Part 9

After breakfast one-half the men kip down for a sleep, and the other half turn to for work. Then after the mid-day dinner, the half that rested in the forenoon, work; and throughout the night all hands stand their turn at sentry-go. That's the principle--in our Company, anyhow. But, of course, it doesn't always work out quite like that. Everything naturally gives way to strafing considerations, and at times urgent repairing work makes it necessary to forgo half or all the day rest-time. As for the officers--there are only three of us now, besides "the Peacemaker"--one officer is always on duty, day and night. We take that in three-hour spells, the three of us. Then in the day-time, while the turn of duty is a fixed thing, we are, as a matter of fact, about at some job or another all the time; just as the O.C. Company is about all the twenty-four hours. At night we three do take our time off for sleep after a tour of duty, unless in some emergency or other. "The Peacemaker" just gets odd cat-naps when he can.

You might think that if there'd been no particular artillery strafing going on there would be no necessary repair work for the men to do in the trench. But you see, we've practically always got a new dug-out in course of construction, and a refuse pit to be dug, and a sniping shelter to be made, and a new bit of trench to be cut. We have nine separate sumps where pumps are fixed in our line. And if those pumps were not well worked each day we'd soon be flooded out. There's generally some wire and standards to be got ready for putting out at night, with a few "Gooseberries" and trip wires where our entanglements have been weakened by shell fire. I've never yet seen a trench that wasn't crying out for some sort of work on it.

At breakfast "the Peacemaker" will generally talk over the jobs he specially wants us to put through during the day, and give us any notes he may have taken during the night, round the trenches. Then chits begin coming in by 'phone from Battalion Headquarters; and chits, however short and innocent they may look, nearly always boil down to a job of work to be done. In fact, one way and another, jobs invariably invade the breakfast table and every other meal-time; and before the tea-mugs are filled up a second time one nearly always hears a batman told to "clear this end, will you, to make room for me to write a chit."

Then there will be a visitor, probably the C.O., pretty soon after breakfast, and "the Peacemaker" will trot round our line with him, discussing. Ten to one that visit will mean more jobs of work; and, occasionally, what's a deal more welcome, a new plan for a little strafe of some sort.

And then one sees the ration parties trailing up again from the rear, and dinner has arrived; some kind of a stew, you know, as a rule, with bully as alternative; potatoes if you're lucky, jam anyhow, more tea, and some sort of pickings from home parcels in the way of cake or biscuits, figs or what not. During and immediately after dinner--in the dug-out we call it lunch, from habit, but it's about the same thing as the evening meal, as a rule--we always plan out the night's work, patrols, wiring, any little strafe we have on, and that sort of thing.

We are a bit luxurious in "A" Company, and generally run to a mug of afternoon tea; sometimes (if the recent mails have been heavy) to an outburst of plum cake or shortbread with it. And an hour before dark comes evening Stand-to. Technically, this has some tactical significance, even as the morning Stand-to has actually. But as a matter of fact, in the evening it's a parade, more than anything else, to inspect rifles, check up ammunition, call the roll, and see the men are all right.

By the way, you asked me something about the rum. I don't think it's issued at all in the summer months. What we issue now, once a day, is, I think, one gill per man of the half-and-half mixture of rum and water. I think it's a gill; a pint mug has to supply eight men. I think, on the whole, it's a useful issue, and can't possibly do any harm. It's thundering good rum; good, honest, mellow stuff, and very warming.

About seven o'clock we generally have a feed, from habit, you know, that being the time we used to have dinner in camp in England. It's the same sort of feed we have in middle day. And after that, the officer who is going on duty at midnight, say, will generally get a sleep. The usual round of night work is well under way by now--patrols, wiring parties, work on the parapet, and so on, according to what the moon allows. If there's too much light, these things have to come later.

With regard to work for sentry reliefs, the way we have in our Company is this: a sentry's relief--the sentries are always double by night and single by day--must always be within call of the sentry; therefore we never let him go beyond the bay next to the one the sentry occupies, that is, round the next traverse. Well, we hold the reliefs responsible for keeping those two bays in good order; clean and pumped, sides revetted, fire-step clear and in repair, the duck-boards lifted and muck cleared out from under them each day, and so forth. All used cartridges have to be gathered up and put in the sand-bag hung over the fire-step for that purpose, for return to store.

Unless there is real strafing going on the trenches grow pretty silent after midnight. At least, it seems so to the officer on duty as he makes his way from one end of his line to the other. One gets very tired then. There's never any place where you can sit down in a trench. I am sure the O.C. Company is often actually on his feet for twenty-two out of the twenty-four hours. I say it's very quiet. Well, it's a matter of comparison, of course. If in the middle of the street at two o'clock in the morning at home you heard a few rifles fired, you would think it remarkably noisy. But here, if there's nothing going on except rifle fire, say at the rate of a couple of shots a minute, the trenches seem extraordinarily quiet; ghostly quiet.

You go padding along in your gum boots, feeling your way with your stick, which usually carries such a thick coat of mud on it that its taps on the duck-boards are hardly audible. You come round the corner of a traverse, and spot a sentry's helmet against the sky-line. "Who goes there?" he challenges you, hoarsely, and you answer, "Lieutenant So-and-so, ---- Regiment," and he gives you leave to pass.

One has to be careful about these challenges. At first the men were inclined to be casual and grunt out, "Tha's all right!" or just the name of the Regiment when challenged. One had to correct that tendency. It is easy for a Boche to learn to say "Tha's all right," or to mention the name of a Regiment opposite his line. Plenty of them have been waiters, barbers, clerks, bakers, and so on in London. So we insist on formal correctness in these challenges, and the officer or man who doesn't halt promptly on being challenged takes his chance of a bullet or a bayonet in his chest.

One stops for a word or two with every sentry, and one creeps out along the saps for a word with the listening posts. It helps them through their time, and it satisfies you that they're on the spot, mentally as well as physically. There's hardly a man in "A" Company who is not an inveterate smoker, but, do you know, I have never once got a whiff of 'baccy smoke in the neighbourhood of a sentry since we've been in trenches, never a suspicion of it! Neither have I ever found a sentry who was not genuinely watching to his front; and if the Colonel himself comes along and asks one a question there's not one of them ever betrayed into turning his eyes from his front. They're good lads.

And so the small hours lengthen into the rather larger ones, and morning Stand-to comes round again. It isn't often it's so absolutely uneventful as my jottings on the subject, of course. But you must just regard this as the merest skeleton outline of the average routine of trench days. And then, to be sure, I've left out lots of little things. Also, every day brings its special happenings, and big or little strafes. One thing we do not get in trenches, and I cannot believe we ever should, from what I've seen of it; and that is monotony, boredom, idleness, lack of occupation. That's a fancy of the newspaper writers which, so far as I know, has literally no relation whatever to the facts of trench life on the British Front in France; certainly not to anything as yet seen by your

"_Temporary Gentleman_."

STALKING SNIPERS

We are trying to work one of our little cunning stunts to-day. Last night I had an observation patrol out, and having no special job on, decided to devote our time to the examination of the Boche wire--their entanglements, you know, in the sector opposite our particular line. I had only two men with me: one of my own Platoon scouts and a lad named Hankin, of whom I have great hopes as a sniper. He's in my No. 3 Section, and a very safe and pretty shot with a rifle, especially at long ranges. He'd never been on patrol and was most anxious to go, and to have an opportunity of looking at the Boche line, to verify his suspicions regarding certain holes in the ground which he thought their snipers used. Our patrol had two interesting results, for one of which we have to thank Hankin's intelligence. The other was a bit of luck. The reason I took such a small patrol was that the aim was observation pure and simple; not strafing; and the men were more than usually tired, and had a lot of parapet repair work which had to be put through before daylight.

It was about a quarter to one in the morning when we went out, there having been too much moonlight before then. Hankin had prepared a regular chart of the Boche line from his own observations from his sniping post; quite a clever little map it is, showing clearly his suspected sniping shelters, of which there are four. We drew a blank in the first two of these, and for the third had to tack back from the line of the Boche wire, towards our own, along the side of an old sap, all torn to bits and broken in with shell fire. Hankin felt certain he had seen the flash of rifles from this hole; but I thought it was too near our own wire to attract any Boche sniper for regular use.

I need hardly say that on a job of this sort one moves very slowly, and uses the utmost possible precaution to prevent noise. It was now absolutely dark, the moon having gone down and the sky being much overcast. But for my luminous-faced compass (which one consults under one's coat flap to prevent it from showing) we should have been helpless. As it was, on the bearings I worked out before starting, we steered comfortably and fairly accurately.

All of a sudden came a shock, a rifle fired, as it seemed, under our noses, actually from about twenty-five paces ahead on the track we were making.

"That's him, sir," breathed Hankin in my right ear.

I looked at the compass. The shot came from dead on the spot where Hankin's third hole should be; the one we were making for then.

"How about a little bomb for him, sir?" whispered the scout on my left.

But I shook my head. Too much like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, and too much like asking the Boche for machine-gun fire. It was fair to assume the Boche sniper who fired that shot would be facing our trenches; the same direction in which we were facing at that moment, since we were working back from the German wire towards our own. I pushed my lips close up to Hankin's ear and whispered: "We'll try stalking him." Hankin nodded, quite pleased.

Then I whispered to the scout to follow us very, very carefully, and not too closely. I didn't want him to lose touch, but, for the sake of quietness, one would sooner, of course, go alone. We kept about six paces between us laterally, Hankin and myself, and we advanced by inches.

I must say I should have been grateful for a shade more light, or less inky blackness. The edge of that sniper's hole was not sloping, but sheer; and, crawling slowly along, I struck my right hand clean over it into nothingness, letting my chest down with an audible bump. Right before me then I heard a man's body swing round on the mud, and the sniper let out some kind of a German exclamation which was a sort of squeal. It was, really, much more like some wild animal's cry than anything human. I had to chance it then. The sound was so amazingly close. I couldn't see him, but-- And when I sprang, the thing my hands gripped on first was not the beggar's windpipe or shoulders, as I had hoped, but his rifle, carried in his left hand on his left side.

It was rather like tom-cats coming to blows. I swear he spat. As you know, I'm rather heavy, and I think my spring, slightly to his left, knocked him off his balance. He hadn't any chance. But, though I got his left wrist, and covered his mouth with my chest, I was a bit uneasy about his right hand, which for the moment I couldn't find. Lucky for me he hadn't got a dagger in it, or he might have ripped me open. But Hankin pretty soon found his right hand, and then we hauled him up to his feet. I passed his rifle to the scout, and we just marched him along the front of our wire to Stinking Sap, and so into our own front trench; Hankin holding one of his arms, I taking the other, and the scout coming behind with the muzzle of the man's own rifle in the small of his back. There was no need to crawl, the night being as black as your hat; and in three or four minutes we had that sniper in front of "the Peacemaker" in the Company dug-out.

It was neat, wasn't it? And all thanks to the ingenious Hankin's careful observations and his chart. He'll get his first stripe for that, and very soon have another to keep it company, or I'm much mistaken. "The Peacemaker" was delighted, and wrote a full report of the capture to be sent down to Headquarters with the prisoner. Snipers are worth capturing, you know, and this looked like an intelligent chap whose cross-examination might be useful to our Brass-hats.

Queer thing about this sniper, he spoke English almost like a native. We are not allowed to examine prisoners on our own account. All that's done by the powers behind the line. But this fellow volunteered a little talk while we were getting the report made out. He was quite satisfied when he realised we were not going to harm him in any way, but it was perfectly clear he had expected to be done in. You'd have thought he would have known better. He'd spent nine years in London, part of the time a waiter, and later a clerk. He had lived at Kennington, and then in lodgings on Brixton Hill, I'll trouble you. Extraordinary, isn't it? He'd been told that London was practically in ruins, and that the Zepps had made life there impossible. He also thought that we in France were completely cut off from England, the Channel being in the hands of the German Navy, and England isolated and rapidly starving! I gather the Boches in the fighting line have no notion at all of the real facts of the war.

Well, having been so far successful, we decided to resume our patrol, the main purpose of which--examination of the Boche wire--hadn't been touched yet. So off we went again down Stinking Sap; and I could see that Hankin and Green, the scout, bore themselves as victors, with something of the swank of the old campaigner and hero of a thousand patrols. A great asset, mind you, is a reasonable amount of swank. These two had not been out before this night, but already they climbed over the parapet and moved about in No Man's Land with a real and complete absence of the slightest hint of nervousness.

Now I must cut this short because I have to go an errand for "the Peacemaker," to have a little talk with a Battery Commander. We had a pretty good prowl up and down the Boche wire, and made an interesting discovery on the extreme left of our sector. There was a shade more light then; not from the moon, of course, but from stars; the sky having become less overcast. I ran my nose right up against a miniature sign-post; a nice little thing, with feathers stuck in cracks near the top of it, presumably to give Boche patrols their bearings. I should have liked to take it away as a souvenir, but I didn't want to arouse Hun suspicions, so left it. The interesting thing was that this little sign-post--about eighteen inches high, planted among the front wire stakes--pointed the way in to the Boche trenches by an S-shaped lane through their wire entanglements; so shaped, of course, as to prevent it from being easily seen from our line.

We crawled along this lane a bit, far enough to make sure that it was a clear fairway into the Boche front trench. Then I got a careful bearing, which I subsequently verified half a dozen times; and we made our way back to Stinking Sap. I haven't time to tell you of our cunning plan about this discovery. That's what I'm to see the Battery Commander about. But if we can make the arrangement we want to make with the gunners, we'll bring off a nice little bombing raid to-night, and I'll let you know all about it in my next letter. Meanwhile I must scurry off, or I shall miss the Battery Commander in his rounds, and there will be a telling-off for your

"_Temporary Gentleman_."

AN ARTFUL STUNT

Out of trenches again. I wanted to write you yesterday to tell you about the bombing raid of our last night in; but we had a full day, and were not relieved till late evening; so I got no chance of writing till this afternoon. But I can tell you we came out with our tails well up this time, and "A" Company putting on more side than ever. I dare say "D" Company, our closest rivals, will put up something pretty startling when we go in again. They're very determined to beat our record in every kind of strafing, and I'm bound to say they do put up some good shows. They've two more officers than we have now, and the Boche has discovered that they are very much out for business.

Whether we get Bavarians or Prussians opposite us it makes small odds; they've no earthly chance of a quiet time while we're in the line. The public at home read about the big things, and I suppose when they read that "The rest of the Front was quiet," they're inclined to wonder how we put our time in. Ah, well! the "quiet" of the dispatches wouldn't exactly suit a conscientious objector, I can assure you. It's a kind of "quiet" that keeps Master Boche pretty thoroughly on the hop. But on the whole, I'm rather glad the dispatches are like that. I'd be sorry to see 'em make a song and dance about these little affairs of ours. Only, don't you run away with the idea that when you read "Remainder of the Front quiet," it means the Boche was being left alone; for he isn't, not by long odds.

You will remember that opposite our extreme left I had discovered an S-shaped opening leading through the barbed wire to the Boche front line, so cut, no doubt, for the convenience of their patrols at night. We decided that we would make use of that opening for a bombing raid on our last night in. Now, you must understand that one of the chief uses of the barbed-wire entanglements is to keep off the prowling bomber. The entanglements extend to, say, forty to sixty paces from the trench. You cannot hope to make accurate practice in bomb-throwing at a distance of more than thirty yards. Consequently, as I explained before, to shy bombs into the average trench the bomber must worry his way through twenty paces or so of barbed-wire entanglements. It is very difficult to do that without attracting the attention of sentries, and impossible to do it quickly with or without noise. Hence you perceive the unpleasant predicament of the bomber when he has heaved his first bomb. He has offered himself as a target to the Boche machine-guns and rifles at a moment when he is in the midst of a maze of barbed wire, from which he can only hope to retreat slowly and with difficulty.

Then why not cut a lane through the Boche wire by means of shells, just before dark, and use that to bomb from after dark? Excellent. Only, if you were the Boche and we cut a lane through your wire one evening just before dark, wouldn't you train a machine-gun or two on that opening so that you could sweep it with fire at any moment you wished during the night; and wouldn't you have a dozen extra rifles with keen eyes behind 'em trained on the same spot; and wouldn't you be apt to welcome that nice little lane as a trap in which you could butcher English Tommies like sitting pheasants? Wouldn't you now?

Well, my business with the Battery Commander was to get on his right side and induce him to expend a certain number of rounds from his dear little guns that afternoon in cutting a nice line through the Boche entanglements opposite the extreme right of our line. It happened that, without interfering with the sort of sinking fund process by which the lords of the guns build up their precious reserves of ammunition, this particular lord was in a position to let us have a few rounds.

Of course, our attitude towards the gunners is not always strictly reasonable, you know. We are for ever wanting them to spend ammunition, while their obvious duty is to accumulate ammunition greedily and all the time against the hours of real need, so that when these hours come they may simply let everything rip--take the lid right off. However, for reasons of their own, apart from mine, it happened fortunately that the gunners were not at all averse from giving that bit of the Boche line a mild pounding; and, accordingly, they promised us a nice neat lane on the extreme right by nightfall.

We said nothing about the beautiful S-shaped lane on the extreme left, which Master Boche thought was known only to himself. Observe our extreme artfulness. We proceeded to train a grenade rifle on the extreme right, likewise a machine-gun. Then we proceeded to tell off our best bombers, and overhaul carefully a good supply of hand-grenades for use in the S-shaped opening on our extreme left.

Until midnight there was a certain amount of moonlight, and for several hours we kept the Boche very busy on our extreme right, where, with a trifling expenditure of ammunition, the guns had cut a lane for us through his barbed wire. I've no doubt at all that Fritz had several machine-guns concentrated on that spot, and a bunch of rifle-men too. He made up his mind he would have the English on toast in that lane, and we encouraged him to think so.

You know, at night-time it is not very easy to tell the difference between the explosion of a hand-grenade and that of a rifle-grenade. But whereas the hand-grenade could only be lobbed in from among the wire, the rifle-grenade could easily be sent over from our trench at that particular spot on our right. So we sent 'em over at all kinds of confusing intervals. And then, when Boche opened machine-gun fire across the lane, under the impression that our bombers were at work there, we replied with bursts of machine-gun fire on his parapet opposite the lane, thereby, I make no doubt, getting a certain number of heads. It is certain they would be looking out, and equally certain they would not be expecting fire from our trenches, when they thought we had our own bombers out there.

It was an attractive game, and we kept it going till nearly midnight. Then we stopped dead, leaving them to suppose we had given up hope of overcoming their watchfulness. We arranged to reopen the ball at 1.30 A.M. precisely, with rifle-grenades and machine-gun fire as might prove suitable, but with no end of a row in any case.