A Rifleman Went to War

by Herbert W. McBride

  They had real turkey and, in addition to all the usual trimmings, plum pudding, of course. And drinks? Certainly. Anything you wanted was right there, waiting for you. We all got comfortably exhilarated, as a matter of course, but I do not think that anyone became incapacitated. We all had our work to do and we knew it – and I guess we did it. But for two or three hours, we forgot the war. Songs were in order and how those old rafters did ring. They sang all the conventional Yule-tide songs and carols and then commenced on others. I happened to know a few distinctively American songs which I contributed to the best of my ability. Fortunately, everybody was feeling so good that almost any noise sounded like music, so I got away with it. They all took to “The Old Gray Mare” (sung without expurgations) and, for a long time thereafter, I heard that song, hummed or sung, by officers and men of many British regiments, all along the line.

  But that was just a little respite. The next day – Christmas – by mutual consent, there was no firing whatever. It was so quiet as to be disturbing – unnatural it seemed. Men of both sides showed themselves with impunity, even going out into no-man’s-land to hunt for souvenirs but there was none of the close fraternizing such as we had heard was carried on the previous year.

  Christmas day, 1914, it seems that the troops came right out of their lines and played around in no-man’s-land. I think it was in Ian Hay’s story of the First Hundred Thousand that I first read about that. At any rate, I often heard of it, by word of mouth, from others who were there. Why, in one place, the Germans even carried out a piano and held a regular concert.

  On this next Christmas, however, although either by mutual consent or by some pre-arrangement through the underground channels, it was well known on both sides that there would be no actual firing; still we fought a bit shy of them. They had literally and actually murdered some of our unarmed stretcher-bearers on the afternoon of the previous day and I, for one, could not forget it; so, while the rest of the boys were wandering around out there in between the lines, with the Germans likewise prowling around in plain sight, I spent my time right behind the breech of a machine gun – fearing – or maybe it was hoping – that they would start something.

  Now, I have and have always had, numerous close friends, either German born or of German parentage but I am willing to go on record as saying that I will never, so long as I live, ever trust to the honor or the humanity of any German war organization. It simply is not within the limits of their creed or code – or whatever you want to call it – to observe anything bordering upon humanity when they are at war.

  A few days after Christmas the Germans opened up on that cafe at Dickebusch and got a major and two or three others who had been in our party. Of course we knew that some one of the habitués of the place had relayed the message over the lines but never found out which one it was. At any rate, none of the civilians were present when the shelling took place. That was one of the tough things about that war in Flanders. Too large a proportion of the natives were in favor of Germany and they had plenty of ways of getting information across.

  So the winter dragged along. We had ample opportunities to observe and study the various kinds of shells and trench-mortar projectiles and rifle grenades. In the latter class, about this time the Germans brought out the “pineapple.” It was about as big as a man’s fist and shaped somewhat like the fruit which gave it its name, and to complete the resemblance it was scored, fore and aft and crosswise, with deep grooves, giving it a checkered appearance. Upon bursting, each of the small segments became a deadly missile, just like the Mills hand grenades – only these were somewhat larger. They were fired from the regular service rifle and with the ordinary ball cartridge, there being a hole through the center for the bullet, while the grenade, itself, was propelled by the gasses from the discharge. The rear end was equipped with three small vanes which acted as rudders to keep the thing head on, as they burst only on impact and, unless the nose struck directly against some solid object, they did not explode.

  The Germans followed the practice, when they were about to launch these things, of firing several rifle shots, as a sort of mask and, right in the midst of these, to send over the grenade, but we quickly learned to notice the difference in the sound of the report when the grenade was fired – it was muffled in a peculiar way and was easily identified. So, when we heard that, we simply took shelter and watched to see where it would land. During just one afternoon, more than fifty of these jokers were dropped in the immediate vicinity of one of our machine guns, without doing a particle of damage. Several, which failed to explode, were picked up, so we had ample opportunity to examine them. A day or so later, however, they did get one man – “Paddy” Logan. He heard it coming and crowded up against the wall of the parapet but, unfortunately, the grenade struck fairly on the top of the parados immediately back of him and exploded, pieces striking him in the head, from the effect of which he died within a short time.

  From that time on we seldom saw any of the older forms of rifle grenade – I mean the ramrod type. This newer kind could be and were fired from the service rifle, with the service cartridge while the others had to be fired with a blank cartridge and, in some instances, with a special rifle. Someone, about that time, had discovered the fact that the expanding gasses coming out of the muzzle of a rifle, were really and truly efficient propellants and that just this gas, itself, without the aid of any ramrod or other projection stuck down in the bore of the gun, would exert a force sufficient to throw one of the small grenades several hundred yards.

  As to hand grenades: well, at first they were just exactly that. Made by hand and thrown by hand. If anyone cares to make one of the first type we used, I can easily tell him how to do it.

  First, get a little jam tin. Well, being an American, you might not know exactly what I mean by that but, looking over at the kitchen cupboard, I see some little cans of Borden’s milk. That is it, exactly. Get yourself a can of that size and, in opening it, do not use a regular can-opener. If you have no bayonet handy, get a good big butcher-knife or a hatchet and cut it cross-wise on top and turn the comers back – just as you would open any can out in camp somewhere, where you had no regular can-opener. Then take a stick of either 40 or 60 per-cent dynamite and cut off about an inch. Next, take a detonator and about an inch of ordinary blasting fuse. Stick the fuse into the detonator and crimp it. (If you are really tough you will do this with your teeth.) Poke a hole in the dynamite and stick the detonator into it – pinching it in carefully, so it won’t slip out on you. Put the powder in the can and fill up all around it with any little, loose but hard things you can find. Gravel will do fine if there are no loose nuts and bolts handy. Then all you have to do is to press the corners of the opened can back in and she is ready for business. To make sure that it will light easily and quickly, you should slit the end of the fuse where it sticks out and smear in a pinch of dynamite. Some people are so conservative that they do not like to do this so they just break off the head of a match and stick it in the slitted fuse.

  Well, there you are. All you got to do when you want to use it is to light ’er up and throw it. I have said an inch of fuse because I am afraid some enterprising youngster may take this thing seriously and I want to give him a break. As a matter of fact, many such grenades, lighted and thrown from one line, have been picked up and returned before exploding.

  Many other types of grenades were developed during the war. The German potato-masher type was rather clumsy to look at but really very handy to use. They had a playful habit of fitting some of these things with instantaneous fuses and then leaving them lying around out in no-man’s-land where one of our men might pick them up. If the poor devil tried to use the thing, he was blown apart the minute he pulled the string.

  In my opinion, the Mills grenade was the best developed during the war. It was compact and easily carried and reliable in action. There may be better ones by this time. I don’t know.

  A great many people, including some who actually ser
ved in the armies, speak and write of fragments of shells or grenades as “shrapnel.” It always grates on my nerves when I hear or see in print that phrase, a piece of shrapnel. Any person who knows anything at all about it, knows that there are no such things as pieces of shrapnel – unless each separate bullet be called a piece. One may be hit by the fuse-cap, which I have known to happen, or he may be struck by the shrapnel case, as I have good reason to know from painful recollection. But the shrapnel, itself, the bullets which constitute the real, effective component of this particular class of shell, are entirely different from the fragments from the ordinary, high-explosive shell. Invented by a Colonel Shrapnel, of the British Army, toward the latter part of the Eighteenth Century, the shell which bears his name is nothing more nor less than a travelling shot-gun – a hollow shell case, filled with iron balls and with a bursting charge in the base. The fuse can be set to burst this charge at any desired range, whereupon the balls are discharged and sweep a considerable area of ground. Shrapnel is particularly effective out in the open but is of little or no use against entrenched positions. The High Explosive shell (H.E. for short) is the only thing that will penetrate or knock down a parapet.

  Along about this time we also made the acquaintance of the new armor-piercing bullets which the Germans brought out. I was standing, one morning, with several others, in a bay where we had an emergency machine-gun emplacement. The loop-hole was protected with one of the ordinary steel plates which were commonly used at the peep-holes from whence we observed the ground out in front. I do not now remember the exact thickness of these plates, but they were impervious to ordinary rifle bullets. The Germans had the same kind and it was an ordinary practice for one and the other to shoot at the things now and then – for sighting-in purposes or just for the fun of ringing the bell.

  So, when a bullet pinged against the plate, no one paid any attention. Soon another one came and still another. By this time we were beginning to wonder just what it was all about. Suddenly, someone let out a shout and pointed to the plate. Say; that fellow could certainly shoot, and it is too bad he never saw that group. There were three holes through the plate and all would have been covered by a three-inch circle. Just by luck – nothing else – none of us was right in line and the bullets had gone on and over the parados, which was very low at that point. We quickly piled up some sandbags in the rear to catch the next one, but that was all for the day. Some of the men did get one or two of the bullets later on and I salvaged one from the loophole of another gun emplacement. This was one of the very few real souvenirs I brought back. It was very ably described by Captain Crossman in an article in the Scientific American. It consisted of a solid core of very hard steel, about twenty-five calibre, wrapped in a sheet of soft lead and the whole thing encased in what appeared to be the ordinary cupro-nickle jacket of the service bullet. The jacket of the one I saved was so badly broken up that I cannot be sure about this point and, although I saw one or two others that were recovered, intact, from the sand-bags, I have no distinct recollection of them. Of course, we immediately banked up plenty of sand-bags behind all those plates and that was that.

  Upon reporting this business, our people started in to find some way of getting even. They perfected their own armor-piercing bullets, but I personally, never saw one or used them. Later on, when the tanks became common, they found considerable need for them, but it just happened that my Section never had any available while I was with the outfit.

  But I did see a lot of “elephant rifles” brought up and issued to be used on Heinie’s loop-holes. And while I had plenty of chances to try out these heavy, double-barreled guns, for some reason or other – strange as it seems, even to myself now – I did not care enough about it at the time to even look them over carefully. Guess I was so completely immersed in my own machine-gun and sniping work that I had no room in my single-track mind for anything else at that time. Whether or not those big, double guns did any effective work, I don’t know. It was just one of the many little side-issues, like bringing dogs in to kill off the rats.

  Yes, they actually did that very thing – brought in dogs to kill off the trench rats – because I was right on the spot when the first dog happened to be brought into our sector and I saw the tragic ending to what started off to be a bit of harmless excitement and fun. Might as well ramble around a bit and tell about it right here, because this story I am telling you has rambled around from beginning to end anyhow.

  About three hundred yards behind our front line position was a small creek or “beek” as it is called in Flemish. This one happened to be the Ballartbeek. It was narrow, perhaps twenty feet wide, but deep, and was lined on both sides with a fringe of small bushes and the inevitable willows which are found everywhere in that part of the world, especially along the hedge-rows and water-courses – usually “polled,” that is, with the tops cut off, so they never get very high but are thick with branches down toward the base, thus offering the very best of concealment.

  Now, we had picked out a well hidden spot amongst these thick willow trees and had established a little, private, ammunition dump or cache there. At the time, we had accumulated some sixty or seventy thousand rounds of “honest-to-God” machine gun ammunition, and we kept a pretty close eye on it, too.

  I have to run off the track every now and then to explain these things because of the fact that a lot of the people who will read this have not had the opportunity to learn, at first hand, many of the things we had to learn in the school of experience and, often, under the most adverse conditions. While we seldom encountered a serious shortage of ammunition, that is, cartridges supposed to be manufactured for the guns we were using, we soon found that very few of the brands made under the press of war demands were worth a “tinkers damn” for use in machine guns. To enable the guns to function perfectly, it is absolutely imperative that the cartridges be right. By that I mean they must be of such uniform construction and loading that they will all seat properly in the chamber, be of sufficiently close fit that the case will not break under the strain of firing; the primers must be seated alike; the cases not too hard or too soft and the bullets must be of uniform calibre and seated in the cases at just the right depth.

  This is just to mention a few of the things that make the difference between good ammunition and the other kind. There were several brands made by the old, established companies and some of the Government Arsenals that were really up to standard and could be depended upon to function properly at all times and when we came upon any of these particular brands, we made it a point to hide out all we could for use in emergency, shooting the other stuff at odd times when we had plenty of time to clear out jams and replace broken extractors and such things.

  This particular dump, or as we Canadians called it, “cache,” was filled with all the good machine gun ammunition we had been able to “accumulate” during the past two months. In previous years I had often “accumulated” ammunition at Camp Perry so the practice came in good stead in those days, and I generally thought of the cases I had lugged off back there in Ohio. (Where all firing stopped at six o’clock. Here it kept up all during the night, however.) One of our communication trenches ran right close to our cache and when we could grab off a case of good ammunition we would slip right over and hide it away with the rest. The communication trench had been constructed so that the crossing of the creek was under cover. It was merely a bridge of “duck-boards” with a support or “bent” in the middle, but sufficiently strong to carry a single line of men.

  Four of our men (from the Machine Gun Section) were at the ammunition cache, putting in a couple of cases which we had acquired that day. We got it when and where we could and if some of the infantry companies in the immediate vicinity found themselves short of their allotment, well – never mind – we usually managed to replace what we took with an equal amount of the other stuff, which would work all right in the rifles, and they never knew the difference.

  About this time there happened to
be a party of newcomers walk down the communication trench, and the odd thing about it was that one of the crowd, an officer, was carrying a dog in his arms. He was a pretty little dog and everyone stopped to look at him and wonder “how come” because we knew it must have taken especial permission to bring him in, dogs being strictly “taboo” in our lines. I have learned all about the “war-dogs” during the years since the war – just as I have learned about the phenomenal pistol shooting of my former associates on the plains – through the medium of the movies. It makes me ashamed of myself, who had ranged the West, from Mexico to Canada during the last forty years or so, that I never learned how to “fan” a gun or to shoot a man in any particular spot on the short notice that was generally given when any shooting was necessary. Well, that’s the way it goes – live and learn.

  Just as the officer carrying the dog came to the bridge, a big rat scampered out from under his feet and took a nosedive into the creek. Those rats seemed to be a cross between ordinary rats and muskrats. They were as much at home in the water as on land. (Aside: we had to be the same way, so they may have learned it by the same method we did – by force of circumstances.) Anyway, just as the officer (I never did know his name or rank) had turned to pass the word to his men to keep low and string out a little while crossing, the dog saw the rat and, being the kind of dog he was, immediately started after it. Jumping from his master’s arms, he landed on the bridge and bounced from there into the water, after the rat which was making good time up stream toward the place where our men were hiding the ammunition.