“Lie here,” whispered the officer, “and keep a sharp look-out for German patrols. Fire if you see them and give the alarm. There’s a patrol of our own out on the right, so make sure before you fire. There’s a couple of bombs somewhere in the shell-hole. You’ll be relieved in an hour.”
“Very good, sir.”
The officer crawled away, and Winterbourne remained alone in No Man’s Land, about twenty-five yards in front of the British line. He could hear the soft, dull thuds of picks and shovels from the men working the sap, and a very faint murmur as they talked in whispers. A Verey light hissed up from the English lines, and he strained his eyes for the possible enemy patrol. In the brief light he saw nothing but the irregular masses of German wire, the broken line of their parapet, shell-holes and debris, and the large stump of a dead tree. Just as the bright magnesium turned in its luminous parabola, a hidden machine-gun, not thirty yards from Winterbourne, went off with a loud crackle of bullets like the engine of a motor-bicycle. He started, and nearly pulled the trigger of his rifle. Then silence. A British sentry coughed with a deep hacking sound; then from the distance came the hollow coughing of a German sentry. Eerie sounds in the pallid moonlight. “Ping!” went a sniper’s rifle. It was horribly cold. Winterbourne was shivering, partly from cold, partly from excitement.
Interminable minutes passed. He grew colder and colder. Occasionally a few shells from one side or the other went wailing overhead and crashed somewhere in the back areas. About four hundred yards away to his left began a series of loud, shattering detonations. He strained his eyes, and could just see the flash of the explosion and the dark column of smoke and debris. These were German trench-mortars, the dreaded “minnies”, although he did not know it.
Nothing different happened until about three-quarters of an hour had passed. Winterbourne got colder and colder, felt he had been out there at least three hours, and thought he must have been forgotten. He shivered with cold. Suddenly he thought he saw something move to his right, just outside the wire. He gazed intently, all tense and alert. Yes, a dark something was moving. It stopped, and seemed to vanish. Then near it another dark figure moved, and then a third. It was a patrol, making for the gap in the wire in front of Winterbourne. Were they Germans or British? He pointed his rifle towards them, got the bombs ready, and waited. They came nearer and nearer. Just before they got to the wire, Winterbourne challenged in a loud whisper:
“Halt, who are you?”
All three figures instantly disappeared.
“Halt, who are you?”
“Friend,” came a low answer.
“Give the word or I fire.”
“Lantern.”
“All right.”
One of the men crawled through the wire to Winterbourne, followed by the other two. They wore balaclava helmets, and carried revolvers.
“Are you the patrol?” whispered Winterbourne.
“Who the fuckin’ hell d’you think we are? Father Christmas? What are you doin’ out here?”
“Pioneers digging a sap about fifteen yards behind.”
“Are you Pioneers?”
“Yes.”
“Got a bit o’ candle, chum?”
“Sorry, I haven’t; we don’t get them issued.”
The patrol crawled off, and Winterbourne heard an alarmed challenge from the men working in the sap, and the word “Lantern”. A Verey light went up from the German lines just as the patrol were crawling over the parapet. A German sentry fired his rifle and a machine-gun started up. The patrol dropped hastily into the trench. The machine-gun bullets whistled cruelly past Winterbourne’s head – zwiss, zwiss, zwiss. He crouched down in the hole. Zwiss, zwiss, zwiss. Then silence. He lifted his head, and continued to watch. For two or three minutes there was complete silence. The men in the sap seemed to have knocked off work, and made no sound. Winterbourne listened intently. No sound. It was the most ghostly, desolate, deathly silence he had ever experienced. He had never imagined that death could be so deathly. The feeling of annihilation, of the end of existence, of a dead planet of the dead arrested in a dead time and space, penetrated his flesh along with the cold. He shuddered. So frozen, so desolate, so dead a world – everything smashed and lying inertly broken. Then “crack – ping!” went a sniper’s rifle, and a battery of field-guns opened out with salvoes about half a mile to his right. The machine-guns began again. The noise was a relief after that ghastly dead silence.
At last the N.C.O. came crawling out from the sap with another man to relieve him. A Verey light shot up from the German line in their direction, just as the two men reached him. All three crouched motionless, as the accurate German machine-gun fire swept the British trench parapet – zwiss, zwiss, zwiss, the flights of bullets went over them. Winterbourne saw a strand of wire just in front of him suddenly flip up in the air where a low bullet had struck it. Quite near enough – not six inches above his head.
They crawled back to the sap, and Winterbourne tumbled in. He found himself face to face with the platoon officer, Lieutenant Evans. Winterbourne was shivering uncontrollably; he felt utterly chilled. His whole body was numb, his hands stiff, his legs one ache of cold from the knees down. He realized the cogency of the Adjutant’s farewell hint about looking after feet and decided to drop his indifference to goose grease and neat’s-foot oil.
“Cold?” asked the officer.
“It’s bitterly cold out there, sir,” said Winterbourne through chattering teeth.
“Here, take a drink of this,” and Evans held out a small flask.
Winterbourne took the flask in his cold-shaken hand. It chinked roughly against his teeth as he took a gulp of the terrifically-potent Army rum. The strong liquor half-choked him, burned his throat, and made his eyes water. Almost immediately he felt the deadly chill beginning to lessen. But he still shivered.
“Good Lord, man, you’re frozen,” said Evans. “I thought it was colder than ever tonight. It’s no weather for lying in No Man’s Land. Corporal, you’ll have to change that sentry every half-hour – an hour’s too long in this frost.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Have some more rum?” asked Evans.
“No, thanks, sir,” replied Winterbourne; “I’m quite all right now. I can warm up with some digging.”
“No; get your rifle and come with me.”
Evans started off briskly down the trench to visit the other working parties. About a hundred yards from the sap he climbed out of the trench over the parados; Winterbourne scrambled after, more impeded by his chilled limbs, his rifle and heavier equipment. Evans gave him a hand up. They walked about another hundred yards over the top, and then reached the place where Several parties were digging trench-mortar emplacements.
The N.C.O. saw them coming and climbed out of one of the holes to meet them.
“Getting on all right, Sergeant?”
“Ground’s very hard, sir.”
“I know, but – ”
Zwiss, zwiss, zwiss, zwiss came a rush of bullets, following the rapid tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat of a machine-gun. The Sergeant ducked double. Evans remained calmly standing. Seeing his unconcern, Winterbourne also remained upright.
“I know the ground’s hard,” said Evans, “but those emplacements are urgently needed. Headquarters were at us again today about them. I’ll see how you’re getting on.”
The Sergeant hastily scuttled into one of the deep emplacements, followed in a more leisurely way by the officer. Winterbourne remained standing on top, and listened to Evans as he urged the men to get a move on. Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Zwiss, zwiss, zwiss, very close this time. Winterbourne felt a slight creep in his spine; but since Evans had not moved before, he decided that the right thing was to stand still. Evans visited each of the four emplacements, and then made straight for the front line. He paused at the parados.
“We’re pretty close to the Boche front line here. He’s got a machine-gun post about a hundred and fifty yards over there.”
Tat-
tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Zwiss, zwiss, zwiss.
“Look! Over there.”
Winterbourne just caught a glimpse of the quick flashes.
“Damn !” said Evans. “I forgot to bring my prismatic compass tonight. We might have taken a bearing on them, and got the artillery to turf them out.”
He jumped carelessly into the trench, and Winterbourne dutifully followed. About fifty yards further on, he stopped.
“I see from your pay-book that you’re an artist in civil life.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Paint pictures, and draw?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why don’t you apply for a draughtsman’s job at Division? They need them.”
“Well, sir, I don’t particularly covet a hero’s grave, but I feel very strongly I ought to take my chance in the line along with the rest.”
“Ah! Of course. Are you a pretty good walker?”
“I used to go on walking tours in peace time, sir.”
“Well, there’s an order that every officer is to have a runner. Would you like the job of Platoon Runner? You’d have to accompany me, and you’re supposed to take my last dying orders! You’d have to learn the lie of the trenches, so as to act as guide; take my orders to N.C.O.s know enough about what’s going on to help them if I’m knocked out; and carry messages. It’s perhaps a bit more dangerous than the ordinary work, and you may have to turn out at odd hours, but it’ll get you off a certain amount of digging.”
“I’d like it very much, sir.
“All right, I’ll speak to the Major about it.”
“It’s very good of you, sir.”
“Can you find your way back to the sap? It’s about two hundred yards along this trench.”
“I’m sure I can, sir.”
“All right. Go back and report to the Corporal, and carry on.”
“Very good, sir.
“You haven’t forgotten the password?”
“No, sir – ‘Lantern’.”
About thirty yards along the trench, there was a rattle of equipment, and Winterbourne found a bayonet about two feet from his chest. It was a gas-sentry outside a Company H.Q. dug-out.
“Halt! Who are yer?”
“Lantern.”
The sentry languidly lowered his rifle.
“Fuckin’ cold tonight, mate.”
“Bloody cold.”
“What are you – Bedfords or Essex?”
“No; Pioneers.”
“Got a bit of candle to give us, mate? it’s fuckin’ dark in them dug-outs.”
“Very sorry, chum, I haven’t.”
Rather trying, this constant demand for candle-ends from the Pioneers, who were popularly supposed by the infantry to receive immense “issues” of candles. But without candles the dug-outs were merely black holes, even in the daytime, if they were any depth. They were deep on this front, since the line was a captured German trench reorganized. Hence the dug-outs faced the enemy, instead of being turned away from them.
“Oh, all right; good-night.”
“Good-night.”
Winterbourne returned to the sap, and did two more half-hour turns as sentry, and for the rest of the time picked, or shovelled the hard clods of earth into sandbags. The sandbags were then carried back to the front line and piled there to raise the parapet. It was a slow business. The sap itself was camouflaged to avoid observation. Winterbourne hadn’t the slightest idea what its object was. He was very weary and sleepy when they finally knocked off work about one in the morning. An eight-hour shift, exclusive of time taken in getting to and from the work. The men filed wearily along the trench, rifles slung on the left shoulder, picks and shovels carried on the right. Winterbourne stumbled along half-asleep with the cold and the fatigue of unaccustomed labour. He felt he didn’t mind how dangerous it was – if it was dangerous – to be a runner, provided he got some change from the dreariness of digging, and filling and carrying sandbags.
After they passed the Support line, the hitherto silent men began to talk occasionally. At Reserve they got permission to smoke. Each grabbed in his pockets for a fag, and lighted it as he stumbled along the uneven duck-boards. After what seemed an endless journey to Winterbourne, they reached the four steps, climbed up, and emerged into the now familiar ruined street. It was silent and rather ghostly in the very pale light of the new moon. They dumped their picks and shovels, went to the cook to draw their ration of hot tea, which was served from a large black dixie and tasted unpleasantly of stew. They filed past the officer, who gave each of them a rum ration. Winterbourne drank some of the tea in his billet, then took off his boots, wrapped himself up, and drank the rest. Some real warmth flushed into his chilled body. He was angry with himself for being so tired, after a cushy night on a cushy front. He wondered what Elizabeth and Fanny would say if they saw his animal gratitude for tea and rum. Fanny? Elizabeth? They had receded far from him; not so far as all the other people he knew, who had receded to several light years, but very far. “Elizabeth” and “Fanny” were now memories and names at the foot of sympathetic but rather remote letters. Drowsiness came rapidly upon him, and he fell asleep as he was thinking of the curious “zwiss, zwiss” made by machine-gun bullets passing overhead. He did not hear the two howitzers when they fired a dozen rounds before dawn.
6
EXCEPT for the episode with the officer, this specimen night may stand as a type of Winterbourne’s life in the next eight or ten days. They went up the line at dusk; they were shot at, worked, and shivered with cold; went down the line, slept, tried to clean themselves, and paraded again. Four or five times they passed corpses being carried down the trenches as they went up. There was, of course, nothing to report on the Western front.
Then, just as the monotony was becoming almost as intolerable as drilling to the home-service R.S.M.’s “Stand still, there, stand steady!” they had a night off, and were transferred to the day-shift. But this was even more tedious. They paraded soon after dawn, and worked in Hinton Alley, about two hundred yards from the Front line. Their job was to hack up the frozen mud – which was about as malleable as marble – extricate the worn duck-boards, dig “sump-holes”, and re-lay new duck-boards. A job which in moist weather might have occupied two men for half an hour, in that frost occupied four men all day.
A Lieutenant-General came along while Winterbourne was laboriously jarring his wrists, trying to hack up the marble-like mud.
“Well, and what are you doing, my man?”
“Replacing duck-boards, sir,” said Winterbourne, bringing his pick smartly to his side, and standing to attention, toes at an angle of forty-five degrees.
“Well, get on with it, my man, get on with it.”
Vive l’Empereur!
Diversions were few, but existed. There were, for instance, the rats. Winterbourne had been too much absorbed by other new experiences to pay much attention to them at first. And during the day they kept rather out of sight. One evening, just about sunset, as they were returning down Hinton Alley, there was a block in the trench. Winterbourne happened to be just at the corner of the Support line, with its damaged, revetted traverses, and piles of sandbags on the parapet. The Germans were sending up some rather fancy signal-rockets from their front line, and he was vaguely wondering what they meant, when a huge rat darted, or rather scrambled, impudently just past his head. Then he noticed that a legion of the fattest and longest rats he had ever seen were popping in and out of the crevices between the sandbags. As far as he could see down the trench in the dusk, they were swarming over parapets and parados. Such well-fed rats! He shuddered, thinking of what they had probably fed upon.
In a very short time he had become perfectly accustomed to the very mild artillery fire, sniping, and machine-gunning. No casualties had occurred in his own company, and he began to think that the dangers of the War had been exaggerated, while its physical discomforts and tedium had been greatly underestimated. The intense frost prevented his shaking off the heavy cold h
e had caught at Calais, and at the same time had given him a chill on the liver. The same thing had happened to half the men in the company, whether newcomers or old stagers; and all suffered from diarrhoea due to the cold. There was thus the added diversion of frequent visits to the latrine. Those in the line were primitive affairs consisting of biscuit-boxes and buckets, interesting from the fact that the Germans had fixed rifles trained on most of them and might get you if you happened to stand up inopportunely. If you had any sense you waited until the bullet ping-ed over, and then calmly walked out; for lack of which elementary precaution somebody occasionally was popped off. The Pioneer’s latrine, just behind their billet, was a more elaborate six-seater (without separate compartments) built over a deep trench and surrounded with sacking on posts. One of the posts had been damaged by a shell, and there were numerous rents in the sacking from shell splinters. Here Winterbourne was forced to spend a larger portion of his spare time than was pleasant in cold weather. One day when he entered he found another occupant, an artilleryman. This person was carefully examining his grey flannel shirt; and such portions of his body as were exposed to view were covered with small bloody blotches. Some horrid skin disease, Winterbourne surmised. He attended to his own urgent private affairs.
“Still terribly cold,” he ventured.
“Fuckin’ cold,” said the artilleryman, continuing absorbedly the mysterious search in his shirt.
“Those are nasty skin eruptions you have.”
“It’s them fuckin’ chats. Billet’s fair lousy with ’em.”
Chats? Lousy? Ah, of course the artilleryman was lousy. So lousy that he had been bitten all over, and had scratched himself raw. Winterbourne felt uncomfortable. He detested the idea of vermin.
“How d’you get them? Can’t you get rid of them?”
“Get ’em? Everybody gets ’em. Ain’t you chatty? And there ain’t no gettin’ rid of ’em. The clothes they gives you at the baths is as chatty as those you ‘ands in. Where there’s dug-out and billets, there’s chats; and where there’s chats, they cops yer.”
Death of a Hero Page 30