Part 10

At one o'clock I started from Stinking Sap, on our extreme left, with twelve of our best bombers, each carrying an apronful of bombs. There wasn't a glimmer of any kind of light. We made direct for the S-shaped opening, and lay down outside the wire there. In our own trench, before starting, we had made all arrangements. I had six men on either side of me, and each man knew precisely what his particular job was. "The Peacemaker" never tires of insisting on that principle, and, of course, he is right. Nothing is any good unless it is worked out beforehand so that each man knows exactly his job, and concentrates on that without reference to anyone else, or any hanging about waiting instructions.

At 1.20 we began crawling down the S-shaped opening in our proper order. At 1.30 the first rifle-grenade ripped over from the extreme right of our line. Others followed in quick succession, and on the report of the sixth we jumped to our feet and ran forward, extending to right and left from me as we reached the inside of the wire, and chucking our first bombs--thirteen of 'em--as we got into position. It was so close there was no possibility of missing, and I can tell you thirteen bombs make some show when they all explode beautifully right inside a trench a few yards in front of you.

Then we all scrambled over the parapet down into the trench over a front of, say, thirty paces. The six men on my right hand at once turned to their right, and those on my left to their left. It worked splendidly. Each party travelled along the trench as quickly as it could, bombing over each traverse before rounding it. The row was terrific.

In that order each party went along six successive bays of the trench. Then immediately they began to reverse the process, travelling more slowly this time and bombing more thoroughly. They were working back on their centre now, you understand, still bombing outward, of course. We had the luck to strike a splendid piece of trench with no fewer than three important dug-outs in it, and we made a shambles of each of them. It was wildly exciting while it lasted, but I suppose we were not more than four or five minutes in the trench. We exploded thirty-two bombs during those few minutes, every single one of them with good effect; and when we scrambled out into the S-shaped opening again we took with us an undamaged Boche machine-gun and four prisoners, one of them wounded and three unwounded. We killed nine men in the trench, and a good round number in the three dug-outs. I had a bunch of maps and papers from the first of those dug-outs. And we didn't improve their trench or the dug-outs. Thirty-two bombs make a difference.

The machine-gun hampered us a bit, but I can tell you we made pretty good time getting across to Stinking Sap. The Boches were hopelessly confused by the whole business, and while we were crossing to the extreme left of our own line they were wildly blazing at our extreme right and pouring flares and machine-gun fire over the lane through their wire. Naturally, nobody was in the least exposed on our right, except perhaps the man operating the machine-gun, which probably did good execution among Boche observers of that neat little lane our artillery had cut for us.

It was a delightful show and cost us nothing in casualties, except two men very slightly wounded, one in the right foot and the other in the left hand and arm from our own bomb splinters. But, as our good old bombing Sergeant said, it "fairly put the wind up them bloomin' sauer-krauters." Incidentally, and owing far more to the fine behaviour of the men than to anything I did, it earned a lot of bouquets from different quarters for your

"_Temporary Gentleman_."

P.S.--Next day's report as served up to you and the public in the newspapers at home would, of course, and rightly enough no doubt, include our sector in the "remainder of the Front," which was "quiet." Or we might be included in a two-line phrase about "minor activities," or "patrols were active on various points of the line"--as they certainly are all the time.

THE SPIRIT OF THE MEN

The parcels from W----'s arrived all safe and sound, thanks to your careful arrangements, and we are, in consequence, living in the lap of luxury. The tinned fruit is specially appreciated, and very good for us, I've no doubt. By the way, you will be glad to know that the boiler-maker's suit in one piece of water-proofed canvas is a huge success. I wore it on that last bombing raid. For patrol work, or wiring, for anything over the parapet, and in the trench, too, at night-time, for instance, I don't think there's anything to beat it. There's nothing to catch or get in one's way, and it's a great joy to keep one's ordinary clothes clean and decent. On patrol it's better than oilskin, because it's silent--doesn't rustle.

I dare say you've heard that phrase--I forget whose it is--about the backbone of the Army being the non-commissioned man. I suspect it was all right when it was written, and goodness knows, there's not much the matter with the non-commissioned man to-day. Only, there isn't the difference that there was between the N.C.O. and the "other ranks"--the men. The N.C.O. isn't the separate type he was, because the N.C.O. of to-day is so often the man of yesterday; promotion having necessarily been rapid in the New Army. We had to make our own N.C.O.'s from the start. They're all backbone, now, men and N.C.O.'s alike. And the officers are quite all right, thank you, too. I doubt whether officers in any Army have ever worked harder than the officers of our New Army--the "Temporary Gentlemen," you know--are working to-day. They have had to work hard. Couldn't leave it to N.C.O.'s, you see, because, apart from anything else, they've had to make the N.C.O.'s out of privates; teach 'em their job. So we're all backbone together.

And when you hear some fellow saying "The men are splendid," you need not think he's just paying a conventional tribute or echoing a stereotyped kind of praise. It's true; "true as death," as Harry Lauder used to sing; it's as true as anything I know. It's Gospel truth. The men are absolutely and all the time splendid.

I'm not an emotional sort of a chap, and I'm sure before the war I never gave a thought to such things; but, really, there is something incurably and ineradicably fine about the rough average Englishman, who has no surface graces at all. You know the kind I mean. The decency of him is something in his grain. It stands any test you like to apply. It's the same colour all the way through. I'm not emotional; but I don't mind telling you, strictly between ourselves, that since I've been out here in trenches I've had the water forced into my eyes, not once, but a dozen times, from sheer admiration and respect, by the action of rough, rude chaps whom you'd never waste a second glance on in the streets of London; men who, so far from being exceptional, are typical through and through; just the common, low-down street average.

That's the rough, rude, foul-mouthed kind, with no manners at all, and many ways that you hate. But I tell you, under the strain and stress of this savage existence he shows up for what he really is, under his rough, ugly hide: he's jewel all through without an ounce of dirty Boche meanness or cruelty in his whole carcass. You may hate his manners if you like but you can't help loving him; you simply can't help it if you work alongside of him in the trenches in face of the enemy.

And that's not the only type we've got that makes you want to take your hat off to Tommy, and that puts a real respect, which perhaps the civilian doesn't understand, into your salutes. (It's only silly puppy boys, or officers who've never been in the presence of an enemy, or faced immediate danger with men, who can't be bothered properly and fully acknowledging salutes. You watch a senior, one who's learned his lessons in real service, and you'll find nothing grudging or casual or half-hearted. We get into the French way here, with a hint of the bow, a real salutation in our salutes.) Even more striking, I sometimes think, is the sterling stuff we find in types of men in the ranks who haven't naturally anything rough or hard about them: like my ex-draper chap, you know, in No. 3 Platoon, Ramsay. We've a number of the same calibre. He was a pillar of his chapel at home and--of all things--a draper: a gentle, soft-spoken dealer in ribbons and tape. I told you, I think, how he fought with a man in his section when he fancied he was not going to be allowed to go out one night with a bombing party.

You read about calling for volunteers. With our lot it's hopeless to call for volunteers for a dangerous job. The only thing to do would be to call for volunteers to stay behind. The other thing's simply a way of calling out the whole Company; and if it happens to be just half a dozen you want, that's awkward.

Then there's the matter of grousing--growling among themselves about this and that. You would be deceived about this until you got to know them a bit. It's a queer thing, and not easy to explain, but grousing is one of the passions of their lives, or, perhaps it would be truer to say, a favourite form of recreation. But, mark you this, only when everything is going smoothly, and there is nothing real to grumble about. It would seem to be absolutely forbidden to growl when there's anything to growl about; a sort of unwritten law which, since we've been out here, anyhow, is never transgressed.

It's rather fine, this, you know, and very English. So long as there's a little intermittent grousing going on you can be quite sure of two things--that there's nothing wrong and that the men are in good spirits and content. If there's no grousing, it means one of two things--either that the men are angered about something, in which case they will be unusually silent, or that we are up against real difficulties and hardships involving real suffering, in which case there will be a lot of chaffing and joke-cracking and apparent merriment.

Queer, isn't it? But I think it's a true description. If a long day's hard labour--clearing out a trench and building up a parapet, we'll say--is undone and washed out just as it's finished by a succession of Boche oil-cans, mortars, and general bombardment, which also lays out a few good men, and blows the next meal rations sky-high, so that there's the prospect of a long night's extra hard work where some rest had been expected, and all on an empty stomach--then you'll hear no grousing at all, but any number of jocular remarks:

"I tell you, the Army of to-day's _all right_!" "We don't get much pay, but, my word, we _do_ see life!" "Save me a lot o' trouble, this will. My fightin' weight was goin' up a lot too fast, but this'll save me givin' up my port wine an' turtle soup!" Then some wag pretends to consult his newspaper, and, looking up, announces that: "On the remainder of the Front the night was comparatively quiet." "Yes," says another, quoting further from the imaginary news, "and the banquet which had been arranged for 'A' Company was pos'poned till the following day." "When it is hoped," adds yet another joker, "that a number of prominent Boche prisoners will attend." Elaborate winks and nods; and one man positively licks his lips as he mutters: "Gosh! If only they really _would_ come over the sticks to-night; if only they would!" "Reg'ler bloomin' pacifist, isn't he?" remarks a student of the Press, "longin' to welcome the gentle Hun with open arms, he is--not 'arf!" "We'll welcome him all right, if only the beggar 'd come. I'd like to use a section or two of 'em for buildin' up this bloomin' parapet. Be stiffer than these sand-bags full o' slush." "Shame! An' you a yewmanitarian, too. Why, how'd our poor chaps ever be able to stand the smell of all them potted Huns, an' so close, too? You're too harsh, mate; reg'ler Prussian, I call you."

So it goes on. It's a bitter cold night. They are up nearly to their thighs in half-frozen slush. Their day's work has been entirely undone in half an hour, and has to be done over again without any interval for rest; and the supper ration's "gone West." You can hardly imagine what the loss of a meal means, with a night like that ahead of you, and occasional shells still dropping round the bit you must repair. They look awful ruffians, these chaps; caked all over with mud, hair and eyebrows and all; three or four days' stubble on their chins, and all kinds of ribaldry on their lips. They love their ease and creature comforts at least as much as any conscientious objector could; and God knows they are here as far removed from ease and creature comfort as men well could be--entirely of their own free will. And they will carry on all night, cracking their simple jokes and chaffing one another, and jostling each other to get to the front if one or two are required for anything extra dangerous. And the spirit that dictates their little jokes, isn't it as fine as any shown in bygone days by the aristocrats of France and England? If you told these fellows they were aristocrats, imagine how they'd take it! "'Ere, 'op it! Not so much of it! Wotcher givin' us?"

But aren't they--bless 'em! I tell you, when I come to compare 'em with the fellows we're up against across the way; with those poor devils of machine-driven Boches, with their record of brutish murder and swinishness in Belgium--why, there's not a shadow of doubt in my mind they are real aristocrats. The war has helped to make them so, of course. But, whatever the cause, they stand out, with the splendidly gallant _poilus_ of France: true aristocrats--five hundred miles of 'em from the North Sea to Switzerland, pitted against the deluded and brutalised, machine-driven Boches. There are no officers and machine driving our fellows, or the cheery, jolly French soldiers. Held back occasionally, directed always, they may be. There's no need of any driving on our side. Unquestioning obedience to an all-powerful machine may be a useful thing in its way. I know a better, though; and that's convinced, willing, eager determination, guided--never driven--by officers who share it, and share everything else the men have and do. And that's what there is all down our side of the line, from the North Sea to Switzerland.

But, look here; I've just read through my last page, and it seems to me I've been preaching, ranting, perhaps. I'd better stow it and get on with my work. You see, one can't _talk_ this kind of thing; and yet--I don't know, one feels it pretty often, and rather strongly. It's a bit of a relief to tell you something about it--in writing. Even to you, I probably shouldn't, by word of mouth, you know. One doesn't, somehow; but this sort of chatting with a pen is different. All I actually want to say, though it has taken such a lot of paper to say it on, is that the men really are splendid. I love them. (It certainly is easier writing than talking.) I want you to know about it; to know something about these chaps--they come from every class of the community--so that you'll love 'em, too. I wish we could make every woman, and every man and child, too, in England understand how fine these fellows are, and how fine, really, the life they're leading is.

For sheer hardness and discomfort there's nothing in the life of the poorest worker in England to compare with it. They are never out of instant danger. And the level of their spirits is far higher than you'd find it in any model factory or workshop at home. Death itself they meet with little jokes; I mean that literally. And the daily round of their lives is simply full of little acts of self-sacrifice, generosity, and unstudied, unnoted heroism, such as famous reputations are based upon in civil life in peace time. I feel I can't make it plain, as it deserves to be. I wish I could. But you must just accept it because I say it, and love 'em all--the French as well as ours--because they've made themselves loved by your

"_Temporary Gentleman_."

AN UNHEALTHY BIT OF LINE

Rather to the general surprise, we have been moved into a new sector of the line, immediately south of what we called "our own." We have not been told why--the Olympians do not deal in whys and wherefores--but, according to gossip, we can take our choice between the wish to make us all familiar with the general lie of the land round here, to be the better prepared for a push; and the undoubted fact that a new Division is being moved into the line, and that our move southward facilitates this. Perhaps the real reason of the move is a mixture of both these; but, whether or no, the move itself provides striking evidence of the marked differences which exist between different parts of the line, and the extremely narrow and circumscribed nature of the knowledge one gets of the Front while serving in trenches.

Our "B" Company is holding just now the subsection which actually adjoins the right of the sector we used to hold. We are on the right of "B," and "C" is on our right, with "D" back in the support line. Even "B's" bit, though it does adjoin our old beat, differs greatly from that; and our present short line is hemispheres away from the sector we knew before. There's not very much of it--about half the length of the line we last held--but what there is is hot and strong, I can tell you. The way in which "B" Company's bit differs is chiefly that it's in sandy soil, instead of all clay, and so is much drier and cleaner, more habitable in every way than anything we are accustomed to. But our bit, variously known as Petticoat Lane (why, I can't imagine), Cut-Throat Alley (obvious enough), and The Gut--well, our bit is, as "the Peacemaker" said directly he saw it, "very interesting." I think that's about the kindest thing you can say of it; and interesting it certainly is.

To begin with, the greatest distance between any one spot in it and the Boche front line is seventy or eighty yards; and there's a place at which it's only half that. But the salient point in the whole sector is this: the half of our line that is seventy or eighty yards from the Boche line has between it and the Boche line a string of craters, the far lips of which are not more than fifteen to twenty paces from Fritz's sentries. These craters are sometimes occupied by the Boche and sometimes by us; but nobody attempts to hold them by day; they don't give shelter enough for that; and the betting as to who is to hold them on any given night is about even.

You might almost say, "But why should anybody want to hold the beastly things?" And if you ever set foot in one of them, you'd say it with some feeling, for it's like trying to walk, or rather to crawl, in a bottomless pit of porridge. When dusk is coming on of an evening half a dozen of our bombers may start crawling from our parapet, making for the nearest crater. Maybe Fritz is dull and misses them. Maybe he opens such a hot fire they have to shin back quick. Maybe, just as we are getting close to the near edge of a crater, and flattering ourselves we've been a bit too nippy for the Boche this time, we get a rousing welcome from the crater itself, in the shape of three or four well-aimed bombs among us. Then those of us who are still able to think realise that the Boche has been a bit beforehand and got there first. Next night the process is reversed. During last night those confounded craters changed hands three times, remaining at last, I am glad to say, with us. We lost one man killed and two wounded. But we brought back two wounded and one dead Boche, and we reckon to have knocked out at least six others.

It was a nightmare of a night, to tell the truth, but nothing big enough to get into dispatches. One point about the holding of these craters is that it enables you to lob bombs, or almost anything else for that matter, into the Boche front trench. Down here we really are learning something about oil-cans, mortars, and short range heavy stuff generally. It's very much hand-to-hand warfare, and, I suppose because of that, much more savage and more primitive than anything we've seen before. There practically isn't any No Man's Land here. It's just our trench and their trench and the muddy, bloody cock-pit between, all churned into a slushy batter by high explosives, and full of all manner of ghastly remains. Souvenirs! By Heavens! the curio hunters could find all they wanted here within a few yards of where I'm sitting, but not many of 'em would have the spunk to gather 'em in. You see, I haven't any great respect for the souvenir hunter. He seems a ghoulish sort of a creature to me, and I can't believe the cynical old "Peacemaker" when he says the bulk of them, and all the more inveterate sort, are women.

The C.O. tells "the Peacemaker" he is so arranging things that no Company will get more than four days on end in Petticoat Lane, and then the other three days of the turn in trenches, in the support line, where Battalion Headquarters is. "A" Company, of course, takes glory to itself for having been the first to be sent in here, and I think this fully compensates them for the fact that nobody's had any rest worth speaking about since we got in. We shall probably do better in that respect when we have time to get used to the change. In fact, I can see a difference already in the men's attitude. But, mind you, the change is radical, from two hundred yards' interval between yourself and Fritz, down to fifty yards. It affects every moment of your life, and every mortal thing you do. More, it actually affects what you say. You don't make any telephonic arrangements about patrols and that sort of thing here. We are learning German at a great rate. But it was very startling to our fellows the first night, when they found they could hear voices in the enemy line. It seemed to bring Fritz and his ingenious engines very close indeed.

But already the men have begun to crack their little jokes about it, and pretend to be careful about setting down a canteen of tea or a bit of bread lest one of "them bloomin' sauer-krauters lean over and pick it up before you can turn round--hungry blighters!" I confess I'm conscious that the nearness represents a great deal of added nerve strain; but, thank goodness, the men don't seem to feel it a bit. They're just as jolly as ever. But it is mighty intimate and primitive, you know.

Imagine! The first thing I laid my hand on when I got into a crater on our first night, after we'd bombed Fritz out of it, was the face of a wounded Boche; and he bit my little finger to the bone, so that I had to have it washed and dressed by the M.O. for fear of poisoning. It's nothing; but I mention it as an instance of the savage primitiveness of this life at close quarters with the Boche.

There's simply no end to his dodgy tricks here. Three or four of 'em will cry out for help from a crater--in English, you know--and pretend to be our own men, wounded and unable to move, or Boches anxious to give themselves up. And then, if anyone's soft enough to get over the parapet to go and lend a hand, they open a hot fire, or wait till we get very near and then bomb. We had verbal warnings in plenty from the Company we relieved, but it's experience that teaches; and, whilst they may not be brilliant tricksters--they're not,--our fellows will at all events never allow the same trick to be worked off twice on us.