The "atmosphere" of the place was painfully reminiscent to the survivors from the previous September of the nerve-wrecking task that had been their unfortunate lot during that Baptism of Fire. The grim devastation of the flat, water-covered countryside enforced upon the spirits something of its own desolation. Everywhere the gaunt, sh.e.l.l-shattered trees, through which o" nights the incessant red glow eastward penetrated just as it had four months before. Day and night the perpetual roar of artillery, the heavy shock of falling bombs, the familiar KR-UMP!
And the knowledge that the brief security of life had pa.s.sed. Again, already, none knew who might not glimpse the dawn; again the h.e.l.l-hot shrapnel and the writhing human flesh. To-morrow that arm may be a shattered, jagged hanging "thing" ... how firm, fine, and white it looks: smooth, strong....
You look curiously along the line of adjacent faces. Can ALL come through--impossible. Who will go under first ... will it be YOU? Wonder what it is like to die? Men had often fallen limply near by, a small round hole in the forehead and a trickle of blood. They seemed calm enough ... wonder where they went ... did they KNOW they were dead? Do you feel the bullet whistling through your brain ... do you have one last lightning thought cut short, "This is Death!"...?
Anyhow, what of it ... others have done it. If they could, you could!
Before going up into the icy-cold of water-logged semi-trenches the feet were treated with special attention to counteract the action of continual wet and frost upon the flesh. If the utmost care is not taken, and the dreaded "trench feet" fastens its fierce grip upon the victim, there lies before him many weeks of agony in hospital, haunted daily by a chance of losing one or both feet. All this without the glad consolation of a WOUND!
Washed in warm water, the feet are greased and powdered and new socks placed carefully over before setting out on the trudge Linewards.
Trench equipment is issued, two days" rations served out, and a start is made in the night. Stumpy lost his "grub" by misadventure, but found somebody else"s, withstood a fierce argument for ten minutes and finally pacified his opponent by "finding" still another issue.
Hoa.r.s.e orders sent men probing about for their rifles and a.s.sortment of equipment.
The Ten Hundred filed out.
XII
Pa.s.sCHENDAELE SECTOR
Eyes gazing eastward at the rising and falling Verey Lights in Jerry"s lines, the Ten Hundred trudged wearily along a sodden plank "road"
winding into a stretch of muddy track strewn on all sides with the gruesome conglomeration of war"s jetsam.
The way had to be carefully chosen past sh.e.l.l-holes full of water, with here and there a slowly twirling body, a white face shining hideously in the damp night air. To the south a wavering ma.s.s of searchlights flitted over the sky. Archie guns were raising a fierce distant clamour, the white puffs from their bursting shrapnel showing like gigantic s...o...b..a.l.l.s in the glare, but no trace of the Fritz airmen was visible. A series of violent concussions and the faint high-up throb of aero engines were the only indications of his gambols.
Then silent filing along a poor system of filthy trenches ... the other battalion was relieving. Posting of men, reliefs....
To stand there in the night, suffering acutely from the cold, unmoving, staring fascinated across the little stretch of desolation between the lines and to watch fanciful shadows until the mind falls prey to apprehensive imagination construing the posts and wiring into great fantastic grey-cloaked figures. Then at the turn of the head--WHAT is that? In one frenzied movement the rifle is levelled across the parapet, first pressure of the trigger taken and the shadowy bulk watched. Five long minutes of intense scrutiny--it MOVED, or was it mere fancy? There again--crack!! And the figure has not fallen ... so through the darkness, until day reveals a shrivelled form tangled up on the wire where it died days ago.
Parts of the area were simply connected sh.e.l.l-holes, outposts, the occupants of which might for hours at a stretch be completely isolated from the remainder of their battalion, and, receiving no visit from anyone, have not the merest inkling of what was going on outside of what lies before their own limited vision.
The failure of water supply reaching these outposts increased an already severe existence. Someone would go "over the top," crawl to and fill water-bottles up at the nearest sh.e.l.l-hole. A body or limb might be at the bottom--who cares! The water is rank, putrid, evil-smelling; but the fierce, mad craving for drink is not to be denied.
A sh.e.l.l found one of the small advanced posts, killed a few outright and gashed a long tear into the abdomen of the one survivor. He languished there alone with the dead for eight hours--they had been "lost." He was found, removed, died before reaching a Casualty Clearing Station.
Inexorable law of Chance.
Fritz sent over gas sh.e.l.ls night and day, hampering rationing parties, and enforcing prolonged agony inside the hot respirators. Gas, heavier than air, hangs low over the ground, follows inundations up and down, and slinks across water: hanging for days over damp soil, and permeating water with a sickly colour--an obvious danger to troops drinking this liquid.
Where the country was flooded duck-boards were raised to a height sufficient to stand above the water and presented at night (all movements are generally done at nightfall) an alluring task of maintaining balance on a narrow planking (couple of feat or so) adorned with no handrails or supports and invisible five feet away. When Fritz sends over gas and respirators have to be donned during the intricate negotiation of this "pathway"----!
Clarke and Bennet, moving gingerly beneath two heavy ration issues, paused abruptly to duck to a whining sh.e.l.l. The latter slipped, fell off into the miniature ocean, clambered out.
"Oh, "ell, bloomin" bread too--LOOK OUT!"
"That"s the second dud."
"Yes, must be gas." Respirators on they were unable to peer a foot either way, sat down uncomfortably on the boards and waited for the attack to move away. But when they did stand up and gazed about them ...
WHICH WAY WAS WHICH?
The absence in places of any line or wiring (posts would not stand up in the watery soil) permitted men o" nights to wander unawares towards the Fritz trenches. A crack, a fall--for weeks the body would lie outside the enemy lines until it rotted and fell apart. And someone was posted "Missing."
Trench feet began to find its victims among the young Staffords--they trekked away in agony, but withal glad to get out of it. With the puzzling rapidity of trench casualties the daily roll increased without anyone quite grasping how or when this or that man went. He would be with you this morning, to-morrow you would miss him; inquire and learn that he had stopped a Blighty.
Evans, an adherent of the occult, vowed that he had been visited by some eternal being of the spirit world. Stumpy was profoundly interested.
"Wot"d "e say?"
"Nothing much. Only that somethin" would portend for me to-morrow."
"Oh, did "e want a drink?"
"Course not."
"If "e "ad asked you for your rum ration, would you," anxiously, ""ave given it to "im."
"Couldn"t: "adn"t any left."
"Wot woz "e like?"
"Tall, shadowy."
"An" you really believes it?"
"Yus. I "ave proof--"
"I see. I, I s"pose "e could give you anything you asked "im for?"
"Within reason."
"Then," whispered ironically, "ask "im next time to give me a soft Blighty an" a drop of toddy, an", oh, some bloomin" f.a.gs."
"Can"t be done, for something will "appen to me to-morrow."
He was wrong; decided that the spook had altered for his own good reasons the daily course of his life and eagerly awaited a visit that never materialised. Stumpy was disgusted.
"All me eye. I know it wasn"t a bloomin" spook when I "eard "e "adn"t asked for a drink. Wot on earth would anyone visit these yere bloomin"
trenches for unless he smelt rum?"
"You don"t understand."
"No, an" bloomin" well don"t want to. A spook wot rejoins "is ole friends on earth an" don"t even offer "em a drink is unnatural--that"s wot I say."
The large, dry and roomy dug-out beloved by the armchair artist, very, very rarely offers its cosy hospitality to the warrior dwelling in the Front Line--even if there is anything bearing a faint resemblance to such an elaboration it is immediately seized by Company Headquarters.
The inter-connecting series of holes occupied by the Normans and flattered with the term "trenches" had cut here and there into the wet soil a number of side excavations of smart proportions that served the purpose of shelter from the elements and sh.e.l.ls alike--a heavy barrage from a pea-shooter would have blown in the muddy roofs of these water-logged death traps.