And We Go On

by Will R Bird

  Word came that we were to be relieved by a battalion that had just come from Egypt, the King’s Liverpool Regiment, and that we were to go to Wailly. My eye was much better and I had done a turn on listening post when they arrived. A new officer had just come to us, and I had had an interesting time with him. He was on duty in the trench for four hours, and was supposed to see that all the posts were all right. I offered to take him out to the listening post and he would not go. He did not make any excuses but talked plainly. He was a very nice fellow, well-bred, but a nerve wreck before reaching the front, and was simply scared stiff.

  “I can’t go over the parapet;” he said. “It’s all I can do to stay in the trench.” Then a few shells came over, going quite a distance back, and he sat down on the trench floor, huddled there. I had seen three men fear-stricken but he was the first officer I saw collapse. At Passchendale a man had suddenly bolted when Gordon was killed. His nerves gave way. He had been ten months at the front and his chum had been killed the day before. He threw away his rifle and equipment and ran, plunging hip deep in mire, struggling free, plunging again, tearing, breathing and snorting like a runaway horse, until he was gone from view. He went back to Ypres unchecked, hid there in cellars and calmed enough to join us when we went out of the line. Then he went with us to Bourecq and gradually recovered himself. No one said anything to him and he was quite a man again, doing all the long trip without flunking. On the night that Tommy and I had gone to the company headquarters and won over one hundred francs at banker there had been heavy shelling near one of our posts and a sentry had suddenly bolted to the dugout and refused to leave it. He had been in France for several months and the long session of that spring had unnerved him. Hughes was his corporal and he did not report him, but was kind to him and had hot tea with him at midnight. After twenty-four hours the fellow regained his control and was all right. The third man quit at Vimy, but had been blown up by a “minnie” near La Salle Avenue and was partially shell-shocked.

  I talked with the officer, fearing that the captain would come along the trench and find him, and after a time he sat up on a firestep beside me and there told me how he had enlisted because he felt he ought to, how he had been held back by different circumstances, and had been content so long as they were not of his own planning, and now that the ordeal had come he could not meet it. I never heard a more honest statement. He stayed his turn, however, and gradually conquered himself until he could go over the parapet, but it took more from him than for another man to go into battle, and in a short time he was a physical wreck. No one could estimate the courage of that chap, what effort it cost him to stay under gun fire, and I believed more than ever that the bravest men in France were not those who did great deeds when officers were watching them, but the unnoticed individuals who never did anything more spectacular than their hours on sentry go or trench duty – when every sixty minutes held the agony of a torture rack.

  The “Egyptians,” as we called them, were even worse than we had feared. They knew nothing about trench fighting or the Germans, and an order came that a number of us were to stay with them until just before morning and show them the rounds. Tommy and Sparky and I were three of the men detailed and we had an exciting time. The officer in charge came to us and asked where he could keep his horse while the battalion was in the trenches. He actually thought that he could ride back and forth from headquarters under cover of darkness and so save himself considerable walking. Then he asked about rifle fire and the next we saw was several of his men going out with bits of rag and paper which they fixed in the wire. They were going to do the “five-rounds-rapid” stuff in the morning and he wanted some target for his men to use. We advised him to do his shooting some other time and explained just how proficient the Hun snipers were. We showed him the listening posts and I went out with two of his men and established them at one, explaining carefully the use of the signal wire. As I went in a bomb came hurtling at me from the post I had left. The sentry there had the signal wire to his wrist and yet he hurled a Mills grenade at me and only the fact that he did not know enough to pull the safety pin of the bomb saved me.

  Tommy saw what happened. “Where’s the officers?” he snorted. “Why didn’t they stay and show these chaps the wrinkles? We’ll be killed if we stay around here – I’m going.”

  He went, and I looked for Sparky. He, too, had flown and I followed quickly. As I went along the trench I asked for the others from the rest of the company. Not a man was there. All the Black Watch had hurried from that zone.

  At Wailly there was talk of an inspection and as I had a troublesome tooth I reported for dental parade, thinking to escape a hot march and standing to attention before a row of brass hats. The dental headquarters were in the next village and I had quite a tramp over dusty roads. When I got there I was hardly in my chair before “Crash! Slam! Crash!” came three heavy explosions. The building rocked. Bricks fell, glass shattered, dust rose in clouds. There were yells in the street, calls for stretcher bearers. A trio of German bombing planes, flying very high, had unloosed their loads as they passed over the village. Several men in the street were killed or wounded and I forgot all about toothache. The dentist told me to come back the next day but I postponed the appointment. When I got back to Wailly I found that there had not been an inspection, and the laugh was on me. My brother came to see me and we went to an estaminet to meet some of the other chaps. A drunken A.S.C. man rode his horse right in the door and about the tables and wrecked much furniture. We hurried away from the place.

  Outside we met a man of the first division who told us that they had captured a spy near Noulles mines. Spies were often the main topic in a billet and there were always cookhouse rumours about them. I had seen one captured but did not know what was happening until it was all over. Tommy and I had been on one of our visits to other battalions and were passing through a village on the way back when we saw a man up one of the concrete telephone poles. He had on an engineer’s uniform and was working at the wires. Tommy knew a chap in some R.E. outfit and after we had gone by he turned and said he would ask the chap what company or battalion he belonged to. Before we reached him again a sergeant and another private were at the bottom of the pole and asking questions. The sergeant said “What do you belong to?” “The Royal Engineers,” the fellow answered.

  “Come down,” said the sergeant. “I want to talk to you.”

  The fellow descended and at once the waiting pair gathered him in, making him walk between them. We stayed around for an hour to find out what was happening and were told that the man up the pole was a German spy, and that he had been tapping the wires for almost two weeks without being caught.

  We told the First Division man about the “Egyptians” and in turn he told us about a spree his company had had with a fat major. They were in the ruins near St. Pierre and had come out of the line with a German prisoner, a young good-looking lad who was very scared. Some of the men had unearthed some French finery about the buildings and while waiting for an escort to take the German back to the cages they dressed him in the rigout, even to the bonnet. The young Hun got more alarmed than ever and when a fat major suddenly rounded a corner and met him the prisoner threw his arms around the officer’s neck and wept on his rather expansive bosom. His captors were at first alarmed as to what might happen but they forgot their fears when the stout major patted “her” on the back and assured “her” that he would protect her from the rude soldiers.

  We went to baths on our march back and then kept on going. Every man asked questions but an order was pasted in our paybooks. It read: “Keep your mouth shut,” and finished with a warning not to talk to the French people or anyone about our movements. At one place where we stopped for a meal a sick parade was in progress. The men belonged to a labour battalion. Tommy and I strolled by and watched. The first man was a dreary-looking specimen. He was badly bowed in the legs and was pale of features. On his head was a drooping balaclava cap and he wore a blanket squaw
fashion.

  The corporal escorting him saluted the medical officer and we heard his voice through the open window. “’E syses ’e’s dyin’, sir.” We could not catch the medical man’s rejoinder.

  Giger got drunk again and we discovered him in a French house singing to the inmates. He had one line and was repeating it with joyous vigor, though applause was lacking. “Allons infants dee la pattree,” he chanted, “la joor de glory is arrivay.” We could not bear to interrupt him.

  And now we all knew that something big was looming on the horizon. Soldiers were on the move everywhere. The very air was tense. We went back through areas that the soldiers did not penetrate often and in one little village the French were much excited as they saw our kilts and the pipe band. We passed waving cornfields, little cottages with red roofs, old peasants driving big white Percherons with a single rein, poplar and willow trees along canal banks, placid waters, went endless kilometers on long straight roads lined by tall trees, with a crucifix at every crossway. On, on we went, no one knew whither, until at last we were at Amiens. It was a big city, but empty sounding as we went through streets on the outskirts. Tommy and I looked to see the cathedral, that our guide book said was the finest Gothic structure in existence. We stayed a time, as those in command were inquiring the way, in a barn-like building, and most of the boys marched about it in a mock procession. They were all excited, all thrilled with big expectancies. I did not want to think myself morbid and so did not say anything to Tommy about it, but all that journey I saw the old crowd in the cars as we went up to Passchendale; Melville and the Professor and Mickey and Ira and Jennings; all that gallant band who had been together all the summer, singing, joking, frolicking, now and then quieting to wonder where their path might end.

  Tulloch kept talking about getting a blighty, Thompson kept by him like a brother, saying little. Batten and Ted and Rees and Harvey were as youngsters, which they were. Russell blustered about in his usual fashion, now and then subdued by “Old Bill” or Barron or “Waterbottle,” Thornton hummed in his happy way. Earle and Williams and Lockerbie and Murray were always together. Sykes had his books with him, and so did Christensen. Honor sang all the time. Sparky stuck with Mills and Jones. McPhee grinned at every one and the boys tumbled him about. Morris, the odd man, kept by himself; the other Morris and Walton were together. Eddie was a serious sergeant; he had got the military medal for his part in the raid at Long Alley. Hayward had come back to us. Cockburn was with Haldane and Peeples, telling them of Vimy. Our sergeant was an “original” who had been on jobs in back places, a very tall man we dubbed “Lofty.” Our corporals were Hughes, good-natured as ever; “Ab,” another oldtimer recently returned, and Geordie, a good-looking, quick-moving soldier back from Blighty for the third time, having been twice wounded. Smaillie was also with us after his long stay in England.

  We left the city and marched out to a little village in the suburbs, a street of houses on a slope across the river. There was a small factory near the stream and the employees were all girls, a fact which did not deter the boys from having a luxurious swim in the sun-warmed water. At our billet an order was posted forbidding soldiers to take anything from the gardens. Rations had not kept up with us on our trek and we were unable to buy food in the little village. We waited till dark, and no bread and bully arrived. So Tommy and I went out and got a big kettle full of vegetables from a weed-grown garden. We cleaned them and put them on to boil. There was plenty of coal in the shed at the back of our cottage and the stove was a good one. We simply put out all lights and kept the door locked and no one came near us. After an anxious half hour our dinner was cooked and we ate our fill, then called in Sparky and Jones and Mills to help finish it.

  In the morning two Yanks came among us. They had a camera and were taking pictures everywhere. They got us to pose for them outside the houses, singly, in groups, with our equipment on, every way. I gave them my address and they promised to send us a few of the snaps, but we never heard from them again. Then came a message that stunned us. The colonel had been killed!

  He had been out the afternoon before to visit the line to which we were going and a shell had come suddenly and struck him down. There were colonels and colonels in the Corps. Some that the men swore at and some they swore by. I visited nearly every battalion in our division from time to time, and several in the second and fourth divisions and I never was in the company of any other “crowd” where love for their commander was as spontaneous and unanimous as in ours. We had bad eggs among us at times, all kinds of soldiers, but I never heard one of them say anything against the “old man.” I never had conversation with him, but when at headquarters and on parade grounds it was easy to see that he was that which all officers were not – a perfect gentleman. He had no “command,” his voice was not fitted for it, and yet could get snappier moves from the battalion than any other. His death was a calamity to us; we feared that we would not get another of his kind. I was called to go to fall in with a number of men who were to form the firing party. We cleaned and polished our equipment and looked our best.

  We left our little village, St. Fuscien, on the 6th of August, marching off at dusk, and our route lay through Boves. It seemed as if every other battalion and battery, every branch of the service had also decided to move that night, and in the same direction. We did not make much more than one mile an hour. The road was practically blocked with traffic. Limbers and men were close-packed. Mules with transport, horses with field guns, tractors with heavy artillery, great lumbering, clanking tanks, followed each other in close succession. We were forced to ditches, in places to fields, and in and among the traffic saw messengers on motor cycles, even cars with loads of brass hats. Never had we seen such a jumble of traffic. If the German bombers had come overhead that night they would have made a ghastly killing.

  It was nearly morning before we arrived in Gentelle Wood. Thousands of other soldiers were there, but all the wood was laid off in areas and each man stayed in his battalion square. Some of the men made shelters of branches and ground sheets, some tried to dig in. Tommy and I spread our beds on moss, lay down together and slept. Overhead the stars were twinkling. All around us was a hum, a murmur of voices and mild confusion. In the distance the tanks were still clanking and tractors were grinding. Farther away the guns were shelling in a spasmodic manner. Rumour had it that we were to join in an attack that would extend for twenty miles, that it was going to be a battle that would not be over until we had broken the Hun line. So we slept there together and dreamt of home.

  The next day dawned bright and clear. Someone said it was Sunday and Giger wanted to know if there would be a church parade. Orders came for us to lie low, that there was to be no unnecessary movement. Tommy said that the army was improving. The fact that they did not fall us in and make us listen to the padre and officers sing “Fight the Good Fight,” showed that intelligence was beginning to seep into headquarters. He had changed. The impulsive headlong boy who was continually in hot water had become a background cynic. Only once that summer had I had difficulty in curbing him. We were by a river where we could bathe each evening, and did. We also washed our shirts and socks and were cleaner than we had been any time previously. Yet headquarters did its stuff. We were forced to fall in and march about six miles over a hot, dusty road to baths, an old building where a huge pump was manipulated by one relay of men while the others stood inside in tubs and waited with bowed heads for seventeen drops of cold water. After these had trickled down the spine we were to get torn, wrinkled, buttonless shirts in place of our clean ones and after dressing go around and wring seventeen exquisite drops on the bent bodies waiting their turn. After this ritual was duly carried out, we marched back over the hot dusty road and when dismissed went straight to the river and washed away the sweat and dust and were clean again. Our shirts that we had scrubbed and mended and sewed buttons on were gone, but we mended the ones we had received in their places and expressed our emotions in choruses that woul
d have moved an adjutant to tears. Tommy had almost gone wild. His issue had been a garment composed of two pieces. The front of the shirt was flimsy cotton, the back of material of which horse blankets are usually made. “Old Bill” told him it was for use in draughty buildings; all that was necessary was to keep your back to the opening. Tommy, fortunately, was able to “salvage” a shirt from one of the batmen.

  The sergeants were busy all that day. They distributed Mills bombs, and bandoliers, and field dressings, and ground flares, everything but the shovels and sandbags we had got in the Salient. Then we had dinner. The day was clear and sunny. Every time an aeroplane wheeled overhead we cringed and looked up, but our airmen were on the job and no black-crossed hawks were sighted. Poker games were in progress. Other men wrote letters. Some sat together, chatting a little, mostly busy with their thoughts. Then, at dark, water bottles were filled and all was ready.

  I was called by the sergeant-major and told that I must go to the assembly point, learn the route, and return and guide the company in. I left everything but my gas mask and went with the other scouts and guides. It was almost a mile to where we were moving, a deep trench south of the Amiens-Roye road. After finding the position “D” company would occupy I hurried back with a man from headquarters, and after getting into my harness joined the captain and led the way. It had turned bitterly cold and the men were impatient, but the great rustle of much movement all along the front soon stilled them. There was something in the night that seemed pregnant with sudden violence, as if at any time some smashing, crashing chaos might envelope all that area. Everyone grew silent, never complaining as we threaded in and out in snaky fashion to avoid other companies, and we were too amazed to say anything when we saw field guns being wheeled to postions just behind our trench. There were no pits for them or camouflage, and it showed just what the expectations were.