The Germans held much of the high ground on the Somme. This was a major advantage, because it allowed them to more easily observe the Allies' positions. To counter this, the British regularly sent up observation planes and balloons to photograph and map the opposing lines and used the information to plot German artillery positions and subject them to accurate counter-battery fire. Many German guns were put out of action this way. The Germans were well aware of the value of this intelligence, and so were equally active in trying to destroy Allied observation planes and balloons. The British therefore massed fighter aircraft to protect the observers and continue the flow of vital information to Allied High Command. German aircraft, although more numerous, seldom flew deep behind the British front, restricting their activity to strafing the infantry in frontline and support trenches rather than seeking out and directing counter-battery fire onto the Allied gun emplacements.
This is what Nulla and his mates observe from their position in the support line – a British fighter plane protecting an observation plane from a German Taube. It is a kind of frightening entertainment that momentarily shifts their attention away from the messy, muddy ground war onto a different, yet just as deadly, kind of fighting. There is no talking, no joking, amongst the men as they watch the struggle, and as readers we can feel their relief when the Allied pilot sees off the enemy. He sweeps past and waves at the men on the ground, who are calling up and waving to congratulate and perhaps thank him for his efforts – a brief moment of contact between these two diverse but integral fighting forces.
And then, for the men, it is back to their war, a war of long days and nights in the cold mud. Though the winter had slowed down the fighting, there was still plenty of work for soldiers on the Western Front, as there was much infrastructure that needed to be built or repaired before the recommencement of hostilities in the northern spring. The lull in active fighting meant High Command could put the men to the urgent tasks of road building, repair and extension of light rail lines, and rebuilding trenches, underground shelters and lines of communication.
Ammunition had to be brought to the line, as did duckboards, to be laid on trench floors or muddy tracks. Nissen bow huts – prefabricated semi-circular steel structures that were designed as an alternative to tents – had to be erected in rear areas. By the end of the war, over 100,000 bow huts and 10,000 hospital huts had been built and these were seen as the leading hut technology.
Brigade camps, where men would rest and train when they were out of the line, also needed to be completed. Engineering units and labour battalions did some of this work, but 'fatigues', parties of men from the fighting battalions who were now in the support lines or rest areas, were also given this kind of work.
Nulla mentions that his platoon is sent out on a fatigue, a 'dangerous trip to Gueudecourt to gather up old iron'. The iron is no doubt to be recycled for use in the war effort: as the conflict drags into its third year, every resource the Allies can get their hands on is valuable. The reason Nulla describes this seemingly innocuous fatigue of picking up scrap metal as 'dangerous' is that the village of Gueudecourt was no more than a kilometre behind the frontline at this time and was being shelled by the Germans at a rate of one shell per minute, day and night. Later in Somme Mud, Nulla surmises that the reason for this intense shelling is that when the Germans retreated north, they left behind a large dump of shells in Gueudecourt and were trying to destroy them before the Allies got them. This may have been one of the many 'furphies' or rumours Lynch heard on the front, but the real aim was to prevent the town being used by the Allies as a billeting or staging area from which operations could be launched.
Nulla and his platoon make it back from their fatigue to the support line, and as the morning breaks they see a small party of men coming along the duckboard track from Delville Wood. When fired upon with shells, the men instinctively run for the shelter of a disabled tank nearby, not knowing what Nulla and his mates know: that the Germans, realising men will do the obvious thing and seek shelter beside it, have the range of this tank accurately. As they hold the high ground south of Bapaume, it is also likely that the Germans can see men moving in this area.
Lynch vividly captures the randomness of the battlefield in a scene where several of the men are killed even though they run from the tank to the support trench, while one man who 'moves slowly, without a duck or a flinch' survives. Rather than rush to the relative safety of the trench like the rest, he stops to bend over one of his fallen mates to remove his personal belongings, no doubt to send home to his family. As shells burst around him, he slowly walks on, unscathed. 'The luck of the game,' Nulla concludes.
So much of the world Nulla finds himself in is random, devoid of reason. All the old certainties of life seem to have gone. One of the men injured on his way from the abandoned tank, who has serious wounds to his head and body, and a smashed arm, somehow survives, while another, with a single finger shot off, dies of shock on his stretcher. Nulla supposes it must all come down to a 'matter of constitution'.
In many instances, men were buried where they fell. Though their grave would have been crudely marked and a record possibly kept of its location, bodies were often turned over in the subsequent shelling of the area, blown apart and lost forever. Others might appear in a trench wall, such as the hand in the previous chapter and the top of a skull as described by Nulla in this chapter. Polished like a billiard ball, someone had written 'The Dome of St Paul's' and beneath it 'drawn a fine fat spider'. The spider, we are told, is 'to keep the flies away'. Typical trench humour, though it did of course disgust some men.
Today, all along the frontline are cemeteries; literally hundreds of them. The condition in which they are kept is remarkable thanks to the meticulous care of the staff of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The row upon row of standard white headstones are such a powerful and sad reminder of the war.
Back in Switch Trench, Nulla has just enough time for some warm bully beef stew when German shells crash along the frontline. Switch Trench had been part of a long German line that was now held by the Allies. Its western end intersected the Albert–Bapaume road above Pozières, just near the windmill, and the eastern end was near Péronne. Although smashed by shellfire, it provided a rear rest area with cookhouses, stores dumps, aid posts and company headquarters. And it was also a favoured target for the German artillery, who knew exactly where the trench-line ran – given they had built it – and had their guns ranged on it to the metre.
Under enemy shelling, the cosy, once protective hollows in the sides of trenches, not a metre below the surface, became a death trap for the Australians. Long sections of trench-line would be blown away and walls would collapse. Men were regularly buried, if not killed outright, by the explosions, flying fragments of metal, or concussion. The desperate calls for shovels or stretcher-bearers or, as Nulla recounts, of 'Dugout blown in!' were a chilling reality for men in this part of the support line. With shells landing randomly, remaining to dig to save a man's life must have taken exceptional courage.
Amidst the terrible shelling, in this chapter Lynch tells one of the most moving stories of mateship in all of Somme Mud. Scotty and Blue, both terribly wounded in the same part of the trench, think not of themselves but of each other. Blue, sodden with blood and 'dragging his shattered legs after him', tries to refuse help, telling the uninjured men to find Scotty. When they find Scotty, he has horrific injuries to his face – 'his top lip is slit clean back from his teeth' and 'blood is pouring from his face and filling his gas respirator bag'– yet he manages to ask after Blue. Throughout Somme Mud we are constantly reminded of the compassion and unselfishness of the diggers. Nulla, understanding these mates' bond, gently reassures Scotty about Blue's condition. '"Yes, got a Blighty. Coupla leg wounds," I lie to him ...' The phrase 'got a Blighty' was widely used at the time, meaning that a man had received a wound not bad enough to kill him but to get him evacuated to Britain.
And indeed, it turns out that despite the horrific appearance of his injuries, the doctors believe Blue will live, though he will lose his left foot. It is a terrible price to pay, but seven of his fellow men have lost their lives. Carnage has now become so commonplace that Nulla and his mates crawl back into their dugout and shiver themselves to sleep.