You ask me if the trench is safe?As safe as home, I say;Dug-outs are safest things on land,And 'buses running to the StrandAre not as safe as they.You ask me if the trench is deep?Quite deep enough for me,And men can walk where fools would creep,And men can eat and write and sleepAnd hale and happy be.
You ask me if the trench is safe?As safe as home, I say;Dug-outs are safest things on land,And 'buses running to the StrandAre not as safe as they.
You ask me if the trench is deep?Quite deep enough for me,And men can walk where fools would creep,And men can eat and write and sleepAnd hale and happy be.
The dug-out is the trench villa, the soldiers' home, and is considered to be proof against shrapnel bullets and rifle fire. Personally, I do not think much of our dug-outs, they are jerry-built things, loose in construction, and fashioned in haste. We have kept on improving them, remedying old defects, when we should have taken the whole thing to pieces and started afresh. The French excel us in fashioning dug-outs; they dig out, we build. They begin to burrow from the trench downwards, and the roof of their shelter is on a line with the floor of the trench; thus they havea cover over them seven or eight feet in thickness; a mass of earth which the heaviest shell can hardly pierce through. We have been told that the German trenches are even more secure, and are roofed with bricks, which cause a concussion shell to burst immediately it strikes, thus making the projectile lose most of its burrowing power. One of our heaviest shells struck an enemy's dug-out fashioned on this pattern, with the result that two of the residents were merely scratched. The place was packed at the time.
As I write I am sitting in a dug-out built in the open by the French. It is a log construction, built of pit-props from a neighbouring coal-mine. Short blocks of wood laid criss-cross form walls four feet in thickness; the roof is quite as thick, and the logs are much longer. Yesterday morning, while we were still asleep, a four-inch shell landed on the top, displaced several logs, but did us no harm. The same shell (pipsqueaks we call them) striking the roof of one of our trench dug-outs would blow us all to atoms.
The dug-out is not peculiar to the trench. For miles back from the firing-line the country is a world of dug-outs; they are everywhere, bythe roadsides, the canals, and farmhouses, in the fields, the streets, and the gardens. Cellars serve for the same purpose. A fortnight ago my section was billeted in a house in a mining town, and the enemy began to shell the place about midnight. Bootless, half-naked, and half-asleep, we hurried into the cellar. The place was a regular Black Hole of Calcutta. It was very small, damp, and smelt of queer things, and there were six soldiers, the man of the house, his wife, and seven children, one a sucking babe two months old, cooped up in the place.
I did not like the place—in fact, I seldom like any dug-out, it reminds me of the grave, the covering earth, and worms, and always there is a feeling of suffocation. But I have enjoyed my stay in one or two. There was a delightful little one, made for a single soldier, in which I stayed. At night when off sentry, and when I did not feel like sleeping, I read. Over my head I cut a niche in the mud, placed my candle there, pulled down over the door my curtain, a real good curtain, taken from some neighbouring chateau, spent a few moments watching the play of light and shadows on the roof, and listening to the sound of guns outside, thenlit a cigarette and read. Old Montaigne in a dug-out is a true friend and a fine companion. Across the ages we held conversation as we have often done. Time and again I have read his books; there was a time when for a whole year I read a chapter nightly: in a Glasgow doss-house, in a king's castle, in my Irish home, and now in Montaigne's own country, in a little earthy dug-out, I made the acquaintance of the man again. The dawn broke to the clatter of bayonets on the fire position when I put the book aside and buckled my equipment for the stand-to hour.
The French trench dug-outs are not leaky, ours generally are, and the slightest shower sometimes finds its way inside. I have often awakened during the night to find myself soaked through on a floor covered with slush. When the weather is hot we sleep outside. In some cases the dug-out is handsomely furnished with real beds, tables, chairs, mirrors, and candlesticks of burnished brass. Often there are stoves built into the clayey wall and used for cooking purposes. In "The Savoy" dug-out, which was furnished after this fashion, Section 3 once sat down to a memorable dinner which took a whole day long to prepare; and eatablesand wine were procured at great risk to life. Incidentally, Bill, who went out of the trenches and walked four kilometres to procure a bottle ofvin rougewas rewarded by seven days' second field punishment for his pains.
Mervin originated the idea in the early morning as he was dressing a finger which he had cut when opening a tin of bully beef. He held up the bleeding digit and gazed at it with serious eyes.
"All for this tin of muck!" he exclaimed. "Suppose we have a good square meal. I think we could get up one if we set to work."
Stoner's brown eyes sparkled eagerly.
"I know where there are potatoes and carrots and onions," he said. "Out in a field behind Dead Cow Villa; I'm off; coming Pat?"
"Certainly, what are the others doing, Bill?"
"We must have fizz," said my friend, and money was forthwith collected for wine. Bill hurried away, his bandolier round his shoulder and his rifle at the slope; and Mervin undertook to set the place in order and arrange the dug-out for the banquet. Goliath dragged his massive weight over the parados and busied himselfpulling flowers. Kore cleaned the mess-tins, and Pryor, artistic even in matters of food, set about preparing a menu-card.
When we returned from a search which was very successful, Stoner divested himself of tunic and hat, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and got on with the cooking. I took his turn at sentry-go, and Z——, sleeping on the banquette, roused his stout body, became interested for a moment, and fell asleep again. Bill returned with a bottle of wine and seven eggs.
"Where did you get them?" I asked.
"'Twas the 'en as 'ad laid one," he replied. "And it began to brag so much about it that I couldn't stand it, so I took the egg, and it looked so lonely all by itself in my 'and that I took the others to keep it company."
At six o'clock we sat down to dine.
Our brightly burnished mess-tin lids were laid on the table, a neatly folded khaki handkerchief in front of each for serviette. Clean towels served for tablecloths, flowers—tiger-lilies, snapdragons, pinks, poppies, roses, and cornflowers rioted in colour over the rim of a looted vase. In solitary state a bottle of wine stood beside the flowers, and a box of cigars, the giftof a girl friend, with the lid open disclosed the dusky beauties within. The menu, Pryor's masterpiece, stood on a wire stand, the work of Mervin.
Goliath seated at the table, was smiles all over, in fact, he was one massive good humoured smile, geniality personified.
"Anything fresh from the seat of war?" he asked, as he waited for the soup.
"According to the latest reports," Pryor answered, "we've gained an inch in the Dardanelles and captured three trenches in Flanders. We were forced to evacuate two of these afterwards."
"We miscalculated the enemy's strength, of course," said Mervin.
"That's it," Pryor cut in. "But the trenches we lost were of no strategic importance."
"They never are," said Kore. "I suppose that's why we lose thousands to take 'em, and the enemy lose as many to regain them."
"Soup, gentlemen," Stoner interrupted, bringing a steaming tureen to the table. "Help yourselves."
"Mulligatawny?" said Pryor sipping the stuff which he had emptied into his mess-tin, "I don't like this."
Dug-out menu
"Wot,"muttered Bill, "wot's wrong with it?"
"As soup its above reproach, but the name," said Pryor. "It's beastly."
"Wot's wrong with it?"
"Everything," said the artistic youth, "and besides I was fed as a child on mulligatawny, fed on it until I grew up and revolted. To meet it again here in a dug-out. Oh! ye gods!"
"I'll take it," I said, for I had already finished mine.
"Will you?" exclaimed Pryor, employing his spoon with Gargantuan zeal. "It's not quite etiquette."
As he spoke a bullet whistled through the door and struck a tin of condensed milk which hung by a string from the rafter. The bullet went right through and the milk oozed out and fell on the table.
"Waiter," said Goliath in a sharp voice, fixing one eye on the cook, and another on the falling milk.
"Sir," answered Stoner, raising his head from his mess-tin.
"What beastly stuff is this trickling down? You shouldn't allow this you know."
"I'm sorry," said Stoner, "you'd better lick it up."
"'Ad 'e,"cried Bill. "Wot will we do for tea?" The Cockney held a spare mess-tin under the milk and caught it as it fell. This was considered very unseemly behaviour for a gentleman, and we suggested that he should go and feed in the servants' kitchen.
A stew, made of beef, carrots, and potatoes came next, and this in turn was followed by an omelette. Then followed a small portion of beef to each man, we called this chicken in our glorious game of make-believe. Kore asserted that he had caught the chicken singingThe Watch on the Rhineon the top of a neighbouring chateau and took it as lawful booty of war.
"Chicken, my big toe!" muttered Bill, using his clasp-knife for a tooth-pick. "It's as tough as a rifle sling. Yer must have got hold of the bloomin' weathercock."
The confiture was Stoner's greatest feat. The sweet was made from biscuits ground to powder, boiled and then mixed with jam. Never was anything like it. We lingered over the dish loud in our praise of the energetic Stoner. "By God, I'll give you a job as head-cook in my establishment at your own salary," said Pryor. "Strike me ginger, pink, andcrimson if ever I ate anything like it," exclaimed Bill. "We must 'ave a bit of this at every meal from now till the end of the war."
Coffee, wine, and cigars came in due course, then Section 3 clamoured for an address.
"Ool give it?" asked Bill.
"Pat," said Mervin.
"Come on Pat," chorused Section 3.
I never made a speech in my life, but I felt that this was the moment to do something. I got to my feet.
"Boys," I said, "it is a pleasure to rise and address you, although you haven't shaved for days, and your faces remind me every time I look at them of our rather sooty mess-tins."
(Bill: "Wot of yer own phiz.")
"Be quiet, Bill," I said, and continued. "Of course, none of you are to blame for the adhesive qualities of mud, it must stick somewhere, and doubtless it preferred your faces; but you should have shaved; the two hairs on Pryor's upper lip are becoming very prominent."
"Under a microscope," said Mervin.
"Hold your tongue," I shouted, and Mervin made a mock apology. "To-night's dinner wasa grand success," I said, "all did their work admirably."
"All but you," muttered Bill, "yer spent 'arf the time writin' when yer should have been peelin' taters or pullin' onions."
"I resent the imputation of the gentleman at the rear," I said, "if I wasn't peeling potatoes and grinding biscuits I was engaged in chronicling the doings of Section 3. I can't make you fat and famous at the same time, much though I'd like to do both. You are an estimable body of men; Goliath, the big elephant—
(Goliath: "Just a baby elephant, Pat.")
"Mervin, who has travelled far and who loves bully stew; Pryor who dislikes girls with thick ankles, Kore who makes wash-out puns, Bill who has an insatiable desire for fresh eggs, and Stoner—I see a blush on his cheeks and a sparkle in his brown eyes already—I repeat the name Stoner with reverence. I look on the mess-tins which held the confiture and almost weep—because it's all eaten. There's only one thing to be done. Gentlemen, are your glasses charged?"
"There's nothin' now but water," said Bill.
"Water shame," remarked the punster.
"Holdyour tongues," I said, "fill them with water, fill them with anything. Ready? To the Section cook, Stoner, long life and ability to cook our sweets evermore."
We drank. Just as we had finished, our company stretcher-bearers came by the door, a pre-occupied look on their faces and dark clots of blood on their trousers and tunics.
"What has happened?" I asked.
"The cooks have copped it," one of the bearers answered. "They were cooking grub in a shed at the rear near Dead Cow Villa, and a pip-squeak came plunk into the place. The head cook copped it in the legs, both were broken, and Erney, you know Erney?"
"Yes?" we chorused.
"Dead," said the stretcher-bearer. "Poor fellow he was struck unconscious. We carried him to the dressing station, and he came to at the door. 'Mother!' he said, trying to sit up on the stretcher. That was his last word. He fell back and died."
There was a long silence. The glory of the flowers seemed to have faded away and the lighted cigars went out on the table. Dead! Poor fellow. He was such a clean, hearty boy, very obliging and kind. How often had he givenme hot water, contrary to regulations, to pour on my tea.
"To think of it," said Stoner. "It might have been any of us! We must put these flowers on his grave."
That night we took the little vase with its poppies, cornflowers, pinks, and roses, and placed them on the black, cold earth which covered Erney, the clean-limbed, good-hearted boy. May he rest in peace.
Our old battalion billets still,Parades as usual go on.We buckle in with right good will,And daily our equipment donAs if we meant to fight, but no!The guns are booming through the air,The trenches call us on, but oh!We don't go there, we don't go there!
I have come to the conclusion that war is rather a dull game, not that blood-curdling, dashing, mad, sabre-clashing thing that is seen in pictures, and which makes one fearful for the soldier's safety. There is so much of the "everlastin' waitin' on an everlastin' road." The road to the war is a journey of many stages, and there is much of what appears to the unit as loitering by the wayside. We longed for action, for some adventure with which to relieve the period of "everlastin' waitin'."
Nine o'clock was striking in the room downstairs and the old man and woman who live in the house were pottering about, locking doors, andputting the place into order. Lying on the straw in the loft we could hear them moving chairs and washing dishes; they have seven sons in the army, two are wounded and one is a prisoner in Germany. They are very old and are unable to do much hard work; all day long they listen to the sound of the guns "out there." In the evening they wash the dishes, the man helping the woman, and at night lock the doors and say a prayer for their sons. Now and again they speak of their troubles and narrate stories of the war and the time when the Prussians passed by their door on the journey to Paris. "But they'll never pass here again," the old man says, smoking the pipe of tobacco which our boys have given him. "They'll get smashed out there." As he speaks he points with a long lean finger towards the firing line, and lifts his stick to his shoulder in imitation of a man firing a rifle.
Ten o'clock struck. We were deep in our straw and lights had been out for a long time. I couldn't sleep, and as I lay awake I could hear corpulent Z—— snoring in the corner. Outside a wind was whistling mournfully and sweeping through the joists of the roof where the red tiles had been shattered by shrapnel. There was somethingmelancholy and superbly grand in the night; the heaven was splashed with stars, and the glow of rockets from the firing line lit up the whole scene, and at intervals blotted out the lights of the sky. Here in the loft all was so peaceful, so quiet; the pair downstairs had gone to bed, they were now perhaps asleep and dreaming of their loved ones. But I could not rest; I longed to get up again and go out into the night.
Suddenly a hand tugged at my blanket, a form rose from the floor by my side and a face peered into mine.
"It's me—Bill," a low voice whispered in my ear.
"Well?" I interrogated, raising myself on my elbow.
"Not sleepin'?" mumbled Bill, lighting a cigarette as he flopped down on my blanket, half crushing my toes as he did so. "I'm not sleeping neither," he continued. "Did you see the wild ducks to-day?"
"On the marshes? Yes."
"Could we pot one?"
"Rubbish. We might as well shoot at the stars."
"I never tried that game," said Bill, with mockseriousness. "But I'm goin' to nab a duck. Strike me balmy if I ain't."
"It'll be the guard-room if we're caught."
"Ifweare caught. Then you're comin'? I thought you'd be game."
I slipped into my boots, tied on my puttees, slung a bandolier with ten rounds of ball cartridge over my shoulder, and groped for my rifle on the rack beneath the shrapnel-shivered joists. Bill and I crept downstairs and stole out into the open.
"Gawd! that puts the cawbwebs out of one's froat," whispered my mate as he gulped down mighty mouthfuls of cold night air. "This is great. I couldn't sleep."
"But we'll never hit a duck to-night," I whispered, my mind reverting to the white-breasted fowl which we had seen in an adjoining marsh that morning when coming back from the firing line. "Its madness to dream of hitting one with a bullet."
"Maybe yes and maybe no," said my mate, stumbling across the midden and floundering into the field on the other side.
We came to the edge of the marsh and halted for a moment. In front of us lay a dark pool, still as death and fringed with long grass and osierbeds. A mournful breeze blew across the place, raising a plaintive croon, half of resignation and half of protest from the osiers and grasses as it passed. A little distance away the skeleton of a house stood up naked against the sky, the cold stars shining through its shattered rafters. "'Twas shelled like 'ell, that 'ouse," whispered Bill, leaning on his rifle and fixing his eyes on the ruined homestead. "The old man at our billet was tellin' some of us about it. The first shell went plunk through the roof and two children and the mother were bowled over."
"Killed?"
"I should say so," mumbled my mate; then, "There's one comin' our way." Out over the line of trenches it sped towards us, whistling in its flight, and we could almost trace by its sound the line it followed in the air. It fell on the pool in front, bursting as it touched the water, and we were drenched with spray.
"'Urt?" asked Bill.
"Just wet a little."
"A little!" he exclaimed, gazing at the spot where the shell exploded. "I'm soaked to the pelt. Damn it, 'twill frighten the ducks."
"Have you ever shot any living thing?" I askedmy mate as I tried to wipe the water from my face with the sleeve of my coat.
"Me! Never in my nat'ral," Bill explained. "But when I saw them ducks this mornin' I thought I'd like to pot one o' em."
"Its impossible to see anything now," I told him. "And there's another shell!"
It yelled over our heads and burst near our billet on the soft mossy field which we had just crossed. Another followed, flew over the roof of the dwelling and shattered the wall of an outhouse to pieces. Somewhere near a dog barked loudly when the echo of the explosion died away, and a steed neighed in the horse-lines on the other side of the marsh. Then, drowning all other noises, an English gun spoke and a projectile wheeled through the air and towards the enemy. The monster of the thicket awake from a twelve hour sleep was speaking. Bill and I knew where he was hidden; the great gun that the enemy had been trying to locate for months and which he never discovered. He, the monster of the thicket, was working havoc in the foeman's trenches, and day after day great searching shells sped up past our billet warm from the German guns, but always they went far wide of their mark. Never couldthey discover the locality of the terrifying ninety-pounder, he who slept all day in his thicket home, awoke at midnight and worked until dawn.
"That's some shootin'," said my mate as the shells shrieked overhead. "Blimey, they'll shake the country to pieces—and scare the ducks."
Along a road made of bound sapling-bundles we took our way into the centre of the marsh. Here all was quiet and sombre; the marsh-world seemed to be lamenting over some ancient wrong. At times a rat would sneak out of the grass, slink across our path and disappear in the water, again; a lonely bird would rise into the air and cry piteously as it flew away, and ever, loud and insistent, threatening and terrible, the shells would fly over our heads, yelling out their menace of pain, of sorrow and death as they flew along.
We killed no birds, we saw none, although we stopped out till the colour of dawn splashed the sky with streaks of early light. As we went in by the door of our billet the monster of the thicket was still at work, although no answering shells sped up from the enemy's lines. Up in the loft Z—— was snoring loudly as he lay asleep on the straw, the blanket tight round hisbody, his jaw hanging loosely, and an unlighted pipe on the floor by his side. Placing our rifles on the rack, Bill and I took off our bandoliers and lay down on our blankets. Presently we were asleep.
That was how Bill and I shot wild duck in the marshes near the village of—Somewhere in France.
There's a tramp o' feet in the mornin',There's an oath from an N.C.O.,As up the road to the trenchesThe brown battalions go:Guns and rifles and waggons,Transports and horses and men,Up with the flush of the dawnin',And back with the night again.
Sometimes when our spell in the trenches comes to an end we go back for a rest in some village or town. Here theestaminetordébitant(French as far as I am aware for a beer shop), is open to the British soldier for three hours daily, from twelve to one and from six to eight o'clock. For some strange reason we often find ourselves busy on parade at these hours, and when not on parade we generally find ourselves without money. I have been here for four months; looking at my pay book I find that I've been paid 25 fr. (or in plain English, one pound) since I have come to France, a country where the weather grows hotter daily, where the water is seldomdrinkable, and where wine and beer is so cheap. Once we were paid five francs at five o'clock in the afternoon after five penniless days of rest in a village, and ordered as we were paid, to pack up our all and get ready to set off at six o'clock for the trenches. From noon we had been playing cards, and some of the boys gambled all their pay in advance and lost it. Bill's five francs had to be distributed amongst several members of the platoon.
"It's only five francs, anyway," he said. "Wot matter whether I spend it on cards, wine, or women. I don't care for soldierin' as a profession?"
"What is your profession, Bill?" Pryor asked; we never really knew what Bill's civil occupation was, he seemed to know a little of many crafts, but was master of none.
"I've been everything," he replied, employing his little finger in the removal of cigarette ash. "My ole man apprenticed me to a marker of 'ot cross buns, but I 'ad a 'abit of makin' the long end of the cross on the short side, an' got chucked out. Then I learned 'ow to jump through tin plates in order to make them nutmeg graters, but left that job after sticking plump in the middle of a plate. I had tostop there for three days without food or drink. They were thinnin' me out, see! Then I was a draughts manager at a bank, and shut the ventilators; after that I was an electric mechanic; I switched the lights on and off at night and mornin'; now I'm a professional gambler, I lose all my tin."
"You're also a soldier," I said.
"Course, I am," Bill replied. "I can present hipes by numbers, and knock the guts out of sandbags at five hundred yards."
We did not leave the village until eight o'clock. It was now very dark and had begun to rain, not real rain, but a thin drizzle which mixed up with the flashes of guns, the glow of star-shells and the long tremulous glimmer of flashlights. The blood-red blaze of haystacks afire near Givenchy, threw a sombre haze over our line of march. Even through the haze, star-shells showed brilliant in their many different colours, red, green, and electric white. The French send up a beautiful light which bursts into four different flames that burn standing high in mid-air for three minutes; another, a parachute star, holds the sky for four minutes, and almost blots its more remote sisters from the heavens. The English and the Germans are content to fling rocketsacross and observe one another's lines while these flare out their brief meteoric life. The firing-line was about five miles away; the starlights seemed to rise and fall just beyond an adjacent spinney, so deceptive are they.
Part of our journey ran along the bank of a canal; there had been some heavy fighting the night previous, and the wounded were still coming down by barges, only those who are badly hurt come this way, the less serious cases go by motor ambulance from dressing station to hospital—those who are damaged slightly in arm or head generally walk. Here we encountered a party of men marching in single file with rifles, skeleton equipment, picks and shovels. In the dark it was impossible to distinguish the regimental badge.
"Oo are yer?" asked Bill, who, like a good many more of us, was smoking a cigarette contrary to orders.
"The Camberwell Gurkhas," came the answer. "Oo are yer?"
"The Chelsea Cherubs," said Bill. "Up workin'!"
"Doin' a bit between the lines," answered one of the working party. "Got bombed out and were sent back."
"Luckydogs, goin' back for a kip (sleep)."
"'Ad two killed and seven wounded."
"Blimey!"
"Good luck, boys," said the disappearing file as the darkness swallowed up the working party.
The pace was a sharp one. Half a mile back from the firing-line we turned off to the left and took our way by a road running parallel to the trenches. We had put on our waterproof capes, our khaki overcoats had been given up a week before.
The rain dripped down our clothes, our faces and our necks, each successive star-light showed the water trickling down our rifle butts and dripping to the roadway. Stoner slept as he marched, his hand in Kore's. We often move along in this way, it is quite easy, there is lullaby in the monotonous step, and the slumbrous crunching of nailed boots on gravel.
We turned off the road where it runs through the rubble and scattered bricks, all that remains of the village of Givenchy, and took our way across a wide field. The field was under water in the wet season, and a brick pathway had been built across it. Along this path we took our way. A strong breeze had risenand was swishing our waterproofs about our bodies; the darkness was intense, I had to strain my eyes to see the man in front, Stoner. In the darkness he was a nebulous dark bulk that sprang into bold relief when the starlights flared in front. When the flare died out we stumbled forward into pitch dark nothingness. The pathway was barely two feet across, a mere tight-rope in the wide waste, and on either side nothing stood out to give relief to the desolate scene; over us the clouds hung low, shapeless and gloomy, behind was the darkness, in front when the starlights made the darkness visible they only increased the sense of solitude.
We stumbled and fell, rose and fell again, our capes spreading out like wings and our rifles falling in the mud. The sight of a man or woman falling always makes me laugh. I laughed as I fell, as Stoner fell, as Mervin, Goliath, Bill, or Pryor fell. Sometimes we fell singly, again in pairs, often we fell together a heap of rifles, khaki, and waterproof capes. We rose grumbling, spitting mud and laughing. Stoner was very unfortunate, a particle of dirt got into his eye almost blinding him. Afterwards he crawled along, now and again getting tohis feet, merely to fall back into his earthy position. A rifle fire opened on us from the front, and bullets whizzed past our ears, voices mingled with the ting of searching bullets.
"Anybody hurt?"
"No, all right so far."
"Stoner's down."
"He's up again."
"Blimey, it's a balmy."
"Mervin's crawling on his hands and knees."
"Nark the doin's, ye're on my waterproof. Let go!"
"Goliath's down."
"Are you struck, Goliath?"
"No, I wish to heaven I was," muttered the giant, bulking up in the flare of a searchlight, blood dripping from his face showed where he had been scratched as he stumbled.
We got safely into the trench and relieved the Highland Light Infantry. The place was very quiet, they assured us, it is always the same. It has become trench etiquette to tell the relieving battalion that it is taking over a cushy position. By this trench next morning we found six newly made graves, telling how six Highlanders had met their death, killed in action.
Nextmorning as I was looking through a periscope at the enemy's trenches, and wondering what was happening behind their sandbag line, a man from the sanitary squad came along sprinkling the trench with creosote and chloride of lime.
"Seein' anything?" he asked.
"Not much," I answered, "the grass is so high in front that I can see nothing but the tips of the enemy's parapets. There's some work for you here," I said.
"Where?"
"Under your feet," I told him. "The floor is soft as putty and smells vilely. Perhaps there is a dead man there. Last night I slept by the spot and it turned me sick."
"Have you an entrenchin' tool?"
I handed him the implement, he dug into the ground and presently unearthed a particle of clothing, five minutes later a boot came to view, then a second; fifteen minutes assiduous labour revealed an evil-smelling bundle of clothing and decaying flesh. I still remained an onlooker, but changed my position on the banquette.
"He must have been dead a long time," said thesanitary man, as he flung handfuls of lime on the body, "see his face."
He turned the thing on its back, its face up to the sky. The features were wonderfully well-preserved; the man might have fallen the day before. The nose pinched and thin, turned up a little at the point, the lips were drawn tight round the gums, the teeth showed dog-like and vicious; the eyes were open and raised towards the forehead, and the whole face was splashed with clotted blood. A wound could be seen on the left temple, the fatal bullet had gone through there.
"He was killed in the winter," said the sanitary man, pointing at the gloves on the dead soldier's hands. "These trenches were the 'Allemands' then, and the boys charged 'em. I suppose this feller copped a packet and dropped into the mud and was tramped down."
"Who is he?" I asked.
The man with the chloride of lime opened the tunic and shirt of the dead man and brought out an identity disc.
"Irish," he said, "Munster Fusiliers." "What's this?" he asked, taking a string of beads with a little shiny crucifix on the end of it, from the dead man's neck.
"It'shis rosary," I said, and my mind saw in a vivid picture a barefooted boy going over the hills of Corrymeela to morning Mass, with his beads in his hand. On either side rose the thatched cabins of the peasantry, the peat smoke curling from the chimneys, the little boreens running through the bushes, the brown Irish bogs, the heather in blossom, the turf stacks, the laughing colleens....
"Here's a letter," said the sanitary man, "it was posted last Christmas. It's from a girl, too."
He commenced reading:—
"My dear Patrick,—I got your letter yesterday, and whenever I was my lone the day I was always reading it. I wish the black war was over and you back again—we all at home wish that, and I suppose yourself wishes it as well; I was up at your house last night; there's not much fun in it now. I read the papers to your mother, and me and her was looking at a map. But we didn't know where you were so we could only make guesses. Your mother and me is making the Rounds of the Cross for you, and I am always thinking of you in my prayers. You'll be having the parcel I sent before you get this letter. I hope it's not broken or lost.The socks I sent were knitted by myself, three pairs of them, and I've put the holy water on them. Don't forget to put them on when your feet get wet, at home you never used to bother about anything like that; just tear about the same in wet as dry. But you'll take care of yourself now, won't you: and not get killed? It'll be a grand day when you come back, and God send the day to come soon! Send a letter as often as you can, I myself will write you one every day, and I'll pray to the Holy Mother to take care of you."
We buried him behind the parados, and placed the rosary round the arms of the cross which was erected over him. On the following day one of our men went out to see the grave, and while stooping to place some flowers on it he got shot through the head. That evening he was buried beside the Munster Fusilier.
A brazier fire at twilight,And glow-worm fires ashine,A searchlight sweeping heaven,Above the firing-line.The rifle bullet whistlesThe message that it bringsOf death and desolationTo common folk and kings.
We went back from the trenches as reserves to the Keep. Broken down though the place was when we entered it there was something restful in the brown bricks, hidden in ivy, in the well-paved yard, and the glorious riot of flowers. Most of the original furniture remained—the beds, the chairs, and the pictures. All were delighted with the place, Mervin particularly. "I'll make my country residence here after the war," he said.
On the left was a church. Contrary to orders I spent an hour in the dusk of the first evening in the ruined pile. The place had been shelled for seven months, not a day had passed when itwas not struck in some part. The sacristy was a jumble of prayer books, vestments, broken rosaries, crucifixes, and pictures. An ink pot and pen lay on a broken table beside a blotting pad. A lamp which once hung from the roof was beside them, smashed to atoms. In the church the altar railing was twisted into shapeless bars of iron, bricks littered the altar steps, the altar itself even, and bricks, tiles, and beams were piled high in the body of the church.
Outside in the graveyard the graves lay open and the bones of the dead were scattered broadcast over the green grass. Crosses were smashed or wrenched out of the ground and flung to earth; near the Keep was the soldiers' cemetery, the resting place of French, English, Indian, and German soldiers. Many of the French had bottles of holy water placed on their graves under the crosses. The English epitaphs were short and concise, always the same in manner: "Private 999 J. Smith, 26th London Battalion, killed in action 1st March, 1915." And under it stamped on a bronze plate was the information, "Erected by the Mobile Unit (B.R.C.S.) to preserve the record found on the spot." Often the dead man's regiment left a token of remembrance, a bunch of flowers, the deadman's cap or bayonet and rifle (these two latter only if they had been badly damaged when the man died). Many crosses had been taken from the churchyard and placed over these men. One of them read, "A notre dévote fille," and another, "To my beloved mother."
Several Indians, men of the Bengal Mountain Battery, were buried here. A woman it was stated, had disclosed their location to the enemy, and the billet in which they were staying was struck fair by a high explosive shell. Thirty-one were killed. They were now at rest—Anaytullah, Lakhasingh, and other strange men with queer names under the crosses fashioned from biscuit boxes. On the back of Anaytullah's cross was the wording in black: "Biscuits, 50 lbs."
Thus the environment of the Keep: the enemy's trenches were about eight hundred yards away. No fighting took place here, the men's rifles stood loaded, but no shot was fired; only when the front line was broken, if that ever took place, would the defenders of the Keep come into play and hold the enemy back as long as that were possible. Then when they could no longer hold out, when the foepressed in on all sides, there was something still to do, something vitally important which would cost the enemy many lives, and, if a miracle did not happen, something which would wipe out the defenders for ever. This was the Keep.
The evening was very quiet; a few shells flew wide overhead, and now and again stray bullets pattered against the masonry. We cooked our food in the yard, and, sitting down amidst the flowers, we drank our tea and ate our bread and jam. The first flies were busy, they flew amidst the flower-beds and settled on our jam. Mervin told a story of a country where he had been in, and where the flies were legion and ate the eyes out of horses. The natives there wore corks hung by strings from their caps, and these kept the flies away.
"How?" asked Bill.
"The corks kept swinging backwards and forwards as the men walked," said Mervin. "Whenever a cork struck a fly it dashed the insect's brains out."
"Blimey!" cried Bill, then asked, "What was the most wonderful thing you ever seen, Mervin?"
"The most wonderful thing," repeated Mervin. "Oh, I'll tell you. It was the way they buried thedead out in Klondike. The snow lies there for six months and it's impossible to dig, so when a man died they sharpened his toes and drove him into the earth with a mallet."
"I saw a more wonderful thing than that, and it was when we lay in the barn at Richebourg," said Bill, who was referring to a comfortless billet and a cold night which were ours a month earlier. "I woke up about midnight 'arf asleep. I 'ad my boots off and I couldn't 'ardly feel them I was so cold. 'Blimey!' I said, 'on goes my understandin's, and I 'ad a devil of a job lacing my boots up. When I thought I 'ad them on I could 'ear someone stirrin' on the left. It was my cotmate. 'Wot's yer gime?' he says. 'Wot gime?' I asks. 'Yer foolin' about with my tootsies,' he says. Then after a minute 'e shouts, 'Damn it ye've put on my boots,' So I 'ad, put on his blessed boots and laced them mistaking 'is feet for my own."
"We never heard of this before," I said.
"No, cos 'twas ole Jersey as was lying aside me that night, next day 'e was almost done in with the bomb."
"It's jolly quiet here," said Goliath, sitting back in an armchair and lighting a cigarette. "This will be a jolly holiday."
"Iheard an artillery man I met outside, say that this place was hot," Stoner remarked. "The Irish Guards were here, and they said they preferred the trenches to the Keep."
"It will be a poor country house," said Mervin, "if it's going to be as bad as you say."
On the following evening I was standing guard in a niche in the building. Darkness was falling and the shadows sat at the base of the walls east of the courtyard. My niche looked out on the road, along which the wounded are carried from the trenches by night and sometimes by day. The way is by no means safe. As I stood there four men came down the road carrying a limp form on a stretcher. A waterproof ground-sheet lay over the wounded soldier, his head was uncovered, and it wobbled from side to side, a streak of blood ran down his face and formed into clots on the ear and chin. There was something uncannily helpless in the soldier, his shaking head, his boots caked brown with mud, the heels close together, the toes pointing upwards and outwards and swaying a little. Every quiver of the body betokened abject helplessness. The limp, swaying figure, clinging weakly to life, was a pathetic sight.
The bearers walked slowly, carefully, stepping overevery shell-hole and stone on the road. The sweat rolled down their faces and arms, their coats were off and their shirt sleeves rolled up almost to the shoulders. Down the road towards the village they pursued their sober way, and my eyes followed them. Suddenly they came to a pause, lowered the stretcher to the ground, and two of them bent over the prostrate form. I could see them feel the soldier's pulse, open his tunic, and listen for the beating of the man's heart, when they raised the stretcher again there was something cruelly careless in the action, they brought it up with a jolt and set off hurriedly, stumbling over shell-hole and boulder. There was no doubt the man was dead now; it was unwise to delay on the road, and the soldiers' cemetery was in the village.
In the evening we stood to arms in the Keep; all our men were now out in the open, and the officers were inspecting their rifles barely four yards away from me. At that moment I saw the moon, a crescent of pale smoke standing on end near the West. I felt in my pocket for money, but found I had none to turn.
"Have you a ha'penny?" I asked Mervin who was passing.
"Whatfor?"
"I want to turn it, you know the old custom."
"Oh, yes," answered Mervin, handing me a coin. "Long ago I used to turn my money, but I found the oftener I saw the moon the less I had to turn. However, I'll try it again for luck." So saying he turned a penny.
"Do any of you fellows know Marie Redoubt?" an officer asked at that moment.
"I know the place," said Mervin, "it's just behind the Keep."
"Will you lead me to the place?" said the officer.
"Right," said Mervin, and the two men went off.
They had just gone when a shell hit the building on my left barely three yards away from my head. The explosion almost deafened me, a pain shot through my ears and eyes, and a shower of fine lime and crumpled bricks whizzed by my face. My first thought was, "Why did I not put my hands over my eyes, I might have been struck blind." I had a clear view of the scene in front, my mates were rushing hither and thither in a shower of white flying lime; I could see dark forms falling, clambering to their feet and falling again. One figure detacheditself from the rest and came rushing towards me, by my side it tripped and fell, then rose again. I could now see it was Stoner. He put his hands up as if in protest, looked at me vacantly, and rushed round the corner of the building. I followed him and found him once more on the ground.
"Much hurt?" I asked, touching him on the shoulder.
"Yes," he muttered, rising slowly, "I got it there," he raised a finger to his face which was bleeding, "and there," he put his hand across his chest.
"Well, get into the dug-out," I said, and we hurried round the front of the building. A pile of fallen masonry lay there and half a dozen rifles, all the men were gone. We found them in the dug-out, a hole under the floor heavily beamed, and strong enough to withstand a fair sized shell. One or two were unconscious and all were bleeding more or less severely. I found I was the only person who was not struck. Goliath and Bill got little particles of grit in the face, and they looked black as chimney sweeps. Bill was cut across the hand, Kore's arm was bleeding.
"Where's Mervin?"
"Hehad just gone out," I said, "I was speaking to him, he went with Lieut. —— to Marie Redoubt."
I suddenly recollected that I should not have left my place outside, so I went into my niche again. Had Mervin got clear, I wondered? The courtyard was deserted, and it was rapidly growing darker, a drizzle had begun, and the wet ran down my rifle.
"Any word of Mervin?" I called to Stoner when he came out from the dug-out, and moved cautiously across the yard. There was a certain unsteadiness in his gait, but he was regaining his nerve; he had really been more surprised than hurt. He disappeared without answering my question, probably he had not heard me.
"Stretcher-bearers at the double."
The cry, that call of broken life which I have so often heard, faltered across the yard. From somewhere two men rushed out carrying a stretcher, and hurried off in the direction taken by Stoner. Who had been struck? Somebody had been wounded, maybe killed! Was it Mervin?
Stoner came round the corner, a sad look in his brown eyes.
"Mervin's copped it," he said, "in the head. Itmust have been that shell that done it; a splinter, perhaps."
"Where is he?"
"He's gone away on the stretcher unconscious. The officer has been wounded as well in the leg, the neck, and the face."
"Badly?"
"No, he's able to speak."
Fifteen minutes later I saw Mervin again. He was lying on the stretcher and the bearers were just going off to the dressing station with it. He was breathing heavily, round his head was a white bandage, and his hands stretched out stiffly by his sides. He was borne into the trench and carried round the first traverse. I never saw him again; he died two days later without regaining consciousness.
On the following day two more men went: one got hit by a concussion shell that ripped his stomach open, another, who was on sentry-go got messed up in a bomb explosion that blew half of his side away. The charm of the courtyard, with the flower-beds and floral designs, died away; we were now pleased to keep indoors and allow the chairs outside to stand idle. All day long the enemy shelled us, most of the shells dropped outside and played havoc withthe church; but the figure on the crucifix still remained, a symbol of something great and tragical, overlooking the area of destruction and death. Now and again a shell dropped on the flower-beds and scattered splinters and showers of earth against buildings and dug-outs. In the evening an orderly came to the Keep.
"I want two volunteers," he said.
"For what?" I asked him.
"I don't know," was the answer, "they've got to report immediately to Headquarters."
Stoner and I volunteered. The Headquarters, a large dug-out roofed with many sandbags piled high over heavy wooden beams, was situated on the fringe of the communication trench five hundred yards away from the Keep. We took up our post in an adjacent dug-out and waited for orders. Over our roof the German shells whizzed incessantly and tore up the brick path. Suddenly we heard a crash, an ear-splitting explosion from the fire line.
"What's that?" asked Stoner. "Will it be a mine blown up?"
"Perhaps it is," I ventured. "I wish they'd stop the shelling, suppose one of these shells hit our dug-out."
"Itwould be all U.P. with us," said Stoner, trying to roll a cigarette and failing hopelessly. "Confound it," he said, "I'm all a bunch of nerves, I didn't sleep last night and very little the night before.