In Great Spirits

by Archie Barwick

  Well we reached our job at last, & a nice one it was rebuilding an old trench that the Germans smashed to pieces on the Canadians in June. I took an outpost out in no man’s land, a pretty risky job. We were there to protect our men from surprise attacks by the Germans, for you know the trenches are not continuous & both sides have patrols out constantly. Already our boys have some scraps with them & rushed them out of some shell holes & craters. It seems impossible to hold Australians back; they will have a smack at anything.

  About 11 o’clock we got a shock, for the Germans opened a terrific mortar bombardment on our trenches & they gave us particular Hell. You could count as many as 10 in the air at once & you can see them quite plainly for they leave a trail of sparks behind them & when they turn in the air they glow like red hot bulbs (the pace they travel at generates the heat). You can hear them coming down quite plainly & if the timing of the fuse is a little slow you can hear them hit the soft ground with a thud & dig right in. They are fairly harmless then for you have time to get away from them but I don’t like those that burst in the air or percussion, for they are very dangerous. Would you believe it, these bombs weigh no less than 180 lbs so you can imagine what kind of a row was on, especially when you add aerial torpedoes (a very dangerous weapon), hand bombs & rifle grenades & on top of this a few howitzers. It’s wonderful how men escape from being exterminated; it seems impossible that human beings can live in it. I’m afraid my nerves are beginning to give a little, but can you wonder for I have been through something that would make 99% of men go under & I can’t complain about them.

  This bombardment continued for an hour & I was very lucky, for I had just got an order to join the Coy & bring my men in when one of these enormous “oil drum” bombs landed right where our outpost was stationed. Providence again I reckon, for had we been there it would have been goodbye the lot & we should never have seen Australia again, but there you are, luck again. The trench we were building came in very handy, for that practically saved us & I can tell you we hugged it closely. I don’t know what their object could have been for there was no method in their shelling. They shot their bombs anywhere & most of them fell — where from our point of view, where they all ought to go — out in an open grass paddock. That’s the place for them.

  After it had all died down we resumed our work & knocked off at 2.30. We reached home thoroughly tired out & wet to the skin & soon all were fast asleep after a most adventurous night.

  There is a rumour going round this morning to the effect that all those who took part in the Landing, Lone Pine & Evacuation are to have a distinctive mark on their colours, some say the letter A let into the colours. Both Len & I would be among the few to be honoured.

  Our artillery has been going hammer & tongs most of the day, tearing it into old Fritz’s trenches & positions.

  We have a small Y.M.C.A. canteen in our line of dugouts but the principal things they seem to have are candles & cigarettes. Now & again they get a supply in but it does not last long for they are soon sold out.

  We lay in bed till just on dinner time for it was raining heavily all the morning & it still continues to pour down. A nice time we will have of it tonight, what oh.

  6th September. Fell in last night in pouring rain, & just before we moved off we got an order to get into our dugouts for a while, but about half an hour after we were called out & went up to the work. We had to carry a lot of duckboards & hurdles with us for we were going to put down a floor in the portion of trenches we had completed. A nice job it was for there was easily a foot of water & slush in the bottom & the men had to work in this. We finished at 2 o’clock.

  The 2nd Battalion got a nasty dishing up last night. Had 18 men killed including 2 Capt & 4 Lieut’s. Aerial torpedoes got them I believe.

  The following is a parody on “Sing Me to Sleep” & is a great favourite among the boys.

  Sing me to sleep, the bullets fall

  Let me forget the war & all

  Damp is my dugout, cold is my feet

  Nothing but biscuits & bully to eat

  Far far from Pozières I want to be

  Where German snipers can’t pot at me

  Think of me crouching where the worms creep

  Waiting for shrapnel to sing me to sleep

  Sing me to sleep where bombs explode

  And shrapnel shells are à la mode

  Or the sandbags behind me you’ll find

  Corpses in front of you, corpses behind

  This evening we moved from our dugouts to let the 2nd Batt in. We shifted round towards our Hqrs. The dugouts here are built under the railway line & are not much good for they are so crowded.

  7th September. There was another great air raid last night. You could hear the engines whirring for hours as they passed overhead, & the Germans were searching the sky with their searchlights but they could not find them. What a time they are having over Germany way. They are beaten absolutely now but they won’t admit it as yet & again this morning another fleet of 27 went over. Didn’t the Huns tear it into them but the planes took absolutely no notice of it, no more than if it were a storm of eggshells they were shooting at them. They are cool alright are our airmen.

  We are going into the trenches tonight, “supports” I think. Len took 3 men up last night to act as guides.

  There are some water hens on a small lake quite close to us & now & again the boys pot one with the rifle.

  Last night they caught a German sniper out between the trenches & a couple of Germans gave themselves up, full to the neck of it.

  The Huns have been searching all day long for one of our batteries which is quite close to us, but they have done no damage.

  Today has been a bonzer, nice & sunny. I hope it holds fine for our stay in the trenches.

  8th September. Here we are again, back in the trenches & among the bombs & bullets. As soon as we got settled down & the 3rd Batt had filed out we started work. First I had a party cleaning out an old dugout for our cooks, for unlike the Tommies or Canadians our chaps are going to cook in the trenches & take their chance so as we can have hot meals. The others have always done without them while in these trenches for they reckon we will get blown to pieces if they catch sight of the smoke.

  There are a few Canadians left here. They belong to the Mining Batt & are tunnelling under the German lines. They reckon the whole line is mined, Ypres to Armentières, & is almost ready to blow up. There will be something doing then I’ll bet.

  Great big dugouts are being built along the line. They are about 20 feet deep & are big enough some of them to hold a hundred men nicely.

  The trenches here are in a most disgraceful state. The Canadians don’t seem to have made any attempt to keep them up to the scratch. You can wade through mud & slush a foot deep & if you dig down you will come to duckboards & galvanised iron that they have let be swamped & in some places you can dig them up on top of one another. They never bothered about draining the trenches, so it is falling to our lot to put them in working order. This morning I had 20 men from 4.30 till 11.30 taking up these duckboards & cleaning the muck out & then digging a small drain to carry the water underneath the boards. This makes a good job of it.

  The trenches are that close together that they sent a man back to the supports because he coughed too much & would give the position away.

  9th September. Had a few big bombs over last night & at “stand to” 5 o’clock this morning, 3 of them lobbed quite close to my dugout. I have a pretty severe headache this morning from the concussion of the “strafers”.

  I killed an enormous rat last night with a stone while waiting for the limbers. The place fairly swarms with the pest.

  10th September. On fatigue with a party of men last night from 8.30 till 5 o’clock in the morning. We were deepening & sandbagging a trench running round an old mine crater. We were about 12 yards from the German trenches & had to keep fairly quiet or else we would have had a shower of bombs over.

  Tucker is still pret
ty crook & just a bare existence. It takes a lot of hardships to kill a man. Since we have been in here we have not averaged 2 hours sleep per night & only 2 meals a day, & the men have worked fairly hard.

  11th September. Went into the firing line last night & relieved D Coy. Things are very, very quiet about here so far, such a difference to the Somme. The only thing we have to contend with seems to be bombs & a few shells & snipers.

  The Germans are about 75 yards away & we can hear them working away of a night, driving stakes, mixing mortar & etc. We are on the defensive here for the present, so as to allow us to get on with our work & get things shipshape for the winter, & the Huns seem quite satisfied to let things remain as they are, so it has developed into almost a neutral war, both sides saying the same: “If you don’t shoot, no more will I.”

  12th September. Last night was very miserable for it rained off & on & we had neither cover nor dugouts to take shelter in but had to stand out in the mud & slush all the time.

  Our artillery aided by some Belgian batteries have been pounding old Fritzie unmercifully nearly all day. There has been an almost constant stream of big shells howling & wailing overhead all bound for the same place: old Fritz’s lines. He made 2 attempts to retaliate but was forced to play second fiddle both times.

  As I sit here on the damp & muddy firing step I can plainly see one of our planes hanging well to the rear of the German lines, observing all that is going on.

  13th September. We were relieved last night by the 9th Batt & moved off from the firing line about 12.30. Had a long & tiresome walk of 4 miles or so to the railway. We passed through Ypres again & one could not help noticing the swarms of rats that infest the ruined city. Save for the echoing footsteps she is as silent as the grave & reminds one of a city that has been overrun by a big fire. Nearly all the buildings have the interior burnt completely out & only the walls are left standing & they all show great gaping holes where the shells have ploughed through.

  Our train was waiting for us. We were about done & our feet were as sore as could be, for we had not had them boots off since going into supports & you might know that would not improve one’s feet any. This coupled with the loss of sleep & insufficient food made us feel anything but gay; however we were not long in reaching our jumping-off place, & from here we had to walk another 2 miles to our present billets (Devonshire billets). As soon as we reached them our cooks had a hot meal ready for us, fried bacon & tea, & I can tell you it went down well at 3.30 in the morning. After this we got our packs & blankets & soon were fast asleep. We did not rise till 11 o’clock this morning.

  15th September. There is a rumour flying round tonight that this is the last mail we will be allowed to send away for 6 weeks so if that is true there must be something doing.

  This time last year we were on Lemnos Island having our spell after our hard times on the Peninsula, & if I am not back in Australia by the time September comes round again I will eat my hat.

  The 1st Battalion were specially recommended in Army Orders for the fine engineering work done by us in Ypres. I should think so for we worked day & night & we have some good men that know their work thoroughly.

  16th September. I believe our aeroplanes are reporting that the Germans are withdrawing all their big guns from the Ypres Salient, & the night before last our guns waited on them & rocked it in hot & heavy where they knew they were. I hope they don’t evacuate their position before we get our mines off. When they do go up they will account for thousands of the squareheads.

  They have got a very pretty little regulation in force now in the Batt. Whenever a man goes sick, & gets marked “medicine & duty”, he will have to do 1 hour’s extra drill per day. The object of it is of course to find the malingerers out & give them something to talk about but I’ll bet they won’t go near the Dr while this little regulation is in force. I have been terribly lucky so far as regards sickness for I have reported sick twice only since I have been in the Army: once at Tel-el-Kebir & I was sent to hospital, & again at Serapeum when I had those cracked lips & I was marked “exempt”. That’s not a bad record is it.

  18th September. Last night I was down at the Y.M.C.A. where old Mac was holding a short service & sing song — the hall was crowded. The first time we were in Pozières they had to send him back several times from the front line for he almost insisted on stopping there with the boys, but they persuaded him to remain behind & then he used to run all sorts of risks getting wounded men in, & burying the poor chaps who had been killed. Nothing is a trouble to Mac & he will share his last penny with you. One of the finest men in the whole of the Australian Forces.

  19th September. The big armoured cars, or tanks as we know them by, are all the talk at the present time. I believe they are fearful & wonderful things & are going to play an important part in this present war.

  20th September. Another miserable rainy morning. The ground around is swimming with water & is that slippery that you hardly dare trust yourself on it. You have no idea what it is like.

  This morning 1 N.C.O. was detailed from each Coy to go to the trenches, & have a look round. I was sent from our Coy & a nice job it was for it was raining heavily. We had to ride bicycles as far as Lille Gate, which is at the other end of Ypres, right on the edge of the moat. We went over to a little coffee stall which the Australian Comforts Fund has established. Many & many a man has had reason to bless this same little coffee stall, for everyone who passes through Lille Gate can have a drink of hot coffee or cocoa at any time of day or night for it is kept going all the while. I can tell you there are some deadbeat men call there at times, on their way to & from the trenches, cold, wet & hungry & hardly able to stand they are so tired, & a cup of hot coffee & a few biscuits works wonders in a man as I myself can testify. A Major Dexter started it & kept it going at his own expense till the A.C.F. took it over from him. One of the finest pieces of work they have done.

  We picked up our guides & they led us to the 6th Batt Hqrs. We had to wade through slush & mud almost to one’s knees & the duckboards having no netting on them were as slippery as could be, & it was with difficulty that we kept our feet.

  The Hqrs are in a big tunnel & here we got some runners. They took us to the respective portions of trenches which each Coy N.C.O. had to look over & a nice state they are in. Without a word of a lie you have got to plough through sticky clay a foot deep & in lots of places the duckboards are floating on top & when you tread on them down you go. Talk about a time. When we finished inspecting, we were wet to the skin & quite satisfied to make back to our bikes.

  21st September. I saw today in a French paper that when we took Pozières the French cheered along the whole of their lines from one end to the other. That’s something for Australia.

  22nd September. We are holding our sports this afternoon, & for a wonder the sun is shining brightly & things are drying fast. There was a free issue of beer down there today. You should have seen the rush when the beer was ready — some of them must have been nearly killed in the crush.

  24th September. Sunday today & we held a Brigade church parade. We had to march about a mile along a very pretty little road, lined on either side by green hop fields & young growing crops. We formed up in a square in a nice little grass paddock where we held our sports the other day.

  After the service was over General Birdwood told us of a great victory that had just been won by the Roumanians & Russians. He also said that he hoped the next time we went over the parapet we would be accompanied by some of these wonderful tanks. What a sensation they have caused, they must be a marvellous invention.

  From where I am writing this I can see one of our aeroplanes thousands of feet high. Now & again she presents a beautiful sight for she strikes the rays of the setting sun & shines & dazzles like a piece of mirror away up in the clouds, & how gracefully she flits about, with a soft droning sound from her throttled-down engines.

  26th September. At Ypres the different parties were sorted out, & off we went. My part
y was bound for the firing line, & of all the stiff & trying marches as ever I have taken part in well this was the fiercest we had. Everything we possessed including blankets, waterproof, plenty of clothing, food & 100 rounds of extra ammunition, I reckon the weight of everything to be nearly 80 lbs, & we had to hump this load over all sorts of roads, bogs, creeks, muck & everything imaginable for about 8 miles. During the march we halted only twice & they were very short. Oh we had a fine time & you could have washed yourself in each man’s sweat; our clothes were absolutely soaked through. This made us easily 16 miles for the day so you may guess how we felt. I did not care myself if a shell came & knocked me out I was that near done & there were scores more the same way, but the worst part was yet to come. We were going up the communication trench to the firing line. The trench was that narrow & at intervals of a yard there were wooden uprights to hold the sides in place & on these uprights our packs used to catch. Talk about pull, struggle & swear, well you should have heard us. I think this sort of thing is about the most aggravating thing we have to put up with & no one likes the idea of shifting about with packs up in the trenches. Well at last we arrived at our posts, & proceeded to take over from the 6th. We struck one snappy & know-all Sgt but I promptly shut him up & in front of his officer too.

  As soon as we got our posts told off the men got their packs off, & what a relief it was for the straps had cut into our shoulders & stopped the circulation of the blood. They were quite numbed & had no feeling in them, however it soon came back, but it left our shoulders very sore. We took 4 posts over of 6 men & an N.C.O. to each.

  Bright & early this morning our aeroplanes were up & over old Fritz’s lines. You could not see them for quite a long time for it was almost dark so they were losing no time.

  Things were fairly quiet till near 2 o’clock then old Fritzie took it into his head to send some of his pet bombs over — the Minenwerfers — & soon got busy. Although they have a very bad name I would far rather have them than shells for you can dodge the Minnies. You can see them as plain as day for they are just like one of those great big oil drums that you will see anywhere, & you can both hear the report when they are discharged & see them coming over. They turn over & over in the air & go up hundreds of feet high & then fall anywhere for happily they can’t range them too accurately. I think they are more for moral effect than anything else, for they go off with an ear-splitting crash which makes the earth tremble for a long way round & will put the fear of God in a nervous man. They are just an iron case & the end which the detonator fits in is made of wood. They are very roughly made but of course they are good enough for their work.