A Rifleman Went to War

by Herbert W. McBride

  Familiarity with front-line conditions over a frontage covered by several battalions and a careful study of the topography of a large area were necessary to the effective locating and handling of these guns. It was interesting work. They constituted but one item in a deadly and fascinating scheme: the rifles and automatics up front, along with grenades and the light trench mortars; then the machine guns and heavier mortars, followed by the 18-pounders backed up by their bigger brothers right on down the line until you came to the big naval gun in a convenient copse somewhere miles back of the lines. There it was, all spread out in place, stocked up with ammunition – waiting, and, at the same time, working, improving positions, making new emplacements, providing for concentration of guns and men in an emergency. The machine guns and artillery entertained themselves, kept in practice and got in a bit of effective work by strafing and shelling vital points and positions in the enemy lines. Comparable activity on the part of the infantry took the form of trench raids. The regular duties of their positions consisted of strengthening the trench system, protecting certain points with outposts, establishing listening-posts and in maintaining constant surveillance of no-man’s-land through organized patrols. But for effective work that was satisfactorily like war, they had to put teeth into some of their patrols and stage a raid occasionally. This work has been covered, in a manner, in the chapters devoted to patrolling and trench-raiding.

  Meanwhile, it was necessary to look forward to the time when the whole vast machine should again be unlimbered and got into action. For the northern part of the line the first step in this work was to take Vimy Ridge. This was the job to which the Canadians were assigned, and we set about systematic training and preparation for it, ending up by timing the whole assault, all obstacles to be overcome and the various lines of defense to be occupied and consolidated and the attack pushed on strictly according to schedule. The Germans, of course, learned a good deal about these plans. Vimy was, in any case, a point at which an attack was to be expected. They considered the position impregnable and had had a long time in which to make it so. At the time of the action its defenders outnumbered the attackers by about two to one.

  When the Battle of Vimy Ridge occurred I was on my way to New York, and the training-ground again. The attack went through according to schedule. It was not exactly according to schedule that the tanks did not even get as far as the first line of defense. They had been counted upon, but the going was too much for them. This did not, however, upset the schedule. Their place was taken by men, more men. The going doesn’t get too bad for them, if they are properly trained. I was on my way to a new job instructing men in the business of war. In the idle days of the crossing I sometimes found myself taking stock of what I knew about it. Usually I didn’t get any farther than visualizing probable happenings along the Western front at the moment. Vimy would be in the hands of the Allies. Possession of this strong position was necessary before any general advance could be planned. Winter was over. It was the open season for soldiers. They would be expecting anything at anytime, whether in the way of offense or defense for a soldier simply waits for either one, knowing as little about the plans of one side as the other. Waiting is a little less apprehensive when there are signs that his side is preparing for offense. He will, at least, not be unexpectedly smothered by a barrage, against which he can do nothing save dig himself out and dig his guns out, while the hours pass, until, suddenly, it lifts, and he knows that all that he can certainly count on to protect him against whatever the gathering light brings is the rifle in his hand and the few men whom he can see in the smoke and fog on either hand. That’s all. If things go well, he discovers in a few minutes that there is more. But for the moment, there is only a man and a rifle, against everything that may come over the parapet within his reach.

  On the offensive it is a little better. He will be on hand to receive the counter-barrage. But he has first heard the music of his own, and seen the signs of activity as he came up the night before: the concentration of guns, with their grim files of steel messages for delivery in the initial stages of the attack, ammunition in the bays up front, handy for the machine guns; signallers with their coils of wire, and stretcher-bearers waiting innocently beside stacks of stretchers. It is comforting to remember these things while waiting for his barrage to lift, and to know that the thing has been planned and must be carried through to the first objective, even though all communications are cut before the zero-hour. If it is raining, as it seems, usually, to be, and he has to wait for several hours, this knowledge may be rather cold comfort, but it is there just the same, and does a good deal to boost his confidence in himself.

  This is the point that I was always coming back to in my meditations, miles away on the Atlantic. I had been a machine-gunner nearly all my time in France; but when I thought of battle I thought of the man with the rifle in the front trench. I was on my way to undertake the training of men for this job, and that’s the picture that my thoughts revolved around: the man in the front trench before the zero-hour. I hope something of my notions about the things which count then have gone into these chapters. The artillery is but to make a way for him, the machine guns but to aid and cover his advance, the tanks but to crush the traps laid for him; and not much can be done in the way of official control or command after the barrage lifts; the result, then, is largely in the hands of the man with the rifle. All that has been done and all that anybody can now do will be nothing if he fails. The wheel is to spin, the die is to be cast, which, when it comes to rest, will read either life or death, victory or defeat. This is the moment and this the man on which the value of all training and preparation depend.

  I liked to think of undertaking to help in the training of United States soldiers with an eye solely to this moment, in an effort to insure, as far as this is possible, its being not a gamble but a sure thing. There was not much doubt in my mind, on those days when I first realized that my actual participation in the war was over, as to what was essential and what unessential. With this sudden perspective, the essentials stood out, and there was no room for trifling – possibly fatal – unessentials. My enthusiasm for war as an adventure gave place to a keen appreciation of and admiration for the human material that won its battles. It was startlingly clear how all the vast organization – the thunder of the guns, the congested lines of transport, the roaring factories, the fatherless homes – all waited upon the fate of this thin line.

  I had every reason to appreciate fully the value of training; yet, with all the training it was possible to give, this seemed to be expecting a great deal of men. It remained a gamble, a desperate and critical game in which a man needed to be given a break; the result was not scientifically certain; it was human. And there were many little things in the practices of the British Army in which this was recognized. It is difficult to name them; they were not always provided for in the regulations; but the effect was there. I tried to summarize it on those mornings of early spring while others were waiting to go over the top in a war which for me was finished. Training? Cold, wet and benumbed through enforced long waiting, strapped up and loaded, in cramped positions, they are by no means the same alert men who a few weeks ago turned out smartly for physical drill. The instructor can’t finish with men and say: “Now you are ready for battle.” The British war organization doubtless had its full share of theorists, little men with big, impractical ideas and good-intentioned fellows who didn’t know exactly what they were talking about; but somewhere in the set-up was a practical and efficient hand which was never bound by red-tape, precedent or regulations and which, in the final show-down, did not allow these to interfere with the real business of war; it went on quietly keeping in touch with the essential realities of the situation as they affect the soldier all the way from Aldershot to the Somme and the zero-hour and the final jumping-off place.

  I don’t wish to idealize the British – or any other army; I merely wish to say that in so far as this effect was achieved, it is worth kno
wing about. It is vital. The rum ration of the British will serve to indicate what I am talking about. I intended to say something about this, anyway, for its value in itself; but it may also be taken to illustrate this larger effect, this determination to give a soldier every possible chance to win – and live. This will, of course, arouse the indignation of the perfervid and patriotic guardians of purity, but we are talking about war and the men who carry it on.

  The rum ration has been issued just before the zero-hour, and is getting in its effect by the time the word comes along to be up and away. If the men are alert, mentally and physically, their chances of reaching the scene of the first actual encounter are incalculably greater than if they are tired, benumbed with cold, and apathetic. After that, their blood will be up; they uncover new and unsuspected sources of energy that will take them through the day.

  It is this first minute that is important, the initial attitude of men who are awake and ready with the quick parry, the sure thrust, the dead-certain shot. This is a truism. As to the effect of rum in this emergency, there is room for just two opinions: that of the man who has tried it, and that of the physician and physiological chemist who knows the effects of fatigue and exposure and of alcohol in temporarily and quickly overcoming them. Yet, there has been in the United States another and very loud one. It could not very well be called an opinion, because an opinion should rest only upon full and unbiased information and should be qualified in so far as the information is not full or the viewpoint prejudiced. There was no such temperance in the mouthings of these temperance fanatics. The least damaging part of their noise was the charge that the men were made drunk and sent in to die. This doesn’t deserve an answer; but it may be stated:

  The rum ration of the British Army consisted of one-half gill (one sixty-fourth of a gallon) of pure unadulterated Jamaica rum, the real article, thick, syrupy stuff, such as is not generally known commercially, particularly in the United States. It was administered by an officer or sergeant in person, at a stated time, and had to be swallowed then and there, or not at all. It was not invariably issued, to all troops at all times; but it was expected by all troops on active service during most of the winter or under any unusual conditions of fatigue or exposure. We did not get it in England or Canada. But we nearly always got it at just about the times when we needed it most.

  In the trenches it was issued as a routine matter just before daybreak, at stand-to, when every man needed to be up and on the alert to guard against surprise. Men were not only sleepless; but at that time in the morning, even after comfortable sleep, man’s vitality is at its lowest ebb. These men had not slept comfortably. Some of them had not slept at all, but had just returned from patrols or other duties in which there is hardly a moment that is not tense and fatiguing. If there was nothing doing, they counted upon getting their sleep during the next few hours. Sleep is the great restorer, and this single shot of rum made refreshing and invigorating sleep possible at times when it would otherwise have been impossible. If sleep was not to be considered under the circumstances, then the rum soothed jangled nerves and revived tired muscles inspiriting men for continued activity. It was accepted gladly, even by most of those who did not drink, as the best compensation available for the loss of sleep and rest which could not be avoided.

  There is little complaint about hardships when men believe that everything possible is being done to minimize them. I am convinced that a distinction of the British Army, and an important source of its strength, is the conviction among the soldiers (above all grousing and grumbling) that their health and well-being are of intimate concern to those higher up, not simply matters unfeelingly provided for in K.R. & O. (King’s Regulations and Orders). This was a secondary and not unimportant effect of the rum ration. It was a great mediator between human endurance and military exigencies, between what seemed unreasonable demands and the obscure necessity for them. The sergeant with the little brass nose-cap (fuse cover of a shell), replenished as required from an ordinary water-bottle put to nobler use, was an emissary of good-will and understanding from the Brass-Hats who lived in comfort back of the line: “I can’t get you out of the mud today, Tommy; there’s nobody to take your place. This will help to pull you through. Cheerio!”

  When the United States entered the war, the powers that be did well to study what two years of warfare had developed. The intention, presumably, was to profit by the experience of others. How, with this sound and laudable intention, they managed to adopt such trifles as the Sam Browne belt and that silly chin-strap for the campaign hat and pass up such splendid institutions as the rum ration and the bagpipes is beyond me. I suppose that in the case of the rum there is no doubt that the rabid reformers are largely responsible. That is why I have had something to say about it, because it is not a matter for reformers of any sort. It has nothing to do with the muddle of prohibition. It is a matter for those charged with national defense in time of war, with maintaining efficient armies in the field; and for them to allow themselves to be influenced by irrelevant considerations of politics or so-called morality and temperance is the same as to allow such considerations to decide what powder shall be used.

  I hope it is clear that I regard it as an important matter and one that has nothing to do with anybody’s opposition to alcoholic beverages. I am convinced that in the British Armies many lives were saved by the timely issue of rum, and this may mean the difference between success or failure in the initial stages of an attack, which are often the critical ones. If this sounds like making the fate of empire hang upon a drink of rum, even so; it is only necessary to point out that life or death frequently depends upon a difference of a very small fraction of a second. Ask any athletic coach what top form means. What is the meaning of “fresh troops”? Well, you don’t have them on a modern battlefield. They are exhausted or shelled into insensibility in reaching it. In offensive operations, generally, the men that begin them come nearer to it than any others. A battalion that goes in on the succeeding day has quite likely been shelled and bombed from the time that it reaches the area, far back along the transport lines. It has probably reached this point only after forced marches. In the evening it begins its tedious progress toward the point from which it is to continue the advance. In the strongly entrenched areas, this route lies over a trackless waste, much worse than open country would have been. There are no roads, few recognizable landmarks. The communication trenches have been shelled to pieces, or, if usable, are filled with the wounded coming back. The lines of communication, quickly extended to keep in touch with the advance, are maintained with difficulty; and these are the ligaments which bind the loosely jointed war-machine together as well as the nerves which enable it to function. It all has to be moved up together, sensitive always to the varied and uncertain fate of the front line, which melts away at one place, is pushed back by a counter attack in another, while at a third it has encountered a stubborn redoubt, and at a fourth has pushed suddenly forward leaving an ominous gap which may mean disaster. In this tangled and uncertain flux, the battalion is but a small detachment, and it spends most of the night waiting about in little stretches of trench which afford a measure of shelter from machine-gun fire and shells. No one knows the cause of the delay or when it will end, what is happening in front or where the front is. With daylight, perhaps, they are able to guess at their bearings and learn a little of what is happening, from questioning wounded or stretcher-bearers or signallers, who know little themselves. It may be another night before they take over their position. If there is no night attack (which is always hazardous business) they keep watch until day, then take up the advance. They cannot, of course, be called fresh troops. The fight has been going on for three days, and they have for most of this time been subjected to the most exhausting of its inconveniences and discomforts. They are tired, chilled and sluggish; their boots are heavy with mud and their eyes with lack of sleep. With daylight they are to face troops which may well be well-fed and rested, for they have come up
over shortened lines of communication. They will have little artillery support, or none at all. Once in the fight they will take care of themselves. But the first few minutes may reduce their strength by as much as twenty per cent. In close fighting, the difference between life and death is measured in terms of hundredths of a second. That’s all. There is no second chance. Either you get him or you don’t. If you are on your toes, your eyes open, your whole self on the job, you get him.

  These cramped, uncomfortable muddy men have no appearance whatever of being on their toes. For two days they have been living on bully and biscuits. The fortunate and resourceful ones may have found opportunity to make a cup of tea; but a hot meal for all hands is out of the question and they do not expect to connect with a regular ration supply for two days more. There are few complaints, not much conversation of any sort. The platoon officers pass along, checking up on the supply of ammunition, grenades, etc., and acquainting them with the nature of the attack, so far as they know it. The sergeant follows, pouring for each man the allotted portion of rum: “All right, rouse up there, Johnnie; you’ll be water-logged.” “Righto, Sergeant: When do the fireworks begin?” “This is about all there’ll be till the sun gets high enough for observation.” “Well, this is not so bad; they’re wicked-sounding bastards. Cheerio.”

  Presently he returns, shaking his water-bottle, in which there still remains four rations. Tomorrow and next day there will be a much greater excess, because the casualties will not yet show on the strength-return.

  “Say, Sergeant, I think I ought to have one of them; Smith was my buddy.”

  “I’ll give it to you in a few minutes. You probably won’t know it, but I’ll hold your head up and pour it in.”