Chapter 6

Along the firing and communication trenches parties set to work of various sorts, bailing out water from the trench bottom, putting in brushwood or brick foundations, building up and strengthening dug-outs and parapets, filling sandbags in readiness for night work and repairs on any portion damaged by shell fire.

By now they were learning to keep well below the parapet, not to linger in portions of the communication trench that were enfiladed by shrapnel, to stoop low and pass quickly at exposed spots where the snipers waited a chance to catch an unwary head. They had learned to press close and flat against the face of the trench or to get well down at the first hint of the warning rush of an approaching shell; they were picking up neatly and quickly all the worst danger spots and angles and corners to be avoided except in time of urgent need.

One thing more was needed to complete their education in the routine of trench warfare, and the one thing came about noon just as the Asterisks were beginning to feel pleasant anticipations of the dinner hour. A faint and rather insignificant 'bang' sounded out in front. The Asterisks never even noticed it, but next moment when something fell with a thudding 'splosh' on the wet ground behind the trench the men nearest the spot lifted their heads and stared curiously. Another instant and with a thunderous roar and a leaping cloud of thick smoke the bomb burst. The men ducked hastily, but one or two were not quick enough or lucky enough to escape, although at that short distance they were certainly lucky in escaping with nothing worse than flesh wounds from the fragments of old iron, nails and metal splinters that whirled outwards in a circle from the bursting bomb. Everyone heard the second shot and many saw the bomb come over in a high curve.

As it dropped it appeared to be coming straight down into the trench and every man had an uncomfortable feeling that the thing was going to fall directly on him. Actually it fell short and well out in front of the trench and only a few splinters and a shower of earth whizzed over harmlessly high.

The third was another 'over' and the fourth another 'short' and the Asterisks, unaware of the significance of the closing-in 'bracket' began to feel relief and a trifle of contempt for this clumsy slow-moving and visible missile. Their relief and contempt vanished for ever when the fifth bomb fell exactly in the trench, burst with a nerve-shattering roar, and filled the air with whistling fragments and dense choking, blinding smoke and stench.

Having got their range and angle accurately, the Germans proceeded to hurl bomb after bomb with the most horrible exactness and persistency. For two hundred yards up and down the trench there was no escape from the blast of the bursts. It was no good crouching low, or flattening up against the parapet; for the bombs dropped straight down and struck out backwards and sideways and in every direction.

Even the roofed-in dug-outs gave no security. A bomb that fell just outside the entrance of one dug-out, riddled one man lying inside, and blew another who was crouching in the entrance outwards bodily across the trench, stunning him with the shock and injuring him in a score of places. Plenty of the bombs fell short of the trench, but too many fell fairly in it. When one did so there was only one thing to do--to throw oneself violently down in the mud of the trench bottom, and wait, heart in mouth, for the crash of the explosion.

The Artillery, on being appealed to, pounded the front German trench for an hour, but made no impression on the trench-mortar. The O.C. of the Asterisks telephoned the Brigade asking what he was to do to stop the torment and destruction, and in reply was told he ought to bomb back at the bomb-throwers. But the Asterisks had already tried that without any success. The distance was too great for hand bombs to reach, and the men appeared to make poor shooting with the rifle grenades.

'Why not try the trench-mortar?' asked the Brigade; to which the harassed Colonel replied conclusively because he didn't possess one, hadn't a bomb for one, and hadn't a man or officer who knew how to use one.

The Brigade apparently learnt this with surprise, and replied vaguely that steps would be taken, and that an officer and detachment of his battalion must receive a course of instruction.

The Colonel replied with spirit that he was glad to hear all this, but in the meantime what was he to do to prevent his battalion being blown piecemeal out of their trenches?

It all ended eventually in the arrival of a trench-mortar and a pile of bombs from somewhere and a very youthful and very much annoyed Artillery subaltern from somewhere else. The Colonel was most enormously relieved by these arrivals, but his high hopes were a good deal dashed by the artilleryman.

That youth explained that he was in effect totally ignorant of trench-mortars and their ways, that he had been shown the thing a week ago, had it explained to him--so far as such a rotten toy could be explained--and had fired two shots from it. However, he said briskly, if off-handedly, he was ready to have a go with it and see what he could do.

The trench-mortar was carried down to the forward trench, and on the way down behind it the youngster discoursed to the O.C. of the Asterisks on the 'awful rot' of a gunner officer being chased off on to a job like this--any knowledge of gunnery being entirely superfluous and, indeed, wasted on such a kid's toy. And the O.C., looking at the trench-mortar being prepared, made a mental remark about 'the mouths of babes' and the wise words thereof.

The weapon is easily described. It was a mere cylinder of cast iron, closed at one end, open at the other, and with a roomy 'touch-hole' at the closed end. The carriage consisted of two uprights on a base, with mortar between them and pointing up at an angle of about forty-five degrees.

The charge was little packets of gunpowder tied up in paper in measured doses. The bomb was a tin-can--an empty jam-tin, mostly--filled with a bursting charge and fragments of metal, and with an inch or so of the fuse protruding.

The piece was loaded by throwing a few packets of powder into the muzzle, poking them with a piece of stick to burst the paper, and carefully sliding the bomb down on top of the charge. A length of fuse was poked into the touch-hole and the end lit, sufficient length being given to allow the lighter to get round the nearest corner before the mortar fired.

The whole thing was too rubbishy and cheaply and roughly made to have been fit for use as a 'kid's toy,' as the subaltern called it. To imagine it being used as a weapon of precision in a war distinguished above all others as one of scientifically perfect weapons and implements was ridiculous beyond words.

The Colonel watched the business of loading and laying with amazement and consternation.

'Is it possible to--er--hit anything with that?' he asked.

'Well, more or less,' said the youthful subaltern doubtfully. 'There's a certain amount of luck about it, I believe.'

'But why on earth,' said the Colonel, beginning to wax indignant, 'do they send such a museum relic here to fight a reasonably accurate and decidedly destructive mortar?'

The subaltern chuckled.

'That's not any museum antique,' he said. 'That's a Mortar, Trench, Mark Something or other--the latest, the most modern weapon of the kind in the British Army. It was made, I believe, in the Royal Arsenal, and it is still being made and issued for use in the field--the Engineers collecting the empty jam-pots and converting them to bombs. They've only had four or five months, y'see, to evolve a---- look out, sir! Here's one of theirs!'

The resulting explosion flung a good deal of mud over the parapet on to the Colonel and the subaltern, and raised the youth to wrath.

'Beasts!' he said angrily, and poked a length of fuse in the touch-hole. 'Get away round the traverse!' he ordered the mob near him. 'And you'd better go, too, sir--as I will when I've touched her off. Y'see, she's just as liable to explode as not, and, if she does, she'd make more mess in this trench than I can ever hope she will in a German one.'

The Colonel retired round the nearest traverse, and next moment the lieutenant plunged round after him just as the mortar went off with a resounding bang. Every man in the trench watched the bomb rise, twirling and twisting, and fall again, turning end over end towards the German trench.

At about the moment he judged it should burst, the lieutenant poked his head up over the parapet, but bobbed down hurriedly as a couple of bullets sang past his ear.

'Pretty nippy lot across there!' he said. 'I must find a loophole to observe from. And p'r'aps you'd tell some of your people to keep up a brisk fire on that parapet to stop 'em aiming too easy at me. Now we'll try another.'

At the next bang from the opposite trench he risked another quick peep over and this time ducked down with an exclamation of delight.

'I've spotted him.' he said. 'Just caught the haze of his smoke. Down the trench about fifty yards. So we'll try trail-left a piece--or would if this old drain-pipe had a trail.'

He relaid his mortar carefully, and fired again. Having no sights or arrangement whatever for laying beyond a general look over the line of its barrel and a pinch more or less of powder in the charge, it can only be called a piece of astounding good luck that the jam-pot bomb fell almost fairly on the top of the German mortar. There was a most satisfying uproar and eddying volume of smoke and eruption of earth, and the lieutenant stared through a loophole dumb-founded with delight.

'I'll swear,' he said, 'that our old Plum-and-Apple pot never made a burst that big. I do believe it must have flopped down on the other fellow and blown up one or two of his bombs same time. I say, isn't that the most gorgeous good luck? Well, good enough to go on with. We'll have a chance for some peaceful practice now?'

Apparently, since the other mortar ceased to fire, it must have been put out of action, and the lieutenant spent a useful hour pot-shotting at the other trench.

The shooting was, to say the least, erratic. With apparently the same charge and the same tilt on the mortar, one bomb would drop yards short and another yards over. If one in three went within three yards of the trench, if one in six fell in the trench, it was, according to the lieutenant, a high average, and as much as any man had a right to expect. But at the end of the hour, the Asterisks, who had been hugely enjoying the performance, and particularly the cessation of German bombs, were horrified to hear a double report from the German trench, and to see two dark blobs fall twinkling from the sky.

The following hour was a nightmare. Their trench-mortar was completely out-shot. Those fiendish bombs rained down one after the other along the trench, burst in devastating circles of flame and smoke and whirling metal here, there, and everywhere.

The lieutenant replied gallantly. A dozen times he had to shift position, because he was obviously located, and was being deliberately bombarded.

But at last the gunner officer had to retire from the contest. His mortar showed distinct signs of going to pieces--the muzzle-end having begun to split and crack, and the breech-end swelling in a dangerous-looking bulge.

'Look at her,' said the lieutenant disgustedly. 'Look at her opening out an' unfolding herself like a split-lipped ox-eyed daisy. Anyhow, this is my last bomb, so the performance must close down till we get some more jam-pots loaded up.'

The enemy mortars were evidently of better make, for they continued to bombard the suffering Asterisks for another full hour. They did a fair amount of damage to the trench and parapet, and the Germans seized the opportunity of the Asterisks' attempted repairs to put in some maxim practice and a few rounds of shrapnel.

Altogether, the 7th King's Own Asterisks had a lively twenty-four hours of it, and their casualties were heavy, far beyond the average of an ordinary day's trench work. Forty-seven they totalled in all--nine killed and thirty-six wounded.

They were relieved that night, this short spell being designed as a sort of introduction or breaking in or blooding to the game.

Taking it all round, the Asterisks were fully pleased with themselves. Their Colonel had complimented them on their behaviour, and they spent the next few days back in the reserve, speculating on what the papers would say about them. The optimists were positive they would have a full column at least.

'We beat on an attack,' they said. 'There's sure to be a bit in about that. And look at the way we were shelled, and our Artillery shelled back. There was a pretty fair imitation of a first-class battle for a bit, and most likely there would have been one if we hadn't scuppered that attack. And don't forget the bombing we stuck out--and the casualties. Doesn't every one tell us they were extra heavy? And I believe we are about the first Terrier lot to be in a heavy "do" in the forward trenches. You see--it'll be a column at least, and may be two.'

The pessimists declared that two or three paragraphs were all they could expect, on account of the silly fashion of not publishing details of engagements. 'And whatever mention we do get,' they said, 'won't say a word about the K.O.A. It'll just be a "battalion," or maybe "a Territorial battalion," and no more.'

'Anyway,' said the optimists, 'we'll be able to write home to our people and our pals, and tell them it was us, though the despatches don't mention us by name.'

But optimists and pessimists alike grabbed the papers that came to hand each day, and searched eagerly for the Eye-witness' reports, or the official despatch or communiqué. At last there reached them the paper with the communiqué dated the day after their day in the trenches. They stared at it, and then hurried over the other pages, turned back, and examined them carefully one by one. There were columns and columns about a strike and other purely domestic matters at home, but not a word about the 7th Kings Own Asterisks (Territorial), not a word about their nine dead and thirty-six wounded--not a word; and, more than that, barely a word about the Army, or the Front, or the War.

'There might be no bloomin' war at all to look at this paper,' said one in disgust. 'There's plenty about speeding-up the factories (an' it's about time they speeded up some one to make something better'n that drain-pipe or jam-pot bomb we saw), plenty about those loafin' swine at home, but not a bloomin' word about us 'ere. It makes me fair sick.'

'P'raps there wasn't time to get it in,' suggested one of the most persistent optimists. 'P'raps they'll have it in to-morrow.'

'P'raps,' said the disgusted one contemptuously, 'an' p'raps not. Look at the date of that despatch. Isn't that for the day we was in the thick of it? An' look what it says. Don't that make you sick?'

And in truth it did make them 'sick.' For their night and day of fighting--their defeat of an attack, their suffering under shell, bullet, and bomb, their nine killed and their thirty-six wounded--were all ignored and passed by.

The despatch for that day said simply: 'On the Western Front there is nothing to report. All remains quiet.'

THE PROMISE OF SPRING

'_Only when the fields and roads are sufficiently dry will the favourable moment have come for an advance._'--EXTRACT FROM OFFICIAL DESPATCH.

It is Sunday, and the regiment marching out towards the firing line and its turn of duty in the trenches meets on the road every now and then a peasant woman on her way to church. Some of the women are young and pretty, some old and wrinkled and worn; they walk alone or in couples or threes, but all alike are dressed in black, and all alike tramp slowly, dully, without spring to their step. Over them the sun shines in a blue sky, round them the birds sing and the trees and fields spread green and fresh; the flush of healthy spring is on the countryside, the promise of warm, full-blooded summer pulses in the air. But there is no hint of spring or summer in the sad-eyed faces or the listless, slow movements of the women. It is a full dozen miles to the firing line, and to eye or ear, unless one knows where and how to look and listen, there is no sign of anything but peace and pleasant life in the surroundings. But these black-clad women do know--know that the cool green clump of trees over on the hill-side hides a roofless ruin with fire-blackened walls; that the church spire that for all their lives they had seen out there over the sky-line is no longer visible because it lies shell-smitten to a tumbled heap of brick and stone and mortar; that the glint of white wood and spot of scarlet yonder in the field is the rough wooden cross with a _képi_ on top marking the grave of a soldier of France; that down in the hollow just out of sight are over a score of those cap-crowned crosses; that a broad belt of those graves runs unbroken across this sunlit face of France. They know, too, that those dull booms that travel faintly to the ear are telling plain of more graves and of more women that will wear black. It is little wonder that there are few smiles to be seen on the faces of these women by the wayside. They have seen and heard the red wrath of war, not in the pictures of the illustrated papers, not in the cinema shows, not even by the word-of-mouth tales of chance men who have been in it; but at first-hand, with their own eyes and ears, in the leaping flames of burning homes, in the puffing white clouds of the shrapnel, the black spouting smoke of the high-explosive, in the deafening thunder of the guns, the yelling shells, the crash of falling walls, the groans of wounded men, the screams of frightened children. Some of them may have seen the shattered hulks of men borne past on the sagging stretchers; all of them have seen the laden ambulance wagons and motors crawling slowly back to the hospitals.

And of these women you do not say, as you would of our women at home, that they may perhaps have friend or relation, a son, a brother, a husband, a lover, at the front. You say with certainty they have one or other of these, and may have all, that every man they know, of an age between, say, eighteen and forty, is serving his country in the field or in the workshops--and mostly in the field--if so be they are still alive to serve.

The men in the marching khaki regiment know all these things, and there are respect and sympathy in the glances and the greetings that pass from them to the women. 'They're good plucked 'uns,' they tell each other, and wonder how our women at home would shape at this game, and whether they would go on living in a house that was next door to one blown to pieces by a shell yesterday, and keep on working in fields where hardly a day passed without a shell screaming overhead, whether they'd still go about their work as best they could for six days a week and then to church on Sunday.

Two women, one young and lissom, the other bent and frail and clinging with her old arm to the erect figure beside her, stand aside close to the ditch and watch the regiment tramp by. 'Cheer up, mother,' one man calls. 'We're goin' to shift the Boshies out for you,' and 'Bong jewer,' says another, waving his hand. Another pulls a sprig of lilac from his cap and thrusts it out as he passes. 'Souvenir!' he says, lightly, and the young woman catches the blossom and draws herself up with her eyes sparkling and calls, 'Bonne chance, Messieurs. Goo-o-o-d lock.' She repeats the words over and over while the regiment passes, and the men answer, 'Bong chawnse' and 'Good luck,' and such scraps of French as they know--or think they know. The women stand in the sunshine and watch them long after they have passed, and then turn slowly and move on to their church and their prayers.

The regiment tramps on. It moves with the assured stamp and swing of men who know themselves and know their game, and have confidence in their strength and fitness. Their clothes are faded and weather-stained, their belts and straps and equipments chafed and worn, the woodwork of their rifles smooth of butt and shiny of hand-grip from much using and cleaning. Their faces bronzed and weather-beaten, and with a dew of perspiration just damping their foreheads--where men less fit would be streaming sweat--are full-cheeked and glowing with health, and cheek and chin razored clean and smooth as a guardsman's going on church parade. The whole regiment looks fresh and well set-up and clean-cut, satisfied with the day and not bothering about the morrow, magnificently strong and healthy, carelessly content and happy, not anxious to go out of its way to find a fight, but impossible to move aside from its way by the fight that does find it--all of which is to say it looks exactly what it is, a British regiment of the regular Line, war-hardened by eight or nine months' fighting, moving up from a four days' rest back into the firing line.

It is fairly early in the day, and the sun, although it is bright enough to bring out the full colour of the green grass and trees, the yellow laburnum, and the purple lilac, is not hot enough to make marching uncomfortable. The road, a main route between two towns, is paved with flat cobbles about the size of large bricks, and bordered mile after mile with tall poplars. There are farms and hamlets and villages strung close along the road, and round and about all these houses are women and children, and many men in khaki, a few dogs, some pigs perhaps, and near the farms plenty of poultry. By most of the farms, too, are orchards and fruit-trees in blossom; and in some of these lines of horses are ranked or wagons are parked, sheltered by the trees from aerial observation. For all this, it must be remembered, is far enough back from the firing line to be beyond the reach of any but the longest-range guns--guns so big that they are not likely to waste some tons of shells on the off-chance of hitting an encampment and disabling few or many horses or wagons.

Towards noon the regiment swings off the road and halts in a large orchard; rifles are stood aside, equipments and packs are thrown off, tunics unbuttoned and flung open or off, and the men drop with puffing sighs of satisfaction on the springy turf under the shade of the fruit-trees. The 'travelling cookers' rumble up and huge cauldrons of stew and potatoes are slung off, carried to the different companies, and served steaming hot to the hungry men. A boon among boons these same cookers, less so perhaps now that the warmer weather is here, but a blessing beyond price in the bitter cold and constant wet of the past winter, when a hot meal served without waiting kept heart in many men and even life itself in some. Their fires were lit before the regiment broke camp this morning, and the dinners have been jolting over the long miles since sun-up, cooking as comfortably and well as they would in the best-appointed camp or barrack cook-house.