Regimental no. 1967
Rifle no. 1695
Pte Ashbridge Pendennis
Dizzy, sick and exhausted by the time we got to Kemmel. Don’t think I ever felt seedier. Trudged in full view of the Huns up on the hill. No idea why they didn’t mow us down. A miracle.
Officers got told off. Came in cattle trucks, then buses that still had ‘London General Omnibus Company’ on the sides, but then it was slogging through mud and rain, mile after mile, with rifle, ammo, a cape, a goatskin and supplies. Aching and shivering, sweating and freezing. End of my greatcoat so soaked in earth and water. Terribly heavy. Sidney and Albert and I ended up almost carrying each other. Thank God they were there. Arrived, slumped down and slept, without removing our webbing. Could hear bombardment not far off. First time under fire, and too tired to care. Am extra fit because of ribbing about being a Yank, so always trained hard to be one and a half times as good.
Kept worrying about when I would get a chance to zero my sights. Was thinking, ‘What’s the point of this gun if I aim it and miss?’ Other fellows had been developing the same obsession.
My gun quite old, but good. Nice feel to it. Obviously loved by a previous owner. ‘PLG’ in tiny letters on the stock, and a lot of wax or boot polish rubbed into the woodwork. Glows dark brown. Barrel immaculate, not one pit. Bolt slides perfectly. Must always look out for mud up the barrel, because then it could explode in your hands. Took a tip and plugged the muzzle with a tiny cork from a medicine bottle. Am almost as worried about looking after that cork as I am about the gun.
Wonder who PLG was, and whether still alive. Think of him as a guardian spirit. If he’s dead, hope he watches over me and his old Lee–Enfield. Fear that the first time I get a chance to take a potshot at Fritz, will feel sorry for him and funk it. Might aim at the ground, and made him skip.
You pick up on the lore of a unit almost as soon as you join it. The lore is one of the things that keeps you together. It’s very like the stories that come down families, so that things that happened to your grandmother almost seem as if they had happened to you. Must write them down sometime.
Trenches taken over from the French. Just channels of slime. No wire, no sandbags, no proper parapets, no communication trench. Too shallow, so have to sit down in the mud, but if lucky might find the chest of a Frenchman to sit down on. Strange and disconcerting at first, but am already used to how dead bodies sigh if you sit on them.
Deep hole full of water in our trench, keep forgetting it’s there. Sink into it up to your thighs. Good for thinning the half-inch of mud encrusting greatcoats. Hell to be made to march in greatcoats. Some lads cut the bottoms off.
German lines higher than ours, only a hundred yards away. Huns always have the high ground, simply because they got there first. Always have the advantage of us in a firefight, but I think we lose just as many men to sickness, including our doctor.
Snowed and froze, but mostly rained. Work at night, so sleep in the afternoons, but sometimes sleep in snatches, just two minutes during busy times. You can’t sleep wearing webbing and water bottle, but not allowed to take them off. Groundsheet isn’t big enough, so you sleep sitting up, with your helmet on, so that drips fall away onto shoulders. In the front line we’re not permitted to remove our boots and socks. Puttees leave horrible trackmarks round legs. Bad idea to take off boots in icy weather anyway, because they freeze solid. Can’t get them on again.
Stand to on firing step at dawn every day. All night for preparation, so best time to attack. Fritz does exactly the same thing, of course, and no attack ever comes. All casualties from snipers and shellfire. Proper attacks rare as alligator feathers.
Regiment lost twelve officers and 250 men to enemy action, exposure, exhaustion and frostbite, before I got here. Relieved by Royal Scots Fusiliers in December. Boys ate nothing but bully beef. You open the tins with a bayonet.
Thank God for rum ration. That navy stuff goes right down to your toes and heats you all the way back up again. Sincerely hate any NCO who tries to cream it off.
Rum and cigarettes; I guess that’s what a soldier lives for. Swap my cigarettes for rum, and think it a darned good deal too.
Couldn’t hold the line after middle of January. Lost too many men. Transport people volunteered to come and fight in place of our dead.
Began to think that there’s something about a young man that makes him want to die, and die well, whilst still at the height of life, whilst still not tired of it. Or maybe war so terrible that the prospect of death entices. Is it a comfort not to have to face the future? We all end up discarded on the midden of time, so might as well be flung there now. Ain’t I quite the philosopher?
Not thinking along those lines. I have Rosie to live for. Told her I was her angel, but really she’s mine. Also knew that if I was killed she’d never have the chance to become disillusioned. She’d never get tired. We’d never have an argument. I’d be young, strong, handsome forever. Would never watch her grow old, either. No plans to die, but it might be a good thing before I let her down. If I die, the vision lives.
Impossible to imagine oneself being dead, because one is still there, imagining it. That’s how we can watch our comrades die, and carry on. If I imagine myself dead, I’m still at Rosie’s side.