by Will R Bird
We dare not move. We were blocked by a high jumble of rubbish on one side that shadowed us, and to go the other way meant to cross their path in plain view. At long last, after we were cramped and stiff, the moon clouded, and we took a chance. We got to our feet and, keeping crouched, walked across the Hun path and into rough ground beyond. There we could crawl and use cover that would protect us from the gun. We got back safely to our trench and found that our officer was on duty, so reported to him and after much pointing showed him the location of the German gun. It was not over one hundred yards from where we stood. He promised to go to headquarters and report in full, and told us to go and have a drink of hot tea.
We went and having the rest of the night off, tried to sleep, but could not; we were too excited over what we had seen. At last we went up to the trench again and to the officer’s dugout, intending to inquire from him what the O. C. had said. The officer had a batman so furtive and small that we dubbed him “The Rat,” and he had a brazier stationed at the foot of the stairway, cooking something on it. Just inside the gas blanket at the top of the steps someone had left the empty rum jug, and as we arrived a runner came plunging by us. He was known as “Doggy,” a big, clumsy-footed youth who did not seem frightened of anything. He struck the rum jug and knocked it down the steps. It hounded through the air, striking the stairway but twice, and Doggy shouted, “Look out – rum jar.”
Bang! The rum jar struck the brazier fairly and over it went, frying-pan and all, in a flurry of sizzling flame, smoke and fumes.
We stopped and looked at each other. What would the officer say? So we about-turned and waited in the trench until Doggy appeared. He was convulsed with laughter and maintained that when he reached the dugout both the Rat and his master were trying to get back of the iron cot at the rear. As we talked with him Earle came along the trench with water cans, old petrol tins, and asked me if I would go with him in search of “do-loo.” The men were parched. Rations had been slim and it was said that the Rat had pinched the water supply in order to provide a bath for the lieutenant.
Earle and I walked and walked. The moon had gone and it was pitch dark. We had to feel our way around corners and it took us an hour to reach a water line the engineers had lain. There we filled our tins. It was just dawn and we could make out a Y.M.C.A. sign in the trench. It pointed to a cellar some distance away, but a passing soldier informed us that the place was closed, was never used in daytime and was under enemy observation. I had some money with me and had not seen a canteen for some time. Tinned fruit would be delicious, and chocolate … I set my tins down and ran out over the hard ground, using the footpath. Earle followed and we reached the entrance to the cellar, but the door had been fastened. I picked up a plank that lay there and drove in the entrance, walking in over the wreckage. We selected all we could buy and I laid the money on the counter. The man in charge slept in a nearby dugout and we knew that he would reach the place as soon as anyone. Then we did a sprint to the trench, wended our way back to the “Minnie House,” and breakfasted in style. Tommy was not well in the morning but he would not go sick. Once at Vimy he had had terrible cramps after three days of wading in slush and water, and had joined the sick parade. It was a time when the rations were short and no bully or hardtack available. All the new men circled the cook wagon like gulls and even sick men were hungry. The padre usually attended those morning sessions. He was a fluent speaker, a nice singer and really led a neat “church” service, but his place was with the officers and we all knew it. He made some remark about food and Tommy cut loose in his usual fashion, and found himself hoisted out of the place without ever being questioned. From that time on he never reported sick no matter how he felt, and would have died in a dugout before complaining in the military way.
I got him excused from duty. None of us were in good health and the long strain was telling on the nerves of many. Men were jumpy, too watchful, too quick to take alarm. Twice outposts in the ruins had tried to shoot each other. Rumour came that we were to be relieved, but we simply hooted at it; we were past believing any rumour. But it was true. At last, after fifty-five days, we were withdrawn from the trenches and taken back beyond reach of machine guns.
It gave us curious feelings to be in the back areas again, to even see French people. We were billeted in a little village and there some of the boys went wild. They got wine and brandy and were hilariously drunk, shouting and marching around their billets. Others simply walked into the fields, along the hedges, and sat down and stared about them. It seemed wonderful to be back again where one could stand straight and walk about in daylight. After that one riotous night the boys sobered and were more like themselves. We marched again, on legs unused to such exercise, on cobbles we had not trod for a long time. Flowers were everywhere and all the world was flooded with glorious sunshine. We inhaled the breath of the fields and trees and there were spasms of singing. Emotions gripped us and one felt queerly choked. We passed places where the “outside” soldiers lived, and saw hut frontages adorned by flower-pots, white-washed stone circles and crests and doodads that did not seem to us in accord with war.
And then we came to St. Hilaire. It was a village of friendly people and there were shops and places where we could buy eggs and chips. We were billeted in barns, on clean straw, and after vigorous bathing and clean shirts felt more like living again. It was wonderful weather, sunny, warm, balmy. Poppies were like blood drops on banks of green, and the white-walled cottages seemed to enhance the verdure of the fields. Rations improved and parades were sensible. It was good to have survived the spring.
We slept in a ring around the building. “Old Bill” was near the door. Beside him were Walton and Morris, two husky lads who had come back to the battalion after being wounded at Vimy. Along one wall slept Harvey, a MacLean Highlander, a strong-built man; Rees, a young Welshman, with a sweet tenor voice; Thornton and myself. Along the end were Honer, another singer, suspected of having a “girl,” at Ferfay; Ted, a little Liverpool lad, Tommy and Sparky. In the next barn were Earle, and Barron, and Murray, and Hughes, “Waterbottle,” Williams and McPhee. Rats were very thick, the mud and straw walls of the buildings being honeycombed by their passages. Some of the boys tried to sleep with ground sheets over their heads, but were too warm. Our officer had gone from the line. He was indisposed. Four months up front was a long time for one of his kind. Tommy and I found out that he had never reported our location of the gun post; it was his turn to lead a raid.
Thornton slept with his mouth open and snored. I was roused by whiskers on my face one night and opened my eyes to see a huge rat scanning me gravely. He backed a trifle as I looked at him and pushed himself into the palm of my hand. Instantly I pitched him towards Thornton. There was an odd, choking gurgle, a strangling noise, a squeal. The rat had dived into Thornton’s widespread mouth and Thornton had convulsively closed his teeth on the rodent’s head. The rat’s feet had clawed wildly on his chin and when Thornton released his mouthful the creature squealed as it sprang away and into the wall. Thornton sat up and spit for an hour afterwards and I rolled in mirth.
Honor was frightened of the rats. He sat up several times in the night and fought them with clubs he had brought in to his bed. We cut cheese into small fragments and slyly scattered them in the straw about his head. That night the rats came in gangs. Honor sat up with his clubs and a candle and held them off until one o’clock in the morning when he took his ground sheet and went outside. He finished the night under an apple tree.
We all began sleeping outside. The nights were deliciously cool and fragrant. Our cooks were down the street a distance, and when reveille blew we never roused. At the breakfast call we simply got up and reached for our mess-tins. Shortly there would be a parade that never failed to bring mirthful cackles from the peasants coming into the village with their dogs drawing two-wheeled carts. We went without our kilts, in shirts and boots, digging the sleep from our eyes, and then paraded back with steaming tea and porridge on w
hich reposed strips of bacon.
I got acquainted with many of the new men. Some of them were good singers and entertainers and we had splendid evenings around the different farms. We got eggs and chips each night and I began to put on flesh again. Tommy was like himself once more. Christensen got books from some source and he and Sykes, who was our stretcher bearer, spent much time in reading. Eddie was the sergeant of thirteen platoon and we became accustomed to a new regimental the boys called “The Farmer.” He had a slow way of speaking and walked as if following a plow. MacFarlane had been wounded.
Cockburn, who had been wounded at the same time as Laurie, returned to the battalion, and I got to know Haldane and Peeples, two big tall men who had come with the MacLean kilties. Then I got leave for a day and went over the country with a brigade signaller, a lad from my home town. Chinese labour battalions were everywhere, digging trenches, and we watched their curious way of shovelling. They used round shovels with very long handles and always had earth in the air, keeping the shovel going all the time and only taking a third as much gravel as we would lift. They carried their dixies of rice and tea level full, having them suspended from poles that sagged and allowed the dixie to swing, but they never spilled a drop, the carriers walking in a spring-kneed fashion. Some of them were enormous brutes, working in baggy trousers, naked from the waist. They had their own clothing and customs and were “bossed” by their own foremen, all being under British sergeants. We saw two of them scrapping, clawing and pulling at each other like school girls, and judged that one good white man could handle two or three of them. At night they had a band, each instrument having one string, and each drummer but one drumstick, and they played a weird music that was monotonous and doleful. They slept in ditches, lining the road for half a mile, or under bridges and would not lie in the open, fearing the German bombing planes.
Several times we heard the dread humming of the big Gothas and one night they came very near, dropping their loads between St. Hilaire and Bourecq, the next village. The Chinese ran all over the fields, jabbering and chattering, and were straggled for miles around before morning. Our lads found that they would buy bully and the cooks had a hard time keeping a supply on hand. Poker was the chief recreation after payday while crown-and-anchor men were always to be found. There was very little drinking, and not over three drunks came in all the time we were out on rest. Giger had had severe warnings. His latest “spill” had been the statement that he knew an archduke had started the war and that he had been killed for it.
On Sundays Earle and I walked to Lozingham, where we had billeted the previous summer. The 85th were there. I visited my brother and many other boys I knew, and always had our supper there. At night we walked back, nine kilometers, and did not mind the distance at all. The brigade signaller managed to arrange a day with one of the cars and we went away down south, passing a field where an inspection was in progress, men standing rigidly to attention before the scrutiny of an impressive group of brass hats, immaculate in ribbons and spurs and monocles. We saw more droves of Chinks, and Sengalese, strange, soft-eyed fellows with their hair done up in black buns, and there were Frenchman wearing red trousers and gay braid. At noon we got dinner with a Yank, a corporal, who had a brother in the fourth division. He was eager to talk about the war and luridly condemned his own people for not entering it sooner and for being so long in getting into action. He himself had been five months in camp and was fed-up with drilling.
There were rumours of field manoeuvres and trucks came and took us over the country. We were marched into long lines and imaginary positions, and had day-long picnics. Some of the officers took it seriously and bawled us out in harsh language, but the older ones were very calm and it did not break their hearts to see us lying on the soft gray banks and contemplating skylarks. Messages would be sent, and mixed into a mystery; we would go where we were not supposed to go; smoke bombs would be used at the wrong time.
Some of the manoeuvres were huge affairs, and one nice morning we were disturbed by furious voices and rose hastily to see the Corps commander and some of his staff. They did not seem pleased with the way we continually took cover and our officers covertly implored more action. At one point a village crossed our “battle ground” and we charged it heartily – at the wrong time – and rushed a Y.M.C.A. tent that was serving cocoa and biscuits to hungry soldiers. An enraged officer followed us in and wholesale murder was in his eye. He sent men out in various directions and followed some of them – while the first out returned by another way. At night we lay around the billets and related the incidents of the day and planned fresh frolic for the morrow. It was a wonderful vacation.
One afternoon Sparky and Tommy and I were “casualties” near a French house. After the company had gone we went in and talked with madame in the kitchen. She could speak English as well as we could her language and we got on famously together. She made coffee for us and fried eggs and was very kind. We wondered what made her so eager to help us and she said it was because she had “a Tommy.”
We looked at Tommy and laughed as he blushed, but our grins faded when she went to the door of an inner room and led an apparently old man into view. The fellow’s hair was white-streaked and he tottered as he walked. His eyes once seen could never be entirely forgotten. They were dreadful, blue orbs, distended, unwinking, and staring with a horror that startled us. “He is twenty-three,” said madame, “and my only living son. There were two more but they are dead. This boy, Henri, was at Verdun. His mind is what you call at the halt – it cannot get past Verdun. He was wounded there, with dead men on him, and could not move. A day and a night he was like that and now, in his mind, he is still there.”
We expected to hear her breathe maledictions on the boche, as some of the French did, but she did not utter a word of hate. The poor creature she led would not remain where we were but slunk back into the darkened room. He would never, his mother said, go out into the fields or gardens, and his face was the waxen colour of death. For days after I could visualize his ghastly features and those awful staring eyes. We could see that he had been Tommy’s twin in physique but it was difficult to believe that he had once the same red cheeks and impetuous, high-held chin.
The next few days brought rumours of big battles to be fought, and the company seemed to steady overnight.
CHAPTER VII
In a German Trench
We found a little estaminet between our village and Bourecq, a small house managed by a gaunt, bony-faced woman with eye sockets like a skull. A varied company used to gather there each night and spend money freely, but, like the widow’s cruse, it never seemed to run dry of wine or coffee. It was there we met old “Peter.” We never knew him by any other name. He belonged to the R.C.R.’s and was a hard-bitten, fantastic old soldier used for odd duties. Tommy sympathized with him regarding his regiment’s well-known liking for brasso and blanco, and was soon in his confidence. Peter wanted to win a medal. He had had nineteen months in the line without receiving the slightest recognition of his worth, and it grieved him.
“Some bleedin’ pup comes over wot has money and goes in the line five minutes and has a Military Cross stuck on his chest,” he wheezed. “Wot for, I awsks yer? Nobody knows. Some chap’ll come fresh and dandy from Blighty and be feelin’ good as he gits in a big scrap. He pulls some blinkin’ stunt and up goes a V.C. ’Course he’s likely won the trinket, but I awsks yer, wot would he be like if he’d had a year first in the muck. Jist like any of us, I tells yer, with his tail draggin’ and only watchin’ his own hide.”
He had been crimed once for striking a sergeant. Up in the crater line at Vimy one night when it was raining in French style a messenger had said that the non-com wanted to see him. Peter asked if morning would not do, as he would be obliged to go overland to get to the sergeant’s dugout, the sap having been blown in by Minnenwefers. No, it was urgent, so after Peter got through his turn on post he wallowed through the mire – and got caught by machine gun fire. For ove
r half an hour he was forced to stay back of the trench, soaked, chilled, cramped, trying to lie flatter each time the gun fired. Then at last, after twice falling into water-filled craters, mud from hoofs to horns, dead beat, wet to the skin, fed up to the back teeth, he reached the sergeant’s shelter where that three-striped authority had remained in dry comfort-and the non-com wished to know the number of his rifle.
“I soaked him a good one,” said Peter. “Number of me blinkin’ rifle! I hit him hard, I did.”
He told us of another place they had been, some area on the Somme. They were hurried up after dark, before they had rations drawn, to repulse an expected German attack. It had rained a steady drizzle, and when they got to their place there was not a flare going up. They lay in a ditch, without definite orders, without food, without wire in front of them, waiting for an attack that never came, and just before daylight discovered that they were in the rear of the second defense line. “It were a terrible night,” he said. “We couldn’t move then, it were too late and we were perished with cold. When it’s light we sees a trench we could have used, and up it comes a brigadier, with blood in his eye – the only time I seen one in the line – and a carload of brass hats in tow, and we gets it proper. It’s a gime, a bleedin’ gime, strite it is.”
He was a find for us. We went there for several nights until we had heard all his tales, and his wish for a decoration was pathetic. “Barin’ a bit of ribbon to wear for the old girl’s sake,” he said, “there’s the ornament itself to have in yer parlour. If I don’t get it mytes, I hopes I gits mine in no man’s land, that’s all.”
And then we drew from him another queer idea. He considered that to be killed out in front, between the lines, the most fitting death a soldier could die. “Let the shells bury me,” he grunted. “It’s the plice for Peter, if I has to get me ticket.”