Nothing of Importance by John Bernard Pye Adams – Audiobook

Nothing of Importance by John Bernard Pye Adams.
Read in English by Lee Smalley.
Fighting in France during the Great War, Bernard Adams, an officer with a Welsh battalion, was moved to chronicle what he saw and experienced: the living conditions and duties of officers and “Tommies” (enlisted men) in their dank, rat-infested trenches and behind the lines; the maiming and deaths; and the quiet periods described in official reports as “nothing of importance”. Adams relates his wounding in June, 1916 and its aftermath. The concluding chapter, which he wrote during his convalescence in “Blighty” (soldiers’ slang for England), is an impassioned reflection on war. Following several months of recuperation Adams returned to the front where, on February 26, 1917 he was wounded again. The following day he died. (Lee Smalley)

Nothing of importance a record of eight months at the front with a Welsh Battalion October 1915 to June 1916 by Bernard Adams in memorium Bernard Adams John Bernard Pi Adams was born on November 15th 1890 at beckenham Kent from his first school at Clare house beckenham he obtained an ENT scholarship

To Malin where he gained many classical and English prizes and became house prefect in December 1908 he won an open classical scholarship at St John’s College Cambridge where he went into residence in October 1909 he was awarded in 1911 Sir William Brown’s gold medals open to the

University for a Greek epigram and a Latin ode and in 1912 he won the medal for the Greek EP gr again and graduated with a first class in the classical tripos in his fourth year he read economics on leaving Cambridge he was appointed by the India office to be

Warden and assistant educational advisor at the Hostile for Indian students at Cromwell Road South Kensington he threw himself writes Dr tww Arnold ciee Secretary of Indian students with the enthusiasm of his Ardent nature into the various activities connected with 21 Cromwell Road and endeared himself both to the Indian students and to his

Colleagues Adams was always a quiet man but his high abilities despite his unobtrusiveness could not be altogether hidden and in London as in Cambridge his intellect and his gift for friendship had their natural outcome Mr ew Mallet of the India office Bears testimony to the very high value which we all set on

His work he had great gifts of sympathy and character strength as well as kindliness influence as well as understanding and these qualities won him in the rather difficult work in which he helped so loyally and well a rare and noticeable measure of esteem on his side he felt that the choice had

Been a right one he liked his work and he learned a great deal from it his ultimate purpose was missionary work in India and and the London experience brought him into close touch with Indians from every part of India and of every religion in November 1914 he

Joined up as lieutenant in the Welsh regiment with which these Pages deal and he obtained a temporary captaincy in the following spring when he went out to the front in October 1915 he resumed his lieutenancy but was very shortly given charge of a company a position which he

Retained until he was wounded in June 1916 when he returned to England he only went out to the front again on January 31st of this year in the afternoon of February 26th he was wounded while leading his men in an attack and died the following day in the field

Hospital these few sentences record the bare landmarks of a career which in the Judgment of his friends would have been noteworthy had it not been so prematurely cut short for instance his here is what his friend TR Glover of St John’s wrote In The Eagle the St John’s College magazine and elsewhere Bernard

Adams was my pupil during his classical days at St John’s and we were brought into very close relations he remains in my mind as one of the very best men I have ever had to teach best in every way in mind and soul and all his nature he

Had a natural gift for writing a natural habit of style he wrote without artifice and achieved the expression of what he thought and what he felt in language that was simple and direct and pleasing a college prize essay of his of those days was printed in the eagle volume 27

Pages 47 to 60 on wordsworth’s Prelude he was a man of the quiet and reserved kind who did not talk much for whom perhaps writing was a more obvious form of utterance than speech it was clear to those who knew him that he put conscience into his thinking he

Was serious above all about religion and he was honest with himself other people will take religion at second hand he was of another type he thought things out quietly and clearly and then decided his choice of Economics as a second subject at Cambridge was dictated by the feeling

That it would prepare him for his life’s work in the Christian Ministry there was little hope in it of much academic distinction but that was not his object a man who had thought more of himself would have gone on with Classics in the Hope a very reasonable one of a

Fellowship Adams was not working for his own advancement the quiet simple way in which without referring to it he dismissed academic distinction gives the measure of the man clear definite unselfish and devoted his ideal was service and he prepared for it at Cambridge and with his Indian

Students in London when the war came he had difficulties of decision as to the course he should pursue like others who had no gust for war and no animosity against the enemy he took a commission not so much to fight against as to fight for the principles at stake appealed to

Him and with an inner reluctance against the whole business he went into it once again the quiet thought out sacrifice in this phase of his career his characteristic conscientiousness was shown by the thoroughness and success with which he performed his military duties he is a real loss to the regiment

Wrote a senior officer everybody who knew him had a very high opinion of his military efficiency as is so often the case a quiet and reserved manner hid a brave heart when it came to personal danger he impressed men as being unconscious of it I never met a man who displayed coie

More utter disregard for danger and in this Spirit he led his men against the enemy and fell from the last message that he gave the nurse for his people tell them I’m all right it is clear that he died with as quiet a mind and as surrendered a will as he

Lived what we have lost who knew him writes Mr Glover these lines May hint I do not not think we really know the extent of our loss but we keep a great deal a very great deal quid quid eximus quid mirati sumus Manet manum EST yes that is true and from the first

My sorrow it may seem an odd confession was for those who were not known to him whose chance was lost for the work he was not to do for himself if ever a man lived his life it was he 25 or 26 years is not much perhaps as a rule but here

It was life and it was lived to some purpose it told and it is not lost preface then said my friend what is this war like I ask you if it is this or that and you shake your head but you will not satisfy me with negatives I want to know

The truth what is it like like there was a long silence Express that silence that is what we want to hear the mask of Glory I said has been stripped from the face of war and we are fighting the better for that continued my friend you

See that I exclaimed but of course you do we know it and you at home know it and you want to know the truth of course was the reply I do not say that what you have read is not true I said but I do say that I have read nothing that gives

A complete or proportioned picture I have not yet found a perfect simile for this war but the nearest I can think of is that of a pack of cards life in this war is a series of events so utterly different and disconnected that the effect upon the actor in the midst of

Them is like receiving a hand of cards from an invisible dealer there are four suits in the pack spad represent the dullness mud weariness and sordidness clubs stand for another side the humor the cheerfulness the jolity and good Fellowship in diamonds I see the glitter of excitement and Adventure hearts are

The tragic suit of Agony horror and death and to each man the invisible dealer gives a succession of cards sometimes they seem all black sometimes they are red and black alternately and at times they come red red red and at the end is the Ace of Hearts I understand said my friend and

Now tell me your hand it was a long hand I replied I think I had better try and write it down in a book I have never written a book I wonder how it would pan out at first my hand was chiefly black with a sprinkling of diamonds later I

Received more diamonds but the hearts began to come as well at last the hearts seemed to be squeezing out the clubs and diamonds there were always plenty of Spades there was another silence there was one phrase I resumed in the daily communic that used to strike us rather

Out there it was nothing of importance to record on the rest of the front I believe that a hundred years hence this phrase will be repeated in the history books there will be a passage like this save for the gigantic effort of Germany to break through the French lines at

Verdun nothing of importance occurred on the Western Front between September 1915 and the opening of The Psalm offensive in the 1st of July 1916 and this will be believed unless men have learned to read history a right by then for the river of history is full of waterfalls that attract the day

Excursionist such as battles and laws and the deaths of Kings whereas the spirit of the river is not in the waterfalls there are men who were wounded in the Som battle who had only seen a few weeks of War I have yet to see a waterfall but I have learned

Something of the spirit of the Deep River in eight months of nothing of importance this then is the book that I have written it is the spirit of the war as it came to me first in big incoherent impressions later as a more intelligible whole perhaps it will seem that the

First chapters are somewhat light in tone and inclined to gloss over the terrible side of War but that is just what happens at first the interest and Adventure are Paramount and it is only after a time only after all the novelty has worn away that one gets the real

Proportion if the first chapters do not bite deep remember that this was my experience this this book does not claim to be always Sensational or thrilling one claim only I make for it from end to end it is the truth the events recorded are real and true in every detail I have

Nowhere exaggerated for in this war there is nothing more terrible than the truth all the persons mentioned are also real though I have thought it better to give them pseudonyms January 1917 end of nothing of importance and preface First Impressions goodbye goodbye don’t forget to send me that hun helmet all right

Goodbye the train had long ago recovered from the shock of its initial jerk a long steady grinding noise came up from the carriage Wheels as though they had recovered breath and were getting into their stride for full HK Stone regardless of the growing clatter of the Southeastern Rhythm if indeed so Noble a

Word may be used for the noise made by the wheels as they passed over the rail joints of this distinguished line don’t believe it’s a good thing having one’s people to see you off said Terry whose people had accompanied him in large numbers to Charing Cross they will come though remarked Crowley very

Wisely I tried to persuade my people not to come said I but they think you like it I suppose I would certainly rather say goodbye at home and have no one come to the station and so I started off my experience of the great adventure with a

Lie direct but it does not weigh very heavily upon my conscience six of us sat in a first class Carriage on the morning of the 5th of October 1915 for months we had been together in a reserve battalion waiting to go out to the front and now at last we had

Received marching orders and were Bound for folkstone and then for France for which Battalion of our regiment any or all of us 12 officers were destined we had no knowledge whatever but even the most uncongenial pair of us would I am sure have preferred each other’s company to that of complete

Strangers I at any rate have never in my life felt more shy and self-conscious and full of stupid qualms unless indeed it was on the occasion 10 months before when I had stood shaking in front of a platoon of 20 men the last few days I had gone about

Feeling as though the news that I was going to the front were printed in large letters around my cap I felt that people in the railway carriages and in the streets were looking at me with an electric interest and the necessary and unnecessary purchases as well as the

Good buys were of the kind to make one feel placed upon a pedestal of importance now in company with five other officers in like predicament I felt already that I had climbed down a step from that pedestal in fact the whole experience of the first few days

Was one of a steady reduction from all importance to complete insignificance as soon as we had recovered from the silence that followed my remarks upon the disadvantages of prolonged valedictions we commenced a critical survey of our various properties and accouterments revolvers leapt from brand new holsters feet were held up to show

The ideal trench Nails flash lamps and torches compasses map cases pocket medicine cases all were shown with an easy confidence of manner that screened a sinking dread of disapprobation the prismatic compass was was regarded rather as a joke by some of us its use in trench warfare was a

Doubtful quantity yet there were some of us who in the depths of our martial wisdom were half expecting that the Battle of loose was the Prelude of an Autumn campaign of Open Country Warfare there was only one man whose word we took for law in anything and

That was Barrett he had spent 5 days in the trenches last December he had then received his Commission in our Battalion he was the man from the front and I noticed with secret misgivings that he had not removed the badges of rank from his arm or sewed his two stars upon his

Shoulder straps he had not removed his bright buttons and substituted for them leather ones such as are worn on gulping jackets and in his F he told us he had his Sam brown belt but you never wear Sam Browns out there I said said all officers now dress

As much as possible like the men that was so we were informed but officers used to wear them in billets when they were out of the firing line well said Crowley we could get them sent out I expect yes said I I expect they would arrive safely but this infantile

Conversation is not worthy of record suffice to say we knew nothing about war and we just beginning to learn that fact the first check to our enthusiasm was at folkstone we reported to the railway transport officer whom we then regarded as a little demigod he told us to report

In time for the boat at a certain hour this we did signed our names with a feeling of doing some awful and irreplicable deed and then were told to wait another 3 hours there was no room for us on this boat we retired to a hotel with a Feeling feeling that

Perhaps after all there was no such imperious shouting for our help over in France such as we had all I think save only Barrett who was cynical and pessimistic secretly imagined Darkness came a we started the crossing did not seem long and I stood up on Deck with

Barrett most of the time two destroyers followed a little aern one on either side and there were lights right across the channel we were picked out by search lights more than once although all lights were forbidden on board I felt that I was now fair game for the Germans

And it was exciting to think that they would give anything to SN me at last I was in for the Great Adventure at bolognia we had to wait a long time on a dismal Quay and in a drizzling rain to interview an irritated and sleepy Railway transport officer

After a long long cu had been safely negotiated we were given tickets to blank and then again we had to wait quite an hour on the platform some of our party were excited at their first visit to a foreign soil but their enthusiasm abat when at the buffet they

Were charged exorbitant prices and their English money was rejected as damn fool money then there came a long jerky Journey Through the Night in a crowded carriage as I am out for confessions I will he state that I did not think this could be an ordinary passenger train and

I wondered vaguely who these men and women were who got in and out of other carriages at etle there was a still longer weit and a still longer queue but fortunately my signature had not lengthened I remember sitting tired and days on the top of a Biz and asking

Barrett what the time was 3:45 what a time to arrive I replied but in war 345 is as good a time as any other I was soon to discover we walked to a camp a mile distant from the station our arrival seemed quite unlooked for and a quartermaster sergeant had to be

Procured by the officer who was our guide in order to gain access to the tent that contained the blanket stores wearily at close on 5:00 we fell asleep on the boarded bottom of a bell tent it must have been about 10:00 a.m. on the 6th when we turned out and found

Ourselves in a Sandy country behind us was a small Ridge crowned by a belt of fur trees the sun was well up and Shone warm on the face as we washed and shaved in the open the feeling of Camp was exhilarating and I was in good spirits

But two blows immediately damped my art most effec actively when I learned that I was posted to our first Battalion and I alone of all of us 12 the thought of my arrival among the regulars with no experience and not even an acquaintance far less a friend was distinctly

Chilling to add to my discomfort there befell a second Misfortune my Bel nowhere to be seen indeed the rest of the day was chiefly occupied in searching for my B but to know no purpose whatever I did not see it until 10 days later when by some miracle it

Appeared again I can hardly convey the sense of depression these two facts cast over me the next few days the interest and Novelty of my experiences made me forget for short periods but always there would return the thought of my arrival alone into a line regiment and with the humiliating necessity of

Borrowing at once unknown and inexperienced I could not help being but as a fool who lost all his property the first day I should not cut a brilliant figure we obtained breakfast at an estamina By The Station omelets rolls and butter and Cafe Noir I bought a French newspaper and thought how finely

My French would improve under this daily necessity but I soon found that one could get the Paris edition of The Daily Mail and my French is still as sketchy as ever I remember watching the French children and the French women at the doors of the houses and wondering what

They thought of this war on their own soil I knew that the wild enthusiasms of a year ago had died down I did not expect the shouting and singing the souvenir hunting and the generous impulses that greeted our troops a year ago but I felt so vividly myself the

Fact that between me and the Germans lay only living wall of my own countrymen that I could not help thinking these urchins and women must feel it too the very way in which they swept the doorsteps seemed to me worth noting at the moment in the course of my wild

Perrin over the camp in search of my Viss I Came Upon A group of tomies undergoing instruction in the machine gun arrested by a familiar voice I recognized as instructor a man I knew very well at cambri Bridge he recognized me at the same moment and in a few

Seconds we parted after an invitation from him to dinner that evening he was on lines of communication work he told me sitting in his tent after mess I was amazed at the apparent permanence of his Abode shelves made out of boxes novels an army list magazines Maps bed

Washstand candlesticks a chair backy and whiskey and soda it was all so snug and comfortable I was soon to find myself accumulating a very similar collection in billets six miles behind the firing line and taking most of it into the trenches I remember being impressed by the statement that the canonade had been

Heard day after day since the 25th and still more impressed by references to the plans of the staff I left a early on the morning of the 7th after receiving instructions and a railway warrant for chois from a one-armed major of the Gordons of our original 12 only Terry and Crowley

Remained with me with a young Scott we had a gray upholstered first class Carriage to ourselves in the train I commenced my first letter home I should here like to state that the reason for the inclusion in these first chapters of a good many extra racts from letters is that they do

Really represent my first vague rather disconnected Impressions and are therefore trer than any more coherent account I might now give first impressions of people houses places are always interesting I hope that the reader will not find these without interest even though he may find them at times lacking in

Style I am now on the train we are passing level Crossings guarded by horn blood ing women the train is strolling leisurely along over grass grown tracks and stopping at platform stations it is very hot at midday I shall be about 10 miles from the firing line and I expect

The canonade will be pretty audible I feel strangely indifferent to things now though I have the feeling that all this will be stamped indelibly on my memory how well I remember the thrill of excitement when I found the name shock was on my map quite close to the firing

Line and as we got nearer and saw ramc and Cavalry camps and talked to Tommy guarding the line saw aeroplanes and yes a captive balloon excitement grew still greater at last we reached choas and the railway transport officer calmly informed us that we had another four miles to go he brilliantly suggested

Walking but an ASC Lori was there and in we climbed only to be ejected by the Corporal eventually we tramped to Bethune with very full packs in a hot sun walking gave us opportunity for observation and that road was worth seeing to those who had not seen it

Before there were convoys of ASC lores drawn up or parked in 20s or 30s alongside the road each with its mystical mark marking a Scarlet shell a green Shamrock Etc painted on its side Red Cross ambulances passed impelling one to turn back and look in them sometimes containing stretcher cases

Feet only visible or sitting cases with bandaged head or arm in Sling then there were Motorcars with staff officers Motorcars with youthful officers in Immaculate Sam Browns and slacks and as we drew near Bethune we saw cantens with tomies standing and lounging outside small squads of men English notices and

Boards with painted inscriptions and in the distance loomed the square Tower of the cathedral which I thought then to be a decapitated spire and so we came into the bustle of a French city I had never heard of Bethune before as the crow flies it is

About 5 to six miles from the front trenches the shops were doing a roaring trade and I was amazed to see chemists flaunting autost strop razors stationers offering Tommy’s writing pad and tailor showing English officers uniforms in their Windows besides all the goods of a large and populous town we were very

Hungry and tired and fate directed us to the famous tea shop where at dainty tables amid crowds of officers we obtained an English tea I was astounded so were we all to think that I had treasured a toothbrush as a thing that I might not be able to

Replace for months here was everything to hand were we really within six miles of the Germans yet officers were discussing the hot time we had yesterday while we only came out this morning or they whis banged us pretty badly last night were remarks from officers rolent of bath and the

Hairdresser buttons brilliantly polished boots shining like advertisements Swagger canes and Immaculate collars gave the strangest first impression of active service to us with our leather equipment packs leather buttons and trench boots old Barrett was right about the Sam Browns I said to Terry vainly trying

To look at my ease let’s look at your map he answered then after a moment oh we’re not far from the labas canal I’ve heard of that often enough so have I I replied is labas ours or theirs ours of course but he borrowed the map again to make sure refreshed but feeling

Strangely out of everything we eventually found our way to the town major here my letter continues I was told an orderly was coming in the evening to conduct conduct me to the trenches to my Battalion suddenly however we were told to go off seven of us in the same division to our

Brigades in a motor lry so we are packed off I said goodbye to Crowley and Terry this was about 700 p.m. we went rattling along till within a short distance of our front trenches there was a lot of canona going on around and behind us and star shells bursting continuously with

Crystal Palace fireworks pops we could hear rifles crackling too at length we got to where the Lori could go no further and we halted for a long time where the houses were all ruins and the roofs like spiders webs with the white glare of the shells silhouetting them

Against the sky the houses had been shelled yesterday but last night no shells were coming our way at all my feelings were exactly like they are in a storm the nearer and bigger the flashes and bangs the more I hoped the next would be really big and really near of

Course all this canonade was our artillery at the time we were quite muddled up as to what it was the snarling bangs were the 18 Pounders quite close to us about 1,000 yards behind our front line the cracking bullets were spent bullets though it sounded to us as if they were from a

Trench about 20 yards in front of us nothing is more confusing at first than the different sounds of the different guns I think several of us would have been ready to say we had been under shellfire that night the star shells should be more accurately described as flares or

Rockets but to continue my letter well the next few hours were a strange mixture of Sensations we could nowhere find our brigades and after 10 hours in the Lorry we landed here at a place 16 Mi back from the firing line here our division had been located by a

Signaler whom we had consulted when we stopped by the crossroads we were left by the Lorry at 5:00 a.m. at a field ambulance station close to HQ where we slept wearily till 8 to awake and find ourselves miles from our division which is really I believe quite near where we

Had been in the firing line now we are sitting in a big old chatau awaiting a telephone message we are in a dining room walls peeling and armchairs reduced to legless deformities it is a jolly day sun and the smell of autumn I shall not forget

That long ride I was at the back and could see out innumerable villages we passed innumerable mistakes we made innumerable stops innumerable inquiries but always there was the throbbing engine while while we halted and the bump and rattle as we plunged through the night eight officers and seven bices

I think we were one or two were reduced to grumbling several were asleep a few like myself were awake but all absolutely tired out it was too uncomfortable to rest cramped up among bulky bices and all sorts of sprawling limbs once at about 4:00 we halted at a

House with a light in the window and found a minor just going off to work an old woman brewed some very black coffee and we hungrily devoured bits of bread and butter coffee and cognac while the old woman fat and smiling gabbled incessantly at us a strange weird

Picture we must have made some of us in kilts and bonnets standing half awake in the flickering candle light we were at the Chateau all morning the ramc fellows were very very decent to us gave us breakfast eggs bread and butter and tinned jam and also lunch bully beef

Cheese bread and butter and beer these were eaten off the dining room table in style I explored the Chateau during the morning just a big ordinary empty house inside outside it is white Plaster with steep slate roofs and a few ornamental turrets the garden is mostly taken up

With lines of picketed horses Outside The Orchards and enclosures the country is bare and flat it is a mining district and pyramids of slags stand up all over the plain I cannot do better than continue quoting from these first letters of mine of course I did not mention places by

Name well at 2: p.m. the same old Lori and Corporal turned up and took us back to Bethune I gather he got considerable strafing for last night’s performance although I think he was not given clear enough instructions then with seven other officers we were sent off again in

Daylight and dropped by twos and threes at our various Brigade headquarters our Brigade HQ was in one of the few houses left standing here I reported and was told that an orderly would take me to my Battalion transport in half an hour the orderly arrived on a bike bicycle and by 6:00

P.m. I was only half a mile from our transport we were walking along when suddenly there was a scream like a rocket followed by a big bang and the sound of splinters falling all about I expected to see people jump into ditches but they stood calmly in the street

Women and all and watched while several shells whizbangs I believe no dear innocence high explosive shrapnel burst just near near the road about 100 yd ahead we were 4 miles back from the firing line it was just the evening hate I expect it didn’t last long just near

Us was one of our own batteries firing intermittently this was my first experience being under Fire I hadn’t the least idea what to do the textbooks I believe said throw yourself on the ground I therefore looked at my orderly but he was ducking behind his bicycle

Which I am sure is not recommended by any Manual of military training I ducked behind nothing copying him this all took place in the middle of the road when I saw women opening the doors of their houses and standing calmly looking at the shells ducking seemed out of the

Question so we both stood and watched the bursting shells then the Salvo ceased and I thinking I must show some sort of a lead suggested that we should proceed but my orderly wiser by experience suggested waiting to see if another Salvo were forthcoming after 10 minutes however it

Was clear that the Germans had finished and we resumed our journey in peace my letter continues at the transport I had a very comfortable Billet the quartermaster and two other new officers and myself had supper in an upstairs room the quartermaster seemed very pessimistic and told us a lot about our losses we

Turned in at 10:00 and I slept well it was very quiet that is to say only intermittent bangs such as have continued ever since the beginning of the war and will continue to the end thereof October 9th this morning a cart took us at 9:00 to within about a mile

Of the firing line putting us down at the corner of a street that has been renamed H Street the country was dead flat the houses everywhere in Ruins though some were untouched and still inhabited then in orderly conducted us to HQ where we reported to the agitant and the co who

Was quite Young by the way they were in the ground floor room of a house to which we came all the way from H Street along a communication trench about 7 ft deep these trenches were originally dug by the French I believe I was told I was

Po Ed to D company so another orderly took me back practically to H Street which must be 6 or 700 yard behind the firing line D is in reserve I am attached to it for the present there are two other officers in it Davidson and Simons both have only just joined so at

Last I was fairly lodged in my Battalion I had been directed dumped shaken and carried in a kindly yet to me most amazingly halfhazard way to my destination and there I found myself quite unexpected but immediately attached somewhere until I should sort myself out a little and find my feet I

Had a servant called Smith in the afternoon I went with Davidson to supervise a working party which was engaged in Paving a communication trench with tiles from the neighboring houses in the evening I set to and wrote letters I will close this chapter with yet one more

Quotation now I am in the ground floor of one of the few standing houses in H Street next door is a big EOL de which I am quite surprised to find empty really the way the people go about their work here is amazing still I suppose to carry

On a girls school half a mile from the Bosch is just beyond the capacity of even their indifference I’ve already got quite used to the noise there are two guns just about 40 yards away that keep on firing with a terrific bang I can see the flashes just behind me I think the

Noise would worry you if you heard these blaring bangs at the end of the back Garden which is just about the distance this battery is from me we are messing here in this room half a table has been propped up and three chairs discovered and patched up for us all the windows

Facing the enemy have been BL locked up with sandbags I sleep here tonight if the house is shelled I shall flee to The Dugout 20 yards away orders have not yet come but I believe we go back to billets tomorrow a free issue of Glory boy cigarettes has just arrived two packets

For each officer and man please don’t forget to send my Sam brown belt end of chapter 1 k I and Joni throughout October and November our Battalion was in the firing line this meant that we spent life in an everlasting alternation between the trenches and our billets behind just far

Enough behind that is to be out of the range of the light artillery always though liable to be called suddenly into the firing line and never out of the atmosphere of the trenches always before us was angled a promised rest and always it was being postponed rumors were spread dissected

Laughed at and eventually treated with bored incredulity the Battalion had had no rest I believe since May men and especially ncos who had been out since October 1914 were tired out in body and spirit with the officers and certain new drafts of men it was different we came

Out enthus enthusiastic and keen on the whole I thoroughly enjoyed those first two months I am surprised now to see how much detail I wrote in my letters home everything was fresh everything new and interesting and things were on the whole very quiet we had a few casualties but

Underwent no serious bombardment and most important to us of course we had no casualties among the officers jiboni and koni are two small villages North and South respectively of the labasi canal which runs almost due east and west between labasi and Bethune jiboni stands on a slight rise in the

Flattest of flat countries a church Tower of red brick must have been the most noticeable feature as one walked in pre-war days from the suburbs of Bethune along the bassi road kosi is a village straggling along a road both both are as completely reduced to ruins as Villages

Can be the Firing Line running just east of them between them flows the great sluggish Canal during an afternoon in Bethune one could do all the shopping one required and get a haircut and shampoo as well expensive cocktails were obtained at the local bar there was also

A famous tea shop we were bed in one of the small villages around sometimes we only stayed one night at a Billet there was always change Always movement sometimes I got a bed often I did not but a valise is comfortable enough when Once its tricks are mastered anyhow it

Is billets and not trenches that is the point a continuous night’s rest in pajamas the facilities of a bath very often a free afternoon and evening and no equipment and revolver to carry night and day it was in billets the following letters were written which are really

The best description of my life at this period 19th October 1915 our Battalion went into the trenches on the 14th and came out on the 17th our company B was in support the front line was about 300 yards ahead and we held the second line everything

Prepared to meet an attack in case the enemy broke through the first line halfway between our first and second line was a kind of redout to be held at all costs for three days and nights I was in command of this redout isolated and ready with stores ammunition water

Barbed wire and pickets bombs and tools to hold out a little siege for several days if necessary I used to leave it to get meals at company HQ in the support line otherwise I had always to be there ready for instant action no one used to

Get more than two or 3 hours consecutive sleep and I could never take off boots equipment or revolver here is a typical scene in the readout scene a Dugout 6 feet by 4 feet by 4 feet smell earthy time 2:30 a.m. I awake and listen deathly Stillness a voice what’s the

Time kid another voice don’t know about two o’clock I reckon past that long silence rum job this is ain’t it kid why well I reckon if the damn Huns were coming over we’d know it long before they got here I reckon we’d hear the boys in front firing long pause I

Don’t know suppose there’s some sense in it else we wouldn’t be here silence damn cold on this damn fire step guess it’s time they relieved us long silence don’t them flares look funny in the Mist yes I guess old Fritz uses some of them every night hello there they go

Again hear that machine gun long pause during which machine guns pop and snipers snipe merrily and flares Light Up the Sky trench mortars begin behind us wh silence thud then the Germans reply sending two or three over which thud harmlessly behind the invisible sentes have now become clearly visible to me as

I look out of my Dugout two of them are about 10 yards apart standing on the fire platform theirs is the above dialogue with a sudden thud a trench mortar shell drops 15 yards behind us hello Fritz is getting the wind up getting the wind up is slang for getting

Nervous this stolid comment from a century is is typical of the attitude adopted towards Fritz the German when he starts shelling or finding he is supposed to be a bit jumpy it seems hard to realize that Fritz is really trying to kill these centries the whole thing

Seems a weird strange play I make an effort and crawl out of the Dugout the strafing has died down only occasional flares climb up from the German lines and pop pop in the Morning Mist I go round the sentries standing up by them and looking over the parapet it is cold

And raw and the sentries are looking forward to the next relief ah there is the Corporal on trench Duty coming I can hear him routing out the snoring relief ping goes a stray bullet singing by a Ricochet by its sound a near one sir yes

Evans safer in the front line I guess it is Sir then the Sentry changed I turned back again to my Dugout sleeping with revolvers and Equipment requires some care of position halfast 4 sir comes after a pause and some sleep out I get and everybody stands to arms for an hour

Each man taking up the position allotted to him along the fire platform gradually it gets light some brick Stacks grow out of the Mist in front and ruined Cottages Loom up in the re and what was a church the fire platform being here pretty high one can

Look back over the parados over bare flat country cut up by trenches and run to waste terribly pados by the way is the name given to the back of a trench at 5:30 stand down and clean rifles is the order given and the cleaning commences a process as oft

Repeated as washing up in civilized lands and is monotonous and unsatisfactory for a few hours later the rifles are a bit Rusty and muddy again and need another inspection 7:30 tell Sergeant Summers I’m going down to company headquarters very good sir then I take a long Maisy Journey Down the communication trench

Which is 6 ft deep at least and mostly paved with bricks from a neighboring brick field there are an amazing lot of mice about the trenches and they fall in and can’t get out most of them get squashed frogs too which make a green and worse mess than the mice our Co

Always stops and throws a frog out if he meets one Tommy needless to say is not so sentimental these trenches have been built a long time and grass stalks dried scabas and plantain stalks grow over the edges which must make them very invisible from above H Street l Lane C

Road P Lane are traversed and so into s Street where in the cellar of what was once a house are two hungry officers already started on bacon and eggs coffee with condensed milk and bread and tinned jam we are lucky with three chairs and a table a newspaper makes an admirable

Table cloth and a bottle of good Candlestick and there is room in a Cellar to stand up breakfast done a shave is manipulated Meadows my servant getting ready my tackle and producing a mug of hot water 9:30 finds me back in the redout and starting a working party

On repairing a communication trench and generally improving the trenches working parties are unpopular Tommy does not believe in improving trenches he may never see again and so the day goes on centries change and take their place sitting gazing ing into a scrap of mirror ration parties come up with

Dixies carried on wooden pickets and the Pioneer generally cleans up sprinkling chloride of lime about in white showers which seems as plentiful as the sand of the seashore and the odor of which clings to the trenches as the smell of seaweed does to the beach the rout was in the quane trenches

And that old Cellar was really a delightful headquarters the first time we were in it we found a cat there on the second occasion the same cat appeared with three Lusty kittens these used to keep the place clear of rats and get sat on every half hour or so I soon

Learned to get used to smoke on one occasion the smoke from our brazer became so thick that gray the cook threatened to resign for all the smoke gathers at the top of a Dugout and seems impossibly suffocating to anyone first entering yet yet it is often practically

Clear 2 or 3 ft from the ground so that when lying or sitting one does not notice the smoke at all but a newcomer gets his eyes so stung that it seems impossible that anyone can live in The Dugout at all gray by the way was not allowed to

Resign here follows a letter describing the front trenches at Joni 7th November on the 29th we marched off at 9 and halted at 11 for dinner luckily it was fine and the piled arms the steaming Dixies and the groups of men sitting about eating and smoking

Formed a pleasant sight our grub was put by mistake on the mcart which went straight on to the trenches Edwards however our company mess president came up to the scratch with bread butter and eggs tea was easily procured from the cookers then off we went to our HQ there

There we got down into the communication trench and in single file were taken by guides into our part of the trenches these guides were sent by the Battalion we were relieving I told you that all the trenches have names which are painted on boards hung up at the trench

Corners the first thing done was to post sentries along our company front until this was done the outgoing Battalion could not outgo each man has his firing position allotted to him and he always occupies it at stand to and stand down we were three days and three nights in

The trenches each officer was on duty for eight hours during which he was responsible for a sector of firing line and must be actually in the front trench my watch was 12: to 4: a.m. and p.m. work that out with stand two in the morning and also in the evening and you

Will see that consecutive sleep sleep is not easy on paper 6: to 12 midnight looks good but then remember dinner at 7 or 7:30 according to the fire while you may have to turn out any time if you are being shelled at all for instance one

Night I was just turning in early at 700 when a mine went up on our right and shelling and general strafing kept me out till 9:30 after which I couldn’t sleep so at midnight I was tired when I started my 4 hours turning in at 4: out

Again for stand 2 8 breakfast 9 rifle inspection and so it goes on this is why you can appreciate billets and bed from 9 to 7: if you want it imagine a cold November night with a ground fog what Bliss to be roused from a snug Dugout at

Midnight and Patrol the company’s line for four interminable hours it is deathly quiet has the war stopped I stand up on the fir step beside the senty and try to see through the fog pip pip pip pip pip goes a machine gun so the war is still on cold I ask a centry

Only me feet sir why don’t you stamp your feet then this being equivalent to an order Tommy stamps feebly a few times until made to do so energetically unless you make him stamp he will not stamp would infinitely prefer to let his feet get cold as ice of course when you have

Gone into the next Bay he immediately stops still that is Tommy i gaze across into No Man’s Land I can just see our wire and in front a collection of old tins bully tins Jam tins butter tins paper old bits of equipment other regiments always leave

Places so one tidy you clean up but when you come into trenches you find the other fellows have left things about you work hard repairing The Trenches the relieving regiment you find on your return has done damn all which is military slang for nothing and all other regiments it seems have the same

Complaint swish a German flare rocket lights up everything you see our trenches all along everything is as clear as day you feel as conspicuous as a crom lch on a hill but the enemy can’t see you fog or no fog if you only keep still the light has fallen on the

Parapet this time and lies sizzling on the sandbags a Flicker and it is gone and in the fog you see black blobs the size and shape of the dazzling light you’ve just been staring at crack plop crack plop a couple of bullets bu carry themselves in

The sandbags or else with a long drawn Bing Go singing over the top why the centuries never get hit seems extraordinary I suppose a mathematician would by combination and permutation tell you the chances against bullets aimed at a venture hitting sentries exposing 1/4 of their persons at a given

Elevation at so many Paces interval personally I won’t try as my whole object is to keep keep awake till 4:00 and then I shall be too sleepy only remember it is night and the centries are invisible tap tap tap there’s a wiring party out sir I’ve heard him these last

Five minutes undoubtedly there are a few men out in no man’s land repairing their wire I tell the centries near to look out and be ready to fire and then I send off a very flare fired by a thick cartridge from a thick barreled brass

Pistol it makes a good row and has a fair kick so it is best to rest the butt on the parapet and hold it at arms length even so it leaves your ears singing for hours the first shot was a failure only a miserable rocket tail

Which failed to burst the second was a magnificent shot it burst beautifully and fell right behind the party two Germans and silhouetted them falling and burning still in candescent on the ground behind a volley of fire followed from our awaiting sentries I could not see if the party were hit most of the

Shots were fired after the light had died out anyhow the working party stopped the two figures stood quite motionless while the flare burned the Germans opposite us were very Lively one could often hear them whistling and one night they were shouting to one another like anything they were Saxons who are

All always at that game no one knows exactly what it means it was quite cold almost Frosty and the sound came across the hundred yards or so of no man’s land with a strange clearness in the night air the voices seemed unnaturally near like voices on the water heard from a cliff Tommy

Tommy English bone we hate Z prin I can hear how the nasal twang with which the call was emphasized damn the Kaiser deun Alis I could hear these shouts almost distinctly the same sentences were repeated again and again they shouted to one another from one part of the line to

Another generally preceding each sentence by comad often you hear loud hearty laughter as comic cuts the name given to the Daily intelligence reports sagely REM marked either this means that there is a spirit of dissatisfaction among the Saxons or it is a ruse to try and catch

Us unawares or it is mere Foolery wisdom in high places really it was intensely interesting come over shouted Tommy we are not coming over came back loud clapping and laughter followed remarks like we hate zon Prince then they would yodel and sing like anything Tommy replied with tiporary they sang God save

The king or rather their German equivalent of it to the familiar tune then abide with us Rose into the night air and starlight this went on for an hour and a half though almost any night you can hear them shout something and give a yodel it is the strangest thing I

Have ever experienced the authorities now try and stop our fellows answering the onun of Last Christmas is not to be repeated one of the officers in our Battalion has shown me several German signatures on his paybook he was in the ranks then given in Friendly Exchange in

The middle of No Man’s Land last Christmas Day I have had my baptism of mud now it tires me to think of it and I have not the effort to write fully about it the second time we were in these trenches the mud was 2 ft deep even our

Company headquarters a Cellar was covered with mud and slime pooses and communication trenches had fallen in and the going was terrible the sticky mud yed one’s boots off nearly and it felt as if one’s foot would be broken in extricating it we all wore gum boots of

Blue black rubber that came right up to the waist like fishermen’s waiters but the mud is everywhere and we get our arms arms all plastered with it as we literally reel to and fro along the trench every now and again steadying ourselves against slimy sandbags one or two men actually got

Stuck and had to be helped out with Spades one fellow lost heart and left one of his gum boots stuck in the mud and turned up in my platoon in a stockinged foot of course plastered thick with Clay we worked day and night gradually the problem is being tackled weariness mud the next

Experience not mentioned in my letter was death on our immediate right was C company here our trench runs out like an inverted V more or less and the opposite trenches are very close together consequently it is a great place for mining Activity one evening we put up a

Mine the next afternoon the Germans put up a count counter mine and accompanied it with a hail of trench mortars I was on trench duty at the time and had ample opportunity of observing the genus trench mortar and its habits one can see them approaching some time before they

Actually fall as they come from a great height in military terms with a steep trajectory and one can see them revolving as they topple down then they fall with a thud and black smoke comes up and mud spatters all about most of them were falling in our second line and

Support trenches I was patrolling up and down our front trench we were standing too after the mine and for half an hour it was rather a hot shop I was delighted to find that I rather enjoyed it seeing one or two of the new draft with the

Wind up a bit steadied me at once I have hardly ever since felt the slightest nervousness Under Fire it is mainly temperament our company had four casualties one in the front trench the three others in the platoon in support C company suffered more heavily at 6

Edwards came on duty and I was able to go in quest of two bombers who were said to be wounded getting near the place I came on a man standing half dazed in the trench oh sir he cried in burring speech of a true Welshman a ter French mortar

Has fallen in ack into me duck out for the moment I felt like laughing at the man’s curious speech and look but I saw that he was greatly scared and no wonder a trench mortar had dropped right into the mouth of his Dugout and had half

Buried two of his comrades we were soon engaged in extricating them both had bad head wounds and how he escaped is a miracle I helped carry the two men out and over the debris of flat Lattin trenches to company headquarters so for the first time I

Looked upon two dying men and some of their blood was on my clothes one died in half an hour the other early next morning it was really not my job to assist the stretcher bearers were better at it than I yet in this first little

Bit of strafe I was carried away by my instinct whereas later I should have been attending to the living members of my platoon and the defense of my sector I left the company sergeant major in difficulties as to whether Randall the man who had so miraculously escaped and

Who was temporarily dazed should be returned as sick or wounded another death that came into my close experience was that of a lance corporal in my platoon I had only spoken to him a quarter of an hour before and on returning found him lying dead on the

Fire platform he had been killed instant instantaneously by a rifle grenade I lifted the waterproof sheet and looked at him I remember that I was moved but there was nothing repulsive about his recumbent figure I think the novelty and interest of these first casualties made

Them quite easy to bear I was so busy noticing details the silence that rained for a few hours in my platoon the details of removing the bodies the collecting of Kit Etc these things at first blunted my perception of the vess of the tragedy nor did I feel the

Cruelty of War as I did later weariness mud death so it was with great joy that we would return to billets to get dry and clean to eat sleep and write letters to drill and Carry Out Inspections company drill bayonet fighting gas helmet drill musketry and lectures were usually ually

Confined to the morning and early afternoon we thought that we had rather an overdose of lecturing from our medical officer the M Mo on sanitation and the care of the feet trench feet one lecture always began is that state produced by excessive cold or long standing in water or liquid mud we soon

Got to know too much we felt about the use of whale oil and antifrost bite Grease the changing of socks and the rubbing and St amping of feet we did get rather fed up with it yet I believe we had only one case of trench feet in our Battalion throughout the winter so

Perhaps it was worth our discomfort of attending so many lectures our CO’s lectures on trench warfare were always worth hearing he was so tremendously keen and such a perfect and wholehearted Soldier a chapter might be written on Billet life here are a few more extracts from letters October 13th all day long this

Little Inn has shaken from top to bottom there is one battery about a 100 yards away that makes the whole house rattle like the inside of a motor bus the Germans might any time try and locate the battery and a shell would reduce the house to ruins yet the old woman here

Declares she will not leave the house as long as she lives it is a strange place this belt of land behind the firing line the men are out of the trenches for 3 days and it is their Duty after perhaps a running parade before breakfast and two or three hours drill and inspection

In the morning to rest for the remainder of the day in the morning you will see all the evolutions of company drill carried out in a small Meadow behind a strip of Woodland in the next field an old man and woman are unconcernedly hoing a Cabbage Patch then behind here

Are a battalion’s transport lines with rows of horses picketed along the road an ASC Convoy is passing each Lorry at regulation distance from the next in the afternoon you will see groups of tomies doing nothing most religiously smoking cigarettes writing letters home from 6:00 to 8 the estom are open and

Everyone flocks to them to get bad beer they are also open an hour at midday and then the orderly officer accompanied by the Provost Sergeant produces an electric Silence with any complaints it does not pay an estom keeper to dilute his beer too much or else he will lose his

License I often wonder if these peasants think much think they must have done at the beginning when their men were Hasty called up but now after 15 months of War it is the children chiefly who are interested in the aeroplanes shining like eagles silver White against the

Blue sky or in the boom from the battery across the street but for their mothers and grandparents these things have settled into their lives they are all one with the canal and the popler trees if a squad starts drilling on their Lett uses they are tremendously alert but as

For these other things they are not interested only unutterably tired of them and after a while you adopt the same attitude the noise of the guns is boring and you hardly look up at an aeroplane unless it is shrapnel by The Archies anti-aircraft guns then it is worth watching the pin

Prick flashes dotting the sky all around it leaving little white curls of smoke floating in the blue that Billet was close to the firing line here is a letter from a Village 8 Miles back 20th October 1915 we came out here on Monday the whole division marched out together it

Was really an impressive site over a mile of troops on the March perfect Order Perfect Arrangement where the road bent you could often see the column for a mile in front a great snake curling along the right side of the road occasionally an agitant would break out

Of the line to trot back and correct some straggling or or a CO would emerge for a Gallop over the adjacent plowland our company is bued in a big prosperous Farm the men are in a roomy barn and look very comfortable we are in

A big room on the right as you enter the front door of the farm on a tiled floor stands a round table with an oilcloth cover originally of a bright red pattern but now subdued by constant scrubbings to the palest pink with occasional Scarlet dotting there are big tall Windows a wardrobe

And sideboard a big Chimney Place fitted with a Coke stove and on the walls hang three very dirty old prints the only War touch beside our scattered possessions is a picture from a French Illustrated of Le de outside is a yard animated by cows turkeys geese chicken and Ducks

Also a donkey and a peacock not to mention the US ual dogs and cats at 5:00 a.m. I am awakened by an amazing chorus the patron is a strong competent man with many fine Buxom daughters who do the farm work with great capacity and energy henriet with a pitchfork is

Strength and Grace in action Tommy is much in awe of her she hustles the pigs relentlessly the sons are at the war antiana and Marcel aged 10 and 8 respectively complete the family with Madame of course who makes inimitable coffee and various grandparents who appear in White Caps and cook and bake all

Day I have just paid out all in five and 20 Frank notes in the field every man has his own paybook which the officer must sign while the company quartermaster Sergeant sees that his acquittance role is also signed by Tommy we had a small table and chair out in

The yard and in an atmosphere of pigs and poultry I dealt out the blue and white Oblongs which have already in many cases been converted into bread for that is where most of the pay money goes there and in the aines the bread ration is always small the biscuit ration overflowing bully

Beef by the way is simply ordinary corned beef I watched cooking operations yesterday and saw some 550 tins cut in half with an axe clean hun aunder and the meat deftly hoed with a fork into the field kitchen or cooker which is a range and boiler on Wheels this was

Converted into a big stew and served out into Dixies Camp kettles and so to the men’s cantens this afternoon our company practiced an attack over Open Country I was surprised to find the men so well trained I had imagined that prolonged trench warfare would have made them

Stale the country is very flat there are no Hedges the only un English characteristics are the popler rose the dried beans tied round poles like mother gamp umbrellas and the Wayside chapels and crucifixes yesterday afternoon Edwards and I got in a little revolver practice just near and afterwards we had an

Energetic game of hockey with sticks and an empty cartridge can case altogether Billet life was very enjoyable on November 1st Captain Dixon joined our Battalion and took over B company for over four months I worked under the most good-natured and popular officer in the Battalion we were always in good spirits

While he was with us I can’t think why it is he used to say I’m not at all a jolly person yet you fellows are always laughing and in my old regiment it was always the same he was a fearful pessimist but a fine Soldier his Delight used to be to get a

Good fire blazing in billets sit in front of it with a novel and then deliver a tiate against the discomfort of war the great occasion used to be when the arch pessimist our quartermaster was invited to dinner then Edwards the mess president would produce endless courses and the two pessimists

Would warm to a delightful dualog on the fatuity of the staff the Army and the government by Jo we are the biggest fools on this Earth Dixon would say at last we are fools enough to be led by fools Jim Potter would reply and somehow we were all more cheerful than

Ever end of chapter 2 working parties fall in the brick party the six privates awoke from a state of inert Dreaming or Ling against the barn that flanked the Gateway of Battalion headquarters to stand in two rows of three and await orders at last the ASC

Lorry had turned up an hour late and while it turned round I dispatched one of the privates to our transport to get six sandbags by the time he returned the Lorry had performed its about wheel and All Aboard myself in front and the six behind we are off for sea we passed

Through Bethune as we approach through the suburbs we rattle past motor dispatch Riders ASC lores Red Cross carts Columns of Transport horses being exercised officers on Horseback officers in Motorcars small unarmed fatigue parties battalions on the March then there are carts carrying bricks French postmen on bicycles French navies in

Blue uniforms repairing the road innumerable peasant traps coal wagons women with baskets and Children Of course everywhere business as usual yet but for a line of men not so many miles away the place would be a desolate ruin like the towns and Villages that chance

Has doomed to be in the firing line so I moralize not so the tomies sprawling behind inside the Lorry and caring not a jot for anything anything save that they are on a cushy or soft job as the rest of the Battalion are doing 4 hours digging under re supervision a good

Thing to be a Tommy to be told to fall in here or there and not to know whether it is for a bayonet charge or a job of carting Earth bang bang bang we are nearing the firing line having left Bethune where military police stand at every corner directing the traffic with

Flags one road up another down we are once more within the noisy but invisible chain of batteries Lor 6 mph the shell holes in the road roughly filled with stones would make quicker going impossible anyhow we are entering sea and I keep an eagle eye open for ruined

Houses and soon stop by a house with two walls and half a roof out come the six tomies and proceed to fill a sandbag each with bricks and empty it into the Lorry the supply is inexhaustible and in half an hour the ASC Corporal refuses to take more declaring we have the

Regulation 3ton load so I stop work and prepare to depart the Corporal however has heard of a sister Lori nearby which has unfortunately slipped into a ditch and so to speak sprained its ankle though extraordinarily unromantic in appearance the corpor shows himself imbued with the spirit of night errantry

And having obtained my permission to rescue the fair damsel sets off for what he declares cannot take more than 10 minutes as I thought the process would take probably more like 20 minutes I let the men repair to a house on the opposite side of the road where was a

Rather more undamaged piece of roof than usual it was now raining and myself explored the place I happened to be in occasionally at home one comes across a deserted Cottage in the country a most desolate Spirit pervades the place imagine then what it is like in these

Villages half a mile or a mile behind what has become the firing line for now 12 months a few steps off the main road brought me into what had formerly been a small garden belonging to a farm there had been a red brick wall all along the north side with fruit trees trained

Along it now the wall was mostly a rubble Heap and the fruit trees Dead one sickly pear tree struggled to exist in a crumbled sort of Heap but its wilted leaves only added to the desolation of the scene an iron gate between red brick pillars was still standing strangely

Enough but the little lawn was run to waste and had a crater in the middle of it about 5 ft across inside of which was some disintegrating animal also empty tins and other refu trees were broken weeds were everywhere I tried to reconstruct the place in my imagination

But it was a chaotic tangle I came across a few belated raspberries and picked one or two they were tasteless and watery rubbish and broken glass were strewn everywhere it was a dreary sight in the gray rain the only sign of Life a few chattering blue tits the house was

An utter ruin only a ground room wall left standing some of the ouses had not suffered so much but all the roofs were gone I saw a rusty mangle staring forlornly out of a heap of debris and a manger and hay rack showed what had been

A stable the pond was just near too and gradually I could piece together the various elements of the farm who the owners were I vaguely wondered perhaps they will return after the war but I doubt if they could make much of the old ruins these villages will most likely

Remain a blighted area for years like The Villages reclaimed by the jungle already the Virginia creeper and Woodbine are trying to cover the ugliness the tomies meanwhile had been smoking gold flakes and one or two had also been exploring one had discovered a child’s Elementary botney Book and was

Studying the illustrations when I came up our combined view now was where is the Lor and this view held the field with increasing curiosity annoyance and vituperation for one solid hour and a half it was dinner time and a common Bond of hunger held us until at last in

Exasperation I marched half the party in quest of our errant conveyance I was thoroughly annoyed with the Gallant Corporal 3/4 of a mile away I found the two lores my little Corporal had had rescued his Lorn princess but she being a buxom wench had brought her rescuer into like predicament and so we

Came up just in time to see the rescue of our Lori from the treacherous ditch I felt I could not curse especially as the little Corporal had winded himself somehow in the stomach during the last bout it had been a feeble show yet there was the Lori and in it the bricks onto

Which the fellows climbed deliberately as men who recover a lost prize and so we arrived at our transport the bricks were for a horse stand in a muddy yard at half 2 after which I dismissed the party to its belated dinner the above incident hardly deserves a place in a chapter headed

Working parties being in almost every respect different from any other I have ever conducted I think the working party has realized less than anything else in this war by those who have not been at the front it does not appeal to the imagination yet it is essential to

Realize if one wants to know what this war is like the amount of sheer dogged labor performed by the Infantry in digging draining and improving trenches the working party usually consists of 70 to 100 men from a company with either one or two officers the Brigadier going around the trenches

Finds a communication trench falling in and about a foot of mud at the bottom get a working party onto this at once he says to his staff Captain the staff Captain consults one of the re officers and a note is sent to the agitant of one of the two battalions in billets your

Battalion will provide a working party of blank officers blank full ranks sergeants and corporals and blank other ranks tomorrow report to Lieutenant blank on re at blank at 5:00 p.m. tomorrow for work on blank trench tools will be provided the staff Captain then dismisses the matter from his head the

Agitant then sends the same note to one or more of the four company commanders detailing the number of men to be sent by the companies specified by him he is scrupulously careful to divide work equally between the companies by the way the company Commander on receiving the

Note curses volubly declares it a damned shame the hardest worked Battalion in the Brigade can’t be allowed a moment’s rest feels sure the men will Mutiny one of these days Etc summons the orderly who is frosting in the next room with the officer servants and says take this

To the sergeant major after scribbling on the Note parade outside company HQ 3:30 p.m. and adding as the orderly Parts might tell the quartermaster Sergeant I want to see him meanwhile the three subalterns are extraordinarily engrossed in their various occupations until the company Commander boldly states that it is rotten luck but he

Supposes as so and so took the last it is so and so’s turn isn’t it and details the officers if they are new officers he tells them the sergeants will know exactly what to do and if they are old hands he tells them nothing whatever the quarter company Quarter Master Sergeant

Then arrives and is told the party will not be back probably till 10 p.m. and will he make sure please that hot soup is ready for the men on return and also dry socks if it turns out wet he is then given a drink and the company Commander’s work is

Finished meanwhile the company sergeant major has received the orders from the orderly and summons unto him the orderly sergeant and from his roster or role ticks off the men and ncos to be warned for the working party this the orderly Sergeant does by going round to the various Barns and personally reading out

Each man’s name and on getting the answer saying you’re for the working party 315 today the exact nature of the remarks when he is gone are beyond my Province only as an officer taking the party one knows that at 3:25 p.m. the senior Sergeant calls the two lines of waiting

Other ranks to attention and with a slap on his rifle announces working party present sir as you stroll up working parties are dressed in musketry order usually that is to say with equipment but no packs rifles and ammunition of course and waterproof sheets rolled and fastened to the webbing belt the officer

Then tells the sergeant to stand them easy while he asks one or two questions then looks once more at orders which the senior Sergeant has probably brought on parade and at 3:30 with a company sh Sloop hip right in fours form fours right by the right quick March leads off

His party giving March it ease March easy almost in one breath as soon as he rounds the corner then there is a hitching of rifles to the favorite position and a buzz of remarks and whistles and Song behind while the sergeant edges up to the officer or the

Officer edges back to the sergeant according to their degree of intimacy and the working party is on its way one working party I remember very well we were in billets at blank and really tired out it was November 6th and on looking up my letters I find our

Movements for the last week had been as follows October 29th 9:00 a.m. moved off from billets 12: midday lunch 300 p.m. arrived in front trenches October 30th front trenches October 31st front trenches November 1st relieved at 3 p.m. the devans were very late relieving us owing to bad rain and mud 5:30 p.m.

Reached billets November 2 rain all day morning spent by men in trying to clean up afternoon baths November 3rd 9:00 a.m. started off for trenches again it had rained incessantly mud terrible 1 p.m. arrived in front trenches November 4th front trenches rained all day November 5th 2:30 p.m. relieved late

Again mud colossal billets 5:00 p.m. November 6th morning cleanup inspection by Co afternoon sudden and unexpected working party 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. yet I thoroughly enjoyed those eight hours I remember there were I suppose about 80 ncos and men from B company I was in charge with one other officer we

Halted at a place with the cooker had been previously dispatched and where the men had their tea luckily it was fine the men sat about on lumps of trench boards and coils of Barbed water fire for the place was an re dump where a large accumulation of re stores of all

Description was to be found I apologized to the re officer for keeping him a few minutes while the men finished their tea he however a second Lieutenant was in no hurry whatever it seemed and waited about a quarter of an hour for us then I

Fell the men in and then they drew tools so many men a pick so many a shovel the usual proportion is one pick to two shovels and we sploded along through whitish clay of the stickiest caliber in the Gathering Twilight and our Corporal and two re privates had joined us

Mysteriously by now as well as the second lieutenant and Crossing H Street we plunged down into a communication trench and started the long Maisy grope the re Corporal was guide the trench was all paved with trench mats but these were not laid only shoved down any how consequently they wobbled and one’s

Boots slipped off the side into squelch rubbing the ankle continually came up the message from behind lost touch sir this involved a wait one two minutes until the all up or all in came up one hears it coming in a horse whisper and starts before it actually arrives infinite patience is necessary re

Officers are sometimes eager to go ahead but once lose the last 10 men at night in an unknown trench and it may take 3 hours to find them the other officer was bringing up the rear at last we reached our destination and the re officer and myself told the

Men to work along the trench this particular work was clearing what is known as a burm that is the flat strip of ground between the edge of the trench and the thrown up Earth each side of a CT communication Trench when a trench is first dug the Earth is

Thrown up each side the recent rains were however causing the trenches to crumble in everywhere and the weight of the thrown up Earth was especially the cause of this consequently if the Earth were cleared away a yard on each side of the trench and thrown further back the

Trench would probably be saved from falling in to any serious extent and the light labor of shoveling dry Earth a yard or so back would be substituted for the heartbreaking toil of throwing sloppy mud or sticky clay out of a trench higher than yourself the work to

Be done had been explained to the sergeants before we left our starting point as we went along the re officer told off men at 10 or 5 yards interval according to the amount of Earth to be moved each man stopped when told off and the rest of the men passed him sergeants

And corporals stopped with their section or platoon and got the men started as soon as the last man of the company had passed at last up came the last man sergeant and the other officer and together we went back all along the men were on top that is why the working

Party was a night one sometimes they had not understood their orders and were doing something wrong a slack Sergeant would then probably have to be routed out and told off the men worked like fun of course it being known to everyone’s joy that this was was a peace job and

That we went home as soon as it was finished there was absolute silence except the sound of falling Earth and an occasional of iron against stone or a Swish and muttered cursings as a bit of trench fell in with a slide dragging a man with it for it is not

Always easy to clear a yard wide burm without crumbling the trench Edge in one would not think these men were worn out to see them working as no other men in the world can work for nearly every man was a miner the novice will do only half

The work a trained Miner will do with the same effort sometimes I was appealed to as to the yard was this wide enough one man had had an unlucky bit given him with a lot of extra Earth from a Dugout thrown on to the original lot so I red divided

The task it is amazing the way the time passes while going along a line of workers noticing Talking correcting ing praising by the time I got to the first men of the company they were halfway through the task at last the job was finished as

Many men as space allowed were put on to help one section that somehow was behind whether it was bad luck in distribution or slack work no one knew or cared the work must be finished the men wanted to smoke but I would not let them it was

Too near the front trenches and then I did a foolish thing which might have been disastrous the re Corporal had remained though the officer had left long ago the corpal was to act as guide back and this he was quite ready to do if I was not quite sure of the way I

However felt sure of it and as the Corporal would be saved a long if he could go off to his Dugout direct without coming with us I foolishly said I had no need of him and let him go I then lost my way completely we had never been in that section before

And none of the sergeants knew it we had come from the re dump and thither we must return leaving our tools on the way but I had been told to take the men to the divisional soup kitchen first which was about 400 yard north of X the spot

Where we entered the CT and which I was trying to find for all I knew I was going miles in the wrong direction my only guide was the flares behind which assured me I was not walking to the Germans but away from them the unknown trenches began to excite among the

Sergeants the suspicion that all was not well but I took the most colossal risk of stating that I knew perfectly well what I was doing and stroe on ahead there was silence behind after that save for splashings and sploding my heart misgave me that I was coming to undrained trenches of the worst

Description or to water logged in passes still I stroe on or waited inter terminable waights for the all up sign at last we reached houses grim and black new and awfully unknown I nearly tumbled down a Cellar as a Sentry challenged I Was preparing for humble questions as to

Where we were the nearest way to X and a possible joke to the sergeant this joke had not materialized and seemed unlikely to be of the easiest when I recovered myself from The Cellar mounted some steps I found myself on a road beside a group of tomies emerging from the soup

Kitchen my star the only one visible I believe that Inky night had led me there direct I said nothing as everyone warmed up in spirits as well as bodies with that excellent soup and no one ever knew of the quailing of my heart along those unknown trenches to lead Men wrong is

Always bad but when they are tired out it is unpardonable and not quickly forgotten as it was cantens were soon brimming with thick vegetable soup Filled from a bubbling cauldron with a mighty Ladle in the hot room men glistened and perspired while a regular steam arose from muddy boots and putties

Everyone from officer to latest joined private was sipping with dangerous avidity the boiling fluid many charges have been laid against divisional staffs but never a complaint have I heard against a soup kitchen so in good spirits we tramped along and dumped our tools in the place where we had found

Them Clank Clank Clank as Spade fell on Spade then you may smoke was passed down the sergeant reported all correct sir and we tramped along in file soon the bursts of song were swallowed up in a great whistling concert and we were all merry the fit passed and there was silence

Then came the singing again which developed into hymns and that took us into our billets here we were greeted with the most abominable news of Reb at 5:00 a.m. but I think most of the men were too sleepy to hear it we two officers deplored Our Fate while eating

A supper set out for us in a greenhouse our temporary mess room that is a working party interesting as a first experience to an officer but when multiplied exceedingly by day by night in Rain mud sleet and snow carrying trench boards filling sandbags digging clay bailing out liquid mud and

Returning cold and drenched without soup then working parties became a monotonous succession of discomforts that wore out the spirit as well as the body the last six nights before the promised rest were spent in working parties at festu there the ground was low and wet

And it was decided to build a line of breastwork trenches a few 100 yards behind the existing line so that we could retire on to dry ground in case of getting swamped out for six nights in succession we left billets at 10 p.m. and returned by 4:00 a.m. the weather

Was the coldest it turned out eventually that winter it started with snow Then followed hard crost for four nights and last but not least a thaw and incessant sleep and rain I have never before experienced such cold but on the other hand I have never before had to stand

About all night in a severe Frost it was actually I believe from 10 to 15° below freezing point at 2 a.m. the Stars would glitter with Relentless mirth as the cold pierced through two Cardigans and a sheep skin waste coat I have skated at night but always to return by midnight

To Fire and bed bed at home people were sleeping as comfortably as usual a few extra blankets perhaps or more coals in the grate I was out five nights of the six Captain Dixon was on leave so we only had three officers in B and two had

To go every night every night at 9:30 the company would be fallen in and marched off to the Rond there at 10: to join the rest of the Battalion there was no singing very little talking in Parts the road was very bad and we marched in file the road

Was full of shell holes and bad generally the ice crackled and tinkled in the ruts and Puddles the frozen mud inclined you to stumble over its ridges and bumps it took us the best part of an hour to reach our destination the first night we must have gone earlier than the

Other nights as I distinctly remember viewing by daylight those most amazing ruins there was a barrier across the road just before you entered the village just opposite were the few standing fragments of the church bits of wall and mullon here and there and all around tombstones leaning in every direction

Rooted up shattered split there was one of the crucifixes standing untouched in the middle of it all about which so much has been written whether it had fallen and had been erected again I cannot say the houses were more smashed crumbled and chaotic than even queni or jiboni I remember that corner very

Vividly because at that spot came one of the few occasions on which I had the wind up a little why I know not we were halted a few moments when two whizbangs shot suddenly into a garden about 20 yards to our right with a vicious V boom

V boom we moved on and just as we got Round the Corner I saw two flashes on my left and two more shells hissed right over us and fell with the same stinging snarl into the same spot just 20 yards over us this time I was luckily marching

At the rear of the company at the time as I ducked and almost sprawled in alarm for the next minute or two I was all quivery I am glad to know what it feels like as I have never experienced since such an abject windiness I believe it

Was mainly due to being so exposed on the Hard hedgeless Road or perhaps that last pair did actually go particularly near me at any rate such was my experience and so I record it at the entrance to the communication trench our officers told us a company carrying

Party be company to draw shovels and picks and follow me then we started off along about a mile and a half of communication trenches I have already said that ferar is a very wet district and it can easily be imagined that the drainage problem is none of the easiest

This long communication trench had been Mastered by trench mats fastened down on Long pickets which were driven deep down into the mud the result was that the trench floor was raised about 2 ft from the original bottom and one walked along a hollow sounding platform over stagnant

Water the sound reminded me of walking along a wooden Landing stage off the end of a pier every few hundred yards were passing points presumably to facilitate passing other troops coming in the other direction but as I never had the Good Fortune to meet the other troops at

These particular spots though I did in many others I I cannot say they were particularly useful another disadvantage about these water logged trenches was that the bad rains had made the water rise in several places even over the raised trench board platform others were fastened on top but even these were

Often not enough and when the frost came and froze the water on top of the boards the procession became a veritable Cakewalk humorous no doubt to the stars and sky but to the performers feeling their way in the thick darkness and ever slipping and plunging a boot and putty

Into the ice water at the side a nightmare of painful and jarring experiences there was one Junction of trenches where one had to cross a dyke full of half frozen water there was always a congestion of troops here ration parties relieving parties and ourselves all relieving had to be done

At night as the trenches with their artificially raised floors were no no longer deep enough to give cover from view this Crossing had to be negotiated in a most gingerly fashion and several men got wet to their waists when compelled to cross while carrying an awkward shaped hurdle after this the

Trench was worse than ever in Parts it was built with fire steps on one side and one could scramble onto this and proceed on the drive for a while but even here the slippery sandbags would often treacherously slide you back into the worst part of the iced platform and

So gave but a doubtful Advantage at last the open was gained then came the crossing of the old German trench full of all kinds of grim relics from the spring fighting and so to our destination on the open ground lay a tracing of white tape forming a serpentine series of contacting squares

In the Blackness only two white bordered squares were visible from one position each man was given a square to dig I forget the measurements about 2 yard Square I think and 2 feet deep the Earth had to be thrown about eight yards back against a breastwork of hurdles these

Hurdles were being brought up by the carrying parties and fastened by wires by the Rees the re officers had of course laid our white tapes for us previously eventually the sentries will stand behind the hurdle breastwork with a water ditch 10 yard in front of them which obstacle will be suitably enhanced

By strong wire entanglements but all this vision of completion is hidden from the eyes of private Jones who only knows he has his white taped Square to dig arms and Equipment are laid carefully on the side of the trench furthest from the breastwork and nothing can be heard but

The hard breathing and the shoveling and scraping of the other ranks for two hours those men worked their hardest indeed it was much the best job to have on those cold nights I did more digging then than I have ever done before or since come on Davies you’re all behind

And for 10 minutes I would do an abnormal amount of shoveling until out of breath I would hand the boy back his shovel and tell him to carry on while all a glow I went along the line examining the progress of the work we had quite a number of bullets singing

And crackling across and there were one or two casualties every night sometimes flares would pop over and everyone would freeze into static posture but on the whole things were very quiet the enemy doubtless is full of water as ourselves that intense cold yet I did

Not know then that it is far worse being on senty in the frost than marching in digging and I am not sure that the last night when it rained incessantly was not worse wor than all the rest we had a particularly bad piece of ground that night pitted with shell holes full of

Frozen water you were bound to fall in one at last and get wet to the waste but even if you did Escape that sticky humiliation the driving sleet and rain were bad enough in themselves that was a night when I found certain sergeants sheltered together in a corner and

Certain other sergeants in the middle of their men and the howling Gale I soon routed the former out but did not forget and have since discovered how valuable a test of the good and the useless NCO is of working Party In The Rain never have

I longed for 2 a.m. as I did that night my feet were wet my body tired my whole frame shivering with an approaching cold the men could do nothing any longer in that stinking slush for these old Shell holes of stagnant water were to say the least of it

Unsavory I was so heavy with sleep I could scarce keep my eyes open but when at last the order came from our second in command cease work I was filled with a dogged energy that carried me back to billets in the best of spirits though I actually fell asleep as I marched behind

The company and bumped into the last four when they halted suddenly halfway home and so at 4:00 the men tumbled upstairs to breakfast and brazers thanks to a good quartermaster Sergeant I drank boil down below and then in pajamas sweaters and innumerable blankets turned in till 11:00 a.m. next afternoon we

Left rud de epinet and halted at a village on the road to ler whence we were to train to a more northern part of the line and enjoy at last our long earned rest end of chapter 3 rest rumors were Rife again and mostly right this time the co knew the part we

Were going to a chalk country rolling Downs four or five weeks rest field training 30 mi from the firing line chalk Downs to a kentish man the words were magic after the dull Soden Flats of Flanders I longed for a map of France but could not get hold of one as we

Marched to Lila I looked at the flat straight roads and the ditches at the weary monotony uninspired by Hill or View at the floods on the roads and the uninteresting straightness of The Villages and I felt that I was at the end of a chapter any change must be

Better than this and chalk chalk short dry Turf and slopes with purple Woods I had forgotten these things existed I forget the name of of the village where we halted for two nights I had a little room to myself reached by a rickety staircase from the yard one shut

The staircase door to keep out the yard here several new officers joined us Clark being posted to our company and soon I began to see my last two months as history for we began to tell our adventures to Clark who had never been in the firing line think of it he was

Envious of our experiences so I listened in awe and heard a tale develop a true Tale the tale of the night the mine went up it was no longer a case of disputing how many trench mortars came over but telling an interested audience that trench mortars did come over clark had

Never seen one and I listened to gape to hear myself the hero of a humorous story when the mine went up I had come out of my Dugout rather late and asked if anything had happened this tale became elaborated I was putting my gloves on calmly it seems as I strolled out

Casually and asked if anyone had heard a rather loud noise and So Stories crystallized a word altered here and there for effect but true and as past history quite interesting the move was made the occasion by our Co a very elaborate and careful operation orders no details were left to chance and a

Conference of officers was called to explain the procedure of getting a battalion on a train and getting it off again as usual the officer VES had to be ready at a very early hour and the company mess boxes packed correspondingly early Edwards I think was detailed as OC loading party

Everything like this was down in the operation orders the agitant had had a time of it certainly the entraining went like clockwork and once more I was seated in a gray upholstered Corridor Carriage the men were in those useful adaptable carriages inscribed Sho 10 om 30 our tomies were evidently a kind of

Centaur class for they went in by 20s as far as I can remember we entrained at 10:00 a.m. we arrived at a station a few miles from Alon at 9900 p.m. a slow Journey but I felt excited like a child I must keep going to the Carter to put

My head out of the window it was a sparkling nippy air the smell of the steam the grit of the engine these were things I had forgotten and soon there were rolling plains Hills clustering Villages the route through S Paul D and canapa is ordinary enough no doubt and

So too The Gleam of white chalk that came at last but if you think that ordinary things cannot be wonderful beyond measure then go and live above ground and underground in Flanders for two months on end in Winter then perhaps you will understand a little of my good

Spirits it was quite dark when we arrived then for 3 and 1 half hours we waited in a meadow outside the station arms piled the men sitting about on their waterproof sheets meanwhile the transport detrained a lengthy business tea was produced from those marvelous field kitchens the night was cold though

And it was too damp to sit down for hours we stood about tired then came the news that our sixmile March would be more like double six that the billets had been altered at half 12 we marched off it was Starlight but pretty dark 18 miles we marched reaching Montana at

Half 7 every man was in full marching kit and most of them carried sandbag fulls of extras it was a big effort especially as the men had done nothing in the nature of a Long March for months well I remember it the tired silence the steady along the interminable Road

Sometimes the band would strike up for a little but even bands tire and cannot play continuously mile after mile of Hard Road and then the hedges would spring up into houses and from the opened Windows would gaze down awakened women hardly ever was light Shone in any

House then the village would be left behind and Men shifted their packs and exchanged a sandbag unslung a rifle from one shoulder to the other and settled down to another stretch wondering if the next Village would be the last so it went on interminably all through the

Winter night once we halted in a village and I sat on a doorstep with O’Brien discussing methods of keeping our eyes open Edwards had been riding the horse and had nearly tumbled off asleep at another halt halfway up a hill I discovered a box of beef lozenges and

Distributed among number six platoon all the last 10 miles I was carrying a rifle and a sandbag sergeant caligan had the same besides all his own kit Sergeant Andrews kept on as steady as a rock there were falers but we kept them in only in the last two miles did one or

Two drop out and all the while I was elated beyond measure partly at seeing men like ginger Joe with his dry wit flashing and tutor with his stolid power but partly too at the climb uphill the swing down mysterious woods and the unmistakable trunks of pines and all the

Time we were steadily climbing we must be upon a regular table land Dawn broke and it got lighter and lighter and so we we entered Montana the quartermaster had had a nice job Bing at 2 a.m. but he had done it and the men dropped onto their straw into ouses

Anywhere the accommodation seemed small and bad but that could be arranged later to get the men in that was the main thing one old woman fussed terribly and the men looked like bayonetting her we soon got the men in somehow then for our own billets we agreed to have a scratch

Breakfast as soon as it could be procured meanwhile I went to the end of the village and found myself on the edge of the table land before me was spread out a great valley with a popar lined Road flung right across it Villages were dotted about there were woods and white

Ribbon by roads and over it all glowed the slant Morning Sun I was on the edge of a chalky Plateau it was all just as I had imagined I slept from 11 a.m. to 700 p.m. when I got up for a meal at which we were all short-tempered and at 900

P.m. I retired again to sleep till 7 next morning Montana how shall I be able to create a picture of Montana as I look back at all those eight months the whole Adventure seems unreal a dream yet somehow those first few days in the little village had for me a dreamlike

Quality unlike any other time I think that then I felt that I was living in an unreality whereas at other times life was real enough and it is only now afterwards that these days are gradually melting through distance into dreams at any rate if the next few pages are dull

To the reader let him try and weave into them a sort of fairy Glamour and imagine a kind of spell cast over everything in which people moved as in a Dream First there was the country itself the next day after a day’s sleep and a

Nights on top of it was if I remember right rather wet and we had kit inspection in billets and tried to eek out the hours by gas helmet drill and arm drill and squads distributed about the various farmyards and barns then Captain Dixon decided to take the

Company out on a short route March and as it was raining very steadily we took half the company with two waterproof sheets per man one sheet was thrown round our shoulders in the usual way the other was tied Kilt wise round the waist the result was an effective rainproof if unmilitary

Looking dress we set off and soon came to a large wood with a broad ride through it along this ride we marched too deep now and I at the rear as second in command here I felt most strongly that strange glamour of unreality it was but 3 months ago and I

Was in the heart of Wales yet such was the effect of a few months that I looked on everything with the most exuberant sense of novelty the rain beads on the red Brown birch trees The Ivy the Oaks the strange Stillness in the thick wood after the gusts of wind and slashes of

Rain especially the sounds chattering Jays invisible peeping Birds the squelching of boots on a wet grass track everything reminded me of a past word world that seemed immeasurably distant of past winters that had been completely forgotten then we emerged into a wide clearing along the edge of the wood full

Of stunted gorsse and junipers long coarse grass grew in Tusk that matted underfoot and now I could see the whole company straggling along in front of me slipping and sliding about on the wet grass in their Curious quilt-like costumes some of which were now showing signs of uneasiness and tending to slip

In rings to the ground everyone was very pleased with life a halt was called at length and while officers discussed buying shotguns at Aman or stalking the Wy hair with a revolver Tommy I have reason to believe was planning more effective ways of snaring bre rabbit next day in orders appeared an extract

From core orders a Prohibition of poaching and destruction of game it was all part of the dream that we were surprised almost shocked at this unwarranted exhibition of property rights not that there was much game about anyhow the next day we did an advanced guard scheme down in the plain it was a

Crisp winter day and I remember the great view from the top of the hill on the edge of the plateau as you leave Montana it was all mapped out with its hedgeless Fields its curling white roads and its few dark triangles and polyg G

Of fur woods but we had not long to see it for we came into observation then so this dream game pretended and were soon in extended order working our way along over the plane it all came back to one this open Warfare business the advancing in short rushes the flurried messages

From excited officers to stolid platoon sergeants the taking cover the fire orders the rattling of the bolts the lying on the belly in a ploud field and yes the spectator old man or woman gazing in stupid amazement at the Khaki figures rushing over his Fields then came the assault bayonets fixed and the

CO’s whistle ending the game for that day game that was it it is all a game and when you get tired you go home to a good meal and discuss the humor of it and probably have a powow in the evening in which the

OCA is asked why he went off to to the left the real answer being that he lost Direction badly but the actual answer given explaining the subtlety of a detour around a piece of dead ground which is the dream this or the mud slogging in the trenches and the

Interminable nights for every night we went to bed think of it every night always that bed that silence that Priceless privacy of sleep I had a rather cold ground floor Billet with a door that would not shut yet it was worth any of your beds at home and I

Should be here for a month perhaps six weeks I wrote for my basin and stand for books for all sorts of things I felt I could accumulate and spread myself it was like home after hotels for always we had been moving moving even our six days

Out were often in two or even three different billets so too with our mess the dream here consisted of a jolly little parlor that was the Envy of all the other company messes as usual the rooms led into one another the kitchen into the Parlor The Parlor into a

Bedroom I might almost continue and say the bedroom into a bed for the four poster when curtained off is a little room in itself it was a good Billet but best of all was Madame herself suffice it to say she would not take a penny for

Use of C Crockery and she would insist on us making full use of everything she allowed all our cooking to be done in her kitchen and on cold nights she would insist on our servants sitting in the kitchen though that was her only sitting room often have I come in about 7:00 to

Find our dinner frizzling Merrily on the fire under the supervision of gray the cook while Madame sat humbly in the corner eating a Frugal supper of bread and milk before retiring to her little room upstairs ah Madame there are many who have done what you have done but few I think more

Graciously if we tried to thank her for some extra kindness she had always the same reply you are welcome Miss offer I have heard the guns and the Germans passed through am if it were not for the English where should we be today so we settled down for our rest

For long Field Days lectures after te football matches and weekends I wrote for my field service regulations and rubbed up my knowledge of outposts and visual training but scarcely had I been a week at Montana when off I went suddenly on a Sunday morning to the

Third Army school I had been told my name was down for it a few days before but I had forgotten all about it when I received instructions to Bicycle off with Sergeant Roberts my kit and servant to follow in a limber I had no idea what the third Army school

Was but with notebook pencil and protractor I cycled off at 11: a.m. to fields and pastures new most people I imagine have had the following experience they have a great interest in some particular subject yet they have somehow not got the key to it they regret that they were never taught

The elements of it at school or it is some new science or interest that has arisen since since their school days such as flying or motoring they are really ashamed of asking questions and all books on the subject are Technical and presuppose just that Elementary knowledge that the interested amateur

Does not possess then suddenly he comes on a book with those delicious phrases in the preface promising to avoid all technical details apologizing for what may seem almost childishly Elementary and containing at the end an an expert bibliography these are the books written by very wise and very kind men and

Because they are worth so much they usually cost least of all such was my delightful experience at the Army school I will confess to a terrible ignorance of my profession I did not know how many brigades made up a division the artillery were to me vague people whom the company Commander rang

Up on the telephone and who appeared in Gators in Beth a bomb was a thing I avoided with a peculiar aversion and as to the general conduct of the war I was the most ignorant of Pawns the wildest things were said about loose the daily male had

Just heard of the faer and I had not the remotest idea whether we were hopelessly outclassed in the air or whether perhaps after all there were people up top who were not so surprised or disconcerted at the appearance of the fauler as the North nor Cliff press moreover I had

Been impressed with the reiteration of my co that my Battalion was the finest in the Army and that my division was likewise the best yet I had always felt that there were other good battalions and that K’s Army was to say the least of it in a considerable majority when

Compared with the contemptible little original which I had had the luck to join imagine my delight then at finding myself one of old over a 100 captains and Senior subalterns representing their various battalions regulars territorials and kitcheners we were all there together one’s Vision widened like that

Of a boy first going to school here at last was a great opportunity if only the staff was good and any doubt on that question was instantly set at Rest by the commandant’s opening address explaining that the instructors were all picked men with a large experience in

This war that in the previous month’s course mostly subalterns had been sent and this time it had been the aim to secure captains only oh bomb and Gilead this and that apologies were due if some of the lectures and instructions were Elementary that bombing experts for instance must not mind if the bombing

Course started right at the very beginning as it had been found in the previous course that it was wrong to presume any milit Ary knowledge to be the common possession of all officers in the school those who understood my simile of the experts kind book to the amateur will understand that there were

Few of us who did not welcome such a promising bill of fair I do not intend to say much about the instruction at the Army School a good deal of what I learned there is unconsciously embodied in the rest of this book but it is the

Spirit of the place that I want to record I can best describe it as is the opposite of what is generally known as academic theories and textbooks about the war were at a discount here were men who had been through the fire every phase of it it was not a question of

Opinions but of facts this came out most clearly in discussions after the lectures the point would be raised about advancing over the open we attacked a San Julian over open ground under heavy fire and such and such a thing was our experience would had once come out from

Someone and there was no scoring of debating points we were all out to pull our knowledge and experience all the time the commandant inspired in everyone a most tremendous enthusiasm his lectures on morale were the finest I have ever heard anywhere put yourself in your men’s position on every occasion

Continually think for them give them the best possible time be in the best Spirits always long faces were anathema no one can forget his tale of the Doctor Who never laughed and whom he put in a barn and taught him how to hail fellow well met to all other officers and

Regiments was another of his great points give him a damned good lunch a damned good lunch get a good mess going ask your Brigadier into lunch in the trenches make him come in concerts plenty of concerts and billets an extra turn of rum to men coming off patrol all

This was a good show but long faces in Hospitality men not cheerful in singing officers not seeing that their men get their dinners after getting into billets before getting their own officers supervising working Parties by sitting under hay stacks instead of going about cheering the men brigadiers not knowing

Their officers poor lunches all these things were a bad show a damn bad show these lectures were full of the most delicious anecdotes and thrilling stories and backed up by a huge enthusiasm and a most emphatic practice of his preaching we had a concert every Wednesday and every Saturday the four

Motor buses took the officers into amang and the sergeants on Sundays weekends were in fact good shows then there were the lectures the second week for instance was a succession of lectures on the Battle of loose these lectures used to take place after tea and the discussion usually

Lasted till dinner first was a lecture by an infantry major of the seventh division who needless to say had been very much in it then followed one by an artillery officer giving his version of it then followed an re officer there was nothing hidden away in a corner it was

All facts facts facts an enlarged map of our own and the German trenches was most fascinating to us who had for the most part never handled one before I remember the Major’s description of the fighting in the quaries it was one of the most Vivid bits of narrative I have ever

Heard then there were other fascinating lectures Captain Jeff the Big Game Hunter on sniping the commandant again on patrol work and discipline and dealing with prisoners two lectures from the Royal flying Corps perhaps Most Fascinating of all we drilled hard with rifles we took a bombing course and

Threw live bombs we went through the gas and had a big demonstration with smoke bombs we went to the Squadron of the RFC inspected the sheds saw the aeroplanes and had anything we liked explained we went out in motor buses and carried out schemes of attack and defense we did

Outpost schemes Drew Maps dug trenches and r vetted them in short there was very little we did not do at the school it was in fact a good show the school was in a big white Chateau on the main road a new house built by the owner of a

Factory The Village really lies like a sediment at the bottom of a basin with houses clustering and scrambling up the sides along the high road running out of it east and west Getting Thinner and fewer up the hill to disappear altogether on the table land the jute

Factory was working hard night and day we used to have hot baths in the long wooden troths that are used for dying long rolls of matting and I know no hot baths to equal those 40-footers needless to say we took advantage of our commandant’s arrangement for free bus rides into Aman

Every Saturday Christmas Day falling on a Saturday we all had a Christmas dinner at the hotel De le universe this needless to say was a good show it was a Pity though that turkey had been insisted on as turkey with salad minus sausages bread sauce and brussel sprouts

Did not seem somehow the real thing the chef had jibbed at sausages especially better at Rome to have done completely as Rome does after all we cannot give the French much advice in cooking or in war otherwise the dinner was good and unlike our Folk at home we had a Merry

Christmas of course I went to see the cathedral that Ruskin had claimed to be the most perfect building in the world indeed each Saturday found me there for like all true beauty the edifice does not attract merely by novelty but satisfies the far truer test of

Familiarity yet I confess to a thrill on first entering that dream in stone which could not come a second time for down in the mud I had forgotten gotten in the obsession of the present man’s dreams and aspirations for the future now here again I was in touch with eternal things

That Wars do not affect I remember once at malver we had been groping and choking in a thick fog all day then someone suggested a walk and three of us ventured out and climbed the beacon halfway up the fog began to thin and soon we emerged into a clear Sunshine

Below lay all the plain wrapped in a great level blanket of white fog here and there the top of a tall tree or a small hill protruded its head out of the Mist and seemed to be laughing at its poor hidden Companions and in a cloudless blue the sun was smiling at

Mankind below who had forgotten his very existence so in Aman Cathedral I used to get my head out of the thick fog of War for a time and in that stately silence recover my vision of the Sun the cathedral is a building full of all the freshness of spring I was at

Vesper there on Christmas afternoon and was then impressed by the wonderful lightness of the building so often there is Gloom in a cathedral that gives a heavy feeling but Aman Cathedral is perfectly lighted and in the East window glows a blue that reminded me of vipers bugos in a Swiss Meadow my imagination

Flew back to the building of the cathedral and to the brain that conceived it and beyond that again to the tradition that through long years molded the conception and behind all to the idea the ultimate birth of this perfect creation and one seemed to be straining almost Beyond Humanity to see

The first spring flowers looking up in Wonder at the sky the stately pillars were man’s aspiration towards his creator the floating music his attempt at praise yet it was only as I left the building that I found the key to the full understanding of this perfect expression of an idea round the chancel

Is a set of bass reliefs depicting a saint laboring among his people but what people they live they speak the relief is so deep that some of the figures are almost in the round and several come outside the slabs altogether they are the people of medieval Amon they are the very people

Who were living in the town while their great Cathedral Rose stone by Stone to be The Wonder of their City the pride of all picardi almost gruesome in their vivid Humanity they are the same people who walk outside the cathedral today the master artist greater in his dreams than

His fellow men was yet blessed with that Divine sense of humor that made him love them for their quaint smallness so in Aman I felt a double inspiration there was man’s offering of his noblest and most beautiful to his creator and there was also the reminder in the Saint

Among the Aman populace that God’s answer was not a proud Bend of the head as he dained to accept the offering of poor little man but a coming down among them a claiming of equality with them even though they refus still to realize their Divinity and choose to live in a

Self-made suffering and to degrade themselves in a fog of War all too quickly the month went by the enthusiasm and interest of everybody grew in a steady Crescendo and no one I am sure will ever forget the impression left by the major general who was

Deputed to come and tell us one or two things from the general staff in a quiet voice with a quiet smile he compared our position with that of a year ago told us facts about our numbers compared with the enemies our guns compared with his the real position in the air the

Temporary superiority of the fauler that would vanish completely and finally in a month or so in everything we were now Superior except heavy trench mortars and in a month or so we should have a big supply of them too and a damned sight heavier and we could afford to wait one

Got the impression that all our grings and doubting were completely out of date that up at the top now was a unity of command that had thought everything out and could afford to wait later on I forgot this impression but I remember it so well now even through Verdun we could

Afford to wait we had all the cards now there was a sort of breathless silence throughout this quiet speech and when it ended with a good luck to you gentlemen there was Applause but one’s Chief desire was to go outside and shout it was a bonfire mood best of all would

Have been a bonfire of daily males we returned to our units on Sunday 9th January 1916 by motorbus which conveyed us some 60 or 70 miles when we were dropped Sergeant Roberts myself and Lewis my servant leaving Lewis with with my V we walked in the Moonlight up to Montana

Where I got the transport officer to send a limber for my V O’Brien on leave was the first thing I grasped as I tried to acclimatize myself to my surroundings leave my three months was up so I ought to get Leave myself in a week or so in a

Few days in fact my first leave the next week was Rosie from the prospect my second impression was was like that of a poet full of a great Sunset and trying to adjust myself to the dry unimaginative remarks of the rest of the community who have relegated sunsets to

Predition during dinner for everyone was so dull they groused they maligned the staff they were pessimistic they were ignorant oh profoundly ignorant they were in fact in a state of not having seen a vision I could not believe then that the time would come when I too

Should forget the vision and fix my eyes on the mud still for the moment I was immensely surprised though I was not such a fool as to start at once on a general reform of everyone starting with the Brigadier for under the commandant’s influence one felt ready to tell off the

Brigadier if he didn’t get motorbuses to take your men to a divisional concert instead of saying the men must march three miles to it but as I say I restrained myself a week of field days of advanced guards and attacks in open order of Battalion Drill company drill arm drill

Gas helmet drill lectures in the school in the evening and running drill before breakfast yet all the time I felt chafing to get back into the firing line I felt so much better equipped to command my men I wanted to practice all my new ideas then my leave came

Through leave comes through in the following manner the lucky man receives an envelope from the orderly room in the corner of which is written leave inside is an a form Army form c2121 with this magic inscription please note you will take charge of blank other ranks proceeding on leave tomorrow

Morning 17th instant they will parade outside orderly room at 7 7 a.m. sharp then follow instructions as to where to meet the bus take charge if you blindfolded those fellows they would find their way somehow by the quickest route to blighty the officer is then an impossible person to live with he is

Continually jumping about upsetting everybody getting sandwiches and discussing England looking at the paper to see what’s on in town talking being unnecessarily bright and cheery he is particularly offensive in the eyes of the man just come back from leave still it is his day abide with him until

He clears off so they Abode with me until the evening and next morning Oliver and I started off in the darkness with our four followers as we left the village it was just beginning to lighten a little and we met the drums just turning out cold and sleepy as we sprang

Down the hill leaving Montana behind us faintly through the dawn we heard rev rousing our unfortunate comrades to another Monday morning then came the long long journey that nobody Minds really though everyone grumbles at it at B an hour’s halt for omelets and coffee and bread and jam

While the YMCA stall supplied tea and buns innumerable be will be a station known for all time to thousands do you remember be we shall ask each other oh yes good omelets one got there then the port and fussy R O’s again why make a fuss when everyone is magnetized towards

The boat under the light of a blazing gas jet squirting from a pendant ball we crossed the gang way there were men of old time who fell on their native Earth and kissed it on returning after Exile we did not kiss the boards of Southampton pierhead but we understood the spirit that inspired

That action as we steamed quietly along the solent over a gray and violet sea there were Mists that morning and the Hampshire Coast was gray and vague but steadily the engine throbbed and we glided nearer and nearer entered Southampton water and at last were near enough to see houses and Fields and

People people English women we disembarked but what dull people to meet us officials and watermen who have seen hundreds of leavea boats arrive every day in fact the last people to be able to respond to your feelings still what does it matter there is the train and an

English first someone started to run for one and in a moment we were all running but you have met us on leave end of chapter 4 on the march on this leave I most religiously visited relations and graciously received guests for one thing I felt it my duty to dispel all this ignorant

Pessimism that I found rolling about in large chunks like the thunder in Alice in Wonderland I exacted apologies humble apologies from them how can we help it they pleaded we have no means of knowing anything except through the papers no I suppose you can’t help it I would reply

And forgive them from my Throne of optimism 8 Days passed easily enough after dinner sometimes comes indigestion people enjoy the one and not the other so after leave comes the return from leave the one in Tommy French bone the other no bone I hope I do not offend by

Calling the state of the ladder a mental indigestion it was with a kind of fierce joy that we threw out our bully and biscuits to the crowds of French children who lined the railway Banks crying out bully beef Biscuit the custom of supplying these rations on the leave train has long

Since been discontinued now but in those days the little Beggars used to know the time of the train to a nicity and must have made a good trade of it and as soon as I got back to Montana I heard a move was in the air and I was delighted I was

Fearfully Keen to get back into the firing line again I was full of life and in the mood for adventure I started a diary here are some extracts 29th January 1916 Lewis my servant brought in a bucket of water this morning which contained 10% of mud as the mud dribbled

Onto the ground green canvas of my bath during the end of the pouring he saw it for the first time apparently the well is running dry he managed to get some clean water at length and I had a great bath Madame asked me as I went into

Breakfast why I whistled getting up that morning I tried to explain that I was in good spirits it was an exhilarating morning outside was a great cowing of Rooks and the slant sunlight lit up everything with a rich color The Moldy green on the Twigs of the apple trees

Was a joy to see later in the day I noticed how all this delicious Morning Light had gone 700 p.m. orders have just come in for the move tomorrow loading party at 6:00 a.m. under Edwards who was inwardly fed up but outwardly quite pleased the leases to be ready by 6:45

A.m. Dixon grouses as usual at orders coming in late these moves always try the tempers of all concerned obrien and Edwards are now on the Russell collecting kit we have accumulated rather a lot of papers books tins of ration tobacco Etc Madame was genuinely

Sorry to see us go we gave her a large but beautiful ornament for her mantlepiece suitably inscribed the dear Soul was overwhelmed and Drew cider from a Cellar hitherto unknown to us which she pressed on our servants as well as on us we made the fellows drink it

Though they were not very keen on it 30 January 1916 montta vo and amoa I found myself suddenly detailed as OC rear party in lie of Edwards who has to remain in Montana and hand over to the incoming Battalion at 9:30 three ASC lores arrived and we loaded up I had

About about 40 men for the job it was good to see these boys heaving up rolls of Many Colored blankets which filled nearly two lories the third was packed with a mixture of boilers Dixies brooms Spades lamps Etc the leather and skin waste coats had to be left behind for a

Second journey I left the Shoemaker sergeant and four men with these to await the return of one of the lores as we worked a fog rolled up which was to stay all day Edwards meanwhile saw to it that all the odd coal and wood left at the transport was taken to our good

Madame this much annoyed the groups of women who peered like vultures from the doorways ready to squabble over the pickings as soon as the last of us had departed farewell to Mont all the fellows were dull even Sawyer The Smiling who had been prominent with his

Cheery face in the loading up was silent and dull no life no Spirit a mournful lot save for the plump putting dog that galloped ahead and on either flank smelling and pouncing and tossing his Mongrel ears in Delight he belonged to one of the men a gift from a

Warm-hearted daughter of France a dull lot I say I rallied them I persuaded I whistled hoping to put a tune into their dull hearts and as we swung downhill into Corp they began to sing it was but a sorry thin sort of singing though like a winter Sunshine there was no power

Behind it no joy no spontaneity suddenly however as we came into the village there was a company of warwicks falling in and everyone sang like Fury Baker one of the last draft was the moving Spirit but he is Young to this life and later on when the fog had

Entered their souls again he said said he could not well sing with a pack on yet is not that the very time to sing is not that the very virtue of singing the conquest of the poor old body by the indomitable Spirit it was a 15m March at

The third halt I gave half an hour for the eating of bread and cheese then was the hour of the plum pudding Hound also appeared a sort of newfinland Collie very big in the hind quarters and very dirty as well as ill bread between them they made Rich harvests of crusts and

Cheese we sat on a bank along the road but after half an hour we were all getting cold in the Raw air and I fell them in again and we got on our way soon they warmed up and whistled and sang for a quarter of an hour then silence

Returned and eyes turned to the ground again this March began to tell on the older men Halford fell out and I sent Corporal dwey to bring him along hastily scribbling the name of our destination on a slip torn from my field message book and giving it to him then Riley

Fell out and Flynn I began to dread the appearance of Sergeant Haymon from the rear to tell me of someone else they were men these who had been employed on various jobs the older and weaker men there was no skim shanking for there was no Red Cross cart behind us but no one

Else fell out the Pace was steady and they were as fit as anything these fellows then happened an incident we had just turned off the main Aman Road and come to a forked Road I halted a moment to make sure of the way by the map and

While I did so apparently some sergeant from a regiment bued in the village there told Sergeant hymon that the Battalion had taken the left Road the way was to the right and as I struck up a steep hill Sergeant Haymon ran up and told me the Battalion which had started

Nearly 2 hours before us had gone to the left I’m going to the right sergeant said I and the sergeant returned to the rear up up up grind grind grind I began to hear signs of Doubt behind did you hear that said the Battalion went to

Other way and so on ain’t he got a map all right from a Believer three kilos more I said at the next stop but some of the fellows had got it into their heads I could see that we were wrong I studied the map there was no doubt we were all

Right yet a mistake would be calamitous as the men were very done ah a kilo Stone two kilos to blank a place not named on the map at all this gave me a quam and behind came the usual mispronunciations of this annoying Village on the the stone but low on the

Left came a turning as per map Round We swung downhill and suddenly we were in a village another qualm as I saw it full of jocks the doubters were just beginning to realize this fact when we turned another corner and almost fell on top of the Co in 5 minutes we were in

Billets the next day we marched to the Village of KIRO there I heard the guns again after 2 months 31st January this evening was full of the walking tour Spirit the spirit of good company we were builded at a farmhouse and the farmer showed Captain Dixon and me all around his farm

He was full of pride in everything of his horses first of all there were three in the first stable sleek and strong then we saw laare a beautiful m in fo then last lastly there was pikinini a yearling all the Stables were spotlessly clean and the Animals well kept but to

See him with his Lambs was best of all the ‘s were feeding from the racks that ran all along both sides of the sheds and his Lantern showed two long rows of level backs solid and uniform and dull while in the middle of the shed was a Jun company of close cropped Lambs

Frisking pushing jostling or pulling at their Dam as Lively and naughty a crew as you could imagine ah volure cried our friend picking up a lamb that was stealing a drink from the wrong tap and pointing to its Dam at the other end of the shed he

Fondled and stroked it like a puppy making us hold it and assuring us it was not meon at 7 we had our dinner in the kitchen the farmer his wife and the domestique a manservant whose history I will tell in a few minutes had just finished and were going to clear off but

We asked them to stay and let us drink their health in whiskey and soda the farmer said this was want to make the domestique go zigzag for himself he would drink not for the inherent pleasure of the whiskey which was a strong drink to which he was unused he

Being of the land of light wines but to give us pleasure so the usual healths were given in old orne and perer then we were told the history of the domestique which brought us very close to the spirit in which France is fighting he had eight children in Peron

Barely 10 miles the other side of the line called up in September 1914 he was in the trenches until March 1915 when he was released on account of his eight children but by then the living line had set between them in steel and blood and never a word yet has

He heard of his wife and eight children the youngest of whom he left nine days old there are times when our cause seems clouded with false motives but there seemed no doubt on this score tonight as we watched this man in his own land creeping up as it were as near as

Possible to his wife and children and home and yet barred from his own village and without the knowledge even that his own dear ones were alive the farmer told us he had gone half crazed yet he had a fine face though fored with deep lines down his forehead 10 minutes in the yard

With the Germans ah what would he do and vividly he drew his hand across his throat but the Germans would never go back that was another of his opinions no wonder he told us he doubted the bond dear no wonder he sometimes went zigzag the farmer was well educated and

Had very intelligent views on the war one son was a captain the other was also serving in some capacity the wife made us good coffee but got very sleepy I learned she Rose every morning at 4:00 a.m. to milk the cows tonight we can hear the guns there seems a considerable

Liveliness at several parts of the line and strange rumors of the Germans breaking through which I do not believe tomorrow we shall be within the shell Zone again February 1st today we marched to moranor and are spending the night in Huts it is very cold and we have a

Brazer made out of a biscuit tin but it smokes abominably we are busy getting trench kit ready for the next day from outside the Hut I can see star lights and hear machine guns tapping it Thrills like the turning up of the foot lights and it was

A long act the curtain did not fall till June end of chapter 5 the boah France trenches this is a chapter of maps diagrams and technicalities there are people I know who do not want maps to whom Maps convey practically nothing these people can skip this chapter and from their point

Of view they will lose nothing the main interest of Life lies in what is done and thought and it does not much matter exactly where these and thoughts take place maps are like Anatomy to some people it is of absorbing interest to know where our bones muscles arteries

And all the rest of our interior lie to others these things are of no account whatever yet all are alike interested in human people and so quite understanding I think you are really very romantic in your dislike of maps you associate them with a duller kind of history and examination papers

I bid you mapless ones farewell till page 117 promising you again that you shall lose nothing now to work we understand each other we map lovers the other folk have gone on to the next chapter so we can take our time it is the trenches at bu fron that

We held for over four months I may fairly claim to know every inch of them I think it is obvious that if you are at bu France and look North you have an uninterrupted view not only of both front lines running down into freeor Valley but of both lines running up onto

The High Ground north of freec court and a very fine view indeed of free court itself and freec Court would it is also quite clear that from their front lines north of free Court the Germans had a good view of our front lines and Communications in the valley but if ba

Fon and our trenches east of it they had no infot view as all our Communications were on the reverse slope of this shoulder of High Ground so as regards observation we were best off moreover whereas they could not possibly see our support lines and Communications at bu

Fon we could get a certain amount of enot observation of their trenches opposite from 87 where there was a work called Boot redout and an artillery observation post the position of the artillery immediately becomes clear when the LIE of the ground is once grasped for field artillery and fad fire is far

More effective as the trajectory is lower than that of heavy artillery that is to say a whizbang the name given to an 18lb shell more or less skims along the ground and comes at you whereas howitzers fire up in the air air and the shell rushes down on top of you if a

Battery of 18 Pounders can fire up a trench it has far more effect against the nine men in that trench than if it fires at it broadside the same applies of course to hozers but as howitzers drop shells down almost perpendicularly they can be used with great effect traversing along a

Trench that is to say getting the exact range of the trench and dropping shells methodically from right to left or left to right so many to each fire Bay and dodging about a bit and going back onto a bit out of turn so that the enemy

Cannot tell where the next coal box is coming oh it is a great game this for the actors but not for the unwilling audience a battery of field artillery stationed in a gully could bring excellent enot fire onto the German trenches howitzers lived in all sorts of secret places one never worried about

Them they knew their business once in June on our way into the trenches we halted close by a battery and I looked into one of the gun pits and saw the terrible monster sitting with its long nose in the air and I saw the great shells waiting and Rose but I felt like

An interloper and fled at the approach of a gunner all these howitzers you see firing on the PM films we never saw or thought of about only we loved to hear their shells whistling and griding if there is no such word I cannot help it

There is an r and a D in The Sound anyway over our head and falling Crump Crump Crump along the German support trenches there were a lot of batteries in The Bu de Thai the woods were full of them and grew Fuller and Fuller I do not know what they all

Were as one Brigade contains four battalions we almost invariably had two battalions in the line and two in billets so it was usually six days in and six days out during these six days out we also invariably supplied four working parties per company which lasted 9 hours from

The time of falling in outside company headquarters to dismissing after marching back still it was billets one slept uninterruptedly and with equipment and Bo boots off now we were undeniably lucky in being invariably from February to June 1916 billeted in Morland core which is situated in a regular cup with high

Ground all around it it was a cozy spot and a very jolly thing after that long long weary grind up from Mayo at the end of a weary six days in to look down on The Snug Little Village waiting for you below for once over the hill and

Swinging down into Morland core one became as it were cut off from the war suddenly and completely it was somewhat like shutting the door on a stormy night everything outside was going on just the same but with it was shut out also a wearing straining tension of body and

Mind yes we were very lucky in being billeted at Morland core it was just too far off to be worth shelling whereas Bray was shelled regularly almost every day so was m and there were brigades billeted in both Bray and M there were troops intense in The Bu Dei

And this too was sometimes shelled we were always able to relieve by day thanks to the rolling nature of the country we always used to go by the route through Mayo at one time until they took to shelling the road whether they could see us from an observation

Post up Laos way or whether they spotted Us by observation balloon or Aeroplane one cannot say but laterally we always used the route by The Bu Dei and Gibralter in both cases we had to cross High ground but on arrival we were again in a valley and out of

Observation all along this road were a series of dugouts and here were companies in reserve re headquarters RC dressing station field kitchens stores Etc and here the transport brought up rations every evening via Bray one could walk about here completely secure from view but laterally they took to shelling it and

It was not a healthy spot then it was also infiled occasionally by long range machine gun fire but on the whole it was a good spot and one had a curious sensation being able to walk about on an open road within a, yards of the Germans the dugouts called 71 North were the

Best the bank sloped up very steeply from the road thus protecting the dugouts along it from anything but shellfire of very high trajectory and this the Germans never used however one did not want to walk too far along the road for it led Round the Corner into full view of

Fleor there was a trench at the side of the road that ought to be hopped down into but it could easily be missed and there was no barrier across the road I saw a motorcyclist Dash right along to the corner once and returned very speedily when he found himself gazing

Full view at fre cor a map of our area of fighting gives details of our trenches and the German trenches opposite I wish I could convey the sense of intimacy with which I am filled when I look at this map it is something like the feeling ings I should ascribe to a

Farmer looking at a map of his property every inch of which he knows by heart every field every copes every lane every Hollow and Hill are intimate things to him with every corner he has some Association every tree cut down every fence repaired every road made up every

Few hundred yards of Shaw grubbed up every acre of Orchard enclosed and planted all these he can call back to memory at his will so do I know every corner every turning in these trenches every Traverse has its peculiar familiarity very often its peculiar history this Traverse was built the

Night after P’s death this trench was dug because 75 Street was so marked down by the enemy rifle grenades another was a terrible straight trench till we built those traverses in it another was a morass until until we boarded it how well I remember being half buried by a

Canister at the corner of 78 Street in the night the mine blew in all the trench between the fort and the loop what an awful Dugout that was at Trafalgar Square how we loathed the straightness of Watling Street and so on at infinitum we were in those trenches for

Over four months and I know them as one knows the creaking of the doors at Home the subtle smell of the bathroom the dusty atmosphere of the Box room or the lowness of the Cellar Door particularly intimate are the Recollections of dugouts with their good or bad

Conveniences in the way of beds and tables their beams that smokee you on the head as regularly as Clockwork or their peculiarly musty smell one Dugout invariably smelted of high rodent another of sandbag nothing but sandbag from February then to June we kept on going into these trenches and then back

To Morland cor for rest and working parties all as regular as Clockwork once or twice the actual front line held by our Battalion was altered so that I have been in the trenches all along from the cemetery down in the valley to the end of the craters opposite danu trench

B maple readout was what is known as a strong point in case of an enemy attack piercing our front line the company in Maple readout held out at all costs to the last man even if the enemy got right past and down the hill there was a Dugout which was provisioned full up

With bully beef and water in empty petrol cans ready for this emergency there was a certain amount of barbed wire put out in front of the trenches and there were two Lewis gun positions really it was not a bad little place although the defenses of maple redout

Were always looked on by us as rather more of a big joke than anything no one ever really took seriously the thought of the enemy coming over and reaching Maple Reed out raid the front line he was liable to do at any moment but attack on such a big scale as to come

Right through no no one really ever beneath the rank of Battalion Commander anyway worried about that still if he did there was the redout anyway and there was another called redout a on the hill facing us as one looked from Maple redout across the smoke rising from

Dugouts which could just not be seen under the bank at 71 North here was rumored to be bully beef and water also and the Machine Gun Corp had some positions in it which they visited occasionally but even a notice no one allowed this way failed to tempt me to

Explore its in interior one saw it traced out on the Hill from Maple redout and there I have no doubt it still is with its bully beef intact and its water a little stale so much for Maple readout in case of attack as I have said it was a strong

Point that must hold out at all costs while the company at 71 North came up to Rue alar and would support either of the front companies as the co directed the front companies of course held the front line to the last man meanwhile the two battalions in billets would be marching

Up from Morin core to The High Ground above redout a up there were a series of entrenched Works known as the intermediate line the battalions marching up from billets might have to hold these positions or what was more likely be ordered to Counterattack immediately such was the defense scheme

Six days in billets three days in support not particularly hard that sounds I can hear someone say I tried to disillusion people in an earlier chapter about the easiness of the rest in billets owing to the incessant working parties these were even more incessant during these four months let me say a

Few words then also about life in support trenches I admit that for officers it was not always an over strenuous time but look at Tommy’s ordinary program this would be a typical day say in April 4:00 a.m. stand to until it got light enough to clean your

Rifle then clean it about 5:00 a.m. get your rifle inspected and turn in again 6:30 a.m. turn out to carry breakfast up to company in front line Old Kent Road very muddy after rain a heavy Dixie to be carried from top of Waymouth Avenue up via Trafalgar Square and 76th Street

To the platoon holding the trench at the Loop 7:45 a.m. get your breakfast 9:00 a.m. turn out for working party spend morning filling sandbags for building traverses in Maple readout 11:30 a.m. carry dinner up to front company same at 6:30 a.m. 1: p.m. get your own dinner 1

To 4:00 p.m. with luck rest 400 p.m. car tea up to front company 5:00 p.m. get your own tea 5:15 to 7:15 p.m. with luck rest 7:15 p.m. clean rifle 7:30 p.m. stand to Rifle inspected Jones puts his big ugly boot out suddenly just after you have finished cleaning rifle and upsets it

Result mud all over barrel and nose cap 8:30 p.m. stand down have have to clean rifle again and show platoon Sergeant 9900 p.m. turn out for working party till 12: midnight in front line 12 midnight hot soup 12:15 a.m. Dugout at last till 4: a.m. stand to and so on for

Three days and nights this is really quite a moderate program it is one that you will aim at for your men but there are disturbing elements that sometimes compel you to dock a man afternoon rest for instance a couple of canisters block Watling Street you must send a party of

10 men and an NCO to clear it at once or you suddenly have to supply a party to carry footballs up to Ru Alber for the trench mortar man the agitant is sorry he could not let you know before but they have just come up to the Citadel

And must be unloaded at once so you have to find the men for this on the spur of the moment and so it goes on day and night oh it’s not all rum and sleep is life and maple redout three days and nights in support and then comes the three days in the

Front line almost the whole of no man’s land in front of a certain sector of trenches is a chain of mine craters no one can have much idea of a crater until he actually sees one I can best describe it as a hollow like a quarry or chalk hole

About 50 yards in diameter and some 40 or 50 ft deep they vary in size of course but that is about the average the sides which are steepish and vary in angle between 30 and 60° are composed of a very fine thin soil which is in point

Of fact a thick sediment of powdered soil that has returned to Earth after a tempestuous Ascent into the sky a large mine always causes a lip above the ground level there is usually water in the bottom of the deeper craters when a series of craters is formed running into

One another you get a very uneven floor one would not keep in the center where the crater contained water but would skirt the Water by going to one side of it the bridges are important as they are naturally the easiest way across the craters a bombing Patrol for instance

Could crawl over a bridge without having to go right down to the bottom level and which is more important will not have a steep climb up over very soft and spongy soil these bridges are the lips of the larger craters when they join the smaller this Crater Chain being

Understood the system of centries is easily grasped originally before mining commenced our front line ran roughly in a straight line then began the great game of mining under the enemy parapet and blowing him up and its Cor countermining or blowing up the enemy’s mine galleries before he reached your

Parapet such is the game as played underground by the tunneling companies re to the Infantry belongs the work if not blown up of consolidating the crater whether made by your or an enemy mine that is to say of seizing your side of the crater and guarding it by bombing

Posts in such a way as to prevent the enemy from doing anything except hold his side of the crater for instance take a single crater caused by us blowing up the German Gallery before it reaches our parapet if we do nothing the enemy digs a trench into the crater and can get

Into the crater anytime he likes and bomb our front line and return to his trench unseen this of course never happens as we dig a sap into the crater from our side and the result is stalemate each side can see into to the crater so neither can go into it each

Platoon has many posts to find men for all these posts are composed of one bomber who has a box of bombs with him and his rifle without bayonet fixed and one bayonet man there is no special structure about a post it is just the spot in the trench where the sentries

Are placed sometimes one or two posts could be dispensed with by day if one post could with a periscope watch the ground in front of both the Sentry groups are relieved every two hours by the platoon NCO on trench Duty there is always an NCO on trench Duty going the

Rounds of his Sentry groups in every platoon and one officer going around the groups in the company thus is secured the endless chain of unwinking eyes that stretches from Dunkirk to Switzerland there were two Lewis guns to every company the Lewis gun teams found found their centuries independently of

The platoon and had their dugouts a nice compact little affair with a Lewis gun team always very snug and self-contained each platoon had a Dugout about 50 yards behind the front line and as far as possible one arranged to get the men a few hours sleep in them every

Day but only a certain percentage at a time there were four stretcher bearers and two signalers also a permanent wiring party had its Quarters here a Corporal and five men they made up concertina or Gooseberry Wire by day and were out three or 4 hours every night

Putting it out they were of course exempt from other platoon duties every platoon had a Pioneer to attend to sanitary arrangements and other odd jobs such as fetching up soup and each platoon had an orderly ready to take messages had come company headquarters besides the officer servants were the

Company orderly and Company officers cook an officer on trench Duty was accompanied by his servant as orderly this was the distribution of the company in the front line every morning from 9 to 12 all men not on Sentry worked at repairing and improving the trenches and the same for 4 hours during

The night work done to strengthen the parapet can only be done by night every night wire was put out every night a patrol went out every day one stood too arms for an hour before Dawn and an hour after Dusk and day and night there was an intermittent stinging and buzzing of

Black-winged instruments between the opposing trenches of shells I have already spoken next in deadliness were rifle grenades which are bombs with a rod attachment that is put down the barrel of an ordinary rifle four four of these rifles are stood in a rack fixed to the ground and fired by a string from

A few yards away at a very high trajectory they are a very deadly weapon as you cannot see them dropping onto you then there is a multiform Genus called trench mortar being projectiles of all kinds and shapes lobbed over from close range the canister was the most loathed

It was simply a tin oil can the size of a lady’s muff large one heard a thud and watched the Beast rising Rising then stationary it seemed in midair and then come toppling down down down on top of one with a crash 3 second silence and then a most colossal

Explosion blowing everything in its vicinity to atoms these canisters were loathed by the men with the most personal and intense aversion yet they were really not nearly as dangerous as right rifle grenades as one had time to dodge them very often unless enfiladed in a communication trench they were

Moreover very local in their effects a shell has splinters that spread far and wide a trench mortar is a clumsy monster with a thin skin no splinters and an abominable noisy vulgar way of making the most of itself sausages were another but milder form of the vulgar trench

Mortar a Torpedoes were daintier people with wings who looked so cherubic as they came sailing over that one almost forgot their deadly stinging Powers they too were a species of trench mortar it is natural to write lightly of these things yet they were no light matters they were the instruments of

Death that took their daily toll of lives in this chapter describing the system and routine of ordinary trench warfare I have tried to prep prepare the canvas for several pictures I have drawn in bold bare lines now I am putting in a wash of color the atmosphere of

Death sometimes we forget it in the interest of the present activity sometimes we saw it face to face without a qualm but always it was there with its Relentless overhanging presence dulling our Spirits wearing out our lives the papers are always full of Tommy smiling Baron’s father has immortalized his indomitable humor yes

It is true we laugh we smile but for an hour of laughter there are how many hours of weariness strain and Grim Agony it is great that Tommy’s laughter has been immortalized but do not forget that its greatness lies in this that it was uttered beneath the canopy of ever impending

Death end of chapter six more First Impressions it must not be imagined that I at once grasped all the essential details of our trench system as I have tried to put them concisely in the preceding chapter on the contrary it was only very gradually that I accumulated

My intimate knowledge of our Maze of trenches only by degrees that I learned the LIE of the land and only by personal patrolling that I learned the interior economy of the craters at first the front line with its loops and bombing posts and portions patrolled only its sandbag dumps its unexpected visions of

Rees scurrying like bolted rabbits from M shafts its sudden jerk round a corner that brought you in full view of the German parapet across a crater that made you gaze fascinated several seconds before you realize that you should be stooping low as here was a bad bit of

Trench that wanted deepening at once and had not been cleared properly after being blown in last night all this I say was first a most perplexing Labyrinth it was only gradually that I solved its Mysteries and discovered an order in its complexity I will give a few more

Extracts from my diary some of which seem to me now delightfully naive here they are though 2nd February 196 in the trenches everything very quiet we are in support in a place called maple redout on the reverse slope of a big Ridge good dugouts and a view behind

Over a big expanse of chalk Downs which is most exhilarating a day with blue sky and A tingle of Frost being on the reverse slope you can walk about anywhere and so can see everything have just been up in the front trenches which are over the ridge and a regular or

Rather very irregular rabbit Warren the Bosch generally only about 30 to 40 yards away the trenches are dry that is the Glorious thing just off to poow to the new members of my platoon here I will merely remark that the good Dugout in which we were living

Was blown in by a 42 shell exactly 4 days later killing one officer and wounding the other twoo badly with regard to the state of the trenches it was dry weather and when they were dry they were dry and when they were wet they were wet third February another

Beautiful February morning slept quite well despite rats overhead obrien and Dixon awfully dull and heavy can’t think why everything outside is full of life there is a crispness in the air and a delightful sharp Shadow and light contrast as you look look up Maple redout meditations on coldness and how

It unms on hunger and how it weakens on the art of feeding and warming and how women realize this while men do not usually know there is any art in keeping house at all meditations too on the stupidity slowness and clumsiness of officers servants Dixon’s snores make me bucked

With life so too this same clumsiness of the servants Lewis came in just now why are you waiting Lewis I asked I thought Watson was waiting today this after a great strafing of servants for General stupidity and incompetence none of the others dared come in sir he replied in his high

Piping voice and a broad grin on his face oh they are Good Fellows why be fed up with life why long faces long faces these are the bad things of Life the things to fight against so did my vision of the third Army School bear fruit I see now philosophy From The Trenches

Does it cover everything does it explain the fellows I passed this morning being carried to the aid poost one with blood and orange iodine all over his face and the other wounded in both legs it always comes as a surprise when the bombs and shells produce wounds and

Death Watch to mind go up this evening great yellow brown mass of smoke followed by a beautiful undercloud of orange pink that steamed up in a soft creamy way no firing and shelling followed as aoni take over from a tomorrow morning 1 p.m. great Starlight Jupiter and Venus

Both up and the Great Bear and Orion glittering hard and clean in the Steely Sky I wish I had a homer I am sure sure he had just one perfect epithet for Orion on a night like this I shall read Homer in a new light after these times I

Begin to understand the spirit of the homeric heroes it was all words words words before now I see Billet life where is that in the Iliad in the tents of course and the eating and drinking the word that puts heart into men the cool stolid facing of death all those

Gruesome details of wounds and weapons all is being enacted here every day exactly as in the homeric age Human Nature has not altered and did not Homer tell too how utterly fed up they were with it all can One not read between the lines and see beside the glamour of physical courage

The Strain the weariness the FED upness of them all I think so nals is a word I remember so well they were all longing for the day of their return as here the big fights were few and far between and as here there were the months and years

Of waiting and on them too the Stars looked down winking alike at Greeks and Trojans just as tonight thousands of German and British faces dull-witted or sharp sour-faced or smiling sad or happy are gazing up and wondering if there is any wisdom in the world yet 4,000 years

Ago and all the time the stars and the Great Bear have been hurtling apart at thousands of miles an hour and the human eye sees no difference no wonder they wink at us and our mothers and wives the women folk ureides understood their views on war 10 years they

Waited must go to bed damn these scuffling rats frequently I found my thoughts flying back through the years and more especially on Starlet nights or on a breathless spring evening to the Greeks and Romans life out here was so primitive so much a matter of eating and

Drinking and digging and sleeping and so full of the elements of cold and Frost and wind and rain there were so many definite and positive physical goods and bads that the barrier of an unreal civilization was complet completely Swept Away under the stars and in a

Trench you were as good as any homeric Warrior but you were little better and so you felt you understood him and here I will add that it was especially at Sunset that the passionate desire to live would sometimes surge up so intense so clamorous that it swept every other

Feeling clean aside for the time but to return to Maple redout or rather to Gibralter where the next entry in my diary was written 6th February rather an uncomfortable Dugout in Gibralter yesterday was a Divine day I sat up in the fort most of the day watching the

Bombardment blue sky on the top of a high chalk down Larks singing and a real Sunny dance in the air we watched four aeroplanes sail over amid white puffs of shrapnel and a German plane came over I could see the black crosses very plainly with my glasses most Godlike it must

Have been up there on such a morning I felt very pleased with life and did two sketches one of Sawyer another of Richards a dull thud and then there goes another shouts someone it reminds me of Bill the lizard coming out of the chimney pot in Alice in Wonderland

Everyone gazes and waits for the crash toppling through through the sky comes a big tin oil can followed immediately by another both fall and explode with a tremendous D sending up a 50-foot Spurt of Black Earth and flying debris while down the wind comes the scud of sandbag

Fluff and the smell of powder this alternated with the four twos which came over with a scream and wait politely a second or two before bursting so inelegantly I seem to have got mixed up a bit here it was usually the canisters that waited the mining is a great

Mystery to me at present one part of the trench is only patrolled as the Bosch May blow there at any moment I must say it is an uncomfortable feeling this liability to suddenly project skywards the first night I had a sort of nightmare all the time and kept waking

Up and thinking about a mine going up under one the second night I was too tired to have night nightmares the rats swarm I woke up last night and saw one sitting on Edwards licking its whiskers then it ran onto the Box by the candle it was a pretty brown fellow rather

Attractive I thought I felt no repulsion whatever at sight of it the front trenches are a maze I cannot disentangle all the loops and saps and now we are cut off from sea as the front trench is all blown in one had has to have a connecting Patrol that goes via Ru Alber

A very weird Affair the only consolation is that the Bosch would be more lost if he got in I cannot help feeling that b company has been very lucky we were in Maple redout Wednesday Thursday and Friday everything was quite quiet with us but D had seven casualties in the

Front trench on Friday we relieved a and all Saturday the enemy bombarded a spot just behind our company’s left putting over four twos and canisters all day long from 9 a.m. onwards and absolutely smashing up our trenches there then Trafalgar Square has been rather a hot

Shop two of our own whizbangs fell short there and several rifle grenades fell very close also splinters of the four twos came humming round ending with little plops quite close O’Brien picked up a large Splinter that fell in the trench right outside the Dugout again at standown when Dixon Clark Edwards and I

Were standing talking together at the top of 76th Street two canisters fell most alarmingly near us about 10 yards behind covering us with dirt yet we have not had a single casualty today we were to have been relieved by the manchesters at midday but this morning at stand 2 we heard the

Time had been altered to 8:00 a.m. B was duly relieved and number five platoon had just changed gum boots while six seven and eight were sitting at the corner of maple readout enthralled in the same process when overcame two canisters one smashing in Old Kent Road

Down which we had just come and the other falling right into an a company Dugout 20 yards to my left killing two men and wounding three others one probably mortally and now I have just had the news that the Manchester have had 23 casualties today including three officers their RSM and a company

Sergeant major as I read some of these sentences true in every detail as they are I cannot help smiling for it was no bombardment that took place on our left all day it was merely the Germans potting one of our trench mortar positions and Trafalgar Square was

Really very quiet that first time in but what I notice most is the way in which I record the fall of individual canisters and rifle grenades even if they were 20 yards away never a six days in laterally that we did not have to clear old Kent

Road and Watling Street two or three times and we used to fire off a 100 rifle grenades a day very often and received as many in return always and the record of casualties one did not keep we were lucky it is true once and once only after did be company go in and

Come out without a casualty those first two days in Maple readout when everything was quiet were the most deceitful harbingers of the future that could have been imagined why long faces I could write the manchesters had a Rudder but a truer introduction to the bo France trenches and especially to

Maple re out for the dugouts were abominable not one was shell prooof and there was no parados or Traverse for 150 yards the truth of the matter was that these trenches had been some of the quietest in the line for some reason or other when our division took them over

They immediately changed face about and took upon themselves the task of growing in a steady Relentless Crescendo into one of the hottest sections in the line on the 22nd of February the Germans raided our trenches on the left opposite freec cor they did not get much change

Out of it I can remember at least four raids close on our left or right during those four months they never actually came over on our front but we usually came in for the bombardment the plan is to isolate the sector to be raided by an intense bombardment on that sector and

On the sectors on each side to lift the barrage or curtain of fire at a given moment off the front line of the sector rated what time as the old phrase goes they come over enter the trench if they can make a few prisoners and get back

Quickly all the while the sectors to right and left are being bombarded heavily it was this isolating bombardment that our front line was receiving while we were left unmolested in 71 North all this I did not know at the time here is my record of it 25 February

1916 it is snowing hard we are in a very comfortable tubular Dugout in 71 North this Dugout is the latest pattern being on the two Penny tube model very warm and free from drafts it is not shell prooof but then shells never seem to come near here let me try and record the

Raid on our left on the 22nd before I forget it the manchesters were in the front line and maple redout during the afternoon the Bosch started putting Heavies onto Maple readout in the corner of Canterbury Avenue bad luck on the manchesters again we all agreed and

Turned in for tea there was a wonderful good fire going by jove they are going it I said as we sat down and gray brought in the teapot th thud thud thud we simply had to go out and watch Regular coal boxes sending up great Columns of mud and splinters humming and

Splashing right over us a good hundred yards or more better keep inside from Dixon we had tea and things seemed to quiet down then about 6:00 the bombardment got louder and our guns woke up like fun V boom V boom from our whis bangs going over and then the machine

Guns began on our left simultaneously in came Richards Dixon’s servant with an excited air gas he exclaimed instinctively I felt for my gas helmet meanwhile Dixon had gone outside absurd he said in a quiet voice the winds wrong who brought that message then up came a telephone orderly I heard him running on

The Hard Road stand too he said breathlessly and Dixon went off to phone with him Nicholson appeared in a gas helmet I was looking for my pipe but could not find it then at last I went out without it outside it was getting dark it was a fairly nippy air the

Bombardment was going strong all the sky was flickering and our guns were screaming over Crump Crump the boss shells were bursting up by maple redout scream scream went our guns back and right overhead our big guns went ging all this I noticed gradually my first impression was the strong smell of

Gas helmets in the cold air the gas alarm had spread and some of the men had their helmets on I felt undecided I simply did not know whether the men should wear them or not what was happening I wished Dixon would come back ah there he was what news I can’t get

Through he said but we shall get a message all right if necessary what’s happening I asked do you think they are coming over no it won’t last long I expect still just let’s see if the men have got their emergency rations with them a few had

Not and were sent into the dugouts for them gas helmets were ordered back into their satchels no possibility of gas said Dixon winds dead South I was immensely bucked now there was a feeling of tenseness and bracing up I felt the importance of Essentials rifles and

Bayonets in good order the men fit and able to run this was the real thing somehow I made Lewis go in and get my pipe I found I had no pouch and stuffed loose backy in my pocket I realized I had not thought out what I would do in

Case of attack I did not know what was happening I was glad Dixon was there it was great though to hear the continuous Roar of the canonade and the Machine Guns wrapping not for 5 minutes but all the time that I think was the most novel

Sound of all no news that was a new feature a Manchester officer came up and said all their Communications were cut with the left I was immensely bucked especially with my pipe our servants were good friends to have behind us and Dixon was a man in his element the men

Were all cool Germans have broken through I heard one man say where said someone rather excitedly in the North Sea was the stolid reply at last the canonade developed into a Roar on our left and we realized that any show was there and not on our sector then up came the quartermaster

With some boots for Dixon and me and we all went out into the Dugout where was a splendid fire and we stayed there and certain humorous remarks from the quartermaster suddenly turned my feelings and I felt that the tension was gone the thing was over and that outside

The bombardment was slackening in half an hour it was standown at 7:40 I was immensely bucked I knew I should be all right now in an attack and the canonade at night was a magnificent sight of course we had not been shelled though some whizbangs had been fired 50

Yards behind us just above redout a trying for the battery just over the hill my chief impression was this is the real thing you must know your men they await clear orders that is all it was dark I remember thinking of Brigade and Division behind invisible seeing nothing

Yet alone knowing what was happening no news that was interesting an entirely false rumor came along all dugouts blown in in Maple redout I had sent Evans to bray to try and buy Cole he returned in the middle of the bombardment with a long explanation of why he had been unable to

Get it afterwards I said somehow Cole could wait all the while I have been writing this there is a regular blizzard outside such is my record of my first bombardment the manchesters who were in the front line suffered rather heavily but not in Maple readout no dugouts were

Smashed in at all there though Canterbury Avenue was blocked in two places and Old Kent Road in one the Germans came over from just north of freeor but only a very few reached our trenches and of them about a dozen were made prisoners and the rest killed it

Was a bad show from the enemy point of view and now I will leave my diary these first impressions are interesting enough but later the entries become more and more spasmodic and usually introspective the remaining chapters are not exactly though very nearly chronological from February 6th to March

8th I was sniping an intelligence officer to the Battalion chapters 8 9 and 12 describe incidents in that period then on March 8th Captain Dixon was transferred as second in command to our blank Battalion and on that date I took over the command of B company which I

Held until I was wounded on the 7th of June these were the three months in which I leared the strain of responsibility as well as the true tragedy of this war during all these four months I was fortunate in having as a commanding officer a really great Soldier the co had inaugurated his

Arrival by a vigorous emphasis of the following principle no man’s land belongs to us if the Bosch dare show his face in it he’s going to be damned sorry for it we are top dogs and if there is any strafing the last word must always be

Ours such was the policy of the man behind me during those four months meanwhile from 8 to midnight every night trenches were being deepened the parapet thickened and fire steps and traverses being put in the front line which had hitherto been a maze of hasty improvisations barbed wire was put out

At an unprecedented pace and patrols were going out every night if things went wrong there was the devil to pay but if things went well one was left entirely unmolested and if there was a bombardment on the orders came quick and clear and and any company Commander will

Know that those three qualities in a commanding officer are worth almost anything end of chapter 7 sniping one the snow was coming down in big white flakes whirling and dancing against a gray sky I shivered as I looked out from the top of the Dugout

Steps in Maple redout it was halfast 7 a good hour since the snipers had reported to me before going to their posts it was quite dark then for a sniper must always be up on his post a good hour before Dawn to catch the enemy working a few

Minutes too late it is so easy to miss those first faint glimmerings of Twilight when you were just finishing off an interesting piece of wiring in no man’s land I speak from experience for so a sniper got me oh I shuddered it’s no good keeping

The men on in this so putting my whiskey bottle full of rum in my havers sack I set off up Old Kent Road to visit my posts and withdraw the men proem I expected to find the fellows unutterably cold shriveled up and bored to my surprise that number one post Thomas and

Everton were in a state of huge excitement eyes glowing and faces full of life there seemed to be a great rivalry too for the possession of the rifle for the snipers always worked in pairs a man cannot gaze out at the opposing lines with acute interest for

More than about a half an hour on end so I used to work them by Pairs and give them shifts according to the weather in summer you could put a pair on for 4 hours and they would work well taking half hour shifts but in cold weather 2

Hours was quite enough we’ve got them sir from Thomas they was working in the trench over there by them blue sandbags sir four of them sir yes and I saw him throw up his arm sir put in Everton excited for the first time I have ever

Seen him and trying to push Thomas out of the box and have another look but Thomas would not be pushed Splendid I said by J that’s good work can I see but it was snowing hard and I could see very little I tried the telescope put it

Right up to your eye sir said Thomas forgetting that I had myself taught him this in billets as he vainly tried to see through it holding it about 4 Ines from his face and declaring that he could see everything just as well with his own eyes yes I think I see where you

Mean said I up by that sandbag dump there’s a mine shaft there and they were probably some of their Rees piling up sandbags or emptying them out I believe that is what they usually do now fill the sandbags Below in their galleries bring them up empty them and use the

Same ones again Thomas and Everton gaped at this it had not occurred to them to consider that the Bosch had our EES they were of the unimaginative class of snipers who saw did and reported and on the whole I preferred them to those who saw and immediately concluded for their

Conclusions were were usually wrong to men like Thomas I was I think looked upon as one who had some slightly Supernatural knowledge of the German lines he did not realize that by careful compass bearings I knew the exact ground visible from his post and that my map of

The German lines showing every trench as revealed by Aeroplane photographs was accurate to a yard he was like a retriever who keeps to heal noses out his bird with uning skill and brings it in with the softest of mouths yet the cunning and strategy he leaves to his

Master who is decidedly his inferior in nose and mouth so Thomas could see the shoot far better than I but it was I who thought out the strategy of the shoot well said I as I doled out a rather more liberal rum ration than usual that’s

Damn good work anyway two you got you say not sure about the second anyway you had two good shots and remember what I told you a sniper only shoots to kill so too it’s going to be anyhow they both grinned at this which was the nearest they could get to a wink

I’m very pleased about it now it’s not much good staying up here in this thick snow so you can go off till I send word to your Dugout for you to go on again I turned to go away thinking that the other posts rless and in all probability

Quarless must be in a state of exasperating coldness by now but Thomas and Everton did not move there was something wanted well what is it please sir can we stay on here a bit perhaps one of those re fellows may come back for something good Heavens yes I said

Stay on as long as you like and smiled as I made off to my other posts later I used to get the snipers to report for to me coming off their posts and get their rum ration then as I found it gave a bad appearance and damaged the reputation of

The snipers when people saw me going about with the nose of a bottle of ovh whiskey sticking out of my Hab sack there as I expected I found the men blue and bored you can’t see nothing today sir at all was the sentence with which I was immediately greeted even the rums

Seemed to inspire very little little outward enthusiasm you can go off to your dugouts till I send for you I replied carefully corking the bottle and not looking at them while I spoke if you like I added after a pause looking up but the post was

Empty that afternoon I was up on number one post with a sniper who was new to the work it was still freezing but the snow clouds had cleared right away and the wind had dropped there was a tingle in the air everything was as still as

Death the Sun was shining from a very blue sky and throwing longer and longer shadows in the snow as the afternoon wore on it was a valuable afternoon the enemy’s wire showing up very clearly against the white ground and I was showing the new sniper how to search the

Trench systematically from left to right noting the exact position of anything that looked like a loophole or steel plate and especially the thickness of the wire what kind whether it was gray and new or Rusty red and old whether there were any gaps in it and where all

These things a sniper should note every morning when he comes on to his post gaps are important as patrols must come out through gaps and the Lewis Gunners should know these and be ready to fire at them if a patrol is heard thereabouts in no man’s land similarly old gaps

Closed up must be reported it was very still has the war stopped one felt inclined to ask no there is the sound of shells exploding far away on the right somewhere in the French lines it must be somewhere about Frieza then a foot from just opposite and a long

Whining and a rifle grenade burst with a snarl about a hundred yards behind then another and another and another they’re trying for Trafalgar Square said I number one post was a little to the right of the top of 76th Street I waited there were no more it was just about

Touch and Go whether we replied if they went on up to about a dozen the chances were that the bombing Corporal in charge of our rifle grenade battery would Rouse himself then loose off 20 in retaliation but no perhaps the German had repented him of the evil of

Desecrating the piece of such an afternoon or perhaps he was just ranging and had an observer away on the flank somewhere to watch the effect of his shooting anyway he did not fire again and the afternoon Slumber was resumed till the evening strafe came on in due

Course I can see something over on the left sir it is a man’s head sir look I looked yes no I almost shouted it’s a dummy head just have a look and don’t whatever you do fire sure enough a cardboard head appeared over the front parapet opposite

With a gray cap on slowly it disappeared without the telescope it would have been next to impossible to see it was not a man again it appeared then slowly sank out of view it was well away on the left just in front of where the Rees had been

Hit at Dawn for this post was well cited having an oblique field of vision as all good sniping posts should the ideal is to have all your posts in the supports and not in the front line at about 300 yards from the enemy front line of course if the ground slopes away from

You you cannot get positions in the supports unless there are buildings to make posts in by getting an oblique view you gain two advantages a if a gets a shot at C C’s friends look out for that damned sniper opposite and look in the direction of B who is carefully

Concealed from direct view B A’s loophole is invisible from direct observation by D as it is pointing slantwise at C all this I now explained to my new sniper but why not smash up his old dummy sir might put the wind up the fellow working it

No I explained look at the paper again I had drawn it out for him Thomas shot at those Aries this morning don’t you see he was here B and there at D now they’re trying to find you or the man who shot their pal and you can bet

Anything you like they’ve got a man watching either at sea or right away on the left to spot you if you fire at the dummy no lie doggo and see if you can spot that man on the flank he’s probably got a periscope can’t see him sir at length no

Never mind he’s probably far too well concealed always remember the Bosch is as clever as you and sometimes cleverer ah but he wants me to shoot sir and I won’t came the Cheery answer what about smashing up his old dummy I reminded him his face fell he had

Forgotten his old un sniper like self already never mind said I now when Thomas and Everton come up here mind you tell them all about the dummy and tell Thomas from me that the Bosch doesn’t spend his time dummy wagging for nothing probably it was an re Sergeant two bang

Bang that settles it said I as I scrambled hastily down into the trench preceded by the sniper I had with me that day as orderly I more or less pushed him along for 10 yards then halted we faced each other both very much out of breath and blowy the whole

Place was wreaking with the smell of powder and the air full of sandbag fluff that settles it I repeated I always thought that was a rotten post and I object to being whiz banged a sniper’s job is to see and not be seen isn’t that right moris yes sir replied

Moris adding with a sad lack of humor they must have seen us sir exactly they did and they weren’t very far off hitting one of us into the bargain as I say that settles it we’ll leave that post forever and ever and tonight we’ll build a new one that they won’t see at

10:00 that night we were well at work just on the 100 meter Contour l line there was a small Quarry at the West End of which had been the two conspicuous posts where the Bosch had spotted us every loophole must by its very nature be spotted but when the natural ground

Is so little Disturbed that it looks exactly the same as it did before the post was made then indeed this spot ability is so much reduced that it verges on invisibility so leaving the Old Post exactly as before we were building a a new one about 20 yards to the west of it

There was a disused support trench running west from the Quarry and this suited my purpose admirably it ran just along the crest of the hill and commanded even a better view of freeor than the quar itself moreover there was enough Earth thrown up in the front of

The trench to enable us to fix in the steel plate at an angle of 45° this increases its impenetrability on the ground level without the top protruding above the top of the Earth the soil in front was not touched at all until the plate was fixed in and then

Enough was carefully scooped away from the front of the actual loophole to secure a fair field of view the Earth in front of the loophole is then exactly like a castle wall with a spay window if you think of a Norman Castle you will know exactly what I mean the loophole

Represents the inch wide aperture in the inner side of the split play similarly an Embraer is built behind the loophole with room for one man to stand and fire and the second man to sit by him a rainproof shelter of corrugated iron is placed over this Embraer and covered

Over with Earth this prevents it being spotted by airoplane also it makes the place habitable in the rain click click click went the pick into the chalk Cutting Room for the Embraer there was a tinny sound as some of the loose surface soil came away with

A spurt spilling onto the two sheets of corrugated iron waiting to go on to the roof added to this were the few quiet Whispers such as where’s that sandbag or is this low enough sir and the heavy breathing of private Evans as he returned from the Quarry after emptying

His sandbag for all the chalk cut away had to be carried to the Quarry and emptied there new Earth on the the top there would not give any clue to those gentlemen in free core wood who put the smell of powder in my nostrils a few

Hours back it was a darkish night but not so dark but what you could see the top of the trench there are very few nights when the sky does not show lighter than the trench sides there are a few though especially when it is raining and they are bad very bad but

That night I could just distinguish the outline of the big crater top half right and follow the near Skyline along the German parapet down into freeor Valley I was gazing down into that silent Blackness when a machine gun started popping I could see the flashes very clearly from my position somewhere in

Freec cor they must be meanwhile the post was nearly finished the corrugated iron was being fixed to the wooden upright and Jones was on the parapet sprinkling Earth over it the others were deepening the trench from the Quarry to the post that’s the machine gun that goes every night Sir said Jones

Enfilading that’s what it is pop pop pop answered the machine gun look here Jones said I you know number five post opposite airplane trench yes sir well go down there and see if you can see the flashes from there and if you can mark it down see yes sir and he had his

Equipment on in no time and was starting off when I called him back be very careful to mark your own position I warned him you know what I mean he knew and I knew that he knew meanwhile I stuck an empty cartridge case in the parados behind my head and waited five

Flashes spat out again and po came up out of the valley and between me and them in the parapet I stuck a second cartridge case I looked at my watch it was half 12 the post was finished and the trench deep enough to get along crawling anyway cease

Work the next day was so Misty that you could see practically nothing over 500 yards and the new post was useless the following day it had Frozen again and an inch of snow lay on the ground it was a sunny morning and from the new post all

Three core lay in full view before me how well I remember every detail of that City of the Dead in the center stood the white ruin of the church still higher than the houses around it though a stubby stump compared to what it must have been before thousands of shells

Reduced it to its present State all around were houses roofless walless skeletons all of them save in a few cases where a Red Roof still remained or a house seemed by some magic to be still untouched on the extreme right was Rose Cottage a well-known artillery Mark just

To its left were some large Park gates with stone pillars leading into freec cor wood and just inside the wood was a small cottage a lodge I suppose the extreme northern part of the village was invisible as the ground fell away north of the church I could see where the road

Disappeared from view then beyond clear the houses the road reappeared and ran straight up to the skyline a mile further on a communication trench crossed this road I remember we saw some men digging there one morning with my glasses I could see every detail beyond the communication trench were various

Small copses and tracks running over the field and on the skyline about 3,000 yard away was a long row of bushes and just to the left of it all ran the two white lace borders of chalk trenches winding and wobbling along up up up until they disappeared over the hill to

Labaz sometimes they diverged as much as 300 yards but only to come in together again so close that it was hard to see which was ours and which the German Due West of free Court Church they touched in a small Crater Chain it was a fascinating view I could not realize

That there lay a French Village I think we often forgot that we were on French soil and not on a sort of unreal Earth that would disappear when the war was over especially was no man’s land a kind of neutral stage whereon was played the great game to a Frenchman of course

Freeor was as French as ever it had been but I often forgot when I watched the shells demolishing a few more houses that these were not German houses deserving of their fate perhaps people will not understand this it is true anyway I was drawing a sketch of the

Village when lo and behold coly walking down the road into freeor came a solitary man I had to think rapidly and decided must be a German because the thing was so unexpected I could not for the moment get out of my head the unreasonable idea that it might be one

Of our own men however I soon got over that sight your rifle at 2,000 yards said I to Morgan who was with me now give it to me carefully I took aim I seemed to be holding the rifle up at an absurd angle I squeezed and squeezed the German

Jumped to one side onto the grass at the side of the road and doubled for all he was worth out of sight into freec cor needless to say I did not see him again to get another shot they’ve been using that road since last night Sir said Morgan while I was

Taking a careful bearing on my empty cartridge case a prismatic compass is invaluable for taking accurate cross bearings yes I said why yes of course they must have used it last night I never thought of that good we’ll get the artillery on there tonight and upset their ration carts this pleased the

Fancy of sniper Morgan and a broad grin came over his face at the thought of the Bosch losing his breakfast maybe sir we’ll see the sausages on the road tomorrow morning for which thought I commended him not a little a sense of humor is one of the attributes of a good

Sniper just as rash conclusions are not I then went down to number five post where Jones was awaiting me according to Arrangement there I took a second second bearing and retired to my Dugout to work out the two angles on the map from map to Compass add from Compass to map

Subtract I repeated to myself and disposed of the magnetic variation sarily then with the protractor I plotted out the angles exactly the small house with the gray roof standing out by itself on the left so that’s where you live my friend is it once more I was up

At the new post scrutinizing the gray roofed house with the telescope after a long gaze I almost jumped I gave the telescope to Morgan he gazed intently for a moment then is that a hole sir over the door in the shadow like it is I answered that night the machine gun

Started popping as usual when suddenly a salvo of whizbangs screamed over and H E joined in the game all round and about the little gray roofed house flickered the flashes of bursting shells then the enemy retaliated and for a quarter of an hour a certain liveliness prevailed then

Came peace but there was no sound all night of a machine gun popping from freec cor Village on the other hand our machine guns had taken up the tune with short bursts of overhead fire searching for those Bosch ration carts and in the morning the gray roofed Cottage appeared

Appeared with two tiles left on the right hand bottom corner of the roof and the front wall had a huge gap in it big enough to act as a mouth for 50 machine guns only Morgan was disappointed all marks of the sausages had been cleared away Before Dawn after all are not the

Germans preeminently a tidy people three private Ellis had hard blue eyes that looked at you and looked and went on looking they always reminded me of the color of the sea when a north wind is blowing and the blue is hard and bright I have seen

Two other pairs of eyes like them one belonged to Captain Jeff the big game shooter who lectured on sniping at the third Army School the other pair were the property of a sergeant I met this week for the first time are you a marksman I asked him yes sir always a

Marksman sir there is no mistaking the those eyes they are the eyes of a man who has used them all his life and found them grow steadier and Sher every year they are essentially the eyes of a man who can watch watch watch all day and

Not get tired of watching and they were the eyes of my best sniper for private Ellis had all the instincts of a cunning Hunter I had no need to tell him to keep his telescope well inside the loophole lest the sun should catch on the glass

No need to remind him to stuff a bit of sandbag in the loophole when he left the post unoccupied he never forgot to let the sandbag curtain drop behind him as he entered the box to prevent light coming into it and showing white through a loophole set in Dark Earth there was

No need either to make sure that he understood the telescopic sights on his rifle and there was no need to tell him that the bosches were clever people he never underestimated his foe it was a warm day in early March private Ellis was in number five box opposite

Aeroplane trench this post was very cunningly concealed our front trench ran along a road immediately behind which was a steep chalk Bank the road having originally been cut out of a rather steep slope just about 5 yards behind the bank was cut a deep narrow trench and in this trench were built several

Snipers posts with loopholes looking out of the chalk Bank these loopholes were almost impossible to see as they were very nearly indistinguishable from the shadows in the bank anyone who has hunted for oyster catchers eggs on a pebbley beach knows that black and white is the most protective color scheme

Existing and so these little black loopholes were almost invisible in the black and white of the chalk Bank all the morning private Ellis had been watching out of the corner of his ey a little bit of glass shining an aeroplane trench now Aeroplane trench was a sap running out from the German

Front trench into a sunken Road from the center sap two little Branch saps ran up and down the road and then slightly forward the whole plan of it rather resembled an aeroplane and gave it its name in it today was a Bosch with a periscopic rifle and it was this little

Bit of glass at the top of the Periscope and the nose of the rifle barrel that private Ellis was watching every now and again the glass and nose cap would give a little jump and plop a bullet would bury itself in our front parapet one of our sentries had had his Periscope

Smashed during the morning I was informed by a company Commander with rather the Air of what’s the use of you and your snipers if you can’t stop them sniping us I told Ellis about the Periscope to which he replied it won’t break us I guess sir two penny worth of

New glass for a periscope it’s heads that count in which remark was no little wisdom crack plop and after a long interval another crap Zing as a bullet ricocheted off a stone and went away over the Ridge and fell with a little sigh somewhere in the ground right away

From redout a so it went on all the afternoon while the sun was warming everyone up and one dreamed of the summer and warm days dry trenches and short nights Ellis had gone off rather reluctantly at midday and the other relief was there there was a slumbrous sensation about that brought on the

Feeling that there was no one really in the enemy trenches at all yet there was the little glass eye looking at us it reminded one of a snake in the grass it glittered unblinking at about 6:00 I again visited the post Ellis was back there there and

Watching as keenly as ever no luck I remarked I’m afraid your friend is too Wy for you he’s not going to put his head over when he can see through a periscope as well still private Ellis said little but his eye was as clear and Keen as ever and still the Periscope

Remained we must shell him out tomorrow I said and went off at half 7 we had stood down and I was messing with beac company when I Heard a Voice at the top of the Dugout and the servant who was waiting Lewis I think it was said a

Sniper wanted to see me tell him to come down private Ellis appeared at the door not a muscle in his body or face moved but his eyes were glowing and glittering got him sir was all he said what I cried got that Bosch in airoplane trench by Jo tell us all about it

And so to the accompaniment of a whiskey and perer he told us exactly what happened it was not till well after stand to it appeared that any change had occurred in Aeroplane trench then the Periscope had wobbled and disappeared below ground then there had been another

Long wait and the outline of the sunken Road had begun to get faint then slowly very slowly a pink forehead had appeared over the top and as slowly disappeared I wish I had been there to watch Ellis then I can imagine him cooly methodically sighting his rifle on the

Trench Edge and waiting I had to wait another minute sir then it appeared again the whole head this time he thought it was too dark to be seen oh he won’t worry us anymore sir I saw one of his arms go up and I thought I could see

Him fall against the back of the trench but it was getting so dark I couldn’t have seen him 5 minutes later at all and if Ellis couldn’t who could next day and for many days there was no sniping from Aeroplane trench end of chapter 8 on

Patrol hello Bill from will Todd as he passed me going up 76th Street hello I answered where are you off to going on patrol was the reply oh by the way you probably know something about this rotten sap opposite the Quarry I’m going out to find out if it’s occupied

At night or not opposite the Quarry said I oh yes I know it we get rather a good view of it from number one post that post up on the right here yes I was up there this afternoon but you can’t see much from anywhere here the worst it is

I was going with Jones only his leave has just come through you see I’ve never been out before I’m trying a fellow called Edwards but I don’t know him if you can’t get Edwards I said suddenly have a good mind to come out with you meet me at Trafalgar Square and let me

Know as will disappeared I immediately repented of my offer repented heartily repented abjectly I had never been on patrol in a great great Sinking Feeling came over me I hoped with all my might that Edwards would be bubbling over with enthusiasm for patrolling I was afraid with all the indifference to shells and

Canisters that was gradually growing upon me I had never been out into no man’s land and yet I had volunteered to go out and at the time of doing so I felt quite excited at the prospect fool I said to myself Edwards doesn’t seem all enthusiastic about it said will will

You really come out yes rather I’m awfully Keen to go I’ve never been before either how are you going we exchanged views on how best to dress and carry our revolvers which instantly assumed a new interest what time are you going out 8:00 it was a quter 2 already

In the Dugout I was emptying my pockets taking off my equipment and putting putting on a cap comforter I had my compass with me and put it in my pocket I looked on the map and saw that the sap was practically due north of the Quarry

And I took a nip of Brandy out of my flask will had gone to arrange with Captain Robertson about warning the sentries I was alone and still cursing myself for this unnecessary Adventure when I was ready I sted up 76th Street to the Quarry it was certainly a good

Night very black when I saw Will and Captain Robertson together on the firep peering over I felt rather bucked with myself hither to I had felt like an enthusiastic bther undressing nearly everyone else having decided it was not warm enough to bathe now it was as if I

Suddenly found that they were watching me as I ran down the beach and I no longer repented of my resolution next moment I was climbing up onto the slimy sandb bag wall and dropping over the other side I was surprised to find there was very little drop at all there was an

Old ditch to be crossed and then we came to our wire which was very thin at this point while will was cursing it seemed to me rather an unnecessary rattling and shaking of the wire you know how wire reverberates if you hit a fence by the

Road I looked back at our own parapet I felt it would be a good thing to see on one’s return again it struck me how low it was regarded from this side I saw a head move along the top of it this made me jump already our trench seemed

Immeasurably far off I looked in front again as the noise of Will’s wire rattling had ceased in fact he was clean out of sight this made me jump again and I hurried on it was knife rest wire I stepped over it and my foot came down onto more wire which rattled with a

Noise that made me stand stock still awaiting something to happen I felt like a cat who has upset a tablecloth and all the tea things I stood appalled at the unexpected clatter but really it was hardly audible to our centries much less to the Germans at least 120 yards away

At last I got through and flopped down immediately Will’s form showed up dark in front of me when I was standing up I had been unable able to see him against the black ground We Lay about a minute absolutely quiet according to arrangement I had Fairly made the plunge

Now and I felt like the bather shaking his hair as he comes up for the first time and shouting out how glorious it is I was elated the feel of the wet grass was good under my hands the silence was good the immense loneliness save for

Will’s black form was good and a slight rustle of wind in the the grass was good also I just wanted to lie and enjoy it I hoped will would not go on for another minute but soon he began to crawl have you done much crawling it is

Slow work you take knee steps and they are not like footsteps they are not 120 to the 100 yards they are more like 50 to 10 yards I should think anyway it seemed endless the end of the sap was to be precise just 100 125 yd from our

Front trench yet when I had gone I suppose 40 yards I expected to be on it any minute will must be going wrong I thought of the map could we be going Northeast instead of North will halted I nearly bumped into his right foot which raised itself twice signaling a halt I

Took out my compass and looked at it I shaded it with my hand the Luminous Arrow seemed so bright rather absurd I thought immediately as if the bosches could possibly see it from the trench but we were going straight enough then the figure in front moved on and I came

Up to where he had halted it was the edge of a big shell hole full of water I put my left hand in up to the wrist I don’t know why still the figure crawled on with a sort of humpbacked SLE that I had got to know by now it was interminable this

Crawling Swift a German flare shot up from ever so close it seemed to be falling right over us then it burst with a pop I had my head down on my arms but I could squint out sideways it seemed impossible we should not be seen for there hardly 20

Yards away was the German wire as clear as anything meanwhile the flare had fallen behind us would it never go out I noticed the way the blades of grass were lit up by it and there was an old tin or something I started as a rat ran across

The grass past me I wondered if it were a German rat or one of ours then at last the flare went out and the Blackness was intense for a while longer we lay still as death then I saw Will’s foot move again I listened intently and on my right I heard a

Metallic sound quite close it was it sounded like the Clank of a Dixie I peered hard in the direction of the sound faintly I could distinguish Earth above the ground line I had not looked to my right when the flare went up and realized as will had already done that

We were out as far as the end of the sap it was perhaps 10 yards off due right I lay with my ear cocked sideways to catch the faintest sound clearly there was someone in the sap but there was a wind swishing in the grass and I could not hear anything more

Then my tense attitude relaxed and I gradually sank my chin on my arm I felt very comfortable I did not want to move bang and then a flame spat out then came that gritty metallic sound I had heard before and another bang I kept my

Head down and waited for the next but it did not come then I heard a most human Scoopy cough which also sounded very near the the bangs were objectionably near I literally shrank from them to tell the truth I had the wind up a bit those bullets seemed to me vicious

Personal spits that were distinctly unpleasant and near and I wanted to get away from so closer proximity to them I remembered a maxim of some famous General to the intent that if you are afraid of the enemy the best thing was to remember that in all probability he

Was just as afraid of you the maxim did not seem to apply somehow here at the first bang I had thought we were seen but I now realized that the Sentry was merely blazing off occasional shots and that the bullets had just plopped into our parapet then will turned round and I did

The same our business was certainly ended for there was no doubt about the sap being occupied then I heard a thud behind us and looked up and saw the slow climbing trail of a canister blazing up into the sky up it mounted up up up hovered a moment then turned and

With a gathering impetus blazed down somewhere behind our front trench Trafalgar Square I thought as I lay doggo for the blaze lit up the sky somewhat bump the Earth shook as the canister exploded thud and the process was repeated exactly as before ending in another quaking

Boom I enjoyed this it was rather a novel way of seeing canisters and moreover a very safe way two more streamed over then our footballs answered and burst with a bang in the air not so very far over into the German lines the trench mortar fellow was evidently trying short fuses for usually

Our trench mortar shells burst on percussion then in the distance I heard four bangs and the Bosch 4 tws started screaming over at Maple redout I determined to move on then suddenly came four distant bangs from the right of our lines as we faced them and with Wang

Wang Wang Wang four whizbangs burst right around us with most appalling flickers bang bang bang bang in the distance again and I braced every muscle tightly as you do when you prepare to meet a shock behind us and just in front the beastly things burst I lay with

Every fiber in my body strained to the uttermost and yet I confess I enjoyed the sensation there was a lull and I began crawling as fast as I could I stopped to see if Will was following by God I heard let’s get out of this so I was thinking

Then as I went on I saw the edge of a CR where on Earth I halted and pulled out my compass due south I wanted I found I was bearing off to the right far too much so with compass in hand I corrected my course some crawling this time it was

Not long before we could see wire in the distance then I got up and ran how I got through that wire I don’t know I tore my putties badly and must have made a most unnecessary rattling after which I fell into the ditch thank heaven you’re all right was the greeting from Captain

Robertson I was just coming out after you those damned artillery fellows I sent down at once to phone to them to stop and so on I hardly heard a word I was so elated I could not listen as we went back to Trafalgar Square for dinner I heard them warning the sentes the

Patrols in I looked up at the Sand bag parapet in I thought one does not realize what in is till one’s been out I have been out several times later I never had any Adventures much but always before going out I felt the Shivers of

The bather and always after I came in a most Splendid glow end of chapter nine whom the gods love no officer wounded since we came out in October said Edwards we’re really awfully lucky you know For Heaven’s Sake touch wood I cried we laughed for the whole of our

Establishment was wood we were sitting on a wooden seat leaning our hands against wooden uprights eating off a wooden table and resting our feet on a wooden floor sometimes too we found splinters of wood in the soup but it was more often straw for for this dining room in traler square was known

Sometimes as the summerh house and sometimes as the straw Palace it was really the madest so-called Dugout in the British lines I should think I might further add in any trench in Europe for the French although they presumably built it in the summer days of 1915 when

The buah France trenches were a sort of Summer rest for tired out soldiers would never have tolerated the summerhouse since the Advent of the canister age as for the Bosch he would have merely stared if anyone had suggested him using it as a company headquarters but he

Would have said it is not shell prooof exactly it would not have stood even a whizbang a rifle grenade would almost certainly have come right through it as for a canister or H it would have gone through like a stone piercing wet paper but it had been company headquarters for

So long it was so light and being next door to the servants Dugout so convenient that we always lived in it still though we slept in a Dugout a little way down Old Kent Road which was certainly whizbang if not canister proof at any rate here were Edwards and myself

Drinking rather watery oxtail soup out of very dented tin plates the spoons were scraping noisily on the metal over head a rat appeared out of the straw thatch looked at me blinked turned around and disappeared again sending a little spill of Earth onto the table hang these rats I exclaimed for the 10th

Time that day outside it was brilliant Moonlight whenever the door opened I saw it it was very quiet then I heard voices the sound of a lot of men moving in the shuffling sort of way that men do move at night in a communication trench the door flew open and Captain

Robertson looked in hello Robertson you’re early it was not much past halfast 7 you’ve got those sandbags up by 78th Street he said sitting down yes 250 there and 250 right up in the loop the rest I shall use on the fort oh by the way you know we are strafing at 125

We just had a message up from Dale I shall knock off at 11:45 tonight I’ll see how we get on I want to finish that Traverse righto I’m just drawing tools and going up now see you up there in a few minutes and the muttering stream of

A company filed past the Dugout going up to the front line the door swung open suddenly and each man looked in as he went by shut the door I shouted our plates themselves somehow suddenly looked epicurian soon after 8 I was up in the front line

It was the brightest night we had had and ideal for sandbag work the men were already at it there was a certain amount of inevitable talking going on before everyone got really started we were working on the fort completing the two box dugouts that we had half put in the

Night before also we were thickening the parapet between the fort and the loop and building a new fir step can’t see any blasted sandbags here came from one man we’ll have to pick this sir from another where’s mullen’s gone off to sharply from a sergeant but for the most

Part the Moonlight made everything straightforward and there was only the spitting sound of picks the heavy smothered noise of men lifting sandbags or the slap slap of others patting them into a wall with the back of a shovel that broke the Stillness on the left a company were working full steam ahead

Heightening the parapet and building a big Traverse at the entrance to the matter horn sap Robertson’s Traverse we always called it afterwards he got his men working in a long chain passing filled sandbags along from a big minor sandbag dump the accumulation of months of patient re tunneling these huge dumps

Rose up in gigantic piles wherever there was a shaft head and and they were a windfall to us if they were anywhere near where we were working on this occasion quite a thousand must have been passed along and built into that Traverse and the parapet there by the

Matter horn it was fascinating work passing these dry small sacks as big as medium-sized babies only as knobby and angular under their outer cover as a baby is soft and rounded meanwhile the builders laid them like bricks alternate headers and stretchers and so the work went on under

The moon Davies I cried in that low questioning tone that might well be called trench voice it is not a whisper yet it is not a full confidence sound if a man speaks loudly in the front trench you tell him to remember the Bosch is

100 yards away if he whispers in a horar voice that sounds a little nervy you tell him that the Bosch’s ears are not 100 yards long long the result is a restrained and serious toned medium sir answered a voice close beside me in a pitch rather louder than the usual

Trench voice Davies always spoke clear and Loud he was my orderly oh there you are like a dog he had got tired of standing and while I stood watching the fascinating progress of the erection of a box Dugout under Sergeant haymon’s Direction he was sitting on the firep immediately behind

Me had he been a collie his tongue would have been out and he would have yawned occasionally or his nose might have even been between his paws now he jumped up giving a hitch to his rifle that was slung over his left shoulder I’m going round the sentries I said Davies said

Nothing but followed about two paces behind stopping when I stopped and gazing at me silently when I got up on the fir step to look over the low ground in the Quarry was very wet and the trench there 2 ft Deep in water so it was temporarily abandoned

And the little trench out of 76 Street by number one sniping post was my way to number five platoon it was a very narrow bit of trench and on a dark night one kept knocking one’s thighs and elbows against hard corners of chalk filled sandbags tonight it was easy in the

White Moonlight it was really not a trench at all but a path behind a sandbag dump behind was the open field there was no parados all correct on the two posts in number five it seemed almost unnecessary to have two posts on such a bright night the outline of the German parapet looked

Clear enough surely the sentries must be visible tonight right opposite was the dark Earth of a sap head our wire looked very near and thin everything all right yes sir I saw the bombs lying ready in the crease between two sandbags that formed the parapet top the pins were

Bent straight ready for quick drawing the bomber was all right and there was not much wrong with his Pal’s bayonet that glistened in the Moonlight as usual I went beyond our right post until I was met by a peering suspicious head from the leftand Sentry

Of sea company who’s that in a horse low voice as the figure bent down off the firep all right Officer B company then I passed back along the trench to the top of 76th Street and so on visiting all the centuries up to a trench and disturbing all the working parties way

Please I would say to the hind quarters of an energetic wielder of the pick hi make way there Davies would say in a higher and louder voice when necess necessary then the figure would straighten itself and flatten itself against the trench while I squeezed past between perspiring men and slimy

Sandbag this passing was an eternal business it was unavoidable no one ever said anything or apologized no one ever grumbled it was like passing strap hangers in the crowded Carriage of a tube only it went on day and night craters By Moonlight are really beautiful the white chalk dust gives

Them the appearance of snow mountains and they look much larger than they really are on this occasion as I looked into them from the various bombing posts it needed little imagination to suppose I was up in the Snows of the Welsh Hills there was such a deathlike Stillness

Over it all too the view from the matter horn was across the widest and deepest of all the craters and I stood a long time peering across that yawning Chasm at the dark irregular rim of German sandbags I gazed fascinated what was it all about the senty beside me came from

A village near dolil was a farmer’s boy he too was gazing across hardly liking to shuffle his feet lest he broke the silence good God I felt inclined to exclaim has there ever been anything more idiotic than this what in the name of goodness are you and I doing here so

I thought and so I believe he was thinking everything all right was all I said as I jumped back into the trench yes sir was all the answer about 10:00 I went back to Trafalgar Square there I heard that Thompson of C company had been wounded

From what I could gather he had been able to walk down to the dressing station so I concluded he was only slightly hit but it came as rather a shock and I wondered Ed whether he would go to blighty at 11: I started off for the

Front trench again via Ru Alber and 78 Street there was a bit of a straf on it started with canisters it had now reached the stage of whizbangs as well I thought little of it when woo woo woo woo and the Bosch turned on his howitzers they screamed over the maple

Redout a pause then again and they screamed down just in front of us evidently after the corner of 78th Street I did not hesitate but pushed on the trench was completely blocked Ru Alber was revetted with wood and Brushwood and it was all over the place Davies and I climbed over with great

Difficulty the whole place wreaking with powder look out sir came from Davies and we crouched down there was a colossal din while shells seemed all around us all right Davies and we pushed on at last here was 78 Street and we turned up to find another complete Block in the

Trench we again scrambled over and met a company wiring party returning for more wire the trench is blocked said I but you can get over all right we passed in the darkness again look out from Davies and we cowered again then the shells screamed down on us and burst just

Behind good God I exclaimed those wirers Davies ran back there was another Block in the trench but no sign of any men they were well away by now but the shell had fallen between us and them before they reached the Block in 78 Street out of breath we arrived at the

Top of 78th Street to find a company just getting going again after a hot quarter quart of an hour luckily they had had no casualties all was quiet now and the Moon looked down upon the workers as before a quarter past 11 I worked my way along to the fort and

Found there a Sentry rather excited because he said he had seen exactly the spot from which they had fired rifle grenades in the strafing just now I got him to point out the place it was half left and as I looked sure enough I saw a Flash and a rifle grenade wind through

The air and fell with a snarl behind our trench Davies I said get Lance corporal Allen to come here with the Lewis gun Davies was gone like a flash the Lewis guns had only recently become company weapons and were still somewhat of a novelty the Lewis Gunners were rather

Envied and also rather downed by the sergeant major for being Specialists but this they could not help and they were as a matter of fact the best men in my company Allen arrived with one of the team carrying two spare Drums of ammunition we pointed out the spot and

He laid his gun on the parapet with the butt against his shoulder and his finger on the trigger and waited flash there he is Sir from the Sentry purred the Lewis gun then stopped then again ending with another jerk there was silence we waited 5 minutes I’ll just empty the magazine

Sir Lance corporal Allen took off the drum and handed it to the other Lewis Gunner then he handed down the gun and we talked a few minutes he was very proud of his gun after a time I sent him back and made my way along to a company there I found Robertson we

Talked a tremendous lot of work had been done and the big Traverse was practically finished I’m knocking off now said I it was4 to 12 and I went along with the cease work message all right said Robertson I’m just going to have another look at my

Wirers I’ll look in as I go down by the time I had reached the top of 76th Street the trench was full of the Clank of the thermos stickies and the men were drinking hot soup the Pioneers had just brought it up I stopped and had a taste

It was good stuff as I turned off down the trench I heard the Germans start shelling again on our left but they stopped almost directly I thought nothing of it at the time it was just midnight when I reached Trafalgar Square and bumped into Davidson coming round

The corner I was looking for you said he you’ve heard about Tommy yes I answered but he’s not badly hit is he oh you haven’t heard he died at 11:00 d di my God this was something new briefly turly Davidson told me the details he had been hit in the mouth

While working on the parapet and had died down at the dressing station I looked hard at Davidson as we stood together in the Moonlight by the Big Island Traverse at Trafalgar Square somehow I felt my body tense my teeth were pressed together my eyes did not

Want to Blink here was something new I had seen death often it was nothing new but it was the first time it had taken one of us I wondered what Davidson felt he knew Thompson much better than I yet I knew him well enough only a day or so

Ago he had come to our abet in the butcher’s shop and we had talked of him afterwards and now dead all this flashed through my brain in a second meanwhile Davidson was saying well I’m just going off for the Str grave when I heard men running down a trench quick stretcher bearers the

Captain’s hit came from someone in a low voice the stretcher bearer’s Dugout was just by where we were standing and immediately I heard a stir inside and a head looked out from the waterproof sheet that acted as a curtain in front of it is it a stretcher case a voice

Asked yes was the reply and without more Ado two stretcher bearers turned out and ran up 76th Street after the orderly at that moment there was a thud and a blazing Trail climbed up the sky from the left damn I muttered we must postpone this strafe Davidson we’ll fix

Up later see only no firing now as Davidson disappeared to his gun position I ran to the telephone trench mortar officer I said quick but there is no quick about a signaler he is always there and methodically without haste or flurry he takes down and sends messages

There is no quickness yet there is no delay if the world outside pulses and Rocks Under A Storm of shells in The signalers Dugout is always a deep sea calm so impatiently I watched the operator beat his little tattoo on the buzzer looked at his face as the

Candlelight Shone on it with its ears hidden beneath the receiver drums and and its head swathed by the band that holds them over the ears in the corner the second signaler sat up and peered out of his blanket and then lay down again ZX is there an officer there hold

On a minute please the officer at the gun sir will you speak to the Corporal yes I already had the receiver to my ear is that the trench mortar Corporal well go and tell Mr McFarlan will you to stop firing at once and not to start again

Till he hears from Mr Adams right right thanks this last to the signaler as I left the Dugout th and another football blazed through the sky McFarlan was the officer in charge of the trench mortar guns of our sector I knew him well Davidson was in charge of the Stokes gun

Which is a quick firing trench mortar gun mcfarlan’s shells were known as footballs but as they had a handle attached they looked more like hammers as they slowly curved through the air we had arranged to strafe a certain position in the German support line at 5 minutes after midnight but I wanted to

Stop it before retaliation started the doctor had gone up the front line and Robertson would be brought down any minute outside I met Brock he said little but it was good to have him there a long while it seemed waiting I started Ed up 76th Street no sooner had I

Started than I heard footsteps coming down and to make room I went back I Was preparing to say some cheery word to Robertson but when I saw him he was lying quite still and unconscious I stopped the little doctor is he bad doc well old man I can hardly say he’s got a

Fighting chance and he went on slowly I heard the stretcher bearer’s footsteps growing fainter and fainter and there was silence thank God those footballs had stopped now did I guess that Robertson too was mortally wounded I cannot say only my teeth were set and I felt very wide awake in a minute both

Davidson and McFarlan came up Davidson down 76th Street and McFarlan down Rue Alber I told McFarlan all about it and as I did so my blood was up I swore hard at the Devils that had done this and we agreed on a strafe at quarter to one I

Stood alone at Trafalgar Square there was a great calm sky and the Moon looked down at me then with a thud the first football went up then the Stokes answered bang bang bang bang bang up they sailed into the air all together and exploded with a deafening di th th

Bang bang bang bang bang then the Bosch woke up two canisters Rose streamed and fell dropping slightly to my right but still our trench mortars went on two more canisters tried for Davidson’s gun I was elated this for Thompson and Robertson I said as our footballs went on methodically then the whizbangs began

On Trafalger Square I went to the telephone artillery I said briefly retali at C1 sector and then our guns began scream scream scream they went over swish swish answered the Bosch whizbangs pH said Sergeant Talis the bombing Sergeant as he looked out of his Dugout more retaliation I said to the

Signaler and stepped out again a grim exultation filled me we were getting our own back I did not care a straw for their canisters or whizbangs it pleased me to hear Sergeant Talis say phw my blood was up and I did not feel like saying sh the officer wants to know if

That is Enough Said the telephone orderly who had come out to find me no I answered I want more the Bosch was sending Heavies over onto Maple redout I would go on until he stopped my will should be mastered again our shells screamed over there was no reply gradually quiet came back then

I heard footsteps and there was Davidson his face was glowing too how was that he asked how was that he had fired magnificently though the Bosch had sent stuff all around him how was that magnificent we’ve shut them up I’ve got six shells left shall I Blaze them off

Oh no said I I think we’ve Avenged Tommy his face hardened good night bill but I did not feel like sleep I still stood at the corner waiting for I knew not what bang bang bang bang bang went the Stokes gun there was a pause and bang bang bang

Bang bang came the sound of them bursting there was a longer pause bangning I watched the spark floating through the sky bang came the sound back from the German trench I waited there was no answer and for the first time that night I fancied the moon smiled end of chapter

10 whom the God’s love continued as I write I feel inclined to throw the whole book in the fire it seems a desecration to tell of these things do I not seem to be exulting in the tragedy should not he who feels deeply keep silent sometimes I think so

And yet it is the truth word for word the truth so I must write it in the straw Palace next morning Davidson and I were sitting discussing last night when the doctor looked in he started talking about vermorel sprayers the portable tins shaped like large oval milk cans

Filled with a solution useful for clearing dugouts after a gas attack one of these was damaged and I had sent down a note to the emmo about it how’s Robertson I asked at once he died this morning Bill 3:00 this morning good God I said pretty ghastly isn’t it two

Officers like that in one night the co is awfully cut up about it Robertson dead said Davidson and so we talked for some minutes the old doctor was used to these things he had seen so many officers fall out of line but to us this was new and we had

Not gauged it yet you might have thought from his quiet jerky sentences that the doctor was almost callous you would have been wrong well I must get on he said at last so long Bill send that vermal sprayer down will you and I’ll see to it and you’ll have it back tonight probably

Righto and the doctor and his orderly disappeared down the old Kent Road Davidson and I talked alone it must be pretty rotten being an Mo he remarked then the flo came in he is the forward liaison officer an artillery officer who lives up with the Infantry and facilitates cooperation between the two

At the same moment came a cheery Scotch voice outside and McFarlan the football officer looked in come that he cried sitting indoors on a fine morning come in we said but his will prevailed and we all came out into the sunshine I had not seen him since last night’s little show

Now he was being relieved by another officer for 6 days and I was anxious to know what sort of a man was his successor but McFarland did not know much about him yet anyway said I if he’ll only fire like you we don’t mind a grunted McFarlan what’s the use of

Having a gun and no firing it so long as I get my footballs up I’ll plunk them over all yes I added the Bosch doesn’t approve of your sort for there were other sorts there was the trench mortar officer who was never to be found but who left a sergeant with instruction c

Not to fire without his orders there was the trench mortar officer who could not fire except by Brigade orders there was the trench mortar officer who was afraid of giving his position away there was the trench mortar officer who couldn’t get any ammunition up you know they

Won’t give it to me only too pleased to fire if only there was the trench mortar officer who started firing on his own without consulting the company Commander just when you had a big working party in the front trenches and lastly there were trench mortar officers like Davidson and

McFarlan cheero then we said as McFarlan went off look us up you know our Billet we’ll be out tomorrow then we finished our consultation and divided off to our different jobs all that day I felt there was in me something which by All rights should have given these two deaths should have

Made me feel different and yet I was just the same as I went round the trench with Davies at my heels talking to platoon sergeants examining wire through my Periscope all in the ordinary way exactly as before I forgot all about Tommy and Robertson even when I came to

The place where Robertson had been hit and saw the blood on the firep and some scraps of cotton wool lying about I looked at it as you might look at a smashed egg on the pavement curious iously and then passed on am I indifferent to these things then I asked

Myself I had not realized yet that violent emotion very rarely comes close upon the heels of death that there is a numbness a blunting of the spirit that is an anod to pain I was ashamed of my indifference yet I soon saw that it was no uncommon thing besides one had to

Carry on just the same there was always a silence among the men when a pal Goes West so now Edwards and I did not talk much except to discuss the ordinary routine I did not get much rest that day in the afternoon came up a message from

The agitant that we were exploding a mine opposite the Matterhorn at 6:30 our trench was to be cleared from adaa to the bombing post on the left of the loop inclusive Edwards and I were the only officers in the company so while he arranged matters with the Lewis gun

Teams I went off to see about getting the trench cleared I had just set off the daily summary as I came back along 78 Street I met Davidson again he was looking for a new sight for his gun so as to be able to get a good fire to bear

On the German lines opposite the matter horn I went with him and together we found a place behind the big mine dump to the left of 78th Street and close to one of our rifle grenade batteries as he went off to get his Corporal and team to

Bring the gun over and fix it in position he said something in a rather low voice what I shouted couldn’t hear he came back and repeated it oh I said sorry yes all right I expect I’ll hear from the agitant thanks what he said was that there would be a funeral that night

At 9:00 Thompson and Robertson were being buried together he thought I would like to know it was close on half 6 and getting dark The Trenches were cleared and I was waiting at the head of two platoons that strung out along 78th Street and behind the Loop rifles had been inspected the

Men had the SAA Small Arms ammunition and bomb boxes with them ready to take back into the trench as soon as the mine had gone up I looked at my watch another minute I said then as I spoke the Earth shook there was a pause and a great

Black cloud burst into the air followed by a roar of flames I got up on the fir step to see it better it is a good show am mine there was the sound of falling Earth and then silence come on I said and we hurried back into the trench weird and Eerie it

Looked in the Half Light its emptiness might have been years old it was undamaged as we had expected only there was loose Earth scattered all over the parapet and firep then hell broke loose a crashing banging flashing hell that concentrated on the German front line directly opposite it seemed like stirring up an

Ants nest and then spraying them with boiling water as they ran about in confusion bang bang bang bang bang barked Davidson’s gun thud muttered the football thrower weep we went the rifle grenades and all this Splendid rain burst with a glorious Splash just over the new crater it was

Magnificent shooting and half of us were up on the fir step watching the fireworks then the Bosch retaliated with canisters and whizbangs and Heavies for Maple readout and then our guns joined the concert it was hot shop for half an hour but at last it died down and there

Was a great calm some of the men were in the trenches for the first time and had not relished the proceedings over much they were relieved to get the order stand down there were several things to be done working parties to be arranged final instructions given to a patrol

Lewis Gunners to be detailed to rake the German parapet opposite the matter horn All Night a platoon Sergeant was worried about his sentries he had not enough men having had one or two casualties and I had to lend him men from a more fortunate platoon it was quite dark and

Nearly half 7 by the time I got back to Trafalgar Square Edwards had started dinner as he was on trench duty at 8:00 the sergeant major was on duty until then Davidson looked in on his way down to Maple readout I say your Stokes were bursting top hole we had a splendid view

They weren’t going short were they he asked no just right the fellows were awfully bucked with it oh good you can’t see a bit from where we are and the Corporal said he thought they were going short but I’d worked out the range and was firing well over 120 so I carried on

I’m going down to have dinner with O’Brien I think we’ve done enough tonight then I saw that he was tired out rather a hot shop I asked yes he said in his casual way they were all around us well Cheerio I sh be up till about 10 I expect unless there’s anything wanted

Cheerio it’s no joke firing that gun with the Bosch potting at you hard with canisters I said to Edwards as Davidson’s footsteps died away he’s the bravest fellow in the regiment said Edwards and we talked of the time when the gun burst in his face as he was

Firing it and he told his men that it had been hit by a canister to prevent there’re losing confidence in it I saw him just afterwards his face was bleeding it was no joke being stoke’s officer the Germans hated those vicious snapping bolts that spat upon them 1 2 3

4 five and always concentrated their fire against his gun but they had not got him no he’s inside I heard Edward saying Bill telephone message the telephone orderly handed me a pink form Edwards was outside just about to go on trench Duty it was 8 I went outside it

Was bright Moonlight again grimly I thought of last night look here I said there’s this funeral at 9:00 I’ve just got this message one officer from each company may go will you go I can’t very well go as OC company and I handed him the pink form to see so we rearranged

The night duties and Edwards went off till Half 8 while I finished my dinner LS was hovering about with toasted cheese and Cafe Olay as I swallowed these glutenous concoctions the candle flickered and went out I pushed open the door the Moonlight flooded in and I did

Not trouble to call for another candle then I heard the sergeant Major’s voice and went out we stood talking at Trafalgar Square shant be sorry to get relieved tomorrow I said I was tired and wondered how long the night would take to pass suddenly up the Old Kent Road I heard a

Man running my heart stopped I hate the sound of running in a trench and last night they had run for stretcher bearers when Robertson was hit I looked at the sergeant major who was biting his lip his ears cocked Round the Corner a man bolted out of breath excited I stopped

Him he nearly knocked into US hang you said I stop where the devil Miss Mr Davidson Sir Mr Davidson is killed R I said impatiently pull yourself together man he’s all right I saw him only half an hour ago but as I spoke something broke inside me it was as if I were

Straining beating against something Relentless as though by words by The Cry impossible I could beat back the flood of conviction that the man’s words brought over me dead I knew he was dead impossible Corporal I said what do you mean for I saw now that it was Davidson’s Corporal who stood gazing at

Me with fright in his eyes he pulled himself together at last killed sir it came between us as we were talking a whizbang sir my God I cried where just at the bottom sir the man jerked his hand back down Old Kent Road we were just talking sir my leave has come

Through and he was joking and saying his would be through soon when oh Jesus I was half blinded I’ve not got over it yet sir and the man was all trembling as he spoke he was killed instantly ah said the man he made a gesture with his hands

It burst right on him poor fellow I said God knows what I meant send a man with him sor sergeant major I added and plunged up 76th Street Davidson I cried Davidson dead it was close on midnight as I stood outside the straw Palace Lewis brought

Me a cup of cocoa I drank it in silence and ate a piece of cake I told the man to go to bed then when he had disappeared I climbed up out of the trench and sat my legs dangling down into it down in the trench the Moon cast

Deep black Shadows I looked around all was bathed in pale shimmery Moonlight there was a great silence save for distant machine gun popping down in the freeor valley and the very distant sound of guns guns guns the sound that never stops day and night I pressed on my

Right hand and with a quick turn was up on my feet out of the trench on the hillside for I was just over the brow on the reverse slope and out of sight of the Enemy Lines I took off my steel helmet and put it on the ground while I

Stretched out my arms and clenched my hands so This Is War I thought I realized that my teeth were set and my mouth hard and my eyes though full of sleep wide open silently I took in the great experience the death of those well-loved for of all men in the

Battalion I loved Davidson best not that I knew him so wonderfully well but well one always has to smile when he came in he was so good-natured so young so delightfully imperturbable he used to come in and stroke your hair if you were bad-tempered somehow he reminded me of a

Cat purring and perhaps his hair and his smile had something to do with it oh who can Define what they love and those they love and then my mind went back over all the incidents of the last few hours together we had been through it all together we had discussed death and last

Of all I thought how he had told me of the funeral that was to be at 9:00 and now he lay beside them all three had been buried at 9:00 dead dead said a voice within me and still I did not move still that numbness that dullness that tightening

Across the brain and senses this too was something new then I looked around me across the moand I walked along until I could see down over Maple re out and across the valley where there seemed a slight white mist or it was only moonshine suddenly strength I answered

The voice strong I am strong every muscle in my body was tingling at my bidding I felt an iron strength all this tautness this numbness was strength I remembered last night the feeling of irresistible willpower and my eyes glowed I thought of Davidson and my eyes

Glistened the very pain was the birth of new Strength then even as the strength came I heard a thud and away on the left a canister blazed into the air climbed swooped and rushed and the vulgar den of its bursting rent all the Stillness of the night a second followed suit and as

It too burst it seemed a clumsy mocking at me a mocking that ran in Echoes All Along The Still Valley strength it sneered strength and all my iron will seemed beating against a wall of Steel that must in the end wear me down in a useless

Battering War I cried how can my will batter against War I thought of Davidson’s smiling face and then I thought of the blind clumsy canister and I felt unutterably Weak and Powerless what did it matter what I thought or did whether I was weak or strong what power had I against this

Irresistible impersonal machine this war and I remembered how an hour or so ago the trench mortar officer had asked me whether I wanted him to fire or not and I had answered good God do as you damned well like what did did it matter what he

Did yet last night it had seemed to matter everything slowly there came into my mind that picture that later had come to mean to me the true expression of War only slowly it came now a half-formed image of what my spirit alone understood a certain man drew a bow at a

Venture I thought what of those shells that I had called down last night at my bidding standing like a god intoxicated with power and crying retaliate more retaliation where did they fall were other men lying as Davidson lay tonight had I called down death had I stricken families probably nay more than probably

Certainly death blind death that was it blind death and all the time above me was the white moon I looked at the shadows of my arms as I held them out such Shadows belonged to summer nights in England in Kent oh why was everything so silent could nothing stop this utter

Folly this cruel Madness this clumsy death and then at last The Strain gave a little and my muscles relaxed I went back and took up my helmet Dead The Voice repeated within me and this time my spirit found utterance damn I said oh damn damn damn end of chapter 11 officers

Servants poor Devils on Sentry said Dixon he shut the door quickly and came over to the fire outside was a thick blizzard and it was biting cold he sat down on the bed nearest the fire and got warm again look here bill can’t we possibly get any coal we sent a fellow

Into Bray I answered but it’s very doubtful he’ll get any anyway we’ll see tea was finished the great problem was fuel there were no trees or houses anywhere near 71 North we had burnt two solid planks during the day these had been procured by the simple expedient of

Getting a lance corporal to March four men to the re dump select two planks and March them back again but by now the planks had surely been missed and it would be extremely risky to repeat the experiment even after dark so a man had been dispatched to bray to try and

Purchase a sack of coal also I had told the mess Sergeant to try and buy one for us and bring it up with the rations this also was a doubtful quantity meanwhile we had a great Blaze going and were making the most of it I was writing letters Dixon was was reading Nicholson

Was seeing to the rum ration Clark was singing now Neville was a devil and showing his servant Brady how to make a hammock Brady was a patient disciple but his master had slept in a hammock for the first time in his life the night before and consequently was not a very

Clear exponent of the art apparently certain things had happened last night must be avoided tonight how they were to be avoided was left to Brady’s in genuity every attempt on his part to solve the problems put before him was carefully tested by Clark and accepted or condemned according to its Merit

Under the strain of Clark’s body at such times of testing the strains of Nevil was a devil would cease at last Brady hit on some lucky adjustment and the occupant pronounced his position to be First Rate then Brady disappeared behind the curtain that screened the servants quarters and and the song proceeded

Uninterruptedly now Neville was a devil a perfect little devil and Clark rocked himself contentedly into a state of restful Slumber meanwhile behind the OTAs the retainers prepared their Master’s meal this Dugout was of the tubular pattern a succession of quarter Circles of black Iron riveted together at the top and so

Forming a long tube one end of which was bricked up and had a brick chimney with two panes of Glass on each side of it the other led into a small wooden Dugout curtained off here Abode five servants and an orderly I should here state that this Dugout was the most comfortable I

Have ever lived in as a matter of fact it was not a Dugout at all but being placed right under the Steep bank at 71 North it was practically immune from shelling the brick chimney and the glass window panes were certainly almost unique one imag imagined it must have

Been built originally by the Rees for their own Abode along the sides were four beds of wire netting stretched over a wooden frame with a layer of empty sandbags for Mattress in the center was a wooden table over this table in air suspended floated Clark meanwhile as above stated behind

The OTAs the retainers prepared their Master’s meal with suchlike comments who’s going for rations tonight it’s Lewis’s turn tonight and Smith’s all right Sergeant where’s Dodger out chasing them hairs didn’t you hear the captain say he’d be for it if he didn’t get one he won’t get any damn

Hairs here followed a pause and a lot of noise of plates and boxes being moved then there was a continued crackling of wood as the fire was made up followed a lot of coughing and muttering Ing and pH as the smoke got too thick even for that

Smoke hardened crew pH stop it Jesus Christ more coughing the door was opened and soon a cold draft sped into our Dugout there was but one door for both shut that door I shouted hi leis your bloke’s calling said shut that door then the door shut more coughing ensued but

The smoke was better apparently for it soon ceased we were each by the way my bloke to our respective retainers the conversation remained for some time at an inaudible level until I heard the door open again and a shout of hello Dodger Jesus Christ he’s all right isn’t

He there’s a job for you Sergeant cooking that bloke has the captain seen him hey look out of that you’ll have the blood all over the place get a bit of paper the sergeant private gray made no comments on the prospect of cooking the Dodger’s Quarry and the next minute

Private Davies orderly appeared with glowing though rather dirty face holding up a large hair that dripped Gore from its mouth into a scrunched up ball of Daily Mail held to its nose like a pocket handkerchief look here Dixon I said Devil’s alive exclaimed Dix then you’ve got one by Jo Splendid I say

Isn’t he a beauty and we all went up and examined him he was a hair of the first order tomorrow he should be the chef DV in B company mess at Morland Corp for we went out of Reserve into billets the next morning how did you get him Davies

Oh easy enough sir I’ll get another if you like there’s a lot of them sitting out in the snow there I was only about 50 yards off he don’t get much chance with a rifle sir here his voice broke into a laugh it’s not what you call much

Sport for him sir I got this too sir and lo and behold a plump Partridge oh they’re as tame as anything and you can’t help getting them in this snow he said at last the dripping hair was removed from the stage to behind the scenes and Davies joined the smothered

Babble behind the auto wonderful fellow old Davies said Dixon by the way Bill he added how about getting the little doctor in tonight for a hand of vaon can we manage it all right I was mess president for the time Edwards being away on a course oh yes I

Answered rather I’ll send a note as I was writing a rather elaborate note having nothing better to do requesting the pleasure of the distinguished presid presence of the medical officer the man who had been to Bray for coal came and reported a fruitless errand he seemed very depressed at his failure but

Cheered up when we gave him a tot of rum to warm him up all Rum by the way is kept in the company officer Dugout it is the only way meanwhile the problem of fuel must be faced a log was cracking away merrily enough but it was the very

Last something must be done Davies I called out sir came back in that higher key of his he appeared at the door are you going down for rations yes sir well look here there’s a sack of coal ordered from Sergeant Johnson but I’m none too sure it’ll come up tonight I only

Ordered it yesterday but I want you to make sure you get it if it is there in fact you must bring it whether it’s there or not see if you don’t you’ll be for it this threat Davies took for what it was worth but he answered I’ll get it

Sir I’ll bring something along somehow and Davies never failed of his word good do what you can half an hour later he staggered in with a sack of coal and plumped it down all covered with snow the fire was burning very low and we were looking at it

Anxiously the sight of this new supply of fuel was wonderful good to the eyes so busy were we in stoking up that we forgot to ask Davies if he had had any trouble in getting it after all it did not matter much there was the coal that

Was the point behind the curtain there was a great business Lewis and Brady had brought up the rations gray was busy with a big stew and Richards was apparently engaged in getting out plates and knives and forks from a box Davies was reading aloud in the middle of the

Chaos from the daily male sometimes the mess president took it into his head to inspect the servants Dugout but it was an unwise procedure for it took away the relish of the meal if you saw the details of its preparation so long as it was served up tolerably clean one should be

Satisfied at half 7 came in Richards to lay the table the procedure of this was first to take all articles on the table and dump them on the nearest bed then a knife Fork and Spoon were put to each place and a varied collection of tin mugs and glasses arranged likewise then

Came salt and mustard in glass potted meat jars bread sitting bare back on the newspaper tablecloth and a bottle of ovh and two bottles of perer to Crown the feast all this was arranged with a deliberate Smile as by one who knew the exact value of things and defied

Instruction in any detail of laying a table Richards was an old Soldier and he had won from Dixon at first unbounded praise but he had been found to possess a lot too much talk at present and had been sat on once or twice fairly heavily of

Late so now he wore the face of one who was politely amused yet knowing his own worth could forbear from malice he gave the table a last look with his head on one side and then departed in silence suddenly the door door flew open and the doctor burst in shuddering and

Knocking the snow off his cap by Jo Dicker he cried a bad night to go about paying Joy visits but by Jo I’m Jolly glad you asked me there’s the devil to pay up at headquarters the CO’s raving simply some blighter has pinched our coal and there’s none to be got anywhere

Good lord it’s too hot altogether I couldn’t stand mess there tonight at any price I pity old Dale the CO’s been swearing like a trooper he’s Fair mad never mind he added after a pause I think we’ve raised enough wood to cook the dinner all right see you’ve got coal

All right I hoped to goodness Dixon wouldn’t put his foot in it but he rose to the occasion and said oh yes we ordered some coal from Sergeant Johnson come on let’s start hi Richard and Richards came in with a stew in a tin jug such as is used in civilized

Lands to hold hot water of a morning and so the doctor forgot the Colonel’s rage late that night after the doctor had gone I called Davies Davies I said where did you get that coal off the ration card sir was it ours do you think well

Sir I don’t somehow think it was you see the ration cart came up and the man driving it was up by the horse and I saw the bag of coal there like so I said to Lewis Lewis you see to the rations I’ll take the coal up quick then I heard the

Man up by the horse say there’s coal there for headquarters oh yes I said that’s all right but this here was ordered off Sergeant Johnson yesterday I said and I made off quick good Lord I exclaimed was Sergeant Johnson there no answered Davies he came later I said to

Lewis just now what about that coal and he said Sergeant Johnson came just after and started kicking up some bit of a Rouser about some coal but Lewis he said he didn’t know nothing about any coal and the man at the horse he didn’t know

Who I was Sir it was quite dark you see sir LS said Sergeant Johnson got the wind up a bit sir about losing the coal look here Davies I remarked solemnly do you realize that that Co was for headquarters I couldn’t say Sir began Davies but I can said I look here you

Must just set a limit somewhere I know I said you must get some coal somewhere but I wasn’t exactly thinking of bagging the CO’s coal as a matter of fact he was slightly annoyed though doubtless if he knew it was number 14 davies’s be company orderly he would Abate his wrath

Do you realize this is a very serious offense Davey’s mouth wavered he could never quite understand this method of procedure he looked at the blazing fire and his eyes twinkled then he understood yes sir he said all right I replied don’t let it occur again and it never did at least not headquarters

Cole we did not get back to Morland cour till nearly half 3 the next day things were not going well in our abet at the butcher’s shop gray the cook and two of the servants had been sent on early to get the VES from the quarter Master’s

Stores and to have a meal ready we arrived to find no meal ready and what was worse the stove not lit coal could not be had from the stores was the statement that greeted us what the blazes do you mean shouted Dixon we were really angry as well as ravenous for it

Was freezing hard and the tiles on the floor seemed to radiate ice waves have you asked Madame if she can lend us a little to go on with I queried no they had not asked Madam Then followed a blaze of vituperation and Richards was sent at the Double into the kitchen soon Madam

Appeared with sticks and coal and lit the fire we watched the crackles too cold to do anything else the adjoining room where Dixon and I slept was an ice house also tiled it was too cold to talk even say said I in execrable French may we miss officer said Madame deeply

Sympathizing I thought of the Blazing fire in 71 north but it was too cold to say anything more what matter if Madame imagined us standing in a foot of snow so we should have been for the most part had we been in the line the last 2 days instead of in

Reserve soon it began to get less icy and the stove looked a little less of the black Le order it was a kitchen range really with a boiler and oven but the boiler was rather leaky now as the coal blazed up life began to EB back

Again con found it the stove was smoking like Fury p the flu were all full of soot Dixon was rather an expert on stoves and said that all that was needed was a brush where had all the servants disappeared to why wasn’t someone there I opened the door into our bedroom a

Cold blast struck me in the face in the middle of the room unopened sat our two vales like desert islands in a sea of red tiles hang it all this is the limit I said and ran out into into the street and into the next house where the

Servants quarters were and there in the middle of a pile of half-packed boxes stood gray eating a piece of bread now I discovered afterwards that the boxes had just been brought in by Cody and Lewis that Davies and Richards had gone after the coal and were at that moment

Staggering under the weight of it on their way from the stores and that gray could not do anything more having unpacked the boxes until the coal came but I did not grasp these subtle details of the Interior economy of the servants Hall and I broke out into a real hot

Strafe why should gray be standing there eating while the officers shivered and starved I returned to Dixon and found Clark and Nicholson there and together we all fumed then in came the post Corporal with an accumulation of parcels and we stopped fuming by Jo I exclaimed

A few minutes later the hair I had forgotten Le what is it lra lra I forget never mind LS bring the hair along and ask Madame in your best manner if she would do us the honor of cooking it for us tonight now presently Madame came in with lwis standing rather sheepishly

Behind she delivered a tornado of very fluent French oh Dei oh Dei was all I could disentangle o Dei I asked her POA o Dei Brandy explained Dixon I know that said I who did not know that OD deie was Brandy Brandy said Dixon to cook the hair with

That’s all she wants wee wee Madame oh Dei too sweet the doctor’s got Brandy send Lewis along to the doctor to ask him to dinner and borrow a little Brandy so lwis was dispatched and returned with a little Brandy but the doctor could not come never mind we

Said meanwhile some tea was on the table and Bully and bread and butter there was no sugar however Richards smiled and said the rats had eaten it all in 71 north but Davies was buying some whenever anything was missing these rats had eaten it just as they were responsible for men’s equipment and

Packs getting torn and their emergency rations lost in many cases the excuse was quite a just one but when it came to rats running off with the canteen Lids our Sympathy for the rat ridden Tommy was not always very strong today a new reason was found for the loss of three

Teaspoons lost in the scuffle sir the night of the raid was the answer given to the demand for an explanation what scuffle I asked why the Fox got upset sir the night of the raid when we all stood too in a bit of a hurry sir I remembered that there had

Been some confusion and noise behind the that night when the Germans raided on the left apparently all the knives and forks had fallen to the ground and several had snapped under the Marshall trampling of feet when our retainers stood to arms for many days afterwards when anything was lost one’s anger was

Appeased by lost in the scuffle sir at last it got too much of a good thing why this new teapot Davies I said a few days later the old one was lost in the scuffle sir look here I said we had the old one yesterday and this morning I saw

It broken on madame’s manure Heap here endeth lost in the scuffle see go back to rats very good sir that night about 10:00 when Clark Nicholson and brown low who had been our guest had gone back to their respective billets Dixon and I were sitting in

Front of the stove our feet up on the Brass Bar that ran along the top front of it on a comfortable red plush Sati this C made amends for very many things such as a tile floor four doors one of which scraped most excruciatingly over the tiles and another being glass panels

Allowed in much cold there from the butcher’s shop no entry for the servants save either through the butcher’s shop or through the bedroom via the open window very little room to turn around in when we were all there a smell of stale lard that permeated the whole establishment and finally the necessity

Of moving the Sati every time Madame or Melle wanted to get to either the cellar or the stairs but now all these disabilities were removed every everyone else having gone off to bed and Dixon and I were talking lazily before turning in also I had a large pan of boiling water waiting

On the top of the range and my canvas bath was already in the Next Room ah the discomfort of it ejaculated Dixon the terrible discomfort of it all how they are pitying us at home I replied those rabbit holes I can’t think how you keep the water out of them at

All can’t you hear them and isn’t that bully beef most horribly tough and hard I couldn’t bear it I tried to imitate a lady’s voice but it was not a great success I was out of practice yes said Dixon thinking of the extraordinarily good jugged hair produced by Madame then his thoughts

Turned to Davies the hunter who was responsible for the feast wonderful fellow old Davies he added in fact they’re all Good Fellows he’s a Shepherd boy I said comes from blo festino a little village right up in the Welsh mountains I know the place a few years

Ago he was a boy looking after sheep out on the Hills all day a wide-eyed Welsh boy with a sheep dog trotting behind him he’s rather like a sheep dog himself isn’t he Gad he’s a wonderful fellow but they all are you know Bill look at your chap Lewis great clumsy red-faced fellow

With his piping voice that sometimes gets on your nerves he’s too lazy at times I broke in but he’s honest dead honest he was a farm hand good Heavens fancy choosing a fellow out of the farmyard to act as valet and waiter I remember the first time he waited he was

So nervous he nearly dropped everything and his face like that fire O’Brien said he was tight Richards talk a jolly sight too much sometimes but after all what does it matter they try their best and think how we curse them look at the way I cursed about that stove this afternoon

As soon as anything goes wrong we strafe like blazes whether it’s their fault or not a fellow in England would resign on the spot but they don’t care a damn and just carry on this cursing is no good bill hang it all they’re doing their bit

Just as we are and they have a damned sight fight harder time I don’t think they worry much about the strafing I said it’s part of the ordinary routine still I agree we do strafe them for thousands of things that aren’t their fault they’re a sort of safety valve he

Answered with a laugh I don’t know how it is one would never dream of cursing the men like we do these fellows you know as well as I do Bill the only way to run a company is by love it’s no earthly use trying to get The Men Behind

You by cursing them day and night I really must try and stop cursing these servants after all they’re the best fellows in the world the men curse all right I said when they don’t get their food right I guess we’re all animal after all it’s merely a method of

Getting things done quickly besides you know perfectly well you won’t be able to stop blazing away when there’s no fire or food it creates an artificial warmth damned art artificial laughed he there was a Silence by Jo Bill he said at last getting up to go to bed when’s this war

Going to end to which I made no reply but moved my bath out of the icy bedroom and dragged it in front of the fire end of chapter 12 Minds one the colonel wants to speak to OC b sir it was Midday it’s about that wire said

Edwards but we couldn’t get any more without Stakes oh I don’t expect it’s about the wire I said as I hurried out of the straw Palace the co knows we can’t get the stakes no it was nothing to do with the wire just a minute sir said the telephone orderly hi

Headquarters is that you George oh see B’s here now just a minute sir a pause followed by commanding officer sir and I was handed the receiver yes sir I said this is Adams oh that you Adams well look here about this mine going up tonight got your map there well the

Mining officer is here now and he says look here you’d better come down here now yes come here now very good sir but the co had rung off with a jerk and only a singing remained in my years got to go down and explain in person why the

Officer in charge of B company wirers did not get out 20 coils last night I said to Edwards as I hurried off down Old Kent Road the cos’s in an I gave a distinct order mood Cheerio on entering the headquarters Dugout in Maple redout I found the co engaged in conversation with an

Artillery officer there had been another raid last night on the left and our artillery had sent a lot of stuff over this was the subject under discussion I think you did damned well said the CO as the officer left well Adams I thought it would be easiest if you came down here’s

Our friend from the underworld and he’ll explain exactly what he’s going to do and I saw the re officer for the first time he had been standing in the Gloom of the further end of The Dugout look here began the colonel as he laid out the trench map here is where we

Blow tonight at 6 and he made a pencil dot in the middle of the grass of No Man’s Land midway between the craters opposite the loop and the fort and here all around here he drew his pencil round and round in a blacker and yet blacker

Circle is roughly where the edge of the crater will come isn’t that right arm strong yes was the reply the crater Edge won’t come right up to the front trench but I don’t want anyone in the front trench as it will probably be squeezed up in one or two places exactly said the

Colonel do you think this blow will completely connect up the two craters on either side oh certainly was the answer there’s no question of it you see we’ve put in here followed figures and explosives incomprehensible to the lay mind it’ll be the biggest mine we’ve ever blown in this sector a surface mine

I suppose I asked almost certainly said the re officer you see their Gallery is only 10 ft above ours and they might blow any minute but they’re still working we wanted to get another 20 ft out before blowing but it isn’t safe anyway we are bound to smash up all

Their galleries there completely though I doubt if we touch their parapet at all he spoke almost impatiently as one who talks of things that have been his main interest for weeks and tries to explain the whole thing in a few words but he added I don’t want any men in that

Trench the mining officers always presumed that the Infantry clung tenaciously like limpets to their trench and had to be very carefully removed in case a mine was going up as a matter of fact the Infantry always made a rule of clearing the trench half as far again as

The mining officer enjoined and were always inclined to want to depart from the uphor spot long before the time decided upon that’s clear enough said the colonel then from here to here we will clear the trench get your Lewis guns placed at these two points ready to open

Fire as soon as the mine has gone up and get your bombers ready to seize the crater Edge as soon as it’s dark enough you’ll want to have some tools and sandbags ready and your wirers should have plenty of gooseberries and all the stakes we can get you right as I went up

76th Street at half 5 I realized that I had been rushing about too much and had forgotten tea so I sent Davies back and told him to bring up a mug of tea and something to eat no sooner had he disappeared than I met a party of six

Rees the two Leading Men carrying canaries in cages they held them out in front like you hold out a lantern on a muddy Road and they were covered from head to foot in white chalk dust they were doing a sort of half run down the trench known among the men as the re

Step it is always adopted by them if there is any strafing going on or on such occasions as the present when the charge has been laid the match lit and the mine shaft and galleries canaries and all evacuated the canaries are used to detect gas fumes not as pets when I

Reached the Ford I found number seven platoon already filing out of the trench area that had been condemned as dangerous you’re very early Sergeant hmon I said I looked at my watch oh all right I added it’s 20 to6 very well have you got all the bomb boxes and SAA out

Yes sir everything’s clear very well then all those men not detailed as tul and sandbag party can get in dugouts ready to come back as soon as I give orders there will probably be a bit of strafing very good sir the Lewis gun team emerged from its Dugout 20 yards

Behind the fort in rather a snail-like fashion I arranged where the NCO and the two men should stand just at the corner of the fort but in the main trench the rest of the team I sent back to its borrow Edwards had made all arrangements

For the other team 10 to 6 it was a warm evening early in April and there was a deathly calm these hushes are hateful and unnatural especially at stand to in the evening in the afternoon an after dinner Slumber is right and proper but as dusk creeps down it is well known

That everyone is alive and alert and a certain visible expression is natural and welcome this evening silence is like the pause between the lightning and the Thunder worst of all is the Stillness after the enemy has blown a mine at stand to for 10 to one he is going to

Blow another at stand down the sun set in a blaze of red and in the South the evening star glowed in a deepening blue what will have happened by the time the day has returned with its full light and sense of security here you are sir I heard

Suddenly at my elbow and found my mug of tea two large pieces of bread and butter and Cake presented by Davies on a box lid said salver I don’t know if this is enough sir Lewis he wanted me to bring along a pot of jam sir but I said Mr Adams he

Won’t have time for all that I should think not far too much as it is here put the cake on the fir step and take hold of this notebook will you and so with the mug in one hand and a piece of bread and butter in the other Scott found me

As he came along at that moment looking as he told me afterwards exactly like the Mad Hatter in Allison Wonderland what’s the time I inquired munching hard I make it 2 minutes to 6 said Scott go up a 6:00 I said taking a very big mouthful

Indeed who put the sugar in this tea I asked Davies a minute later I did said Davies far too much I shall never get you fellows to understand but the sentence was not finished finished there was a faint bump from goodness knows where and a horrid shudder the Earth

Shook and staggered and I set my legs apart to keep my balance it felt as if the whole ground were going to be tilted up the tea splashed all over the fir step as I hastily put it down then I looked up there was nothing what had

Happened was it a camoufl after all then over the sandbags appeared a great Green Meadow slowly taking its time not hurrying a smooth curved Dome of grass heaving up up up like a rising cake then like a cake it cracked cracked visibly with bursting Brown seams still the Dome

Rose 10 20 ft up above the surrounding level and then with a roar the black smoke hurdled into the air followed by masses of pink flame creaming up into the sky giving out a bond onfire heat and lighting up the Twilight with a lurid glare then we all ducked to avoid

The shower of mud and dirt and chalk that pattered down like hail magnificent I said to Scott wonderful he answered the muds all in your tea sir said Davies rattled the Lewis guns the Lewis Gunners with me had been amazed rather than thrilled by the awful spectacle but

Were now recovered from the shock and emptying two or three drums into the Twilight void I was peering over into the vast Chasm where two minutes ago had been a smooth Meadow full of buttercups and toad stools suddenly I found Sergeant Haymon at my elbow the trench

Has all fallen in sir you can’t get along at all and so the night’s work began at 1:00 a.m. I was lying flat down on soft spongy Grass at top a large crater lip quite 8 ft higher than the ground level beside me lay two bombers

And a box of bombs we were all peering out into a space that seemed enormous suddenly a German Starlight rocketed up and as it burst the great white bowl of the crater jumped into view then a few rifle shots sang across the gulf there followed a deeper Darkness than before

Behind me was a wiring party not quite finished also the sound of Earth being being shoveled by tired men a strong working party of a company had been engaged for 4 hours clearing the trench that had been squeezed up all available men of B company not on Sentry had been

Digging a zigzag sap from the trench to the post on the crater lip where I lay two other pairs of bombers lay out on the crater Edge to right and left behind me the wirers had run out a thin line of stakes and barbed wire behind the new crater

This wire passed over the sap which would not be held by day one wirer had had a bullet through the leg but we had suffered no other casualties another hour and I should be off duty altogether a good show two I was reading blackwoods in a Dugout

In Maple redout it was just after 4 and I was lying on my bed suddenly the candle flickered and went out I had to get up to ring the bell and when I did get up the Bell did not ring so I went out and called Lewis the Bell by the way

Was an arrangement of string from our Dugout to the servants next door bring me a candle I said as LS appeared evidently flushed and blury eyed from sleep I don’t know where you keep them I can’t find one anywhere LS fished under the bed and discovered a paper packet of candles and

Lit one by the bye I added tell the Pioneer servant this was Private Davies my orderly to fix up that Bell will you and I think we’ll be ready for tea as soon as you can get it what do you say teddy hello Clark what are you doing

Here come in and have tea thanks I will said Clark who had just come down Park Lane I was coming to invite myself as a matter of fact good man we said Clark was no longer of be company had having passed from Lewis gun Officer to the

Brigade machine gun Corps so we did not see very much of him at that moment Sergeant Major Brown arrived and stood at the door he saluted come in Sergeant Major the te’s up Sir oh all right I said I’ll go don’t wait if te comes in Edwards but I sh be a

Minute as I went along with that Tower of strength the company sergeant major followed by an orderly carrying two rum jars produced from under my bed I discussed the subject of working parties for the night and other such dull details of routine also we discussed leave his Dugout was at the corner of

Old Kent Road and Park Lane and there I found the quarter company sergeant major Roberts waiting with the five Dixies of hot tea just brought up on the ration trolley from The Citadel Sergeant Roberts saluted and informed me that all was correct re then the sergeant major spilled the contents

Of the two jars into the five Dixies and as he did so the 10 orderlies two from each platoon and two Lewis Gunners made off with the Dixies then I made off but followed by Sergeant Roberts with several papers to sign and five paybooks in which entries had to be made for men

Going on leave one signed the paybook and also a paper to the quartermaster authorizing him to pay $125 Franks the usual sum to the undermentioned men out of the company balance which was deposited with him on leaving billets I signed everything Sergeant Roberts put before me almost without

Question well Clark I said as we sat down to a tea of hot buttered toast jam and cake how goes it I’ve just been down a m shaft with that re officer I forget his name the fellow with the glasses I know I replied I don’t know his name

Either but it doesn’t matter did you go right down and along the galleries how frightfully interesting I always mean to go but somehow don’t well what about it by jve said Clark it’s wonderful it’s all as white as snow dazzling white I never realized that before although you

See these Rees coming out all covered with white chalk dust first of all you go down three or four ladders if it’s awfully tricky work at the sort of halts on the way down because there’s a little platform and very often the ladder goes down a different side of the shaft after

One of these halts and if you don’t notice you lower your foot to go on down the same side as you were going before and there’s nothing there the first time I did this and looked down and saw a dim light miles below it quite gave me a

Turn it’s a terrible long way down and of course you go alone the re officer went first and got ahead of me have some more tea and go on well down there it’s fearfully interesting I didn’t go far up the gallery where they’re working because you can’t easily pass along but the re

Officer took me along a gallery that is not being worked and there all alone at the end of it was a man sitting he was simply sitting listening then I listened through his stethoscope thing I know I interposed Ed it’s an instrument like a doctor’s stethoscope but by it you can

Hear underground sounds 100 yards away as clearly as if they were five yards off and I could hear the Bosch working as plainly as anything good Heavens it sounded about a yard off yet they told me it was 40 yards by Jo it was weird

Pick pick pick I thought it must be our fellows really but theirs made a different sound and not a bit the same but you know that fellow sitting there alone as we went away and left him he looked round at us with staring eyes just like a hunted animal to sit there

For hours on end listening of course while you hear them working it’s all right they won’t blow but if you don’t hear them my God I wouldn’t like to be in re it’s an awful game by Jo said Edwards how fearfully interesting is it cold down there f

Barely I really didn’t notice I must go down I said we always laugh at these Rees for looking like navies for going about without gas helmets or rifles but really they are wonderful men it’s awful being liable to be buried alive any moment somehow death in the open is far less

Terrible do you remember that re Teddy we saw running down the old Kent Road it was that night the Bosch blew the mine in the the Quarry Jo Clark that was a sight I was just going up from Trafalgar Square when I heard a running and there

Was a fellow great big bronny fellow naked to the waist and gray all over and someone had given him his equipment and rifle in a hurry and he’d got his equipment over his bare skin the men were fearfully amused are e they said and smiled but by God there was a death

Look in that Man’s eyes he’d been down when the Bosch blew their mine and as near as possible buried alive no it’s a rotten game as I spoke the ground shuddered and the tee things shook there is a mine we all exclaimed together I wonder if it’s

Ours or theirs said Edwards I saw Hills this afternoon I answered and he said nothing about a mine I’m sure he would have if we had been going to send one up no I bet that’s a Bosch mine good thing you’re out of it Clark oh don’t go well

Cheero if you must look us up oftener good luck Clark departed and I resumed blackwoods I say Edwards said I after a while this stuff of Ian Hayes is awfully good this about the signalers is top hole you can simply smell it after you with it was the reply there you are I

Said at last it’s called carry on there have been several others in the same series you know the first 100,000 no good stuff said I good readable stuff the sort you’d give to your people at home but it leaves out bits such as oh well the utter fed

Upness and the dullness and well oh I don’t know you read it and see that was aad bad night the Bosch mine had caught our Rees this time all the night through they were rescuing fellows from our Mine Gallery seven or eight were killed most of them gassed

Two of a company were badly gassed too while ating in the rescue work this mine gas is I suppose very like that encountered in coal mines and the explosion of big charges of cordite must create cracks in Fishers underground that release these gas in all directions

I do not profess to write as an expert on this at any rate they were all night working to get the fellows out one man when rescued disobeyed the doctor’s strict injunctions to lie still for half an hour before moving away from where he was put just outside the mine shaft and

This cost him his life he hurried down the old Kent Road and dropped dead with heart failure at the bottom of it Hills told me he felt the pulse of two men who had been Gass and were waiting the prescribed half hour and they were going

Like a watch ticking yes it was a bad night I got snatches of sleep but always there was the sound of stretchers being carried past our Dugout to the doctor’s dressing station several times I went out to investigate how things were going but there was nothing I could do it was

My duty to sleep we were going up in the line tomorrow but sleep does not always come come to order Before Dawn we stood to and it was quite light as I inspected the last rifle of number six platoon they were just bringing the last of the ghast

Miners down to the dressing station I stood at the corner of Park Lane and watched the stretcher bearers came and looked at two forms lying on stretchers close by me then they asked if I thought it would be all right to take those stretchers and leave the dead men there

Another hour I said if they wanted the stretchers yes so they lifted the bodies off and went away with the stretchers there were several men standing about silent as usual in the presence of death I looked at those two Rees as they lay quite uncovered Grim their faces were

Grim and severe I told a man to get something and cover them up until the stretcher bearers came and removed them and as I stroe away in silence between my men I felt that my fa face was Grim too I thought of Clark’s description a few hours back of the man sitting alone

In the white chalk Gallery listening listening listening and now once more I thought of blind death the Germans who had set light to the fuse at tea time were doubtless sleeping the sleep of men who have worked well and earned their rest and here they knew

Nothing of it would never know whom they had slain and I remembered the night scottt and I had watched our big mine go up wonderful we had said magnificent and in the morning the re officer had told us that we had smashed all their galleries up and that they would not

Trouble us there for a fortnight at least a certain man drew a bow at a venture I said again vaguely remembering something but stiffening myself suddenly and stifling my imagination I met Edwards by by The Dugout as he returned from inspecting the Lewis guns remember I said I told

You the first 100,000 leaves out bits did you see those Ares who were Gass Edwards nodded well I added that’s a thing it leaves out end of chapter 13 billets one morning two hours drill and pay for a new handle I said right turn said the sergeant major right wheel quick March

Get your equipment on and join your platoon at once this last sentence was spoken in a quick undertone as the prisoner stepped out of the door into the road I was filling up the column headed punishment awarded on a buff colored Army form to which I appended my

Signature the case just dealt with was a very dull and commonplace one a man having lost his entrenching tool handle most of these losses occurred in trenches and were dealt with the first morning in billets at company orderly room this man had been engaged on special fatigue work the last few days

Hence the reason why the loss had not been checked before and came up on this last morning in billets no more prisoners I asked the company sergeant major no more prisoners sir he answered I then rather hurriedly signed several returns made out by Sergeant Roberts the company quartermaster sergeant and promised to

Come in later and sign the acquittance roles these are the pay lists made out in triplicate which are signed by each man as he draws his pay the original goes to the pay master in England one carbon copy to the agitant and one is retained by the company Commander we had

Paid out the first day in billets this time working parties had been tolerable we had arrived back in billets about half 3 in the afternoon the next morning had been spent in a March to the divisional baths at Tru 2 miles away in cleaning up kit inspection and a little

Arm drill and musketry practice in the afternoon we paid out Then followed three days of working parties up on the support line at craw Ridge and now we had this last day in which to do a little company work there had been running parade at 7:30 Owen had taken

This and I confessed that I had not yet breakfasted so I hurried off now at 9:10 to gulp something down and be at Battalion orderly room at 9:30 sharp the company office was a house of two rooms one was the office itself with a blanket clad table and a couple of

Chairs in the middle and all around were strewn strange boxes and bundles of papers and equipment on the walls were pictures from Illustrated English papers one of nurse caval another of Howitzer firing and several graphic bayonet charges at Verdun pictured by an artist who must have glowed as he drew them in

His room in Chelsea in the other room slept the CSM and the cqms more familiarly as the sergeant major and the quartermaster from this house then I stepped out into the glaring Street it was the end of May and the day promised to be really quite hot I have already

Explained how completely shut off From The Trenches one felt in Morland cor sheltered as it was in a cup of the hills and immune from shelling now as I walked quickly along the street passed our Battalion orderly room and returned the immaculate salute of Sergeant Major Shandon the regimental sergeant major

Who was already marshalling the prisoners ready for the colonel at halfast 9 I felt a lightness and freshness of body that almost made me think I was free of the war at last my Sam brown belt my best tunic with its polished buttons and most of all I

Suppose the effect of a good sleep and a cold bath all contributed to this feeling as well as the scent from the Laburnum and lilac that looked over the Gard G wall opposite the Billet that was our mess I found Edwards just going off to inspect B company Lewis Gunners whom he

Was taking on the Range the first part of the morning hello he said you’ve not got much time no said I my own fault for getting up late got a case for the co too is my watch right I make it 17 minutes past 19 I make it huh wish I

Hadn’t asked you I laughed no porridge Louis bring the eggs and bacon in at once this teal do there’s no milk though what Edwards had asked something he repeated his question which was whether I wanted Jim the company horse this afternoon I thought rapidly and the

Scent of the Lilac decided me yes I answered sorry but I do oh all right I expect I can get Old Musket to let me have one musket was the transport officer RTO said I go teach thy Lewis Gunners how to drill little holes in the chalk Bank he clattered off over the

Cobbles of the Garden Path and in a few minutes I followed suit running until I rounded a corner and came into view of the orderly room when I altered my gate to a dignified walk and arrived just as the colonel appeared from the opposite direction parade turn shouted sge

Sergeant major Shandon and a moment later the four company commanders came to attention and saluted as the colonel passed in sprinkling good mornings to right and left I had one very uninteresting case of drunkenness a had a couple of men who had overstayed their pass in England C had a case held over

From the day before for further evidence and was now dismissed as not proven while D had an unsatis Factory Sergeant who was severely reprimanded all these cases were quickly and unerringly disposed of and we company commanders saluted again and clattered down the winding staircase out into the

Sunshine I had to pass from one end of the village to the other the orderly room was not far from our company mess and was at a Crossroads opposite in one of the angles made by the junction of the four roads was a deep unusually muddy horse pond but even here the mud

Was getting hard under the spell of warm Mayweather and the innumerable ruts and hoof marks were crystallizing into a permanent pattern as I walked along the streets I passed sunry tomies acting as Road scavengers permanent Road fatigue they were called although they were anything but permanent being changed

Every day formerly they had seemed to be engaged in a herculan that though unromantic task of scraping great rolling puttings of mud to the side of the road in the vain hope that the mud would find an automatic exit into the neighboring Gardens and ponds for Morland cord did not boast such modern

Things as gutters today there were large Pats of mud lining the street but these were now caked and hard and even crumbling into dust that whisked about Among The Sparrows the permanent Road fatigue was gathering waste paper and tins in large quantities but otherwise was having a holiday women were working or gossiping

At the doorsteps the estom doors were flung wide open and the floors were being scrubbed and sprinkled with sawdust a little bare-legged girl in a black cotton dress was hugging a great wide loaf an old man sat blinking in the sunshine cats were basking dogs nosing

About lazily a party of about 30 bombers pass me the sergeant giving eyes right and waking me from meditations on the eternal Calm of cats then I reached the headquarter guard and the sentry saluted with a rattling clap upon his butt and I did my best to emulate his smartness so I

Passed along all the length of the shuttered houses of Morland core a great day this I thought as I came to the small field where Bee Company was paraded not 250 men as you will doubtless assume from the textbooks but some 30 or 40 men only one was lucky if one mustered 40

Where were the rest you ask well bombers bombing Lewis Gunners under Edwards some on permanent mining fatigue that is carrying the sandbags from the mine shafts to the dumps transport Pioneers stretcher bearers men under bombing instruction officers servants headquarter orderlies men on leave etc etc the company sergeant major will make

Out a parade slate for you if you want it showing exactly where every man is but here are 40 men let’s drill them half were engaged in arm drill under my best Drill Sergeant the other half were doing musketry and gas helmets an unpleasant practice which nothing would

Induce me to do on a sunny May morning they lay on their fronts legs well apart and were working the bolts of their rifles 15 times a minute after a while they changed over and did arm drill while the other half took over the gas helmets the mouthpieces having first

Been dipped in a solution of carbolic brought by one of the stretcher bearers in a canteen these gas helmets were marked DP drill purposes and each company had so many with which to practice when both parties were duly exercised I gave a short lecture on the measures to be adopted against the use

Of flamin Vera which is the Liquid Fire of the official communic I had just been to a demonstration of this atrocity in the form of a captured German apparatus and my chief object in lecturing the men about it was to make it quite clear that the Flaming Jets of burning gas cannot

Sink into a trench but as a matter of fact only keep level so long as they are propelled by the driving power of the hose apparatus as water from a hose goes straight and then curves down to the ground so gas even though it be incandescent goes straight and then

Rises in the trench you are unscathed as we proved in the demonstration when they sprayed the Flaming gas over a trench full of men indeed the chief effect of this plam and verer is one of frightfulness as the Germans cannot come over until the Flames have ceased the

Men were rather inclined to gape at all this but I found the words had sunk in when I asked what should be done if the enemy used this diabolical stuff against us get down at the bottom of the trench sir and as soon as they stop it give the blanks

L the rest of the morning we spent on the Range which meant firing into a steep chalk bank at a 100 yards targets and paste pot had been procured from the Pioneers shop and after posting a couple of Lookout men on either side we started range practice the men are always Keen

About firing on the Range and it is really the most interesting and pleasant part of the Infantry man’s training I watched these fellows hugging their rifle butt into their shoulder and feeling the smooth wood against their cheeks they wriggled their bodies about to get a comfortable position sometimes

They flinched as they fired and jerked the rifle sometimes they pressed the trigger as Softly As softly and gradually carefully we tried to detect and eliminate the faults then we ended up with 15 rounds rapid in a minute the mad minute it used to be called at home after which we fell the

Men in and Paul marched them back to the company alarm post outside the company office where B company always fell in while Owen Nicholson and I walked back together two afternoon I still maintain said I an hour later as we finished lunch that bully beef some sort of saucer pickle

And salad followed by cheese and ending with a cup of tea is the proper lunch for an officer I don’t mind other officers having tinned fruit though if they like it I added with a laugh Owen and Sim were newly joined officers For Whom the sight of tinned pears or

Apricots had not yet lost a certain glamour that disappeared after months and months they were just finishing the pair course hence my last remark I bet if we allowed you to have bully every day came from Edwards our mess president you’d soon get sick of it try said I

Knowing that he never would I always used to eat of the hot things that would appear at lunch to the detriment of a proper appreciation of dinner but I always maintained the position laid down in the first sentence of this section I lit a pipe and strolled out into the

Garden this was undoubtedly an ideal Billet and a great Improvement on the butcher shop where they used always to be killing pigs in the yard and letting the blood run all over the place it was a long one-storied house set back about 50 yards from the road this 50 yards was

All garden and at the end completely shutting off the road was a high brick wall on each side of the garden were also High walls formed by the sides of stables and ouses the garden was thus completely walled round and the seclusion and peace thus entrapped were

A very Priceless possession to us the garden itself was full of life there were box bordered paths up both sides and down the center and on the inner side of the paths was an herbaceous border smelling very sweet of wall flowers and primulas of every variety although it was still May there

Were already one or two pink cabbage roses out later the house itself would be covered with them already the buds were showing yellow streaks as they tried to burst open their tight Green sheathes in the center of the garden ran a cross path with a summerhouse of bamboo canes completely complely covered

With honeysuckle that too was budding already the rest of the garden was filled with rows of young green things peas and cabbages and I know not what suitably protected against the ravages of sparrows and finches by the usual miniature Telegraph system of sticks connected by cotton decorated with

Feathers and bits of rag every bit of digging hoing weeding and sewing were performed by Madame and her two blackd dressed daughters in whose house we were now living and who were themselves putting up in the adjoining Farmhouse which belonged to them I said that they had done all the

Digging in the garden I should make one reservation all the Potato Patch had been dug by our servants with the assistance of gray the cook nor did they do it in gratitude to Madame as doubtless ideal tomies would have done a quarter of it was done by Lewis for

Carelessness in losing my police nearly half of the joint effort of the whole crew for a thoroughly dirty turnout on commanding officers inspection and the rest for other defalcations we never told Madame the reasons for their welcome help and I am quite sure they never did the worst of

This war said I to Edwards puffing contentedly at a pipe full of chairman is this it’s too comfortable you could carry on like this for years and years and years wasn’t so jolly last time in muttered the wise Edwards that’s exactly the point I answered life in the trenches we

All loathe and no one makes any bones about it or pretends to like it except for a few rare exciting minutes which are very few and far between but you come out into billets and recover and so you can carry on it’s not concentrated enough it’s more concentrated for the

Men than for us well well yes very often but they haven’t the strain of responsibility yes you are right though and it’s less concentrated for the co still less for the Brigadier and so on back to the commanderin-chief and still further to men who have never seen a

Trench at all I dare say said Edwards but as the phrase goes what are you going to do about it here’s Jim old musk’s going to send me a nag at five so I’m going out after tea will you be in for tea don’t know as I tightened my

Putties Preparatory to mounting the great gym Edwards started his gramophone so leaving them to the strains of ton hoer I bested my charger and steered him gracefully down the Garden Path under the brick Archway and out into the street myself on a horse always amused me especially when it was called an

Officer’s charger Jim was not fiery yet he was not by any means sluggish and he went fast at a Gallop he suited me very well indeed when I wanted to go for an afternoon’s ride for he was quite content to walk when I wanted to Muse and to gallop hard when I wanted

Exhilaration I hate a horse that will always be trotting I know it is best style to trot but my rides were not for style but for pleasure exercise and Solitude and Jim fell in admir ably with my requirements but as I say the idea that I was a company commander on his

Charger always amused me I rode as I generally did in a southeasterly direction climbing at a walk one of the many roads that led out of Morland core towards the bo de T when I reached The High Ground I made Jim Gallop along the grass border right up to the edge of the

Woods there is nothing like the acceleration of flying along you cannot imagine how with the great Brown Animal lengthening out under you for all he is worth I pulled up and turned his head to the right leaving the road and skirting the edge of the wood at last I was

Alone in the clearings of the wood the ground was a sheet of blue hins whose sweet scent came along on the breeze their fragrance lifted my spirit and I drank in deep breaths of the early summer air I took off my cap to feel the Sun full on my face on the ground

Outside the wood were still a few late primroses interspersed with cow slips stubborn and jolly and as I rounded a bend in the wood Edge I found myself looking across a tiny Valley the opposite face of which was a wooded slope with all the trees banked up on it

As gardeners Bank geraniums and tears to give a good Mast effect so climbing the hillside were all these shimmering patches of green yellow green PE green yellow masked together in delightful variety and dotted about in the middle of them were solitary patches of white cherry blossom like white foam breaking

Over a reef in the midst of a great green sea and across this perfect softness from time to time the bold black and white of magpies cut with that Vivid contrast which nature loves to baffle the poor artist come on old boy I said as as I

Reached the bottom of this little Valley and trotting up the other side and threw a ride in the wood I came out on the edge of the Valley of the p i then skirted the south side of the wood until I reached a secluded corner with a view

Across the valley here I dismounted fastened Jim to a tree loosened his girths and left him pulling greedily at the grass at his feet then I threw myself down on the grass to dream my thoughts ran back to my convers ation with Edwards perhaps it was best

Not to think too hard but I could no more stifle my thoughts than can a man his appetite responsibility responsibility and those with the greatest responsibility endure and see the least no one has more to endure than the private soldier in the Infantry and no one has less responsibility or Power

Of Choice I thought of our last six days in the trenches when a company were in in the line the first 3 days we had been bombarded heavily at stand to in the evening in Maple readout it had been bad enough there was one Sentry post a

Little way up Old Kent Road by some mistake a bomber had been put on duty there whereas it was a bayonet man’s post the bombers having a special role in case of the enemy attacking I found this mistake had been made but did not think it was worth altering and that man

Was killed outright by a shell in the front line a company had had several killed and wounded and I had had to lend them half my bombers as I had placed two men on one post a canister had burst quite a long way off but the men cowed

Down into the trench I cursed them as hard as I could and then I saw that in the post were the two former occupants lying dead killed half an hour ago where they lay and where I was placing my two men I stopped sto my curses and inwardly

Directed them against myself and there I had to leave these fellows looking after me and thinking he’s going back in his Dugout ah no they knew me better than to think like that yet I had to go back leaving them there I should never forget that awful weight of responsibility that

Suddenly seemed visualized before me could I not see their scared faces peering at me even now I seemed to smell the scent of pear drops with which the trench was permeated the Germans having sent over a few lacr maty shells along with the others that

Night ah why was I living all this over again just when I had come away to get free of all this a while and dream I had come out to enjoy the sunshine and the peace just as Jim was enjoying the grass behind me I listened there was a slight

Jingle of the bit now and again and a creaking of leather and always that drawing sound with an occasional purr as the grass was torn up I could not help looking round at last you pig I said but my tone did not altogether disapprove of complacent

Piggish in front of me lay the Blue Water of the Som canal and the pools between it and the river long parallel rows of pale green popplers stretched along either Bank of the canal and at my feet half hidden by the slope of the ground lay the Sleepy Little Village of

Tinham there was a Sunday afternoon Slumber over everything was it Sunday I thought for a moment no it was Thursday and tomorrow we went in again I deliberately switched my thoughts Away From The Trenches and they flew to the events of the morning I could see my

Fellows lying so Keen I might almost say so happy blazing away on the Range one I remembered a special Private Benjamin a boy with a delicate eager face who came out with the last draft he came from a village close up to Snowden he was shooting badly and very

Concerned about it I lay down beside him and showed him how to squeeze the trigger gradually ever so gradually oh these boys responsibility responsibility this is no good I said to myself at last and untied gym and rode again I went down into the valley and along the green track between an Avenue

Of poppers south of the canal until at last I came to S lauron and so back and in to Morin cor from the southwest it was 6:00 by the time I stooped my head under the Gateway into our garden and for the last hour or so I had almost

Forgotten War at last hello was the greeting I received from Owen there’s no tea left I don’t want any tea I answered has the post come there were three letters for me as I slept at a house a little distance away I took the letters

Along with me I’m going over to my room to clean up I shouted to Owen who was reading inside the mess room what time’s old Jim coming in 7:00 all right I answered I’ll be over by 7 three evening as I walked up the Garden Path a

Few minutes before 7 I had to pass the kitchen door where the servants slept lived and Cooked our meals I had a vision of private Watson the cook busy at the oven he was in his shirt sleeves hair untidy trousers very grimy and altogether a very unmarshal figure there

Seemed to be a dispute in progress to judge from the high pitch to which the voices had ained on these occasions Lewis’s piping voice reached an incredible falsetto while his face flushed redder than ever Watson Owen’s servant had superseded gray as officer’s mes cook the latter had unfortunately

Drunk one or two glasses of beer last time in billets and to give his own version he somehow felt very sleepy and went down and lay under a bank and could remember nothing more until about 10:00 when he humbly reported his return to me meanwhile Watson had cooked the dinner

Which was of course very late and as he did it very well and as Gray’s explanation seemed somewhat vague we decided to make Watson cook let gray try a little work in the company for a change and get the sergeant major to send Owen another man for Servant Watson

Had signaled the entry to his new appointment by a quarrel with Madame the warwicks had managed to bag this ideal Billet of ours temporarily and we were in a much less comfortable one the last two occasions out of trenches eventually Madame had hurled the frying pan at him amid a torrent of

Unintelligible French neither could understand a word the other was saying of course gray had been want I believe to lie low and say nothing like BR Fox when Madame who was old and half crazed came up and threw water on the fire in a fit of unknown anger but Watson’s blood

Boiled at such insults from a French woman and hence had followed a sharp contention ending in the projection of The Frying Pan luckily we were unmolested here Watson could manage the dinner anyway I entered our mess room which was large light and boasted ab boarded floor it was a splendid summer

Room though it would have been very cold in Winter there I found a pile of literature waiting me operation orders for tomorrow giving the hour at which each company was to leave Morland Corps and which company of the manchesters it was to relieve and when and where and

The route to be taken there were two typed documents for your information and retention please one relating to prevention of flying trouble in billets the other giving a new code of signals and marked secret on the top and lastly there was comic Cuts leaving the rest I hastily skimmed through the ladder which

Contained detailed information of operations carried out and intelligence gathered on the core front during the last few days at first these were intensely interesting but after 7 months they began to PA and I grew expert at skimming through them rapidly then Jim Potter came in and comic Cuts faded into

Insignificance here Owen said I and threw them over to him captain and quartermaster Jim Potter was the father of the Battalion he had been in the Battalion 16 years and had come out with them in 1914 twice the Battalion had been decimated new officers had come and disappeared commanding officers had

Become brigadiers and new ones taken their place but old Jim remained calm unaltered steady as a rock good-natured and an utter pessimist I first in introduced him in chapter 1 when I spent the night in his Billet prior to my first Advent into the trenches I was a

Little perturbed then by his pessimism now I should have been very alarmed if he had suddenly burst into a fit of optimism well Jim we said how are things going when’s the war going to end oh not so very long now we gaped at this unexpected reply because he added you

Know Bill it’s the unexp expected that always happens in this war hello you’ve got some pretty pictures I see we had been decorating the walls with the few unwarlike pictures that were still to be found in the Illustrated papers not a bad place blighty he resumed gazing at a

Picture entitled home sweet home there had been a little dispute as to whether it should go up owing to its sentimental nature at last the warwicks will like it we had said and up it had gone the warwicks had our Billet when we were in tell us about your leave we said and

Jim began a series of delightful sarcastic jerks about the way people in England seemed to be getting now a faint glimmering conception that somewhere there was a waron The Joint was not quite ready Edwards explained to me drawing me aside a minute would old Jim mind the idea of

Old Jim minding being quite absurd we decided on having a cooked joint a quarter of an hour hence rather than a semi- raw one now and we told Jim our decision it seemed to suit him exactly as he had had tea late there never was such an unruffled fellow as he had we

Wanted to begin before the time appointed he would have been ravenous so he continued the description of his adventures on leave meanwhile I rescued comic cuts from the hands of Paul and dispatched them duly initialed by the trusty Davies to see company just as I had done so the sergeant major appeared

At the door do you know the time we move off tomorrow I said yes he had known that long before I did by means of the regimental sergeant major and the orderly Sergeant fall in at 8:15 I said everything the same as usual all the officers servants and Watson are to fall

In with the company this straggling in independently before or after the company will stop once and for all Lewis’s face as he laid the soup plates turned half a degree redder than usual there’s nothing more I said no that’s all sir the sergeant major drained off

His whiskey with a dash of perryer and prepared to go now was the psychological moment when one leared any news there was to learn about the Battalion no news I suppose I asked the fellows are still talking about this rest sir no news about that I suppose

Said the sergeant major only that it’s slightly overdue I answered with a laugh what do you think Jim any likelihood of this 3 weeks rest coming off oh yes I should think so said the quartermaster anytime next year good night Sir said Sergeant Major Brown with a grin good

Night sergeant major came in a chorus as he he disappeared into the garden soup’s ready sir said Lewis and we sat down to dine the extraordinary thing about having Jim Potter in to dinner was that an extra elaborate menu was always provided and yet old Jim himself always

Ate less than anyone else still he did his share nobly with the whiskey so that made up for it I suppose tonight Edward planned sausages and mash as an entree but whether through Superior knowledge or a mere misunderstanding the sausages arrived seated carefully on the top of

The round of beef like Maron glass stuck on an iced cake as the dish was placed amid howls of execration on the table one of the unstead sausages staggered and fell with a splash into the gravy much to everyone’s Delight Edwards wiping the gravy spots off his best

Tunic seemed the only member of the party who did not greet with approbation this novel dish after soup sausages and beef and rice pudding and tined fruit came Watson’s special dish cheese oron on toast this was a glutenous concoction and a little Went A Long Way Then

Followed Cafe Olay made in the teapot which was the signal for cigarettes to be lit up and chairs to be moved a little to allow of a comfortable expansion of legs Owen proposed sitting out in the summer house but on going outside reported that it was a little

Too chilly so we remained where we were Edwards was talking of Amon he had been there for the day yesterday and incidentally discovered that there was a cathedral there I know it said I I used to go there every Saturday when I was at the Army School you had a good time at

The Army school didn’t you asked Jim tiptop time said I it’s a really good show the commandant was the most wonderful man we ever met by the way that concert Tuesday night was a really good show Jim Potter and Edwards had got it up it had been an al fresco Affair and

The night had been ideally warm for it Edwards had trained a Welsh choir with some success several Outsiders had contributed the star of the evening being basil halum the well-known Music Hall artist whose dainty manner reminded one of the art of Vesta Tilly and impeccable evening clothes had produced

An unforgettably bizarre effect in the middle of such an audience and within sound of the guns he was well known to most of the men as the bloke that sits up in the sausage for any fine day coming out of trenches or going in you could see high suspended the sausage

Whose home and base was between Tru and maricor and whose occupant and I was basil halam and and so the sausage bloke was received enthusiastically at our concert as we talked about the concert Owen began singing now Flory was a flapper which had been basil hallam’s

Most popular song and as he sang he rose from his chair and walked about the room he was evidently enjoying himself though his imitation of Basil Hallam was very bad indeed as he sang he went on talking a good entry in comic Cuts tonight I remarked a dog was heard barking in

Freec cor at 11:00 p.m. someone must have been hard up for intelligence to put that in a dog barking in freec cor said old Jim warming up a dog barking in freec cor what’s that core stuff I never read the thing good Lord no that’s what

It is to have a staff a dog barking in freec core the core officer didn’t hear it said I it was some Battalion intelligence officer that was such a fool as to report it fool said old Jim I’d like to meet the fellow he’s the

First fellow I’ve ever met yet who has a just appreciation of the brain capacity of the staff you or I might have thought of reporting a dog’s Mew or roar or Bellow but a dog’s bark we should have thought of no interest whatever to the um fellows up there you know who plan

Our destinies and he gave an obsequious flick of his hand to an imaginary person too high up to see him at all he’s a good fellow he repeated that intelligence officer ought to get a DSO old Jim had two South African medals a DCM and a

DSO the staff he went on with the greatest contempt he could put into his voice I saw three of them in a car today I stood to attention saluted young fellow waved his hand you know graciously accepted my salute you know and passed on leaning back in his

Limousine the brains of the British army I thought we waited Jim on the staff was the greatest entertainment the Battalion could offer we tried to draw him out further but he would not be drawn we tried cunningly by indirect methods inquiring his views on whether there

Would be a push this year push he said of course there’ll be a push the staff must have something to show for themselves shove them in they say rather a bigger front than last time strategy oh no that’s out of date you know Five Mile front frontal attack get a few

Hundred th000 moan down and then discover the Bosch has got a second line the staff p and no more would he say then Clark came in and the the Manchester Stokes gun Officer Clark immediately joined Owen in a duet on Flory then we went through the whole gamut of popular songs with appropriate

Actions and stamping of feet upon the floor meanwhile the table was cleared only the whiskey and perer remained soon there were cries of Napoleon Napoleon and Owen who Bears a remarkable resemblance to that great personage posed tragically again and again amid great Applause and then in natural

Sequence I as Bill the man what won the Battle of waterl attacked him with every species of trench mortar I could lay hands on my head swathed in a remarkable turban of daily mail at last I drove him into a corner behind a table and bombarded him relentlessly with oranges until he

Capitulated all the time Edwards had been in fear and trembling for the safety of his gramophone at length peace was signed and we grew quiet again beneath the soothing strains of the gramophone until at last Jim Potter said he must really go everyone reminding everyone else that breakfast

Was at 700 we broke up the party and Owen Paul Jim Potter and I departed together but anyone who knows the psychology of conviviality will understand that we had first to pay a visit to a neighboring mess for one last whiskey and soda before turning in

As I opened the door of my Billet I heard a strafe getting up there was a lively canonade up in the line for several minutes I listened until it diminished a little and began to die away in tomorrow I thought my B was laid out on the floor and my trench kit all

Ready for packing first thing next morning I lost no time in getting into bed and yet I could not sleep I could not help thinking of the jolity of the the last few hours the humor the Apparently spontaneous Outburst of good spirits and most of all I thought of old

Gy the mainspring somehow of it all and again I saw the picture of the concert a few nights ago the bright lights of the stage the crowds of our fellows all their bodies and Spirits for the moment relaxed good-natured happy as they stood laughing in the warm night air and

Lastly I thought again of Private Benjamin that ref find eager face that rather delicate body and that warm hand as I placed mine over his squeezing the trigger he was no more than a child really a simple-minded child of whales somehow it was more terrible that these

Young boys should see this war than for the older men yet were we not all children wondering wondering wondering yes we were like children faced by a wild beast sometimes I dislike you almost I thought your dullness your coarseness your lack of romance your unattractiveness yet that is only

Physical you I love really oh the dear dear world and in the darkness I buried my face in the pillow and sobbed end of chapter 14 a certain man drew a bow at a venture it was :00 as I came in from the wiring party in front of Ru alar and at

That moment our guns began we were in Maple readout the moon had just set and it was a still summer night in early June come and have a look I called to Owen who had just entered the Dugout I could see him standing with his back to the candlelight reading a letter or

Something he came out and together we looked across the valley at the should Boulder of down that was silhouetted by The Continuous light of gun flickers our guns had commenced to two hours bombardment no answer from the Bosch yet I said they’re firing on SE to down by the

Cemetery yes I hardly noticed it our guns make such a row by Jo it’s magnificent we gazed fasinated for a long time and then went into the Dugout where Edwards and Paul were snoring rhythmically I read for half an hour but the Dugout was stuffy and the smell of

Sandbags and the flickering of the candle annoyed me for some reason or other somehow derelicts by WJ lock failed to grip my attention owing to our bombardment there were no working parties in case the Germans should take it into their head to retaliate vigorously but at present there was no

Sign of that I went outside again and walked along Park Lane until I came to the Lewis gun position just this side of the corner of Watling Street the Sentry was standing up gazing alert and interested at the continuous flicker of our shells bursting along the enemy’s trenches Lance corporal Allen looked out

Of the Dugout and seeing me came out and stood by us and together we watched all three of us in silence overhead was the continual screeching with whistling of the shells as they passed over without pause or cessation behind was a chain of gun flickers the other side of the Ridge

And in front was another chain of flashes and a succession of bump bump bumps as the shells burst relentlessly in the German trenches and where we stood under the noisy Arch was a steady calm this is all right sir said lance corporal Allen he was the NCO in charge

Of this Lewis gun team yes said I the artillery are not on short rations tonight for always through the last 4 months the artillery had been more or less confined to so many shells a day the officers used to tell us they had any amount of ammunition yet no

Sooner were they given a free hand to retaliate as much as they wanted than an order came cancelling this privilege tonight at any rate there was no curtailment I believe this is the beginning of a new order of things I said half musing to myself that is I

Believe the Bosch is going to get lots in lots of this now about time sir said the Sentry is there a push coming off said Lance corporal Allen I don’t know I replied but I expect we shall be doing something soon it’s quite certain we’re

Going to get our 3 weeks rest after this turn in the Brigadier major told me so Corporal Allan smiled and as he did so the flashes lit up his face he was quite a boy only 18 I believe but an excellent NCO he had a very beautiful though

Sensuous face that used to remind me sometimes of the Sater of praxy tale his only fault was an inclination to sulkiness at times which was perhaps due to a little streak of vanity it was no wonder the maidens of Morland cor made eyes at him and a little girl who lived

Next door to the Lewis guns Billet was said to have lost her heart long ago tonight I felt a Pang as I saw him smile we’ll see I said anyway it’s going to be a good show giving the Bosch these sort of pleasant dreams better than those one

Minute stunts I was referring to a one minute bombardment of freec cor wood that had taken place last time we were in the line it was a good spectacle to see the wood alive with flames here our our Vicor guns rattling hard behind us from the supports and see the Germans

Firing excited green and red Rockets into the air but the retaliation had been unpleasant and the whole business seemed not worthwhile this continuous pounding was quite different I went back and visited the other gun position and spent a few minutes there also at last I turned in

Reluctantly I went out again at half 11 and still the shells were screaming over it seemed the token of an irresistible power and there was no reply at all now from the German lines the short Summer Nights made life easier in some respects we stood too

Earlier and it was quite light by three as I turned in again I paused for a moment to take in the scene Davies had retired to a small dug out that looked exactly like a dog kennel and was not much larger as Davies himself self frequently reminded me of a very

Intelligent sheep dog the dog kennel seemed most suitable I heard him turning about inside as I stood at the door of our own Dugout the scene was one of the most perfect piece the sun was not up but by now the light was firm and strong

Night had melted away I went back and walked a little while along Park Lane until I came to a gap in the newly erected sandbag parados I went through the Gap and into a little graveyard that had not been used now for several months and there I stood in the open completely

Hidden from the enemy on the reverse slope of the Hill below me were the dugouts of 71 north and away to the left those of the Citadel already I could see smoke curling up from the cookers there was a faint Mist still hanging about over the road there that the strong

Light would soon dispel on the hillside opposite opposite lay The Familiar tracery of redout a and the white zigzag Mark of Maidstone Avenue climbing up well to the left of it until it disappeared over the Ridge close to my feet the meadow was full of buttercups and blue Veronica with occasional

Daisies starring the grass and Below above everywhere it seemed was the tremulous song of countless Larks Rising growing swelling till the air seemed full to Breaking Point point and there was not a sound of War who could desecrate such a perfect June morning I felt a mad impulse to run up and across

Into no man’s land and cry out that such a day was made for lovers that we were all in mesed in a mad nightmare that needed but a bold man’s laugh to free us from its clutches surely this most Exquisite morning could not be the birth

Of another day of pain yet I felt how Vain and hopeless was the longing as I turned at last and saw the first slant rays of sunlight touch the white sandbags into life what time’s this working party asked Paul at 4:00 that afternoon I told

The sergeant major to get the men out as soon as they’d finished tea I replied about a qu to 5 they ought to be ready he will let you know all right hello said Paul what are you H about I asked Paul did not answer faintly I heard

A That Grew louder and louder and ended in a swishing roar like a big wave breaking against an Esplanade and then WP WP WP WP four four twos exploded beyond the parados of Park Lane well over said Edwards I expected this I answered they’ve been too damned quiet

All day especially after the pounding we gave gave them last night there they are again I added this time I had heard the four distant thuds and we all waited WP WP Grump there was a colossal D the two candles went out and there was a shaking and jarring in the Blackness Then

Followed the sound of falling stuff and I felt a few patters of Earth all over me gradually it got lighter and through the Smoke Filled doorway the square of daylight reappeared je said I as we all waited without speaking then Edwards struck a match and lit the candles all the table floor and

Beds were sprinkled with dust and Earth then Davies burst in are you all right we asked yes sir and you oh we’re all right Davies said I but there’s a job for Lewis cleaning this butter up at length we went outside stepping over a heap of of loose yielding Earth mixed up

With lumps of chalk and bits of frayed sandbags outside the trench was blocked with debris of a similar kind already two men had crossed it and several men were about to do so it was old already there was still a smell of gunpowder in the air and a lot of chalk dust that

Irritated your nose I think I’ll tell the sergeant major not to get the working party out just yet I said to Paul they often start like that and then put lots more over about a quarter of an hour later and I sped along Park Lane quickly as I returned I heard footsteps

Behind me I looked round but the men were hidden by a Traverse and then came tragedy sudden and terrible I have seen many bad sights every man killed is a tragedy but one avoids and hides away the hideousness as soon as possible but never save once perhaps have I seen the

Things so vile as now look out I Heard a Voice from behind and as I heard the shells screaming down I tumbled into the nearest Dugout the shell burst with a huge Crump but not so close as the one that had darkened our Dugout 10 minutes before then again another four shells

Burst together but some 40 or 50 yards away I waited one 2 minutes and then I heard men running in the trench as I sprang up The Dugout steps I saw two stretcher bearers standing looking around the Traverse and then there was the faint whistling overhead and they

Pushed me back as they almost fell down the Dugout steps is there a man hurt I asked we can’t leave him he’s dead said one and as he spoke there were three more explosions a little to the left are you sure I said the stretcher Bearer and

Closed his eyes eyes tight he’s past our help said the other man at last after a minute’s calm we stepped out into the sunshine I went round the Traverse following the two stretcher bearers and looking between them as they stood gazing this is what I saw in the trench

Half buried in rags of sandbag and loose chalk lay what had been a man his head was nearest to me and at that I gazed fascinated for the shell had cut it clean in half and the face lay like a mask its features unmarred at all a full

Foot away from the rest of the head the flesh was gray that was all the Open Eyes the nose the mouth were not even Twisted arai it was like the fragment of a sculpture all the rest of the body was a mangled mass of Flesh and khaki who is

It whispered a stretcher Bearer bending his head down to look sideways at that mask find his identity disc said the other it is Lance corporal Allen said I then up came the regimental sergeant major and Owen followed him they too gazed in horror for a moment the sergeant major was the first to

Recover hi you fellows he called to two men get a waterproof sheet Come Away old man said I to Owen in silence we walked back to the Dugout but my brain was whirling a certain man drew a bow at a venture I thought again that was how it

Was possible no man could keep on killing if he could see the men he killed but who had fired that Howitzer shell a German Gunner somewhere right away in Mam’s wood probably he would never see his handiwork never know what he had done today he would never see

That was the point had he known he would have rejoiced that there was one Englishman Less in the world it was not his fault we were just the same what of last night’s bombardment the memory of Lance corporal Allen up by his gun position gave me a quick sharp Pang had

We not watched with glittering eyes the Magnificent shooting of our own Gunners this afternoon strafe was but a puny retaliation slowly it came back to me the half-formed picture that had Arisen in my mind the night of Davidson’s death a certain man drew a bow at a venture

Expressed it perfectly it was Splendid twanging the bow feeling the fingers grip the polished wood watching the bow string stretch and strain and then letting the arrow fly that was the fascinating the deadly fascinating side of war that was what made it possible to carry on I remember my joy in calling up

The artillery in Revenge for Thompson’s death and then again whenever we put a mine up how exhilarating was the spectacle throwing a bomb firing a Lewis gun all these things were pleasant it was like the joy of throwing stones over a barn and hearing them Splash into a

Pond like driving a cricket ball out of the field but the arrows fell somewhere that was the other side of war the dying King leaned on his Chariot propped up until the sun went down the man who had fired the bolt never knew he had killed a king

That was the other side of war that was the side that counted what I had just seen was War I leaned my face on my arm against the parados oh this unutterable tragedy had there ever been such a thing before why was this thing so terrible why did I

Have this feeling of battering against some Relentless power death there were worse things than death there were sights such as I had just come from as terrible in everyday life in any Factory explosion or Railway accident there was nothing new in death vaguely my mind felt out for something to express this

Thing so far more terrible than mere death and then I saw it vividly I saw the secret of War what made War so cruel was the for that compelled you to go on after a factory explosion you cleared up things and then took every precaution to prevent its recurrence but in war you

Did the opposite you used all your energies to make more explosions you killed and went on killing you saw men die around you and you deliberately went on with a thing that would cause more of your friends to die you were placed in an arena and made to fight the beasts

And if you killed one Beast there were more more waiting and more and more and above the arena out of it secure looking down the glittering eyes of the men who had placed you there cruel Relentless eyes that went on glittering while the mouths expressed admiration for your

Impossible struggles and pity for your fate oh God I shall go mad I thought in the agony of my mind I saw into that strange empty chamber which is called madness I knew what it would be like to go mad and even as I saw came the thought again of those glittering eyes

And the ruthless answer to my soul’s cry the war is utterly indifferent whether you go mad or not Owen was standing waiting for me I grew calm again and turned and put my hand on his shoulder together we reached the door of the Dugout oh Bill he said have you ever

Seen anything more awful only once no not more awful more beastly nothing could be more awful we told the others not Allan said Edwards he was Lewis gun Officer and Allan was his best man not Allan he repeated oh how will they tell his little girl in Morland

Corps what will she say when she learns she will never see him again thank God she never saw him as we saw him just now I said and thank God his mother never saw him if women were in this war there would be no war said Edwards I wonder said

I end of chapter 15 wounded Lance corporal Allen was killed on Tuesday the 6th of June for the rest of that day I was all on edge I wondered sometimes how I could go on even in billets I dreamed of rifle grenades and though I had only returned from leave a

Fortnight ago I felt as tired out in body and mind as I did before I went and this last horror did not add to my peace of mind I very nearly quarreled with Captain wetheral the Battalion Lewis gun Officer over the position of a Lewis gun

There had been a change of company front and some readjustments had to be made I believe I told him he had not got the remotest idea of our defense scheme or something of that sort my nerves were all jangled and my brain would not rest

A second we were nearly all like that at times I decided therefore to go out again tonight with our wires I had been out last night and Owen was going tonight but I wanted to be doing something to occupy my thoughts I knew I

Should not sleep at A4 to 10 I sent word to Corporal Dyson the wife firing Corporal to take his men up at 11: instead of 10 as the moon had not quite set at 11:00 Owen and I were out in no man’s land putting out concertina wire

Between 80a and 881a bombing posts which had recently been connected up by a deep narrow trench there was what might be called a concertina craze on innumerable coils of barbed wire were converted into concertinas by the simple process of winding them round and round seven upright stakes in the ground every new

Lap of wire was fastened to the one below it at every other stake by a Twist of plain wire the result when you came to the end of a coil and lifted the hole up off the stakes was a heavy ring of barbed wire that concertina out into 10

Yard lengths they were easily made up in the trench quickly put up and when put out in two parallel rows about a yard apart part and joined together with plenty of barbed wire Tangled Loosely were as good an obstacle as could be made we had some 30 of these to put out

Tonight when you are out wiring you forget all about being in no man’s land unless the Germans are sniping across the work is one that absorbs all your interest and your one concern is to get the job done quickly and well I really cannot remember whether the enemy had

Been sniping or not I used the the word sniping to denote firing occasional shots across with fixed rifles cited by day I remember that I forgot all about Captain wetherell and his Lewis gun positions as soon as I was outside the bombing post at adaa there were about 15 yards between

This post and the crater Edge where I had a couple of a company bombers out as a covering party but in this 15 yards were several huge shell holes and we were cons sealing the wire in these as much as possible it was fascinating work

And I felt we could not get on fast enough with it after a time I went along to Owen whose party was working on my left here Corporal Dyson and four men were doing well also all this strip of land between the trench and the crater Edge was an extraordinary tangle of

Shell holes old beams and planks and scraps of Old Wire every square yard of it had been churned and pounded to bits at different times by canisters and sausages and such like months ago there had been a trench along the crater edges but new mines had altered these and

Until we had dug the Deep narrow trench between 88 and 81a about a fortnight ago there had been no trench there for at least 5 months the result was a chaotic jumble and this jumble we were converting into an obstacle by judiciously placing concertina wiring I repeat that I cannot remember if there

Had been much sniping across I had just looked at my luminous watch which reported 10 1 when I noticed that the sky in the East began to show up a little paler than the German parapet across the crater Dawn I thought already there is no night at all really we must

Knock off in a quarter of an hour the light will not be behind us but halfast 1 will be time to stop I was lying out by the bombers gazing into the black of the crater it was a warm night and jolly lying out like this though a bit damp

And muddy round the shell holes then I got up told corpal Evans to come in after fixing the coil he was putting up and was walking towards adaa post when bang I heard from across the crater and I felt a big sting in my left elbow and

A jar that numbed my whole arm ow I cried involuntarily and doubled the remaining few yards and scrambled down into the trench Corporal Dyson was there are you hit sir yes nothing much here in the arm get the wirers in it’ll be light soon then somehow I found my equipment

And tunic off there seemed a lot of men around me and I tried to realize that I was really hit my arm hung numb and stiff with the aftertaste of a sting in it I felt this could not be a proper wound as there was no real throbbing

Pain such as I expected I was surprised when I saw a lot of blood in the halflight Corporal Dyson asked me if I had a field dressing and I said he would find one in the bottom right hand corner of my tunic to my annoyance he did not

Seem to hear and used one of the men’s then Owen appeared with a serious peering face are all the wirers in I asked yes he answered how are you feeling his serious tone amused me I wanted to say good Heavens man I’m as fit as anything I shall be back tomorrow I

Expect but I felt very tired and rather out of breath as I answered oh all right by this time my arm was bandaged and I started walking back to Maple readout leaning on Corporal Dyson I wanted to joke but felt too tired it seemed an interminable way down especially along

Watling Street I had only once looked into the dressing station although I must have passed it several hundred times I was surprised at its size there were two compartments as I stepped down inside I wondered if it were shell prooof in the inner chamber I could hear

The doctor’s quick low voice telling a man to move the lamp and it seemed to flash across me for the first time that there ought to be some kind of guarantee against dressing stations being blown in like any any ordinary Dugout and yet I knew there was no possibility of any such

Guarantee hello Bill old man said the little doctor coming out quickly where’s this thing of yours in the arm isn’t it let’s have a look oh yes I see he examined the bandage and the arm above it well I won’t be long you won’t mind waiting a few minutes will you I’ve got

A bad case in here Hall get him to sit down and give him some boil and he was gone no man could move or make men move quicker than the doctor I felt apologetic I had chosen a bad time to come just when the doctor was busy

With this other man I asked who the fellow was and learned he was a private from D company I was very grateful for the boil a good idea this I thought having boil ready for you I waited about 10 minutes sitting on a chair I listened to the movements and low voice voices

Inside turn him over here no those longer ones good Heavens didn’t I tell you to get this changed yesterday now that’ll do and so on I turned my head round in silence observing acutely every detail in this antichamber as one does in a dentist’s waiting room all the time

In my arm I felt this numb wasp sting I wondered when the real pain would start there was no Motion in this still smart now then Bill said the doctor so sorry to keep you let’s have a look at it oh that’s nothing very bad it smarted as he

Undid the bandage I don’t know what he did I never looked at it what sort of a one is it I asked I could just do with one like this myself said the doctor is it a blighty one I’d give you a f or for at any minute answered the doctor I’m

Not certain whether the Bone’s broken or not but I rather think it is touched I can’t say though a bullet did you say are you sure very sure I laughed well it must be one of those explosive bullets an ordinary bullet doesn’t make a wound like yours that’s it that’ll do I can’t

Make out why there’s not more pain said I oh that’ll come later you see the shock paralyzes you at first here take one of these and he gave me a more a tabloid cheero Bill he said and I went out of the Dugout leaning on a stretcher

Bearer round my neck hung a label the first of a long series gunshot wound in left forearm it contained I found later question mark fracture 1:15 a.m. 7616 outside Lewis was waiting with my trench kit he had appeared a quarter of an hour back at the door of the dressing

Station and had been told by the doctor so rapidly and forcibly that he ought to know that he would go with me to the clearing station and that he had five minutes in which to get my kit together that he had Fairly sprinted away poor fellow how should he know seeing that he

Had been my servant over 6 months and I had never got wounded before but the doctor always made men double as I passed our Dugout Edwards Owen Paul and Nicholson were all standing outside cheero I shouted good luck the doctor says it’s nothing much I’ll be back soon what about that Lewis

Gun position asked Edwards oh I said I want to keep that position on the left then I felt my decision waver still if weatherl wants the other I don’t know all right I’ll fix up with weatherell good luck hope you get to blighty I wanted to say such a lot I

Wanted to say that I was sure to be back in a week or so I wanted to think hard and decide about that Lewis gun I wanted to send a message to wetherell apologizing for what I had said I wanted to talk to Sergeant Andrews who was standing there too but the stretcher

Bearer was walking on and I must go as he pleased goodbye Sergeant Andrews I shouted last of all I saw Davies standing solemn and dumb good goodbye Davies off to blighty I could not see if he answered the Relentless stretcher Bearer led me on was I OC stretcher

Bearers or was I not why didn’t I stop him I had not decided about that Lewis gun at the corner of Old Kent Road I was told I might as well sit on the ration trolley and go down on that and in the full light of dawn about half 2 I was

Rolled serenely down the hill to the Citadel don’t let go I said to the stretcher Bearer who was holding the trolley back I still thought of sending up a message about that Lewis gun position why could I not make up my mind I looked back and saw Maple readout receding further and

Further in The Distance by jove I thought I may not see it again for weeks and suddenly I realized that whether I made up my mind about the Lewis gun position or not would not make the slight difference where do I go to now said I there’s an ambulance at the Citadel said

The stretcher Bearer you’re quite right you’ll be in Haley in a little over an hour Haley why this would be interesting I thought and I should just go and have nothing to decide I should be passive I was going right out of the arena and the events of yesterday seemed to dream

Already Wednesday I lay in bed at the clearing station at Haley it was just after 9:00 the same morning and the orderes were out of sight but not out of hearing washing up the breakfast things half the dark blue blinds were drawn as the June sun was

Blazing outside I could see the glare of it on the cobbles in the courtyard as the door opened and a cool tall nurse entered I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep I felt she might come and talk and one thing I did not want to do

I did not want to talk my body was most extraordinarily comfortable I moved my feet toes up for the sheer Joy of feeling the smooth sheets fall cool on my feet when I turned them sideways again the pillow was comfortable the whole bed was comfortable even my arm

That was throbbing violently now and felt boiling hot was very comfortably rested on another pillow I just wanted to lie and lie only my mind was working so fast and hard that it seemed to make the skin tight over my forehead and all the time there was that buzz buzzing if

I left off thinking the buzzing took complete Mastery of my brain that was intolerable so I had to keep on thinking at the Citadel an RC doctor had given me tea and a second label he had also given me an in ction against tetanus this he did in the chest why

Didn’t he do it in my right arm I had thought I would have rather had it there again I had had to wait quite a quarter of an hour while he attended to the D company private I had learned from an orderly that this poor fellow was bound

To lose a leg and again I had felt that I was in the way here that I was a bother I had then watched the poor fellow carried out on a stretcher and the stretcher slid into the ambulance there was a seat inside into which I was

Helped Lewis had gone in front very red-faced and awkward and an ramc orderly had got in behind me sitting I had felt that he must think I was shamming then I remembered the first ambulance I had seen when I first walked from choz to Bethune in early October

Was there really any connection between me then and me now then there had been a rather pleasant journey through unknown country it seemed after a few miles we halted and changed into another ambulance as I had stood in the sunshine a moment I had tried to make out where

We were but I could not recognize anything and felt very tired there was a white chalk Road a grass bank and a house close by that is all I could remember and then there was another long ride in which my one Paramount idea was to rest my arm which was in a white

Sling and prevented shaking and jarring then at last we had reached a village and pulled up in a big sunlet Courtyard again as I walked into a big room I felt that people must think I was shamming a matron had come in and a doctor did I mind sitting and waiting a

Minute or so would I like some tea I had refused tea then the doctor and an orderly came in and the doctor asked some questions and took off my label the orderly was taking off my boots and the doctor had started helping I had apologized profusely for they were

Trench boots thick with mud and then the doctor had asked me whether I could wait until about 11: before they looked at my arm meanwhile it would be better as I should be more rested after a few hours in bed bed I had never thought of going

To bed for an arm at all what a delicious idea I felt so tired too I had not been to bed all night then I had been helped into this delightful bed and after scrolling a letter home to go away by the 8:00 post I was glad I had

Remembered that I had been left in peace at about half 4 and here I was I had had a cup of tea for breakfast but did not want to eat anything I wished I could go to sleep yet it was not much good now if

They were going to look at my arm at 11: I opened my eyes whenever I was sure there was no one near me then I thought I might as well keep them open otherwise they would think I had slept and not know how tired out I felt there was a

Man in the next bed with his head all bandaged and round the bed in the corner was a screen opposite was an RC doctor as far as I could gather he was talking to the nurse and looked perfectly well I thought perhaps he might be the sort who

Would talk late when I wanted to sleep he looked so well and Lively suppose he had a gramophone and wanted to play it this afternoon I should really have to complain if he did yet Perhaps they would understand and make him give it up

Because of us who were not so well on my right up at the other end of the room was it a ward yes I suppose it was were several voices but I could not turn over and look at their owners with my arm like this how it throbbed and ped

Or was it aching suppose I got pins and needles in it a khaki-clad padre came in he just came over and asked me if I wanted anything and did not worry me with talking he had a very quiet voice and bald head I liked both I felt I

Ought to have wanted something had I been discourteous the door opened and the doctor entered with another nurse and another doctor somehow this last person electrified if IED everyone and everything who was he his very walk was somehow different from the ordinary my attention was riveted on him somehow I

Felt that he knew I was there and yet he did not look at me they wheeled a little table up from the other end of the room Laden with glasses and bottles and glittering little silver forks and things I could not see clearly and orderly was reprimanded by the nurse for

Something in a subdued voice there was a hush and a tenseness in this man’s presence yet he was calmly looking at a newspaper and sitting on an empty bed as he did so apparently Kitchener was reported drowned in the North Sea he spoke in a rich almost drawling voice he

Was immensely casual and yet one did not mind he walked over and washed his hands and put on some yellowy brown India rubber gloves that squelched in the basins and then he turned round and the the other doctor whom I had seen at 4:00 and who already seemed a sort of

Confidential friend of mine in the presence of this master man asked him which case he wanted to see first and as he jerked his hand casually to one of the beds I was filled with a strange Elation this was a surgeon I felt and one in whom I had immense confidence he

Would do the best for my arm he would make no mistakes I almost laughed for sheer Joy he came at last to my bed and glanced at me he never smiled he asked me one or two questions I said I was question mark fracture that my arm was

Throbbing but felt numb more than anything I suppose we may presume there is a fracture said he at any rate there is no point in looking at it here I look at it under an anesthetic he said to me not unkindly but still without a smile

And a little later as he went out he half looked back at my bed 11:00 he said to the nurse as he went out the tension relaxed and orderly spoke in a bold ordinary voice the spell was gone out with the man who is that I asked the

Nurse oh that’s Mr bevon he’s a very good surgeon indeed I know said I I can feel that about an hour later two orderlies whom I had not seen before came in with a stretch and laid it on the floor by the bed the tall nurse asked me if I had any false

Teeth and said I had better put socks on as my feet might get cold the orderly did this and then they helped me on to the stretcher my head went back and I felt a strain on my neck the next second my head was lifted and a pillow put

Under it and they had moved me without altering the position of my arm I was surprised and pleased at that then a blanket was put over me and one of the orderlies said ready yes I said but suddenly realized he was talking to the other orderly I was lifted up and

Carried across the room out into the courtyard what a blazing sun I closed my eyes dump dump dump the stretcher seemed to Bob along with a regular rhythmic swing then they turned the corner and I felt a slight nausea I opened my eyes the stretcher was put on a table I felt

Very high up the matron person appeared she was older than the nurses and had a chain with scissors dangling on the end of it she smiled and asked what kind of a wound it was then the orderes looked at each other at some signal that I

Could not see and lifted me up and into the next room they held the stretcher up level with the operating table and helped me onto it I did some good right elbow work and got got on easily as I did so I saw Mr Bevan sitting on a chair

In his white overall his gloved hands quietly folded in his lap he said and did nothing again I felt immensely impressed by his competence reserving every ounce of energy waiting until these less masterful beings had got everything ready they took off the blanket and moved things behind then

They put the rubber cup over my mouth and nose just must breathe quite naturally said the doctor I shut my eyes just ordinary breaths that is very good said the voice quietly and reassuringly I felt a sort of sweet shudder all down my body I wanted to

Laugh then I let my body go a little it was no good bracing myself I opened my right hand and shut it just to show them I was not off yet the process of coming to was unpleasant and uninteresting I do not think I distinguished Myself by any

Originality so will not attempt to describe it that was a long interminable day and my arm hurt a good deal in the afternoon I was told that I should be pleased to hear that there was no bone broken I was anything but pleased I wanted the bone to be broken as I wanted

To go to blighty this worried me all day I wondered if I should get to England or not then in the evening the sister I found that the nurses should be called sisters dressed the wound that was distinctly unpleasant it took hours and hours and hours before it began to get

Even Twilight I have never known so long a day and then I could not sleep they injected morphia at last but I awoke after 3 or 4 hours feeling more tired than ever Thursday I can hard hardly disentangled these days night and day ran into one another I can remember

Little about Thursday I could not sleep however much I wanted to and all the time my brain was working so hard thinking I worried about the company they must be in the line now would Edwards remember this and that had I left him the map or was it among those

Maps in my V which Lewis had gone to Morland Corps to fetch and all the time there were rifle grenades about I Daren let the buzzing come because it was all rifle grenades really and always I kept seeing Lance corporal Allen lying there why could I not get rid of the picture

Of him yet I was afraid I might forget and it was important that I should remember I remember the waiting to have my arm dressed it was like waiting before the dentist takes up the drill again I watched the man next to me out of the corner of my eye and felt it

Intensely if he seemed to wince or Drew in his breath and I remember in the morning Mr bevon dressed my wound I looked the other way for a week I thought the wound was above instead of just below the elbow this will hurt he said once sometime in the day the man behind

The screen died I had heard him groaning all day and there was the rhythmic sound of pumping oxygen I suppose I heard a lot of moving behind the screen and at last it was taken away and I saw the corner for the first time and in it an

Empty bed with clean sheets the man next to me with the bandaged head kept talking deliriously to the orderly about his being on a submarine once the orderly smiled at me as he answered the Absurd questions there was one good incident I remember after the surgeon had dressed

My arm I said is there any chance of this getting me to blighty and I thought he did not hear he was looking the other way but suddenly I heard that calm deliberate voice yes this is a blighty one there is enough damage to those muscles to keep you in blighty several

Months and this made all the rest bearable somehow Friday again the only sleep I could get was by morphia in the morning they told me I should go by a hospital train leaving at 3:00 I scrolled a note or two and gave them to Lewis and instructed him about my kit

I believe they made an inventory of it I gave him some maps for Edwards and then he said goodbye and I thought of him going back and I going to England and I felt ashamed of myself again I wondered if the colonel was annoyed with me they

Gave me gas in the morning it seemed such a bother going through all that again it was not worth trying to get better still I was glad it was one dressing less then in the afternoon I was carried on a stretcher to the train I hardly saw anyone to say goodbye to I

Thought of writing later it seemed an interminable journey by some mistake I had been put in with the tomies there was no difference in the structure or comfort of the officers or Tommy’s quarters but I knew they were taking me wrong however I was entirely passive and

Did not mind what they did the carriage had a corridor all the way down the center and on each side was a succession of births in three tiers on the top tier you must have felt very high and close up to the roof on the center one you got

A good view out of the windows on the third and lowest tier which was my lot you felt that if there were an accident you would not have far to roll on the other hand you were out of view of orderes passing along the corridor a great thirst consumed me as I lay

Waiting I could see two ortes in the space by the door cutting up large pieces of bread and butter this made my mouth still drier then they brought in cans of hot tea and gave it out in white enamel bowls I longed for the sting of

The tea on my dry pallet but the orderly was startled when I said I suppose this is all right I am an officer he said he would tell them and gave the bowl to the next man the bowls were taken away and washed up before a cup of tea was at

Last brought me a Corporal brought it he poured it out of a Little Teapot but I could not drink it out of a cup my left arm lay like a log beside me and I could not hold my right arm steady and raise my head so the Corporal went off for a

Feeding cup I felt rather nervy and like a man with a grievance and when I got the tea it was nearly cold I say it seemed an interminable journey and my arm was so frightfully uncomfortable I had it across my body and felt I could not breathe for the

Weight of it at last I felt I must get its position altered I called orderly every time an orderly went past sometimes they paused and looked around but they could not see me and went on sometimes they did not hear anything I felt as self-conscious and irritated as

A man who calls waiter and the waiter does not hear at last one heard and a sister came and fixed me up with a small pillow under the elbow I immediately felt apologetic and I wondered if she thought me fussy the train made a long slow grind

Over the rails and it kept stopping with a grinding sound and a jolt why did it go so slowly at 10:00 I begged and obtained another Morp dose and got four hours sleep from it again Saturday I suppose it was about 700 a.m. when we

Arrived at etrat I was taken and laid in the middle of rose and rows of tomies in a big Sunny Courtyard I thought how well the bearers carried the stretchers I did not at all feel that I was likely to be dropped or Tilted off onto my arm there

Were a lot of men in blue Hospital dress on the steps of a big house I wondered where I was in Ava probably it was a queer sensation lying on my back gazing up at the sun we were tightly packed in together like cards laid in order face upwards how high everyone looked

Standing up then they discovered one or two officers and I said that I too was an officer I felt that they rather dared me to repeat this statement then a man looked at my label and said yes he is an officer and I was taken up and carried

Off I found myself put to bed in a spacious room in in which were only two beds the house had only recently been finished and was in use as a hospital as soon as I was in bed I felt a great relief again no more motion for a time I

Thought there was a man in the other bed threatened with consumption we were talking when a pretty vad nurse came in and asked what we wanted for breakfast I felt quite hungry and enjoyed tea and fish I began to think that life was going to be good I saw Cecil Todd who

Had been slightly wounded a fortnight ago I condoled with him on not getting to England he asked me if I wanted to read no I did not feel like reading I wrote a letter then two vad nurses came and dressed my wound they seemed surprised to find so big a one and sent

For the doctor to see it they dressed it very well and gave me no unnecessary pain in the afternoon I was again moved to a motor ambulance which took me to a it jolted and shook horribly this man does not know what it is like up here I

Thought all the time I was straining my body to keep the left arm from touching the jolting stretcher the stretcher slide in the ambulance I was a top birth passenger I could touch the white roof with my right hand and there was a stuffy smell of white paint at last it

Stopped and after a while I was carried amid a sea of heads along a Quay I could smell Sea and the stale oily smell of a steamer then I was taken over the gang way with that firm steady nodding motion with which I was getting so familiar

Along the deck through doorways and into a big room all green and white all around the edge were beds into one of which I was helped in the center of the room were beds that somehow reminded me of Cs I dare say there was a low railing

Round the beds that gave me this impression a scotch nurse looked after me these nurses were all in gray and red the others had been in blue I wondered what was the difference I asked the name of the ship and they said it was the asuras later on a steward brought a menu

And I chose my own dinner apparently I could eat what I liked the doctor looked at my wound and said it could wait until morning before being dressed he pleased me I was more comfortable than I had been yet the boat was not due out till

About 1:00 a.m. at 11:00 I again asked for morphia and so got sleep for another four hours or so Sunday I represent M Cox and Company is there anything I can do for any of you gentlemen this morning a short squarely built man with a black suit a bowler hat

And a small brown bag stepped briskly into the room he gave me intense pleasure as he talked to a scotch officer who wanted some ready cash I felt that I was indeed back in England it was a hot sunny day and a bowler hat on such a day made me feel sure that

This was really Southampton and not all a dream sir whoever you are I thank you for your most appropriate appearance the hospital ship had been alongside nearly an hour I believe it was 3:00 in the afternoon breakfast the dressing of my wound again lunch all had followed in an uneventful succession the

Throbbing of the engines as the boat steamed quietly along had been hardly noticeable at all at last there was a bustle and we were carried out of the room out into the sunshine again and along the Quay to the train here I was given a birth in the middle tier this

Time for which I was very thankful I felt so utterly tired and the weight of my arm across my body was intolerable that seemed a long long journey too but I got tea without delay this time and it was hot at farnor the train stopped and a few men were taken

Out the rest came on to London is there any special Hospital in London you want to go to said a Brisk ramc official when we reached watero no I answered he wrote on a label and put that round my neck also lady car Caravans he said I lay for

Some time on the platform of Waterloo Station gazing up at the vault in the roof Porters and stretcher bearers stood about and gazed down at one in silence then I was moved into a motor ambulance and a Red Cross lady took her seat in the back my head was in the front so

That I could see nothing just before the car went off the policeman put his head in any milk or anything would you like any milk or beef tea the lady said milk please he says he would like a little milk said the lady and then we drove off

Monday it was somewhere about 10:00 Monday morning the sister had just finished dressing my arm the doctor had poked it about now it lay cool and quiet Along by my side I had not slept that night again except with morphia I still felt extraordinarily tired but was very comfortable

I watched the tall sister in blue with the white headdress that reminded me of a nun’s cap she was so strong and quiet and seemed to know that my hand always wanted support at the wrist when she lifted my arm I did not want to talk just to

Lie suddenly I realized that my head was no longer buzzing I knew that I should sleep tonight at last my body relaxed the tension suddenly melted away hurrah I thought I have not got to move or think or decide and I can just lie for

Hours for days at last I was out of the grip of war end of chapter 16 conclusion it was a slumberous afternoon in September my wound had healed up a month ago and I was lazily convalescent at my aunt’s house in one of the most beautiful parts of Kent the six soldiers

Who were also convalescent there were down in the Hop Garden for hop picking was in full swing I was sitting in a deck chair with Don kot on my knees but I was not reading I had apparently broken the offensive power of the army of midges by making a brilliant

Counterattack with a pipe of chairman the sun blazed mercilessly on the croquet lawn the balls were lying all together round one hoop for there there was a golf croquet tournament in progress and the mallets stood about against various Hoops one very tidy and proper Mallet was standing primly in the

Stand at one corner my chair was well sighted under the cool shade of a large mulberry tree in whose thick lofty branches the wind rustled with a delicious little sigh sometimes a regular little gust would send the boughs swishing and then a little rain of red and white mulberries would plop

Onto the grass and strike the summerhouse roof with a smart patter on the grass bank at the side of the lawn by a blazing border of orange and red nerum a black cat was squatting with Tails slowly waving to and fro watching a fine large Tabby that was sniffing at

The Nerium in a nonchalant manner they were the best of friends playing that most interesting of all games War I was not reading I was listening to the incessant murmur that came from far away across the Medway across the garden of England and across the channel and

The flats of Flanders that sound came from picardi all day the insistent throb had been in the air sometimes faint bumps were clearly distinguishable at other times it was nothing but one steady vibration but always it was there that distant growl that insistent mutter even in this perfect piece I could not

Escape the war today I felt completely well the lassitude and inertness of convalescence were gone at any rate for the moment my mind was very clear and I could think surely and rapidly the cats reminded me of the Lusty family that lived in the cellar in the quiny

Trenches and the murmur of the guns Drew my thoughts across the channel I tried to imagine trenches running across the lawn with communication trenches running back to a support line through the meadow a few feet of brick wall would be all that would be left of the house and

This would conceal my snipers the mberry tree would long ago have been raised to the ground and every scrap of it used as firewood in our dugouts this deck chair of mine might possibly be in use in company headquarters in one of the cellers no it was not easy to imagine

War without seeing it I picked up the paper that had fallen by my side there had been more terrible fighting in the S and it had seemed very marvelous to a journalist as he lay on a hill some two miles back and watched through his field glasses it was wonderful that the men

Advancing if indeed he could really see them at all in the smoke of a heavy artillery barrage still went on although their comrades dropped all round them yet I wondered what else anyone could do but go on run back with just as much likelihood of being shot in doing so or

Even if he did get back to certain death as a deserter everyone knows the safest place is in a trench and it is a trench you are making for lower down on the page came a description of the Wounded he had talked to so many of them and

They were all smiling all so cheerful smoking cigarettes and laughing they shook their fists and shouted that the only thing they wanted to do was to get back into it P I threw the paper down in used surely no one wants to read such stuff I thought of course the men who

Were not silent in a dull stupified Agony were smiling what need to say that a man with a slight wound was laughing at his luck just as I had smiled that early morning when the trolley took me down from Maple re out and who does not volunteer for an unpleasant task when he

Knows he cannot possibly get it want to get back into it indeed asked Tommy 10 years hence whether he wants to be back in the middle of it again I wondered why people endured such cheap journalism what right had men who have never seen War at all who creep up on bicycles to

Get a glimpse of it through telescopes who pester wounded men and then out of their pictorial imagination work up a vivid description what right have they to insult Heroes by saying that their wonderful spirit makes up for it all that the Paramount impression is one of

Of Glory are not our people able to Bear the truth that war is utterly hellish that we do not enjoy it that we hate it hate it hate it and then it struck me how ignorant people still were how uncertainly they spoke these people at home it was as though they dared not

Think things out lest what they held most dear should be an image Shattered by another point of view somehow people were amazed at the cheerfulness the doggedness the endurance under pain the indifference to death shown every minute during this War I thought of the men

Whom I had seen in hospital one man had had his right foot amputated it used to give me Agony to see his stump dressed every day another man had both legs amputated above the knees yet they were so wonderfully cheerful so apparently content with life as though alone in the

Blackness of night they did not long for the activity denied them for the rest of their life as though their cheerfulness do not think I belittle its heroism as though their cheerfulness Justified the thing another thing I had noticed an old man told me he was so struck with the

Heroism the Courage the indifference to death shown by the ordinary unromantic man some men had been converted too their whole lives changed their vices eradicated by this war so much good was coming from it people too at home were so changed so sobered they were looking into the selfishness of their lives at

Last again I thought as though all that justified the thing oh you men and women who did not know before the capabilities of human nature I thought please take note of it now and after the war do not underestimate the quality of mankind did

It need a war to tell you that a man can be heroic Resolute courageous cheerful and capable of sacrifice there were those who could have told you that before this war there was a lull in the vibration I turned in my chair and listened then it began again people are

Afraid to think it out I said I have not seen the psalm fighting but I know what war is its quality is not altered by multiplication or intensity the color of Life blood is a constant red let us look into this business let us face all the

Facts let us not flinch from any aspect of the truth and my thoughts ran somewhat as follows first of all war is evil utterly evil let us be sure of that first it is an evil instrument even if it be used for motives that are good I who have

Been through war and know it say that it is evil I knew it before the war Instinct reason religion told me that war was evil now experience has told me also it is a strange synthesis this war it is a synthesis of Adventure dullness good spirits and tragedy but none of

These things are new to Human Experience nor is human nature altered by War it is at War as a whole that we must look in order to appreciate its quality and what is war seen as a whole or rather seen in the light of my eight-months experience

For no one man can truly appraise War I have seen and felt the adventure of War its deadly Fascination and excitement it is the greatest game on earth that is its terrible power there is such a wild temptation to paint up its interest in glamour it gives such

Scope to daring to physical courage to High Spirits it makes so many prove themselves heroic that were it not for the fall of the arrow men would call the drawing of the bow good I have seen the dullness the endless monotony the dogged labor the sheer Power of Will Conquering

The body and carrying on there is good in that too in the jolity the humor the good Fellowship is nothing but good also there is good in all these things for these are qualities of human nature triumphing in spite of War these things are not war they are the good in man

Prostituted to a vile thing for I have seen the real face of War I have I have seen men killed mutilated blown to pieces I have seen men crippled for life I have looked in the face of Madness and I know that many have gone mad under its

Grip I have seen fine Natures break and crumble under the strain I have seen men grow brutalized and coarsened in this war God will judge justly in the end meanwhile there are thousands Among Us yes and among our enemy too brutalized through no fault of theirs have lost

Friends killed and shall lose more yet friends with whom I have lived and suffered so long who is for war now its Adventure its heroism B yet this is not all for war spares none it desecrates the beauty of the earth it ruins it destroys it wastes it starves children

It drives out old men and women homeless and most terrible of all it brings Agony to every house household it is like a plague of the firstborn do not think I have forgotten you oh women and old men you too have to endure the agony of the

Arena and you are compelled to sit and watch us fight the beasts every mother is there in agony watching her baby and unable to stretch a finger to help this too is war the anguish of mothers whose Sons perish of wives who lose their husbands of girls robbed for all time of

Marriage and motherhood Ood and this vile thing is still perpetrated upon the Earth among peoples who have long ago declared Human Sacrifice impossible and barbaric this then is a basil fact we have faced it fairly the instrument is vile what then of the motive what is the

Motive which drives us to use this evil instrument and I see you fathers and mothers waiting to hear what I shall say for there are people who whisper that we who are fighting are vindictive that we lust for the blood of our enemies that we are coarse and brutal that we are

Unholy champions of what we call a just cause again let us face the facts and to these Whisperers I answer boldly yes we are coarse some of us we are vindictive we hate we do not deny it for war in its vess taints its human instruments too

When Davidson died I cried death upon his murder ERS I called them devils and worse I am not ashamed that is not the point what I or Tommy maybe at a given moment is not the point the question is with what motives did we enter this war

Agree to take up this vile instrument we cannot help it if it soils our hands what is our motive in fighting in the arena what provokes the dumb heroism of our soldiers why did men flock to the colors volunteer in millions for the arena you know I who have lived with

Them eight months in France I also know it was because a people took up this vile instrument and used it from desire of power because they trampled on Justice and challenged us to thwart them because they willed War for the sake of wrong because they said that force was

Master of the world and they set out to prove it yet it is sometimes said war is unchristian if men were Christian there would be no war you cannot conquer Evil by evil I agree if men were Christian there would be no war I agree that you

Cannot conquer Evil by evil but it is war that is evil not our motive in going to war we are conquering an evil spirit by a good spirit even if we are using an evil instrument and if you say that Christ would not fight I say that none

Of us would fight if the world had attained the Christian plane towards which we are slowly Rising but we are still on a lower plane and in it there is a big war raging and in the arena there are many who have felt Christ by their side that then is the second point

I knew that war was vile before I went into it I have seen it I do not alter my opinion I went into this war prepared to sacrifice my life to prove that right is stronger than wrong I have stood again and again again with a Traverse between

Me and death I have faced the possibility of Madness I foresaw all this before I went into this war what difference does it make that I have experienced it it makes no difference let no one fear that our sacrifice has been in vain we have already won what we

Are fighting for the will for war that aggressive power with all the cards on its side prepared striking at its own moment has already failed against a Spirit weaker unprepared taken unawares and so I am clear on my second point we are fighting from just motives and we have already balked Injustice aggressive

Force the power that took up the cruel weapon of War has failed no one can ever say that his countrymen have laid down their lives in vain I got up from the chair and started walking about the garden everything was so clear before going out to the war I

Had thought these things but the thoughts were fluid they ran about in Maisy patterns they were Elusive and always I was frightened of meeting unanswerable contradictions to my theorizing from men who had actually seen War now my conclusions seemed crystallized by irrefutable experience into solid

Truth after a while I sat down again and resumed my train of thought war is evil justice is strong stronger than Force yet was there need of all this Bloodshed to prove this for this war is not as past Wars this is every man’s War a war

Of civilians a war of men who hate war of men who fight for a cause who are compelled to kill and hate it that is another thing that people will not face men whisper that Tommy does not hate Fritz again I say away with this whispering let us speak it out plain and

Bold private Davies my orderly formerly a shepherd of blo festin yog has no quarrel with one Fritz Schnider of hamborg who is sitting in the trench opposite the matter horn sap yet he will ban at him certainly if he comes over the top or if we go over into the German

Trenches I he will perform this action with a certain amount of brutality too for I have watched him jabbing at rats with a Bayonet through the wires of a rat trap and and I know that he has in him a Savage vein of Cruelty but when peace is declared he and Fritz will

Light a bonfire of trench stores in no man’s land and there will be the end of their quarrel I say boldly I know for indeed I know Davies very well indeed again I say was there need of all this Bloodshed who is responsible who is responsible for Lance corporal Allen

Lying in the trench in Maple readout again I see ywn glittering eyes looking down upon me in the arena and Davies too in his slow simple way is beginning to take you in and to ask you why is he put there to fight is it for your pleasure

Is it for your expediency is it a necessary part of your great game necessary necessary for whom Davies and Fritz alike are awaiting your answer it is hard to Trace ultimate causes it is hard to fix absolute responsibility there were many seeds sewn scattered and secretly fostered before they produced this Harvest of

Blood the seeds of Cruelty selfishness ambition avarice and indifference are always liable to swell grow and Bud and Blossom suddenly into the red flower of War let every man look into his heart and if the seeds are there let him make quick to root them out while there is

Time unless he wishes to join those glittering eyes that look down upon the arena these are the seeds of war and it is because they know that we too are not free from them that certain men have stood out from the arena as a protest against War these men are real heroes

Who for their consciences sake are enduring taunts ignominy misunderstanding and worse most men and women in the arena are cursing them and as they struggle in agony and anguish they beat their hands at them and cry you do not care I too have cursed them

When I was mad with pain but I know them and I know that they are true men I would not have one less they are witnesses against war and I too am fighting war men do not understand them now but one day they will I know that

There are among us too the seeds of War no cause has yet been perfect but I look at the facts we did not start we did not want this war we have gone into it fighting for the better cause whether had we been more Christian we might have

Prevented the war is not the point we did not want this war we are fighting against it it was the seeds of war in Germany that were responsible and so history will judge but what of the future how are we to save future Generations from going down into the

Arena we will rearrange the map of Europe we will secure the independence of small states we will give the power to the people there shall be an end of tyrannies so men speak easily of an international Spirit of a World Conference for peace there is so great a

Willpower against War they say that we will secure the world for the future millions of men know the vess of War they will devise Ways and Means to prevent its recurrence I agree let us try all ways yet I see no guarantee in all this against the glittering eyes I

See no power in all this knowledge against a new generation fostering and harvesting the seeds of war men have long known that war is evil did that knowledge prevent this war will that knowledge secure India or China from the power of the glittering eyes I walked up and down the lawn my

Eyes glowing my brain working hard here around me was all the beauty of an old Garden its long borders full of fles delphiniums stocks and all the old familiar flowers the apples glowed red in the trees the swallows were skimming across the lawn in the distance I could

Hear the rumble of the wagon bringing up the afternoon load of hop pokes to the oost house yet what I had seen of war was as true had as really happened happened as all this it would be so easy to forget after the war and yet to

Forget might mean a seed of War I must never forget Lance corporal Allen there is only one sure way I said at last and again a clear conviction filled me there is only one way to put an end to the arena pledges and treaties have failed and force will fail these things may

Bring peace for a time but they cannot CR brush those glittering eyes there is only one man whose eyes have never glittered look at the palms of your hands you who have had a bullet through the middle of it did they not give you morphia to ease the pain and did you not

Often cry out alone in the darkness in the terrible Agony that you did not care who won the war if only the pain would cease yet one man there was who held out his hand upon the wood while they knocked knocked knocked in the nail every knock bringing a jarring

Excruciating pain every bit as bad as yours and any moment his willpower could have weakened and he could have saved himself that awful pain and then they nailed through the other hand and then the feet and as they lifted the cross all the weight Came Upon the pierced

Hands and when he had tasted the vinegar he would not drink and any moment he could have come down from the cross yet he so cared that love love should win the war against evil that he never wavered his eyes never glittered do you

Want to put an end to the arena here is a man to follow in Haw signno VES I stood up again and stretched out my hands and as I did so a memory came back Vivid and strong I remembered the night when I stood out on the hillside

By Trafalgar Square under the moon and I remembered how I felt a strength out of the pain and even as the strength came a more unutterable weakness the weakness of a man battering against a wall of Steel the sound of the Relentless guns had mocked at me now as I stood on the

Lawn I heard the long continuous vibration of the guns upon the PM you are war I said aloud this is your hour the power of Darkness but the time will come when we shall follow the man who has conquered your last weapon death and then your walls of steel will waver

Cringe and fall melted away before the fire of Love end of chapter 17 end of nothing of importance by Bernard Adams recording by Lee SMY