Jigsaw Wood
Before dawn we were astir. Most of us had only slept an hour or two and were feeling draggy, but there was work to be done. There were two posts on the road to be cleared and I was called to the trench block the “original” had established. An officer from another company was there and he was going to lead an attack up the trench. It was the same narrow, straight way we had retreated from the previous afternoon and I knew it would be sheer suicide to venture up it. I went to the sergeant-major and told him so, but he said I might be mistaken. The face of the officer was enough for me. I saw him shake hands with the captain and lead by the block. The “original” fell in behind him. I was third, a new man fourth, and then there was a gap before the rest of-the party followed. It was well that gap existed. As soon as the officer stepped around the bend the machine gun fired, so suddenly, that we all went down as by a blast. The lieutenant took most of the bullets, was instantly killed. The “original” was shot through the neck. I flopped backward and bowled the new man off his feet as bullets whistled over us. The rest had not come close and none were hit. I had turned as I fell and the whole bottom part of my mess-tin, which was strapped to my haversack at the back, was shot away.
We went back and it was decided that there were better ways to manage Heinie. A flanking party caught him by surprise and he was soon put out of action. Shortly afterward we were in possession of all that ground. Another officer had been wished on us, one from the other platoons. He had been to France before and was supposed to be a dare-devil. Murray had chased a Heinie who was carrying a small machine gun, a queer weapon almost as light as a rifle. The fellow ducked into a sap leading to a latrine and was shot as he tried to scramble overland. He and the gun both fell back into the latrine pit.
The officer arrived and wanted to examine the gun. At the same time Tommy and I were sent out across the road at the head of the trenches to a forward post where we could watch and listen. It was about twenty yards in front of the trench and after having a drink of tea we were sent out again and told to keep moving on a half circle. The posts were so spread that every man was needed. Shells came over, gas shells, and Sykes and some others who were eating in a concrete underground became sick and had to get into the open.
Just before midnight we heard a German patrol quite near and shot at them. They shot back at us and then crawled to hiding. We did not know where they had gone and as we tried to locate them by listening our officer came up the trench with the gun he had resurrected. It stank dreadfully, but he had been having several issues of rum – possibly intended for the troops – and did not mind. Not satisfied with tinkering with the thing he came to our part of the front and began hammering at it in an effort to fire it. Tommy was so enraged that he took a German egg bomb from his pocket and threw it at him. The bomb exploded just a few feet from the officer and sent him scuttling down the trench, and Tommy said he wished it had gone nearer.
All the rest of that night the Germans prowled about. A party of them came down a sap towards the post Earle was on and called out in English, “Are you the Pats?”
One of the new men shouted back “no we’re the ‘forty-twas’,” before Earle could stop him.
There was silence for a moment and then two stick bombs came sailing towards them. Earle and another jumped over the trench bank and ran nearer with Mills bombs which they threw. Next morning a dead Heinie was lying in the sap. The moon was very bright and bombing planes were over. We could hear the crashes of their “eggs” back in the village and even in the support trenches. We held the safest position. All the next morning we waited for a relief and about four o’clock in the afternoon began to be withdrawn. I had had nothing to eat since morning and sat on a firestep boiling a mess-tin of tea. In order to keep awake I cleaned my rifle. I oiled the parts and had the magazine lying on the bank beside me. As I extinguished the tommy cooker I heard sudden guttural voices. The next instant a German stepped around the bay and confronted me. I had a stomach-sinking tension of nerves, but acted as if on wires. One swift motion threw the rifle up and I released the safety and pulled the trigger before my arms had straightened. There was only a dull click. The magazine and its contents were lying on the firestep. My knees weakened. I never was more frightened, but the face of the Hun was that of a man under torture. He had no means of knowing that the rifle was not loaded and I had acted so quickly that he could not dodge. We stood a few heart beats, staring at each other, then I noticed that he was unarmed. Instantly I swung the rifle club-fashion and would have used it had not a rough voice inquired “What the — is wrong here?”
I looked beyond my chap and saw other Germans huddled against the trench wall, peering at me. Pushing by them was their escort, a husky “forty-niner,” and he grinned from ear to ear as he looked at the German and my ready rifle. I told him what had happened. When he had gone I went to company headquarters on an errand and was sent from there as a guide for a platoon of the 13th Battalion which was relieving us. When I got them in place I again reported to the headquarters post. They were at the entrance to one of the concrete shelters, the cooks and signallers and runners and batmen, all seated around with their loads ready. The trench was very deep and wide and the banks were like small cliffs above us. As we waited for the captain I once more heard the German language and again had a touch of heart failure. The Huns were not in the trench but were approaching overland and it seemed impossible that any up there should be prisoners. In an instant we were all ready for action but once more it was a false alarm. A “forty-niner” had merely lost his way and was wandering around with four Germans in tow.
When we went back to the village a body was lying out near the end of the trenches. I raised the ground sheet that covered the face. It was Doggy – good old, big-footed Doggy – all through with fighting.
We billeted in rough quarters, some ruined buildings, but could have slept on spikes. An hour after we were laid down and enjoying slumber that even a bombing plane did not disturb, a new man, up with a new officer as batman, came plunging in where Tommy and I lay, shouting, “Germans – on the road!”
I woke, but not enough to realize what he was saying. In some vague way I knew I should move, but seemed incapable of action. Tommy was the only hero. He had been sleeping soundly but he sprang up and seized his rifle and rushed out ready to do or die. He saw the Germans – a file of prisoners marching along in the moonlight. Wham! It was a cruel blow, and the batman went down heavily, but Tommy was highly-strung, had been wakened out of a sleep that was sorely needed. He settled down again, but the rest of the night was filled with sudden wakenings. We would start up, bathed in perspiration despite the slight chill of the air, again facing the Huns, again watching a potato masher come sailing for us. Each hour some man cried out and ground his teeth and muttered curses.
We moved next day to Hamon Wood. It was a glorious spot. Tommy and I had a bivvy on a slope that was shadowed by great trees. Sambro came back to the battalion and was beside us. We went to the River Luce and washed away all the sweat and grime of our fighting and marching and then lay around in the cool green wood, resting and sleeping. The new officer called me to his place and lectured me because I did not have a kilt. I wore shorts, my old trues cut off above the knees, my battered steel hat, a very ragged shirt and was brown as a berry. “You,” he said, “are a very poor specimen of a soldier.”
After I escaped him I saw him in conversation with the company quarter-master but no new kilt reached me. I heard that the 85th Battalion was over near Caix Wood and when the brigade signaller came and visited me that evening I asked him to go with me to see them. We walked nine kilometers to find them. My brother was there, in good spirits, had come through the fighting without a scratch. Stanley was there also, had got his wish – his passage back to France – and he was looking forward to another big scrap in which he might take part. We sat around and talked with the boys until ten o’clock then started on our way back. Half-way home we became very hungry. It had been a long hike and we had not had a hearty supper. A Y.M.C.A. tent loomed through the night, but evidently it had been closed for some time. We saw a lone soldier near and he told us that the “Y” had just moved there that day and had not been set up. As he left us we made the discovery that neither of us had any money.
We looked around, at the stars overhead. It was a long way back to camp, and if we only had some chocolate, a box of biscuit. “Are you game?” I asked, and he nodded. In a moment we had unfastened the tent flaps and were crawling inside.
I went to the left, feeling my way for the place was pocket-black. He went to the right. A moment we crawled, then there was a startled exclamation, a gasp, a struggle. It became furious, feet threshing the earth, striking boxes. I found a match and lighted it. The signaller and a “Y” man were entangled in deadly grips and rolling on the grassy floor. The “Y” man had been sleeping there just inside the tent, without covering, and had been awakened by the palm of a hand planted firmly in his face as the signals man crept forward. Instantly the sleeper had thrown up his arms and grappled with the intruder. Wakened out of a sound sleep, in a country where all had become change and route, he did not know who might be invading his tent.
When I could stop laughing long enough to light a candle and get them separated, the “Y” man took it all in good part. I told him frankly our intentions and he not only made us tea in his own private teapot but gave us a good feed and filled our pockets. He was a prince of a fellow and laughed heartily with us as we left, saying that he had had his biggest thrill since arriving in France.
The “big guns” came to see us but the inspections were easy. There was not much cry about polish and the speech that Clemenceau made was interesting. Generals were plentiful, Haig, Rawlinson and Lipsett, and we had a nice sing-song afterwards there among the cool trees. The weather continued wonderful, sunshiny and clear, with bombing planes at night. None reached our bivouac and we marched away towards Arras.
We marched nearly all one night, as I had seen the battalion going up to Ypres, drifting along with only the shuffle of heavy boots, the creak of equipment, our steps echoing as we went through sleeping villages. The moon was full and everything bathed in white light. It was calm and cool and far better than the heat of the day, but the hours had their influence; we thought of the boys that were not with us, Christensen, and Eddie, and Lockerbie, Boland, Cockburn, Thornton and Doggy, big Haldane and strange, slow-speaking Morris. I thought of Siddal wanting me to sit beside him until he “went to sleep,” of the touch I had had when sniping with Doggy. Sambro marched beside me and now and then asked questions about the boys. He was glad to be back and I was glad he had come.
We were in “Y” Camp at Duisans and there heard rumours of another great push. The Canadians were to attack Monchy and all that hilly, wooded country beyond. It was to be another big push, and there would be more missing faces. New men joined us, a rather poor lot, and we were not as friendly with them as we should have been. Then we went to Arras, that fine old city where all French history has its ghosts. It was there that Julius Caesar had his headquarters for a time, where at the time of the Revolution the guillotine in the square lopped heads like turnips are cut in the fields at autumn, a city with underground caverns that would hold divisions, with its Grande Place full of barbed wire and grass growing between the cobbles. We went through the streets at night and stopped at ruins on the outskirts, taking refuge in connected cellars as a rather severe strafing crossed our path. It was about three in the morning when we arrived there, and the rumours said we were to go into action at half past four. We sat there in the cellar, talking, eating, smoking. Hughes sat in front of me, Murray alongside me, Hayward next him. Across from us were Earle and Harvey and two new men. It was only a small place and “Old Bill” was near Earle. They had purchased some tinned salmon and as the old fellow was going into the scrap with us they were planning to keep together.
All at once I looked up and Steve was standing beside me. He did not say a word but looked around the cellar, then at me, and nodded toward the stairway. I placed my mess-tin on the stone where I was sitting and followed him across the steps.
“Don’t go up,” Hughes said. “There’s a lot of stuff coming pretty close, and orders are to keep under cover.”
“I’ll just be a minute,” I said, and never stopped. Steve was just ahead of me, as plain to my eyes as any of the others, and I was eager, keen. Would he speak to me?
As we stepped out of the entrance to the road a salvo of shells crashed into a field just in front and, like the smoke and mist that drifted away from them, Steve faded away from view. I stood peering, watching where I had seen him last and – crash! A terrific explosion in the cellar!
I plunged down. The place was pitch-dark. There were fumes of explosives, groans. I called out. No one answered. Then I struck a light, and stood, horrified.
The place was a shambles. Hughes was leaning against the wall where he sat, blood pouring from a great hole in his head. In the corner behind him Harvey was slumped, his head bowed low while another stream of blood poured from him. Two men lay on the floor. One had a gash on his forehead and was stunned. The other watched, moved, got up and bolted like a singed cat. I never saw him again – he had been shell-shocked before he saw a trench.
Hayward staggered towards me and said his back was on fire. I tore off his clothing and found that from his shoulders down was bathed in blood. He was pitted with shrapnel. An entrance had been cut through to the cellar of the next house. I had not noticed it before but now there were voices and scared faces looked through at us. A number of stretcher bearers, Imperial chaps, and ambulance men were there. I called to them to come and lend a hand but they were shivering with fright. The shelling overhead, and the cellar explosion, had frightened them badly. We swathed Hayward in bandages and helped him away, and then I saw that “Old Bill” was busy with Earle. Earle was hit in both thighs, in the body, in one arm, and another piece had entered above one eye and destroyed it. He was terribly wounded. Murray was beside him, his arms and wrists covered with blood. A new man had been loading his rifle and had discharged it in some manner, the bullet striking a bag of bombs in the middle of the cellar.
After we got the wounded bandaged we called to the Imperials to remove Earle. But they hung back. He was a big man and the cellar passage was narrow – and the shelling outside continued. “Old Bill” and Tommy and I seized our rifles and we prodded those lads to action in a manner they had not encountered before. Up we went to the roadway, a queer procession, and we saw to it that they carried him to an ambulance before they stopped. He was conscious twice on the way down to the Base, just long enough to hear a doctor say he could not possibly live, woke the third time in England, and finally recovered. But he never came to France again.
We left the cellars. My mess-tin had been crumpled out of shape by a bomb end, and I took one of the others left by the casualties and we divided their rations. We went up into trenches on the slope and made our way slowly. It was half past four in the afternoon, instead of morning, before the battalion got into action, and then our Company remained in the rear, in reserve. We could hear machine guns and bombs ahead, but moved rapidly to our objective and the only evidence of fighting we had was the dead Germans and 42nd men we passed.
Just before dark we were in a trench on an open slope. No officer had been near us and we were told to remain where we were for the night. One of the new men in the platoon behind us started to clean his rifle. It was discharged as he fumbled with it and the bullet shattered the leg of big Dave, the ex-policeman. He was carried away on a stretcher. The night was cool. About one in the morning I heard a low voice calling. “Otto – Otto.”
It came from grass and weeds a distance in front of our trench. I roused Tommy and he and I went out. We found a wounded German, a blonde chap, badly hurt. He had been bandaged and left there. We carried him to the trench and were kind to him. At first he had been very frightened and had mumbled pitifully. When he saw that we wanted to help him he smiled. We got Sykes to attend to him and had him carried away to the rear.
Just before dawn I got up from the trench where I was lying and looked around. We had no one in charge of our section. Poor Hughes was gone, and Ab had been left at the transports – the “originals” were never taken in twice in succession in the big scraps – and Geordie was acting sergeant-major. Only Lofty remained and he was with another platoon for the moment, it having lost its sergeant. As I looked I saw heads appear above the thick grass. They came toward our trench, a long row of them, and then I saw bayonets. For the moment I was bewildered. How had the Hun got to the rear?
They came nearer, much nearer, and still I stood looking at them, unable to comprehend their movements or not knowing what to do. The men about me were still sleeping. “Who are you?” I called. I had suddenly seen that the helmets were “washbasins” and not “coal hods.”
An officer in advance aimed a pistol at me. “Who are you?” he shot back.
“Forty-twas,” I said. “Are you practicing some stunt?”
He almost wilted. Just behind him his men were all ready to throw bombs. They were of another brigade in our division and were to carry on the attack. Somehow orders were mixed and wrong directions given and had I not yelled when I did we would have been attacked. They had spotted me and thought that I was a Heinie sentry.
After they had passed on, walking upright and swearing among themselves, I roused Tommy and told him what had happened. It was well that the front ranks had passed on. The idea of being killed by his own kind as he rested did not appeal to him. That night we moved along to the ninth brigade area and after some waiting and uncertainty relieved the 58th Battalion. We were in trenches and there were rumours flying as thick as usual. It was said that the ninth brigade men had tried to take Jigsaw Wood and had been driven back after getting a foothold, and that we were to try to capture the place the next day. There is nothing worse than trying to oust a foe that has already repulsed an attack. They have the confidence while the attackers have not.
Towards morning Sparky came to me. His voice was unsteady. “Bill,” he said. “I’ve heard you chaps talk about fellows knowing when they’re going to get it. How – what gives them the idea?”
“I don’t know, Sparky,” I said. “I guess they fancy it themselves. I wouldn’t put much stock in it.”
I spoke much bolder than I thought, but it was of no use. “I never had a dream or saw or heard anything, and nothing’s happened to make me think the way I do,” he said. “But it’s just slid into my mind that I’m going to be killed to-day.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “We might be relieved without leaving these trenches. You just push that stuff out of your mind and you’ll be all right.”
“Don’t think I’m scared,” he returned, as if I had not spoken. “That’s the funny part. I’ve been scared bad most of the time, but now that I’m for it I don’t mind near as much, and if I get a chance at all I’m going to do something worth while.”
Word came that we were to attack, and without a barrage; the lines were too complicated to allow artillery support. Some of the boys looked shaky but the most of them were cool. Here and there I saw lips moving, and I believe that more mothers’ prayers were remembered in those jumping-off trenches than anywhere else on earth. I was not the least bit nervous myself. It was not that I had courage, but the fact that I could go over with a curious inexplicable feeling that my body was functioning quite apart from me. I saw myself doing strange things and seemed powerless to prevent or assist that which happened.
We left the trench, simply getting out of it without hurry and extended in groups and hurried to where rifle pits had been dug on the hillside. A machine gun fired and there was considerable sniping but not nearly the reception we had expected. Down the slope in front of us we saw a roof slanting outward, that of a little shelter, and two Germans were just outside it. I rushed toward them and Tommy and Sparky followed. The Germans ducked from view, showed themselves on the other side, and then five of them appeared and two had rifles. They fired at us. Sparky was running like a racer. I saw his body leap in the air, hurl itself, and then he was on the sod and rolling over and over. There was a look of horror and surprise in his eyes. His hands were clenched and his body jerked oddly. I asked him if he were hurt. He did not reply but caught at his middle as if suffering from cramps. His arms and legs made a few queer, stiff motions – and he was dead.
I fired at the Germans and Tommy or I winged one. The others yelled “Kamerad” and waited till we got up to them. It was a signallers’ shelter and they were all bright young fellows. They saw Sparky lying where he had huddled and I saw fear in their eyes as we approached, but we pointed back toward our trench and told them to hustle. They went in a hurry, gladly, but two of them looked behind every few steps. I went into the shelter and pocketed a map that was there as well as a photo that was stuck on the wall. It was a snapshot of the shelter and three of the men in the picture were among our prisoners.
We crossed the hollow at the foot of the slope and started up the opposite side. It was a much longer slope and grain was blowing and rustling in a soft wind. On the left we saw mounds that indicated a trench and then the Wood began. We were apparently to go up on the right of it. The sniping continued but there was very little machine gun fire. When we reached the next stop, a series of shell holes, Batten was next to us in place with McPhee and big Barney, the Lewis gunner. Suddenly, as we halted there, he looked up and said, “What does it feel like to be hit?”
“You’ll know when you get one,” said McPhee. “But would I know if I were?” he insisted. “Certainly you would,” McPhee retorted.
“Well, I never felt anything hit me,” he said, “but I can’t feel from my waist down. I’ve lost the use of my legs and I’m queer all over.”
We looked at him. He was sitting there, quite pale, and with questioning large in his eyes. Suddenly, without another word, he tipped forward, dead. A moment before he had been speaking in normal tones, asking questions. We pulled him over and found that a bullet had gone through his heart. He had died as he spoke the last time.
Sambro came over and joined me and we rushed up the hill to a small hole. Suddenly a few shells dropped about us, throwing earth sky high. There were only about a dozen of them and no one was hit. Over near the Wood we saw a runner go towards a dark entrance we knew to be a dugout. He stopped there in an instant, then ran over toward the trench. Presently an officer, one of the company commanders, walked that way with his batman. They went to the entrance and we counted eighteen Germans who came out of that dark hole with their hands above their heads.
The machine gun began barking again and we saw the platoon with the “wise guy” officer, he who had salvaged the latrine machine gun, at their head. He was leading his men toward a German trench at the beginning of the Wood. We saw several pot helmets appear and duck down again. Williams was over there, next the officer. A German captain stood up at the end of the trench and pointed his pistol at our officer and fired rapidly. Our man went down, wounded. Williams yelled and charged with his bayonet. The German fired at him three times, and sent a bullet into Williams’ thigh, then put up his hands.
“You – squarehead,” we heard Williams yell. “You needn’t put them up now.” He drove his bayonet into the captain with such force that both of them went into the trench among the Germans. But all the rest had surrendered. Hansen, one of our other Lewis gunners, had got to the edge of the Wood without being stopped, and he had a line on the trench, could have killed every man in it, so they did the “kamerad” act.
Fifteen platoon went into the Wood as soon as the prisoners were hustled away. A dozen of us kept well out and worked toward the field of grain. A maxim opened fierce fire from in front, its bullets whistled through the wheat. Jones and Mills had joined Sambro and Sykes and we made a rush that carried us to the crest of the grain field. To go further meant to show ourselves. As we lay there we heard the platoon on our left fighting with bombs in the Wood. Then, all at once, came a perfect downpour of rain, a shower that soaked us as we lay. We did not mind it the least. It was cooling, refreshing. The rain stopped as suddenly as it began and we rushed a distance before flopping again. While upright, Jones had spotted the gunners, and he fired at them. The Germans fled, but we did not know it until they were almost gone from sight. We got up and followed them.
“Let’s keep them going,” yelled Tommy. He had come up from behind and joined us. Tulloch and Thompson followed him. We hurried on at a jog trot, then I saw a great spread of camouflage – and Germans!
Not one hundred yards from us was a pile of wicker work cases. Beside them we made out a dark vent that was blocked by white faces. Germans! All watching us. We were in an open field without a bit of cover. Was it a trap? “Come on,” I yelled, and put my bayonet level in front of me and charged in a manner that would have tickled the “canaries” at the “Bull Rings.”
We ran straight at the faces and as we neared them the Germans suddenly swarmed out of their underground place with their hands aloft. It was the emplacement of a big naval gun, a monster, with its pit the size of a house. All was concealed by a grass-carpet of camouflage spread across the cavity. A major headed the men and I ran at him and searched him. He eyed me sharply but made no move to protest as I took a beautiful gold watch and a pearl-handled Luger from his pockets. Then I plunged into the pit. Two machine guns were mounted by the entrance and if the crew had decided to fight they could easily have cut us down. Back of the big gun was a heap of hasty discards, Lugers, binoculars, those round cloth red-and-gray caps they wore, and a pile of newspapers. I had picked up a bomb bucket and I filled it with pistols and field glasses, then rushed up the entrance and told the boys that there were plenty of souvenirs about. They had searched all the prisoners and Tommy had found one chap wearing a revolver under his tunic. There were thirty-five in the crew and as I looked at them, one chap nodded to one side, indicating that he would like to see me there. I could not understand his signs but had my finger on my rifle trigger and let him come over to me. He at once began talking French so rapidly that I could not understand him at all, but some of the Germans did, and we had to shout at them and menace them in order to keep them back. I caught the word “spy” and at once hustled my lad back towards our second line who were coming towards us. I never saw the lad again or verified any of the rumours I heard but Tommy said that the man was a French spy who had been with the gun crew as a member and that he had maps of all that area concealed on him.
We rushed on again. Lofty caught up to us while we were handing over the prisoners to an escort. He saw my bag of souvenirs, and growled his displeasure, then asked me for the pistols I displayed. I told him that there were lots more souvenirs ahead and those who went first would get them, but he did not seem anxious to lead the way. It had been rumoured around the platoon that I had sold my lot I got at Parvillers for two hundred francs, and I had, to airmen who seemed so anxious to buy that I regretted I had not raised my price.
All at once the fighting in the Wood seemed to quieten and we hurried as fast as possible over the field back of the emplacement. We could just see, in the distance, that two lines of trenches crossed our way. Suddenly a machine gun fired at us. Two men, one a lance-corporal, from sixteen platoon, suddenly went down, shot through the legs. We did not stop but kept on, hoping to have the Huns surrender as the others had done. I looked around and saw most of those who had caught up with us slowing down. The sight of our easy capture had incited them to join us, but machine gun bullets made the proposition look different. A fat Lewis gunner went down, shot through the leg, and then a fourth man dropped, wounded the same way. We kept on. Not a man had been killed.
Sykes had got a revolver and had it in his hand. He was running alongside of me, and Jones and Mills were close behind us. Just back of them, in a straggling line, were Tulloch and Thompson and Sambro. As we neared the first trench the machine gun stopped shooting at us and we saw the gunners getting their weapon back to the second defenses. Away on the left another Maxim was shooting from a mound, a built-up emplacement, but the bullets did not come our way. An officer jumped up from the trench and shot at us with his pistol, emptied it and never touched us. We shot back at him as we ran, but apparently he was not hit and he ran toward the second trench. Just before he reached it Jones fired. He pitched headlong to earth and we supposed him dead.
We got into the trench, a long shallow affair with numerous low-roofed shelters. I dived into the one where the officer had been and found his kit, taking from it an Iron Cross and his “housewife,” coloured thread and needles and folding scissors, as well as a dictionary of German and English. We moved along the trench to the left, Jones had taken the lead and was after the machine gunner who was still shooting at our lads near the Wood. Sykes and Tommy and I were looking in all the shelters for souvenirs. In every place there were packs and gas masks and greatcoats and blankets. Suddenly the Germans began sniping at us from the second trench, which was about one hundred yards away. We shot back at them but it got to be dangerous to show our heads. Jones worked over to the left and got in position to snipe at the gunners in their emplacement. One man left it and ran almost to the second trench before he fell. The other chap started out and ducked back again. The rest of the company were rushing in during the lull and Thompson was wounded as he looked over the trench bank. Hansen, the Lewis gunner, and Lofty came tumbling in. Meanwhile a few men were coming from the Wood and it was necessary to prevent the machine gun from getting into action. Jones rushed along the trench and although the snipers shot at him they missed him. We saw the gunner bolt and then Sykes and Mills and I hurried after Jones. We came to a covered-in part and both Mills and I went under it on our hands and knees. Sykes waited a moment, then leaped outside and ran around and jumped in the trench again on the far side of the covered part. I had just emerged there and he fell at my feet. I heard a queer, bubbling sound and dropped beside him. His jugular had been cut by a sniper’s bullet. He was dead before Mills got through the tunnel.
With the machine gun out of action, men came with a rush. One big shelter in the centre of the trench was a sort of headquarters, and there Geordie and Flighty rested. Tulloch went into it with another man just as a barrage opened. The Hun strafed us with whizz bangs and there were many bursts very near the trench. We spread out as much as possible and Sambro and I occupied one bivvy. There came a cry for stretcher-bearers and word came that Lofty had been wounded badly in the stomach. Shortly after we saw his stretcher being pushed out at the back and then he was carried away. I could see that “Old Bill” was one of his carriers.
Wham! There came a very sharp explosion, very close. We saw smoke and dust in a cloud. The big shelter had been blown in, a shell exploding on its roof. We rushed to the wreckage and found one man dead; Tulloch with a leg shredded; Flighty wounded and Geordie with his third Blighty, a very painful wound. We got him on a stretcher and Sambro and I helped lift him out. Then came a call for me and I was ordered to take a man with me and go back to meet our relieving battalion and guide a company to our position.
Sambro offered to go with me, and as men were needed in the trench we helped carry Geordie as we went. A new man was teamed at one end with Sambro and I had a German prisoner as my partner. It was a long journey back over the field we had covered in the afternoon and had got dark. We reached the trench we had left in the morning and went through a part the R.C.R.’s had captured. There we stopped to rest and I saw several dead Canadians nearby. Something urged me to go over and look at them, and there lay old Peter, his rifle still gripped in his hands, his body smashed by shrapnel. Near him were two men I knew well from my home town.
We went on and Geordie suffered much pain. At length we reached battalion headquarters and there found a party of prisoners squatted about a dugout entrance. Tulloch arrived on a stretcher just as we left to meet our relieving company.
It was almost dawn by the time we had gone back once more over the same route and completed the relief. Again we walked down the slope and into the hollow where Batten lay in his crater. On again by old Peter, killed in fighting out in front, as he wished. Then we reached the big dugout again. Flighty was lying there on a stretcher and Geordie was still there. I went to see Tulloch – and he was dead! Sambro and I had given him a cigarette and talked with him as we had left on the way up, and he was talking about his “jake blighty.” He didn’t mind losing one leg, he said.
Morning came and we kept on down toward Arras. It seemed a long, long way and the men began falling out. Sambro sat down to rest but I kept on and on and at last staggered into the barracks we were to use, almost asleep on my feet. Ab was there to meet the stragglers and he grinned at me sheepishly. I had never been left out of any scrap but I knew I would hate to wait there and meet the survivors.
We slept all the rest of that day and all that night. Next morning I went out to the “Y” canteen and sold one pistol and a pair of field glasses, getting one hundred and fifty francs. I now felt rich and as the rations were poor and we had not had parcels for a time, resolved that I would get a good feed for all our crew. I fell in line in a queue and when I reached the counter asked for a dozen tins of cherries and the same of peaches. The clerk looked at me pityingly. “Don’t you know,” he said, “that you can only have one of anything.”
“But why?” I asked. There seemed to be an endless supply on the shelves and in piled cases at the rear.
“Because we never know how much the officers will want,” he said irritably.
I got “one of each” and went outside. Tommy was waiting for me and I told him my luck. He went wild, would have charged the counter. “Officers!” he raved. “The ratters feed on the best in the land, double what we get, and all prepared for them, and rum to go with it, and not doing one quarter the work we do. Bah – batmen to wait on them, keeping that many less to do the work in the trenches, meaning we’ve got to take that many more chances, do more hours on duty. And now we’ve got money we can’t buy anything because the dears might want a little extra to entertain guests or French Janes. Officers only – I’ll …”
It was difficult to quiet him. Tommy was getting worn and tired. It seemed years since we had come to France and he had seen so many of our lads maimed and broken or left on the fields and in trenches. As I got him to go away without trying to do damage we saw a batman come from the rear of the building. He was carrying a case of tinned cherries. I knew him and at once stopped him and asked questions. He grinned at us and seemed glad to show just how clever he and his kind were. “Sure, I can get all I want,” he said. “This lot’s for a feed a bunch of us are having. We just get an order signed, tell our officer we need the stuff, then go and get it. We’ll use half the lot ourselves.”
I looked at the blank chits he carried, and when we went back we got paper and made up a few. Then we watched the canteen until the clerk was relieved by another and went to him with an order for a case of tinned fruit. We got it without a question being asked, and went again for biscuits and chocolate, even getting a box of Marguerite cigars, a kind that were “Old Bill’s” favorites. Back at the barracks that night we had a glorious time, and then I was told to go and look at battalion orders. They stated that I had been made a lance-corporal. Davies had never asked me what I wished regarding the matter, had simply put the promotion through. Three times I had refused it, and I intended to do so again, but Tommy argued that if I did not take the “dog’s leg” some of the new men might get it, and make things rotten for the few of the old gang that remained.
The bombing planes were busy and the Hun also shelled the city. We went to the station and looked about it. The next day we were moved just outside to a cemetery area. Sambro and I had a bed together in a grassy hollow, not bothering to dig in and make a shelter, and in the night several big shells fell very close to us. We did not leave our place, however, and in the morning saw several graves that had been torn wide, leaving shattered caskets and skeletons in the glare of the morning sun. Near us was a man with a long black beard and with some decoration on his black frock coat. He looked as if he had not been buried more than a week and was in a sitting-up position, thrown that way by a shell explosion.
Again we moved up front, a long hike, Sambro and Tommy and I together, chatting about those we had left behind; Tulloch with his blighty talk; Sykes with his books; poor Corporal Hughes, killed in a cellar accidentally, after all he had survived; and then were silent as we wondered who were the next to go, what we would face next time. War seemed a different thing now, no six days in and six days out of the trenches, no six-hour shifts on posts, but “over the top” work, charging Hun machine guns, killing around trench bays with bomb and bayonet, and we had got so accustomed to German prisoners and wounded that they no longer seemed something alien and apart. I had seen Sambro and a dark-haired Heinie sitting together on a trench bank, smoking, had seen Tommy give the last water in his bottle to a wounded man in gray. And I was conscious of a change in myself. I felt old, indescribably weary at times, dull, listless; indifferent to anything but thoughts of Steve.
Cave returned to the battalion. I seldom visited headquarters, but I knew he had been away a long time and now he wore a Sam Browne and was an officer. He greeted me as kindly as ever. I saw Naufts. Sedgewick was with him but he did not recognize me. Seeing him made me think of Jimmy and I looked him up. He was taciturn, gloomy, smoking by himself; did not care what the battalion did or where they went.
We went into the cellar of a Chateau and from there did several carrying parties. I was sent on patrols and worked along ground where the only line I was sure of was our own posts. There were no trenches fenced with wire to guide one, and sunken roads gave cover to both friend and foe. We were in good quarters and the building over us had not been damaged to any extent. Back a distance there was a pond and the wreckage of a German training school. Beyond it lay a one-street village, badly battered by shell fire. Tommy and I decided to visit it.
We made our way over in the mist of a showery morning and reached the place without difficulty. We had no blankets and had slept cold for a few nights, as it was September and a chill was in the air. The first few houses were so wrecked that there was nothing to get. The Huns had entered with axes and smashed every stick of furniture, even to the pictures on the walls, had driven their tools into the walls, crashed doors from hinges, broken all the windows. It was simply a scene of wanton, hellish destruction.
The priest’s house was not so badly wrecked, and an inner chamber was almost intact. We stripped the bed of fine sheets and pillows and a beautiful eiderdown puff. I went into the cellar and found nothing, but as I turned to come up noticed a cupboard stood in one corner. It did not seem to belong to the cellar and we examined it thoroughly but it was empty. Then Tommy tugged it away from the wall to look behind – and there was a square opening in the masonry!
We lighted a candle and peered in. It was a small circular place, with shelves ringed around it, and on the shelves were hundreds of bottles. We took them to the light and discovered that they were the finest wines that France produced, and some of them were quite aged. We gathered a dozen of them into our sheets and stole from the place. Not half an hour later the Hun dropped shells all along the street we had travelled.
Back in the cellar we slept warmly and comfortable but our bottled treat was misused. Several of the boys got so jovial over the wine that we had to take the rest from them, and the sergeant-major was a perplexed man. He could not figure the source of supply.