter followed remarks like ‘we hate ze kronprinz.’ 32 then they would yodel and sing like anything. tommy replied with ‘tipperary.’ they sang, ‘god save the king,’ or rather their german equivalent of it, to the familiar tune. then, ‘abide with us’ rose into the night air and starlight. this went on for an hour and a half; though almost any night you can hear them shout something, and give a yodel— it is the strangest thing i have ever experienced. the authorities now try and stop our fellows answering. the entente of last christmas is not to be repeated! one of the officers in our battalion has shown me several german signatures on his pay-book (he was in the ranks then), given in friendly exchange in the middle of no man’s land last christmas day.
i have had my baptism of mud now. it tires me to think of it, and i have not the effort to write fully about it! the second time we were in these trenches the mud was two feet deep. even our company headquarters, a cellar, was covered with mud and slime. paradoses and communication trenches had fallen in, and the going was terrible. the sticky mud yoicked one’s boots off nearly, and it felt as if one’s foot would be broken in extricating it. we all wore gum-boots, of blue-black rubber, 33 that come right up to the waist like fishermen’s waders. but the mud is everywhere, and we get our arms all plastered with it as we literally “reel to and fro” along the trench, every now and again steadying ourselves against slimy sand-bags. one or two men actually got stuck, and had to be helped out with spades; one fellow lost heart and left one of his gum-boots stuck in the mud, and turned up in my platoon in a stockinged foot, of course plastered thick with clay! we worked day and night. gradually the problem is being tackled. trench-boards, or ‘mats,’ are the best, like this: they are put along the bottom of the trench, the long ‘runners’ resting on bricks taken from ruined houses, so as to raise the board and allow drainage underneath. if possible, a deep sump-pit is dug under the centre of the board. (the shaded part represents the sump-pit: the dotted lines are the sides of the trench; the whole drawing in plan.)”
weariness. mud. the next experience (not mentioned in my letter) was death. on our immediate right was “c” company. here our 34 trench runs out like this __?_, more or less, and the opposite trenches are very close together. consequently it is a great place for “mining activity.” one evening we put up a mine; the next afternoon the germans put up a countermine, and accompanied it with a hail of trench-mortars. i was on trench duty at the time, and had ample opportunity of observing the genus trench-mortar and its habits. one can see them approaching some time before they actually fall, as they come from a great height (in military terms, “with a steep trajectory”), and one can see them revolving as they topple down. then they fall with a thud, and black smoke comes up and mud spatters all about. most of them were falling in our second line and support trenches. i was patrolling up and down our front trench. we were “standing to” after the mine, and for half an hour it was rather a “hot shop.” i was delighted to find that i rather enjoyed it: seeing one or two of the new draft with the “wind up” a bit steadied me at once. i have hardly ever since felt the slightest nervousness under fire. it is mainly temperament. our company had four casualties: one in the front trench, the three others in the platoon in support. “c” company suffered more heavily. at 6.0 edwards came on duty, and i was able to go in quest of two bombers who were said to be wounded. getting near the place i came on a man standing half-dazed in the trench. “oh, 35 sirrh,” he cried, in the burring speech of a true welshman. “a terench-mohrterh hass fall-en ericht in-ter me duck-out.” for the moment i felt like laughing at the man’s curious speech and look, but i saw that he was greatly scared: and no wonder. a trench mortar had dropped right into the mouth of his dug-out, and had half buried two of his comrades. we were soon engaged in extricating them. both had bad head wounds, and how he escaped is a miracle. i helped carry the two men out and over the debris of flattened trenches to company headquarters. so, for the first time i looked upon two dying men, and some of their blood was on my clothes. one died in half an hour—the other early next morning. it was really not my job to assist: the stretcher-bearers were better at it than i, yet in this first little bit of “strafe” i was carried away by my instinct, whereas later i should have been attending to the living members of my platoon, and the defence of my sector. i left the company sergeant-major in difficulties as to whether randall, the man who had so miraculously escaped, and who was temporarily dazed, should be returned as “sick” or “wounded.”
another death that came into my close experience was that of a lance-corporal in my platoon. i had only spoken to him a quarter of an hour before, and on returning found him lying dead on the fire-platform. he had been killed instantaneously by a rifle grenade. i lifted the waterproof sheet and 36 looked at him. i remember that i was moved, but there was nothing repulsive about his recumbent figure. i think the novelty and interest of these first casualties made them quite easy to bear. i was so busy noticing details: the silence that reigned for a few hours in my platoon; the details of removing the bodies, the collecting of kit, etc. these things at first blunted my perception of the vileness of the tragedy; nor did i feel the cruelty of war as i did later.
weariness. mud. death. so it was with great joy that we would return to billets, to get dry and clean, to eat, sleep, and write letters; to drill, and carry out inspections. company drill, bayonet-fighting, gas-helmet drill, musketry, and lectures were usually confined to the morning and early afternoon. we thought that we had rather an overdose of lecturing from our medical officer (the m.o.) on sanitation and the care of the feet. “trench feet,” one lecture always began, “is that state produced by excessive cold or long standing in water or liquid mud.” we soon got to know too much, we felt, about the use of whale-oil and anti-frostbite grease, the changing of socks and the rubbing and stamping of feet. we did get rather “fed up” with it; yet i believe we had only one case of trench feet in our battalion throughout the winter; so perhaps it was worth our discomfort of attending so many lectures! our c.o.’s lectures on trench warfare were always worth hearing: he was so 37 tremendously keen and such a perfect and whole-hearted soldier.
a chapter might be written on billet-life. here are a few more extracts from letters:
“oct. 13th. all day long this little inn has shaken from top to bottom: there is one battery about a hundred yards away that makes the whole house rattle like the inside of a motor-bus. the germans might any time try and locate the battery, and a shell would reduce the house to ruins. yet the old woman here declares she will not leave the house as long as she lives!
it is a strange place, this belt of land behind the firing-line. the men are out of the trenches for three days, and it is their duty, after perhaps a running parade before breakfast and two or three hours’ drill and inspection in the morning, to rest for the remainder of the day. in the morning you will see all the evolutions of company drill carried out in a small meadow behind a strip of woodland; in the next field an old man and woman are unconcernedly hoeing a cabbage-patch; then behind here are a battalion’s transport lines, with rows of horses picketed. along the road an a.s.c. convoy is passing, each lorry at regulation distance from the next. in the afternoon you will see groups of tommies doing nothing most religiously, smoking cigarettes, writing letters home. from six to eight the estaminets are open, and everyone flocks to them to get bad beer. they are also open an hour 38 at midday, and then the orderly officer, accompanied by the provost-sergeant, produces an electric silence with ‘any complaints?’ it does not pay an estaminet-keeper to dilute his beer too much, or else he will lose his licence.
i often wonder if these peasants think much. think they must have done at the beginning, when their men were hastily called up. but now, after fifteen months of war? it is the children, chiefly, who are interested in the aeroplanes, shining like eagles silver-white against the blue sky; or in the boom from the battery across the street. but for their mothers and grandparents these things have settled into their lives; they are all one with the canal and the poplar trees. if a squad starts drilling on their lettuces, they are tremendously alert; but as for these other things, they are not interested, only unutterably tired of them. and after awhile you adopt the same attitude. the noise of the guns is boring and you hardly look up at an aeroplane, unless it is shrapnelled by the ‘archies’ (anti-aircraft guns); then it is worth watching the pin-prick flashes dotting the sky all round it, leaving little white curls of smoke floating in the blue.”
that billet was close to the firing-line. here is a letter from a village, eight miles back:
“20th oct., 1915. we came out here on monday. the whole division marched out together. it was really an impressive sight, over a mile of 39 troops on the march. perfect order, perfect arrangement. where the road bent you could often see the column for a mile in front, a great snake curling along the right side of the road. occasionally an adjutant would break out of the line to trot back and correct some straggling; or a c.o. would emerge for a gallop over the adjacent ploughland.
our company is billeted in a big prosperous farm. the men are in a roomy barn and look very comfortable. we are in a big room, on the right as you enter the front door of the farm: on a tiled floor stands a round table with an oilcloth cover, originally of a bright red pattern, but now subdued by constant scrubbings to the palest pink with occasional scarlet dottings. there are big tall windows, a wardrobe and sideboard, a big chimney-place fitted with a coke stove, and on the walls hang three very dirty old prints. the only war touch (beside our scattered possessions) is a picture from a french illustrated of l’assaut de vermelles. outside is a yard animated by cows, turkeys, geese, chicken, and ducks: also a donkey and a peacock, not to mention the usual dogs and cats. at 5 a.m. i am awakened by an amazing chorus.
the ‘patron’ is a strong, competent man, with many fine buxom daughters, who do the farm work with great capacity and energy. henriette with a pitchfork is strength and grace in action. tommy is much in awe of her. she hustles the pigs relentlessly. the sons are at the war. etienne and marcelle, 40 aged ten and eight respectively, complete the family; with madame, of course, who makes inimitable coffee; and various grandparents who appear in white caps and cook and bake all day.
i have just ‘paid out’—all in five and twenty-franc notes. ‘in the field’ every man has his own pay book which the officer must sign, while the company quartermaster-sergeant sees that his acquittance roll is also signed by tommy. we had a small table and chair out in the yard, and in an atmosphere of pigs and poultry i dealt out the blue-and-white oblongs which have already in many cases been converted into bread. for that is where most of the pay money goes, there and in the estaminets. the bread ration is always small, the biscuit ration overflowing. bully beef, by the way, is simply ordinary corned beef. i watched cooking operations yesterday, and saw some fifty tins cut in half with an axe, clean hewn asunder, and the meat deftly hoicked with a fork into the field-kitchen, or ‘cooker,’ which is a range and boiler on wheels. this was converted into a big stew, and served out into dixies (camp kettles) and so to the men’s canteens.
this afternoon our company practised an attack over open country. i was surprised to find the men so well trained. i had imagined that prolonged trench-warfare would have made them stale. the country is very flat. there are no hedges. the only un-english characteristics are the poplar rows, 41 the dried beans tied round poles like mother-gamp umbrellas, and the wayside chapels and crucifixes.
yesterday afternoon edwards and i got in a little revolver practice just near; and afterwards we had an energetic game of hockey, with sticks and an empty cartridge-case.”
altogether, billet life was very enjoyable. on november 1st captain dixon joined our battalion and took over “b” company. for over four months i worked under the most good-natured and popular officer in the battalion. we were always in good spirits while he was with us. “i can’t think why it is,” he used to say, “i’m not at all a jolly person, yet you fellows are always laughing; and in my old regiment it was always the same!” he was a fearful pessimist, but a fine soldier. his delight used to be to get a good fire blazing in billets, sit in front of it with a novel, and then deliver a tirade against the discomfort of war! the great occasion used to be when the arch-pessimist, our quartermaster, was invited to dinner. then edwards, the mess president, would produce endless courses, and the two pessimists would warm to a delightful duologue on the fatuity of the staff, the army, and the government.
“by jove, we are the biggest fools on this earth!” dixon would say at last.
“we’re fools enough to be led by fools,” jim potter would reply.
and somehow we were all more cheerful than ever!
