[Illustration: CORPORAL HOLMES IN THE UNIFORM OF THE 22ND LONDON BATTALION, QUEEN'S ROYAL WEST SURREY REGIMENT, H. M. IMPERIAL ARMY. _Frontispiece_. ]

A YANKEE IN THE TRENCHES

By

R. DERBY HOLMES

CORPORAL OF THE 22D LONDON BATTALION OF THEQUEEN'S ROYAL WEST SURREY REGIMENT

_ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS_

BOSTONLITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY1918

 Dedication

 TO MARION A. PUTTEE, SOUTHALL, MIDDLESEX, ENGLAND, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK AS A TOKEN OF APPRECIATION FOR ALL THE LOVING THOUGHTS AND DEEDS BESTOWED UPON ME WHEN I WAS A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

FOREWORD

I have tried as an American in writing this book to give the publica complete view of the trenches and life on the Western Front as itappeared to me, and also my impression of conditions and men as Ifound them. It has been a pleasure to write it, and now that I havefinished I am genuinely sorry that I cannot go further. On thelecture tour I find that people ask me questions, and I have triedin this book to give in detail many things about the quieter sideof war that to an audience would seem too tame. I feel that thepublic want to know how the soldiers live when not in the trenches, for all the time out there is not spent in killing and carnage. Asin the case of all men in the trenches, I heard things and storiesthat especially impressed me, so I have written them as hearsay, not taking to myself credit as their originator. I trust that thereader will find as much joy in the cockney character as I did andwhich I have tried to show the public; let me say now that no finerbody of men than those Bermondsey boys of my battalion could befound. 

I think it fair to say that in compiling the trench terms at theend of this book I have not copied any war book, but I have givenin each case my own version of the words, though I will confessthat the idea and necessity of having such a list sprang fromreading Sergeant Empey's "Over the Top. " It would be impossible towrite a book that the people would understand without the aid ofsuch a glossary. 

It is my sincere wish that after reading this book the reader mayhave a clearer conception of what this great world war means andwhat our soldiers are contending with, and that it may awaken theAmerican people to the danger of Prussianism so that when in thefuture there is a call for funds for Liberty Loans, Red Cross work, or Y. M. C. A. , there will be no slacking, for they form the realtriangular sign to a successful termination of this terribleconflict. 

R. DERBY HOLMES. 

 CONTENTS

 FOREWORD I JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY II GOING IN III A TRENCH RAID IV A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS V FEEDING THE TOMMIES VI HIKING TO VIMY RIDGE VII FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK VIII ON THE GO IX FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS X FOLLOWING THE TANKS INTO BATTLE XI PRISONERS XII I BECOME A BOMBER XIII BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN XIV THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP XV BITS OF BLIGHTY XVI SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY" GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG

 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

 Corporal Holmes in the Uniform of the 22nd London Battalion, Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment, H. M. Imperial Army _Frontispiece_

 Reduced Facsimile of Discharge Certificate of Character

 A Heavy Howitzer, Under Camouflage

 Over the Top on a Raid

 Cooking Under Difficulties

 Head-on View of a British Tank

 Corporal Holmes with Staff Nurse and Another Patient, at Fulham Military Hospital, London, S. W. 

 Corporal Holmes with Company Office Force, at Winchester, England, a Week Prior to Discharge

A YANKEE IN THE TRENCHES

CHAPTER I

JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY

Once, on the Somme in the fall of 1916, when I had been over thetop and was being carried back somewhat disfigured but still in thering, a cockney stretcher bearer shot this question at me:

"Hi sye, Yank. Wot th' bloody 'ell are you in this bloomin' rowfor? Ayen't there no trouble t' 'ome?"

And for the life of me I couldn't answer. After more than a year inthe British service I could not, on the spur of the moment, sayexactly why I was there. 

To be perfectly frank with myself and with the reader I had no verylofty motives when I took the King's shilling. When the great warbroke out, I was mildly sympathetic with England, and mighty sorryin an indefinite way for France and Belgium; but my sympathies werenot strong enough in any direction to get me into uniform with achance of being killed. Nor, at first, was I able to work up anycompelling hate for Germany. The abstract idea of democracy did notfigure in my calculations at all. 

However, as the war went on, it became apparent to me, as I supposeit must have to everybody, that the world was going through one ofits epochal upheavals; and I figured that with so much history inthe making, any unattached young man would be missing it if he didnot take a part in the big game. 

I had the fondness for adventure usual in young men. I liked to seethe wheels go round. And so it happened that, when the war wasabout a year and a half old, I decided to get in before it was toolate. 

On second thought I won't say that it was purely love for adventurethat took me across. There may have been in the back of my head asneaking extra fondness for France, perhaps instinctive, for I wasborn in Paris, although my parents were American and I was broughtto Boston as a baby and have lived here since. 

Whatever my motives for joining the British army, they didn't havetime to crystallize until I had been wounded and sent to Blighty, which is trench slang for England. While recuperating in one of thepleasant places of the English country-side, I had time to acquirea perspective and to discover that I had been fighting fordemocracy and the future safety of the world. I think that myexperience in this respect is like that of most of the youngAmericans who have volunteered for service under a foreign flag. 

I decided to get into the big war game early in 1916. My firstthought was to go into the ambulance service, as I knew several menin that work. One of them described the driver's life about asfollows. He said:

"The _blessés_ curse you because you jolt them. The doctors curseyou because you don't get the _blessés_ in fast enough. TheTransport Service curse you because you get in the way. You eatstanding up and don't sleep at all. You're as likely as anybody toget killed, and all the glory you get is the War Cross, if you'relucky, and you don't get a single chance to kill a Hun. "

That settled the ambulance for me. I hadn't wanted particularly tokill a Hun until it was suggested that I mightn't. Then I wanted toslaughter a whole division. 

So I decided on something where there would be fighting. And havingdecided, I thought I would "go the whole hog" and work my wayacross to England on a horse transport. 

One day in the first part of February I went, at what seemed anearly hour, to an office on Commercial Street, Boston, where theywere advertising for horse tenders for England. About three hundredmen were earlier than I. It seemed as though every beach-comber andpatriot in New England was trying to get across. I didn't get thejob, but filed my application and was lucky enough to be signed onfor a sailing on February 22 on the steam-ship _Cambrian_, boundfor London. 

 [Illustration: REDUCED FACSIMILE OF DISCHARGE CERTIFICATE OF CHARACTER. ]

We spent the morning of Washington's Birthday loading the horses. These government animals were selected stock and full of ginger. They seemed to know that they were going to France and resented itkeenly. Those in my care seemed to regard my attentions as apersonal affront. 

We had a strenuous forenoon getting the horses aboard, and sailedat noon. After we had herded in the livestock, some of the officersherded up the herders. I drew a pink slip with two numbers on it, one showing the compartment where I was supposed to sleep, theother indicating my bunk. 

That compartment certainly was a glory-hole. Most of the men hadbeen drunk the night before, and the place had the rich, balmyfragrance of a water-front saloon. Incidentally there was a gooddeal of unauthorized and undomesticated livestock. I made a limitedacquaintance with that pretty, playful little creature, the"cootie, " who was to become so familiar in the trenches later on. He wasn't called a cootie aboard ship, but he was the same bird. 

Perhaps the less said about that trip across the better. It lastedtwenty-one days. We fed the animals three times a day and cleanedthe stalls once on the trip. I got chewed up some and stepped on afew times. Altogether the experience was good intensive trainingfor the trench life to come; especially the bunks. Those sleepingquarters sure were close and crawly. 

We landed in London on Saturday night about nine-thirty. Theimmigration inspectors gave us a quick examination and we wereturned back to the shipping people, who paid us off, --two pounds, equal to about ten dollars real change. 

After that we rode on the train half an hour and then marchedthrough the streets, darkened to fool the Zeps. Around one o'clockwe brought up at Thrawl Street, at the lodgings where we weresupposed to stop until we were started for home. 

The place where we were quartered was a typical London doss house. There were forty beds in the room with mine, all of them occupied. All hands were snoring, and the fellow in the next cot was goingit with the cut-out wide open, breaking all records. Most of thebeds sagged like a hammock. Mine humped up in the middle like apile of bricks. 

I was up early and was directed to the place across the way wherewe were to eat. It was labeled "Mother Wolf's. The UniversalProvider. " She provided just one meal of weak tea, moldy bread, andrancid bacon for me. After that I went to a hotel. I may remark inpassing that horse tenders, going or coming or in between whiles, do not live on the fat of the land. 

I spent the day--it was Sunday--seeing the sights of Whitechapel, Middlesex Street or Petticoat Lane, and some of the slums. Nextmorning it was pretty clear to me that two pounds don't go far inthe big town. I promptly boarded the first bus for TrafalgarSquare. The recruiting office was just down the road in Whitehallat the old Scotland Yard office. 

I had an idea when I entered that recruiting office that thesergeant would receive me with open arms. He didn't. Instead helooked me over with unqualified scorn and spat out, "Yank, ayen'tye?"

And I in my innocence briefly answered, "Yep. "

"We ayen't tykin' no nootrals, " he said, with a sneer. And then:"Better go back to Hamerika and 'elp Wilson write 'is blinkin'notes. "

Well, I was mad enough to poke that sergeant in the eye. But Ididn't. I retired gracefully and with dignity. 

At the door another sergeant hailed me, whispering behind his hand, "Hi sye, mytie. Come around in the mornin'. Hi'll get ye in. " Andso it happened. 

Next day my man was waiting and marched me boldly up to the samechap who had refused me the day before. 

"'Ere's a recroot for ye, Jim, " says my friend. 

Jim never batted an eye. He began to "awsk" questions and to fillout a blank. When he got to the birthplace, my guide cut in andsaid, "Canada. "

The only place I knew in Canada was Campobello Island, a placewhere we camped one summer, and I gave that. I don't think thatanything but rabbits was ever born on Campobello, but it went. Forthat matter anything went. I discovered afterward that the sergeantwho had captured me on the street got five bob (shillings) for me. 

The physical examination upstairs was elaborate. They told me tostrip, weighed me, and said I was fit. After that I was taken in toan officer--a real officer this time--who made me put my hand on aBible and say yes to an oath he rattled off. Then he told me I wasa member of the Royal Fusiliers, gave me two shillings, sixpenceand ordered me to report at the Horse Guards Parade next day. I wasin the British army, --just like that!

I spent the balance of the day seeing the sights of London, andincidentally spending my coin. When I went around to the HorseGuards next morning, two hundred others, new rookies like myself, were waiting. An officer gave me another two shillings, sixpence. Ibegan to think that if the money kept coming along at that rate theBritish army might turn out a good investment. It didn't. 

That morning I was sent out to Hounslow Barracks, and three dayslater was transferred to Dover with twenty others. I was at Dover alittle more than two months and completed my training there. 

Our barracks at Dover was on the heights of the cliffs, and onclear days we could look across the Channel and see the dimoutlines of France. It was a fascination for all of us to look awayover there and to wonder what fortunes were to come to us on thebattle fields of Europe. It was perhaps as well that none of us hadimagination enough to visualize the things that were ahead. 

I found the rookies at Dover a jolly, companionable lot, and Inever found the routine irksome. We were up at five-thirty, hadcocoa and biscuits, and then an hour of physical drill or bayonetpractice. At eight came breakfast of tea, bacon, and bread, andthen we drilled until twelve. Dinner. Out again on the paradeground until three thirty. After that we were free. 

Nights we would go into Dover and sit around the "pubs" drinkingale, or "ayle" as the cockney says it. 

After a few weeks, when we were hardened somewhat, they began toinflict us with the torture known as "night ops. " That means goingout at ten o'clock under full pack, hiking several miles, and then"manning" the trenches around the town and returning to barracks atthree A. M. 

This wouldn't have been so bad if we had been excused parades thefollowing day. But no. We had the same old drills except the earlyone, but were allowed to "kip" until seven. 

In the two months I completed the musketry course, was a goodbayonet man, and was well grounded in bombing practice. Besidesthat I was as hard as nails and had learned thoroughly the systemof British discipline. 

I had supposed that it took at least six months to make asoldier, --in fact had been told that one could not be turned outwho would be ten per cent efficient in less than that time. Thatold theory is all wrong. Modern warfare changes so fast that theonly thing that can be taught a man is the basic principles ofdiscipline, bombing, trench warfare, and musketry. Give him thosethings, a well-conditioned body, and a baptism of fire, and he willbe right there with the veterans, doing his bit. 

Two months was all our crowd got at any rate, and they were as goodas the best, if I do say it. 

My training ended abruptly with a furlough of five days forEmbarkation Leave, that is, leave before going to France. This is asort of good-by vacation. Most fellows realize fully that it may betheir last look at Blighty, and they take it rather solemnly. To astranger without friends in England I can imagine that thisEmbarkation Leave would be either a mighty lonesome, dismal affair, or a stretch of desperate, homesick dissipation. A chap does wantto say good-by to some one before he goes away, perhaps to die. Hewants to be loved and to have some one sorry that he is going. 

I was invited by one of my chums to spend the leave with him at hishome in Southall, Middlesex. His father, mother and sister welcomedme in a way that made me know it was my home from the minute Ientered the door. They took me into their hearts with a simplehospitality and whole-souled kindness that I can never forget. Iwas a stranger in a strange land and they made me one of their own. I shall never be able to repay all the loving thoughts and deeds ofthat family and shall remember them while I live. My chum's motherI call Mother too. It is to her that I have dedicated this book. 

After my delightful few days of leave, things moved fast. I wasback in Dover just two days when I, with two hundred other men, wassent to Winchester. Here we were notified that we were transferredto the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment. 

This news brought a wild howl from the men. They wanted to stopwith the Fusiliers. It is part of the British system that every manis taught the traditions and history of his regiment and to _know_that his is absolutely the best in the whole army. In asurprisingly short time they get so they swear by their ownregiment and by their officers, and they protest bitterly at atransfer. 

Personally I didn't care a rap. I had early made up my mind that Iwas a very small pebble on the beach and that it was up to me toobey orders and keep my mouth shut. 

On June 17, some eighteen hundred of us were moved down toSouthampton and put aboard the transport for Havre. The next day wewere in France, at Harfleur, the central training camp outsideHavre. 

We were supposed to undergo an intensive training at Harfleur inthe various forms of gas and protection from it, barbed wire andmethods of construction of entanglements, musketry, bombing, andbayonet fighting. 

Harfleur was a miserable place. They refused to let us go in townafter drill. Also I managed to let myself in for something thatwould have kept me in camp if town leave had been allowed. 

The first day there was a call for a volunteer for musketryinstructor. I had qualified and jumped at it. When I reported, anold Scotch sergeant told me to go to the quartermaster forequipment. I said I already had full equipment. Whereupon thesergeant laughed a rumbling Scotch laugh and told me I had to gointo kilts, as I was assigned to a Highland contingent. 

I protested with violence and enthusiasm, but it didn't do anygood. They gave me a dinky little pleated petticoat, and when Idemanded breeks to wear underneath, I got the merry ha ha. Breekson a Scotchman? Never!

Well, I got into the fool things, and I felt as though I was nakedfrom ankle to wishbone. I couldn't get used to the outfit. I amnaturally a modest man. Besides, my architecture was never intendedfor bare-leg effects. I have no dimples in my knees. 

So I began an immediate campaign for transfer back to the Surreys. I got it at the end of ten days, and with it came a hurry call fromsomewhere at the front for more troops. 

CHAPTER II

GOING IN

The excitement of getting away from camp and the knowledge that wewere soon to get into the thick of the big game pleased most of us. We were glad to go. At least we thought so. 

Two hundred of us were loaded into side-door Pullmans, forty to thecar. It was a kind of sardine or Boston Elevated effect, and by thetime we reached Rouen, twenty-four hours later, we had kinks in ourlegs and corns on our elbows. Also we were hungry, having hadnothing but bully beef and biscuits. We made "char", which istrench slang for tea, in the station, and after two hours moved upthe line again, this time in real coaches. 

Next night we were billeted at Barlin--don't get that mixed up withBerlin, it's not the same--in an abandoned convent within range ofthe German guns. The roar of artillery was continuous and soundedpretty close. 

Now and again a shell would burst near by with a kind of hollow"spung", but for some reason we didn't seem to mind. I had expectedto get the shivers at the first sound of the guns and was surprisedwhen I woke up in the morning after a solid night's sleep. 

A message came down from the front trenches at daybreak that wewere wanted and wanted quick. We slung together a dixie of char andsome bacon and bread for breakfast, and marched around to the"quarters", where they issued "tin hats", extra "ammo", and asecond gas helmet. A good many of the men had been out before, andthey did the customary "grousing" over the added load. 

The British Tommy growls or grouses over anything and everything. He's never happy unless he's unhappy. He resents especially havinganything officially added to his pack, and you can't blame him, forin full equipment he certainly is all dressed up like a pack horse. 

After the issue we were split up into four lots for the fourcompanies of the battalion, and after some "wangling" I got intoCompany C, where I stopped all the time I was in France. I wasglad, because most of my chums were in that unit. 

We got into our packs and started up the line immediately. As weneared the lines we were extended into artillery formation, thatis, spread out so that a shell bursting in the road would inflictfewer casualties. 

At Bully-Grenay, the point where we entered the communicationtrenches, guides met us and looked us over, commenting most franklyand freely on our appearance. They didn't seem to think we wouldamount to much, and said so. They agreed that the "bloomin' Yank"must be a "bloody fool" to come out there. There were times laterwhen I agreed with them. 

It began to rain as we entered the communication trench, and I hadmy first taste of mud. That is literal, for with mud knee-deep in atrench just wide enough for two men to pass you get smeared fromhead to foot. 

Incidentally, as we approached nearer the front, I got my firstsmell of the dead. It is something you never get away from in thetrenches. So many dead have been buried so hastily and so lightlythat they are constantly being uncovered by shell bursts. The acridstench pervades everything, and is so thick you can fairly tasteit. It makes nearly everybody deathly sick at first, but onebecomes used to it as to anything else. 

This communication trench was over two miles long, and it seemedlike twenty. We finally landed in a support trench called"Mechanics" (every trench has a name, like a street), and fromthere into the first-line trench. 

I have to admit a feeling of disappointment in that first trench. Idon't know what I expected to see, but what I did see was just along, crooked ditch with a low step running along one side, andwith sandbags on top. Here and there was a muddy, bedraggled Tommyhalf asleep, nursing a dirty and muddy rifle on "sentry go. "Everything was very quiet at the moment--no rifles popping, as Ihad expected, no bullets flying, and, as it happened, absolutely noshelling in the whole sector. 

I forgot to say that we had come up by daylight. Ordinarily troopsare moved at night, but the communication trench from Bully-Grenaywas very deep and was protected at points by little hills, and itwas possible to move men in the daytime. 

Arrived in the front trench, the sergeant-major appeared, crawlingout of his dug-out--the usual place for a sergeant-major--andgreeted us with, "Keep your nappers down, you rooks. Don't look over the top. Itayen't 'ealthy. "

It is the regular warning to new men. For some reason the firstemotion of the rookie is an overpowering curiosity. He wants totake a peep into No Man's Land. It feels safe enough when thingsare quiet. But there's always a Fritzie over yonder with atelescope-sighted rifle, and it's about ten to one he'll get you ifyou stick the old "napper" up in daylight. 

The Germans, by the way, have had the "edge" on the Allies in thematter of sniping, as in almost all lines of artillery and musketrypractice. The Boche sniper is nearly always armed with aperiscope-telescope rifle. This is a specially built super-accuraterifle mounted on a periscope frame. It is thrust up over theparapet and the image of the opposing parapet is cast on a littleground-glass screen on which are two crossed lines. At one hundredfifty yards or less the image is brought up to touching distanceseemingly. Fritz simply trains his piece on some low place oranywhere that a head may be expected. When one appears on thescreen, he pulls the trigger, --and you "click it" if you happen tobe on the other or receiving end. The shooter never shows himself. 

I remember the first time I looked through a periscope I had nosooner thrust the thing up than a bullet crashed into the uppermirror, splintering it. Many times I have stuck up a cap on a stickand had it pierced. 

The British sniper, on the other hand--at least in my time--had aplain telescope rifle and had to hide himself behind old masonry, tree trunks, or anything convenient, and camouflaged himself inall sorts of ways. At that he was constantly in danger. 

I was assigned to Platoon 10 and found they were a good live bunch. Corporal Wells was the best of the lot, and we became fast friends. He helped me learn a lot of my new duties and the trench "lingo", which is like a new language, especially to a Yank. 

Wells started right in to make me feel at home and took me alongwith two others of the new men down to our "apartments", a dug-outbuilt for about four, and housing ten. 

My previous idea of a dug-out had been a fairly roomy sort of cave, somewhat damp, but comparatively comfortable. Well, this hole wasabout four and a half feet high--you had to get in doubled up onyour hands and knees--about five by six feet on the sides, andthere was no floor, just muck. There was some sodden, dirty strawand a lot of old moldy sandbags. Seven men and their equipment werepacked in here, and we made ten. 

There was a charcoal brazier going in the middle with two or threemess tins of char boiling away. Everybody was smoking, and theplace stunk to high heaven, or it would have if there hadn't been abit of burlap over the door. 

I crowded up into a corner with my back against the mud wall and myknees under my chin. The men didn't seem overglad to see us, andgroused a good deal about the extra crowding. They regarded me withextra disfavor because I was a lance corporal, and they disapprovedof any young whipper-snapper just out from Blighty with no trenchexperience pitchforked in with even a slight superior rank. I hadthought up to then that a lance corporal was pretty near asimportant as a brigadier. 

"We'll soon tyke that stripe off ye, me bold lad, " said one bigcockney. 

They were a decent lot after all. Since we were just out fromBlighty, they showered us with questions as to how things looked"t' 'ome. " And then somebody asked what was the latest song. Righthere was where I made my hit and got in right. I sing a bit, and Ipiped up with the newest thing from the music halls, "Tyke Me Backto Blighty. " Here it is:

 Tyke me back to dear old Blighty, Put me on the tryne for London town, Just tyke me over there And drop me anywhere, Manchester, Leeds, or Birmingham, I don't care. 

 I want to go see me best gal; Cuddlin' up soon we'll be, Hytey iddle de eyety. Tyke me back to Blighty, That's the plyce for me. 

It doesn't look like much and I'm afraid my rendition of cockneydialect into print isn't quite up to Kipling's. But the song had apretty little lilting melody, and it went big. They made me sing itabout a dozen times and were all joining in at the end. 

Then they got sentimental--and gloomy. 

"Gawd lumme!" says the big fellow who had threatened my belovedstripes. "Wot a life. Squattin' 'ere in the bloody mud like ablinkin' frog. Fightin' fer wot? Wot, I arsks yer? Gawd lumme! I'dgive me bloomin' napper to stroll down the Strand agyne wif meswagger stick an' drop in a private bar an' 'ave me go of 'Aig an''Aig. "

"Garn, " cuts in another Tommy. "Yer blinkin' 'igh wif yer wants, ayen't ye? An' yer 'Aig an' 'Aig. Drop me down in Great Lime Street(Liverpool) an' it's me fer the Golden Sheaf, and a pint of bitter, an' me a 'oldin' 'Arriet's 'and over th' bar. I'm a courtin' 'erwhen, " etc. , etc. 

And then a fresh-faced lad chirps up: "T' 'ell wif yer Lonnon an'yer whuskey. Gimme a jug o' cider on the sunny side of a 'ay rickin old Surrey. Gimme a happle tart to go wif it. Gawd, I'm fed upon bully beef. "

And so it went. All about pubs and bar-maids and the things they'deat and drink, and all of it Blighty. 

They were in the midst of a discussion of what part of the body wasmost desirable to part with for a permanent Blighty wound when ayoung officer pushed aside the burlap and wedged in. He was alieutenant and was in command of our platoon. His name was Blofeld. 

Blofeld was most democratic. He shook hands with the new men andsaid he hoped we'd be live wires, and then he told us what hewanted. There was to be a raid the next night and he was lookingfor volunteers. 

Nobody spoke for a long minute, and then I offered. 

I think I spoke more to break the embarrassing silence thananything else. I think, too, that I was led a little by a kind ofyouthful curiosity, and it may be that I wanted to appear brave inthe eyes of these men who so evidently held me more or less incontempt as a newcomer. 

Blofeld accepted me, and one of the other new men offered. He wastaken too. 

It turned out that all the older men were married and that theywere not expected to volunteer. At least there was no disgraceattaching to a refusal. 

After Blofeld left, Sergeant Page told us we'd better get down to"kip" while we could. "Kip" in this case meant closing our eyes anddozing. I sat humped up in my original position through the night. There wasn't room to stretch out. 

Along toward morning I began to itch, and found I had made theacquaintance of that gay and festive little soldier's enemy, the"cootie. " The cootie, or the "chat" as he is called by theofficers, is the common body louse. Common is right. I never gotrid of mine until I left the service. Sometimes when I get tothinking about it, I believe I haven't yet. 

CHAPTER III

A TRENCH RAID

In the morning the members of the raiding party were taken back amile or so to the rear and were given instruction and rehearsal. This was the first raid that "Batt" had ever tried, and the staffwas anxious to have it a success. There were fifty in the party, and Blofeld, who had organized the raid, beat our instructions intous until we knew them by heart. 

The object of a raid is to get into the enemy's trenches by stealthif possible, kill as many as possible, take prisoners ifpracticable, do a lot of damage, and get away with a whole hide. 

We got back to the front trenches just before dark. I noticed a lotof metal cylinders arranged along the parapet. They were about asbig as a stovepipe and four feet long, painted brown. They were thegas containers. They were arranged about four or five to atraverse, and were connected up by tubes and were covered withsandbags. This was the poison gas ready for release over the topthrough tubes. 

 [Illustration: A HEAVY HOWITZER, UNDER CAMOUFLAGE. Copyright, by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. ]

The time set for our stunt was eleven P. M. Eleven o'clock was"zero. " The system on the Western Front, and, in fact, all fronts, is to indicate the time fixed for any event as zero. Anythingbefore or after is spoken of as plus or minus zero. 

Around five o'clock we were taken back to Mechanics trench andfed--a regular meal with plenty of everything, and all good. Itlooked rather like giving a condemned man a hearty meal, but grubis always acceptable to a soldier. 

After that we blacked our faces. This is always done to prevent thewhiteness of the skin from showing under the flare lights. Also todistinguish your own men when you get to the Boche trench. 

Then we wrote letters and gave up our identification discs and wereserved with persuader sticks or knuckle knives, and with "Mills"bombs. 

The persuader is a short, heavy bludgeon with a nail-studded head. You thump Fritz on the head with it. Very handy at close quarters. The knuckle knife is a short dagger with a heavy brass hilt thatcovers the hand. Also very good for close work, as you can eitherstrike or stab with it. 

We moved up to the front trenches at about half-past ten. At zerominus ten, that is, ten minutes of eleven, our artillery opened up. It was the first bombardment I had ever been under, and it seemedas though all the guns in the world were banging away. Afterwards Ifound that it was comparatively light, but it didn't seem so then. 

The guns were hardly started when there was a sound like escapingsteam. Jerry leaned over and shouted in my ear: "There goes thegas. May it finish the blighters. "

Blofeld came dashing up just then, very much excited because hefound we had not put on our masks, through some slip-up in theorders. We got into them quick. But as it turned out there was noneed. There was a fifteen-mile wind blowing, which carried the gasaway from us very rapidly. In fact it blew it across the Bochetrenches so fast that it didn't bother them either. 

The barrage fire kept up right up to zero, as per schedule. Atthirty seconds of eleven I looked at my watch and the din was atits height. At exactly eleven it stopped short. Fritz was stillsending some over, but comparatively there was silence. After theear-splitting racket it was almost still enough to hurt. 

And in that silence over the top we went. 

Lanes had been cut through our wire, and we got through themquickly. The trenches were about one hundred twenty yards apart andwe still had nearly one hundred to go. We dropped and started tocrawl. I skinned both my knees on something, probably old wire, andboth hands. I could feel the blood running into my puttees, and myrifle bothered me as I was afraid of jabbing Jerry, who was justahead of me as first bayonet man. 

They say a drowning man or a man in great danger reviews his past. I didn't. I spent those few minutes wondering when the machine-gunfire would come. 

I had the same "gone" feeling in the pit of the stomach that youhave when you drop fast in an elevator. The skin on my face felttight, and I remember that I wanted to pucker my nose and pull myupper lip down over my teeth. 

We got clean up to their wire before they spotted us. Theirentanglements had been flattened by our barrage fire, but we had toget up to pick our way through, and they saw us. 

Instantly the "Very" lights began to go up in scores, and hellbroke loose. They must have turned twenty machine guns on us, or atus, but their aim evidently was high, for they only "clicked" twoout of our immediate party. We had started with ten men, the otherfifty being divided into three more parties farther down the line. 

When the machine guns started, we charged. Jerry and I were aheadas bayonet men, with the rest of the party following with bucketsof "Mills" bombs and "Stokeses. "

It was pretty light, there were so many flares going up from bothsides. When I jumped on the parapet, there was a whaling big Bochelooking up at me with his rifle resting on the sandbags. I wasalmost on the point of his bayonet. 

For an instant I stood with a kind of paralyzed sensation, andthere flashed through my mind the instructions of the manual forsuch a situation, only I didn't apply those instructions to thisemergency. 

Instead I thought--if such a flash could be called thinking--how I, as an instructor, would have told a rookie to act, working on adummy. I had a sort of detached feeling as though this was a sillydream. 

Probably this hesitation didn't last more than a second. 

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jerry lunge, and I lungedtoo. Why that Boche did not fire I don't know. Perhaps he did andmissed. Anyhow I went down and in on him, and the bayonet wentthrough his throat. 

Jerry had done his man in and all hands piled into the trench. 

Then we started to race along the traverses. We found a machinegun and put an eleven-pound high-explosive "Stokes" under it. Threeor four Germans appeared, running down communication trenches, andthe bombers sent a few Millses after them. Then we came to adug-out door--in fact, several, as Fritz, like a woodchuck, alwayshas more than one entrance to his burrow. We broke these in in jigtime and looked down a thirty-foot hole on a dug-out full ofgraybacks. There must have been a lot of them. I could plainly seefour or five faces looking up with surprised expressions. 

Blofeld chucked in two or three Millses and away we went. 

A little farther along we came to the entrance of a mine shaft, akind of incline running toward our lines. Blofeld went in it alittle way and flashed his light. He thought it was about fortyyards long. We put several of our remaining Stokeses in that andwrecked it. 

Turning the corner of the next traverse, I saw Jerry drop his rifleand unlimber his persuader on a huge German who had just roundedthe corner of the "bay. " He made a good job of it, getting him inthe face, and must have simply caved him in, but not before he hadthrown a bomb. I had broken my bayonet prying the dug-out door offand had my gun up-ended--clubbed. 

 [Illustration: OVER THE TOP ON A RAID. Photograph from Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. ]

When I saw that bomb coming, I bunted at it like Ty Cobb trying tosacrifice. It was the only thing to do. I choked my bat and pokedat the bomb instinctively, and by sheer good luck fouled the thingover the parapet. It exploded on the other side. 

"Blimme eyes, " says Jerry, "that's cool work. You saved us thewooden cross that time. "

We had found two more machine guns and were planting Stokeses underthem when we heard the Lewises giving the recall signal. A goodgunner gets so he can play a tune on a Lewis, and the device isfrequently used for signals. This time he thumped out the oldone--"All policemen have big feet. " Rat-a-tat-tat--tat, tat. 

It didn't come any too soon. 

As we scrambled over the parapet we saw a big party of Germanscoming up from the second trenches. They were out of thecommunication trenches and were coming across lots. There must havebeen fifty of them, outnumbering us five or six to one. 

We were out of bombs, Jerry had lost his rifle, and mine had no"ammo. " Blofeld fired the last shot from his revolver and, believeme, we hooked it for home. 

We had been in their trenches just three and a half minutes. 

Just as we were going through their wire a bomb exploded near andgot Jerry in the head. We dragged him in and also the two men thathad been clicked on the first fire. Jerry got Blighty on his wound, but was back in two months. The second time he wasn't so lucky. Helies now somewhere in France with a wooden cross over his head. 

Did that muddy old trench look good when we tumbled in? Oh, Boy!The staff was tickled to pieces and complimented us all. We weresent out of the lines that night and in billets got hot food, high-grade "fags", a real bath, a good stiff rum ration, andletters from home. 

Next morning we heard the results of the raid. One party of twelvenever returned. Besides that we lost seven men killed. The Germanloss was estimated at about one hundred casualties, six machineguns and several dug-outs destroyed, and one mine shaft put out ofbusiness. We also brought back documents of value found by oneparty in an officer's dug-out. 

Blofeld got the military cross for the night's work, and several ofthe enlisted men got the D. C. M. 

Altogether it was a successful raid. The best part of it wasgetting back. 

CHAPTER IV

A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS

After the strafing we had given Fritz on the raid, he behavedhimself reasonably well for quite a while. It was the first raidthat had been made on that sector for a long time, and we had nodoubt caught the Germans off their guard. 

Anyhow for quite a spell afterwards they were very "windy" andwould send up the "Very" lights on the slightest provocation andstart the "typewriters" a-rattling. Fritz was right on the job withhis eye peeled all the time. 

In fact he was so keen that another raid that was attempted tendays later failed completely because of a rapidly concentrated andheavy machine-gun fire, and in another, a day or two later, our mennever got beyond our own wire and had thirty-eight casualties outof fifty men engaged. 

But so far as anything but defensive work was concerned, Fritz wasvery meek. He sent over very few "minnies" or rifle grenades, andthere was hardly any shelling of the sector. 

Directly after the raid, we who were in the party had a couple ofdays "on our own" at the little village of Bully-Grenay, less thanthree miles behind the lines. This is directly opposite Lens, thebetter known town which figures so often in the dispatches. 

Bully-Grenay had been a place of perhaps one thousand people. Ithad been fought over and through and around early in the war, andwas pretty well battered up. There were a few houses left unhit andthe town hall and several shops. The rest of the place was ruins, but about two hundred of the inhabitants still stuck to their oldhomes. For some reason the Germans did not shell Bully-Grenay, thatis, not often. Once in a while they would lob one in just to letthe people know they were not forgotten. 

There was a suspicion that there were spies in the town and thatthat accounted for the Germans laying off, but whatever was thecause the place was safer than most villages so near the lines. 

Those two days in repose at Bully-Grenay were a good deal of afarce. We were entirely "on our own", it is true, no parade, noduty of any kind--but the quarters--oof! We were billeted in thecellars of the battered-down houses. They weren't shell-proof. Thatdidn't matter much, as there wasn't any shelling, but there mighthave been. The cellars were dangerous enough without, what withtottering walls and overhanging chunks of masonry. 

Moreover they were a long way from waterproof. Imagine trying tofind a place to sleep in an old ruin half full of rainwater. Thedry places were piled up with brick and mortar, but we managed toclean up some half-sheltered spots for "kip" and we lived throughit. 

The worst feature of these billets was the rats. They were thebiggest I ever saw, great, filthy, evil-smelling, grayish-redfellows, as big as a good-sized cat. They would hop out of thewalls and scuttle across your face with their wet, cold feet, andit was enough to drive you insane. One chap in our party had anatural horror of rats, and he nearly went crazy. We had to "kip"with our greatcoats pulled up over our heads, and then the beggarswould go down and nibble at our boots. 

The first day somebody found a fox terrier, evidently lost andprobably the pet of some officer. We weren't allowed to carrymascots, although we had a kitten that we smuggled along for a longtime. This terrier was a well-bred little fellow, and we grabbedhim. We spent a good part of both mornings digging out rats for himand staged some of the grandest fights ever. 

Most of the day we spent at a little _estaminet_ across the wayfrom our so-called billets. There was a pretty mademoiselle therewho served the rotten French beer and _vin blanc_, and the Tommiestried their French on her. They might as well have talked Choctaw. I speak the language a little and tried to monopolize the lady, anddid, which didn't increase my popularity any. 

"I say, Yank, " some one would call, "don't be a blinkin' 'og. Givesomebody else a chawnce. "

Whereupon I would pursue my conquest all the more ardently. I wasmaking a large hit, as I thought, when in came an officer. Afterthat I was ignored, to the huge delight of the Tommies, who joshedme unmercifully. They discovered that my middle name was Derby, andthey christened me "Darby the Yank. " Darby I remained as long as Iwas with them. 

Some of the questions the men asked about the States were certainlyfunny. One chap asked what language we spoke over here. I thoughthe was spoofing, but he actually meant it. He thought we spokesomething like Italian, he said. I couldn't resist the temptation, and filled him up with a line of ghost stories about wild Indiansjust outside Boston. I told him I left because of a raid in whichthe redskins scalped people on Boston Common. After that he used topester the life out of me for Wild West yarns with the scenes laidin New England. 

One chap was amazed and, I think, a little incredulous because Ididn't know a man named Fisk in Des Moines. 

We went back to the trenches again and were there five days. I wasout one night on barbed wire work, which is dangerous at any time, and was especially so with Fritz in his condition of jumpy nerves. You have to do most of the work lying on your back in the mud, andif you jingle the wire, Fritz traverses No Man's Land with hisrapid-firers with a fair chance of bagging something. 

I also had one night on patrol, which later became my favoritegame. I will tell more about it in another chapter. 

At the end of the five days the whole battalion was pulled out forrest. We marched a few miles to the rear and came to the village ofPetite-Saens. This town had been fought through, but for somereason had suffered little. Few of the houses had been damaged, andwe had real billets. 

My section, ten men besides myself, drew a big attic in a cleanhouse. There was loads of room and the roof was tight and therewere no rats. It was oriental luxury after Bully-Grenay and thetrenches, and for a wonder nobody had a word of "grousing" over"kipping" on the bare floor. 

The house was occupied by a very old peasant woman and a verylittle girl, three years old, and as pretty as a picture. The oldwoman looked ill and sad and very lonesome. One night as we sat inher kitchen drinking black coffee and cognac, I persuaded her totell her story. It was, on the whole, rather a cruel thing to ask, I am afraid. It is only one of many such that I heard over there. France has, indeed, suffered. I set down here, as nearly as I cantranslate, what the old woman said:

"Monsieur, I am very, very old now, almost eighty, but I am apatriot and I love my France. I do not complain that I have losteverything in this war. I do not care now, for I am old and it isfor my country; but there is much sadness for me to remember, andit is with great bitterness that I think of the pig Allemand--beastthat he is. 

"Two years ago I lived in this house, happy with my daughter andher husband and the little baby, and my husband, who worked in themines. He was too old to fight, but when the great war came hetried to enlist, but they would not listen to him, and he returnedto work, that the country should not be without coal. 

"The beau-fils (son-in-law), he enlisted and said good-by and wentto the service. 

"By and by the Boche come and in a great battle not far from thisvery house the beau-fils is wounded very badly and is brought tothe house by comrades to die. 

"The Boche come into the village, but the beau-fils is too weakto go. The Boche come into the house, seize my daughter, andthere--they--oh, monsieur--the things one may not say--and we sohelpless. 

"Her father tries to protect her, but he is knocked down. I try, but they hold my feet over the fire until the very flesh cooks. Seefor yourselves the burns on my feet still. 

"My husband dies from the blow he gets, for he is very old, overninety. Just then mon beau-fils sees a revolver that hangs by theside of the German officer, and putting all his strength togetherhe leaps forward and grabs the revolver. And there he shoots theofficer--and my poor little daughter--and then he says good-by andthrough the head sends a bullet. 

"The Germans did not touch me but once after that, and then theyknocked me to the floor when they came after the pig officer. Byand by come you English, and all is well for dear France once more;but I am very desolate now. I am alone but for the petite-fille(granddaughter), but I love the English, for they save my home andmy dear country. "

I heard a good many stories of this kind off and on, but thisparticular one, I think, brought home, to me at least, the generalbeastliness of the Hun closer than ever before. We all loved ourlittle kiddie very much, and when we saw the evidence of theterrible cruelties the poor old woman had suffered we saw red. Mostof us cried a little. I think that that one story made each of usthat heard it a mean, vicious fighter for the rest of our service. I know it did me. 

One of the first things a British soldier learns is to keephimself clean. He can't do it, and he's as filthy as a pig all thetime he is in the trenches, but he tries. He is always shaving, even under fire, and show him running water and he goes to it likea duck. 

More than once I have shaved in a periscope mirror pegged into theside of a trench, with the bullets snapping overhead, and rubbed myface with wet tea leaves afterward to freshen up. 

Back in billets the very first thing that comes off is the bigclean-up. Uniforms are brushed up, and equipment put in order. Thencomes the bath, the most thorough possible under the conditions. After that comes the "cootie carnival", better known as the "shirthunt. " The cootie is the soldier's worst enemy. He's worse than theHun. You can't get rid of him wherever you are, in the trenches orin billets, and he sticks closer than a brother. The cootie is agood deal of an acrobat. His policy of attack is to hang on to theshirt and to nibble at the occupant. Pull off the shirt and hecomes with it. Hence the shirt hunt. Tommy gets out in the opensomewhere so as not to shed his little companions indoors--there'salways enough there anyhow--and he peels. Then he systematicallyruns down each seam--the cootie's favorite hiding place--catchesthe game, and ends his career by cracking him between the thumbnails. 

For some obscure psychological reason, Tommy seems to like companyon one of these hunts. Perhaps it is because misery loves company, or it may be that he likes to compare notes on the catch. Anyhow, it is a common thing to see from a dozen to twenty soldiers withtheir shirts off, hunting cooties. 

"Hi sye, 'Arry, " you'll hear some one sing out. "Look 'ere. Strikeme bloomin' well pink but this one 'ere's got a black stripe along'is back. "

Or, "If this don't look like the one I showed ye 'fore we went intothe blinkin' line. 'Ow'd 'e git loose?"

And then, as likely as not, a little farther away, behind theofficers' quarters, you'll hear one say:

"I say, old chap, it's deucedly peculiar I should have so many ofthe beastly things after putting on the Harrisons mothaw sent inthe lawst parcel. "

The cootie isn't at all fastidious. He will bite the Britisharistocrat as soon as anybody else. He finds his way into allbranches of the service, and I have even seen a dignified colonelwiggle his shoulders anxiously. 

Some of the cootie stories have become classical, like this onewhich was told from the North Sea to the Swiss border. It mighthave happened at that. 

A soldier was going over the top when one of his cootie friends bithim on the calf. The soldier reached down and captured the biter. Just as he stooped, a shell whizzed over where his head would havebeen if he had not gone after the cootie. Holding the captivebetween thumb and finger, he said:

"Old feller, I cawn't give yer the Victoria Cross--but I can putyer back. "

And he did. 

The worst thing about the cootie is that there is no remedy forhim. The shirt hunt is the only effective way for the soldier toget rid of his bosom friends. The various dopes and patentpreparations guaranteed as "good for cooties" are just that. Theygive 'em an appetite. 

CHAPTER V

FEEDING THE TOMMIES

Food is a burning issue in the lives of all of us. It is the mainconsideration with the soldier. His life is simplified to twoprincipal motives, _i. E. _, keeping alive himself and killing theother fellow. The question uppermost in his mind every time and allof the time, is, "When do we eat?"

In the trenches the backbone of Tommy's diet is bully beef, "Maconochie's Ration", cheese, bread or biscuit, jam, and tea. Hemay get some of this hot or he may eat it from the tin, alldepending upon how badly Fritz is behaving. 

In billets the diet is more varied. Here he gets some fresh meat, lots of bacon, and the bully and the Maconochie's come along in theform of stew. Also there is fresh bread and some dried fruit and acertain amount of sweet stuff. 

It was this matter of grub that made my life a burden in thebillets at Petite-Saens. I had been rather proud of being lancecorporal. It was, to me, the first step along the road to beingfield marshal. I found, however, that a corporal is high enough totake responsibility and to get bawled out for anything that goeswrong. He's not high enough to command any consideration from thosehigher up, and he is so close to the men that they take out theirgrievances on him as a matter of course. He is neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, and his life is a burden. 

I had the job of issuing the rations of our platoon, and it nearlydrove me mad. Every morning I would detail a couple of men from ourplatoon to be standing mess orderlies for the day. They would fetchthe char and bacon from the field kitchen in the morning and cleanup the "dixies" after breakfast. The "dixie", by the way, is aniron box or pot, oblong in shape, capacity about four or fivegallons. It fits into the field kitchen and is used for roasts, stews, char, or anything else. The cover serves to cook bacon in. 

Field kitchens are drawn by horses and follow the battalioneverywhere that it is safe to go, and to some places where itisn't. Two men are detailed from each company to cook, and there isusually another man who gets the sergeants' mess, besides theofficers' cook, who does not as a rule use the field kitchen, butprepares the food in the house taken as the officers' mess. 

As far as possible, the company cooks are men who were cooks incivil life, but not always. We drew a plumber and a navvy (roadbuilder)--and the grub tasted of both trades. The way our companyworked the kitchen problem was to have stew for two platoons oneday and roast dinner for the others, and then reverse the ordernext day, so that we didn't have stew all the time. There were notenough "dixies" for us all to have stew the same day. 

Every afternoon I would take my mess orderlies and go to thequartermaster's stores and get our allowance and carry it back tothe billets in waterproof sheets. Then the stuff that was to becooked in the kitchen went there, and the bread and that sort ofmaterial was issued direct to the men. That was where my troublestarted. 

The powers that were had an uncanny knack of issuing an odd numberof articles to go among an even number of men, and vice versa. There would be eleven loaves of bread to go to a platoon of fiftymen divided into four sections. Some of the sections would have tenmen and some twelve or thirteen. 

The British Tommy is a scrapper when it comes to his rations. Hereminds me of an English sparrow. He's always right in therewangling for his own. He will bully and browbeat if he can, and hewill coax and cajole if he can't. It would be "Hi sye, corporal. They's ten men in Number 2 section and fourteen in ourn. An' blimmeif you hain't guv 'em four loaves, same as ourn. Is it right, Iarsks yer? Is it?" Or, "Lookee! Do yer call that a loaf o' bread? Looks like the A. S. C. (Army Service Corps) been using it fer a piller. Gimme another, will yer, corporal?"

When it comes to splitting seven onions nine ways, I defy any oneto keep peace in the family, and every doggoned Tommy would holdout for his onion whether he liked 'em or not. Same way with abottle of pickles to go among eleven men or a handful of raisins orapricots. Or jam or butter or anything, except bully beef orMaconochie. I never heard any one "argue the toss" on either ofthose commodities. 

Bully is high-grade corned beef in cans and is O. K. If you like it, but it does get tiresome. 

Maconochie ration is put up a pound to the can and bears a labelwhich assures the consumer that it is a scientifically prepared, well-balanced ration. Maybe so. It is my personal opinion that theinventor brought to his task an imperfect knowledge of cookery anda perverted imagination. Open a can of Maconochie and you find agooey gob of grease, like rancid lard. Investigate and you findchunks of carrot and other unidentifiable material, and now andthen a bit of mysterious meat. The first man who ate an oyster hadcourage, but the last man who ate Maconochie's unheated had more. Tommy regards it as a very inferior grade of garbage. The labelnotwithstanding, he's right. 

Many people have asked me what to send our soldiers in the line offood. I'd say stick to sweets. Cookies of any durable kind--I meanthat will stand chance moisture--the sweeter the better, and ifpossible those containing raisins or dried fruit. Figs, dates, etc. , are good. And, of course, chocolate. Personally, I never didhave enough chocolate. Candy is acceptable, if it is of the sort tostand more or less rough usage which it may get before it reachesthe soldier. Chewing gum is always received gladly. The army issueof sweets is limited pretty much to jam, which gets to taste allalike. 

It is pathetic to see some of the messes Tommy gets together tofill his craving for dessert. The favorite is a slum composed ofbiscuit, water, condensed milk, raisins, and chocolate. If some ofyou folks at home would get one look at that concoction, let alonetasting it, you would dash out and spend your last dollar for apackage to send to some lad "over there. "

 [Illustration: COOKING UNDER DIFFICULTIES. ]

After the excitement of dodging shells and bullets in the fronttrenches, life in billets seems dull. Tommy has too much time toget into mischief. It was at Petite-Saens that I first saw theDivisional Folies. This was a vaudeville show by ten men who hadbeen actors in civil life, and who were detailed to amuse thesoldiers. They charged a small admission fee and the profit went tothe Red Cross. 

There ought to be more recreation for the soldiers of all armies. The Y. M. C. A. Is to take care of that with our boys. 

By the way, we had a Y. M. C. A. Hut at Petite-Saens, and I cannot sayenough for this great work. No one who has not been there can knowwhat a blessing it is to be able to go into a clean, warm, dryplace and sit down to reading or games and to hear good music. Personally I am a little bit sorry that the secretaries are to bein khaki. They weren't when I left. And it sure did seem good tosee a man in civilian's clothes. You get after a while so you hatethe sight of a uniform. 

Another thing about the Y. M. C. A. I could wish that they would havemore women in the huts. Not frilly, frivolous society girls, butwomen from thirty-five to fifty. A soldier likes kisses as well asthe next. And he takes them when he finds them. And he finds toomany. But what he really wants, though, is the chance to sit downand tell his troubles to some nice, sympathetic woman who is oldenough to be level-headed. 

Nearly every soldier reverts more or less to a boyish point ofview. He hankers for somebody to mother him. I should be glad tosee many women of that type in the Y. M. C. A. Work. It is one of thegreat needs of our army that the boys should be amused and keptclean mentally and morally. I don't believe there is anyorganization better qualified to do this than the Y. M. C. A. 

Most of our chaps spent their time "on their own" either in theY. M. C. A. Hut or in the _estaminets_ while we were in Petite-Saens. Our stop there was hardly typical of the rest in billets. Usually"rest" means that you are set to mending roads or some such fatigueduty. At Petite-Saens, however, we had it "cushy. "

The routine was about like this: Up at 6:30, we fell in forthree-quarters of an hour physical drill or bayonet practice. Breakfast. Inspection of ammo and gas masks. One hour drill. Afterthat, "on our own", with nothing to do but smoke, read, and gamble. 

Tommy is a great smoker. He gets a fag issue from the government, if he is lucky, of two packets or twenty a week. This lasts himwith care about two days. After that he goes smokeless unless hehas friends at home to send him a supply. I had friends in Londonwho sent me about five hundred fags a week, and I was consequentlypopular while they lasted. This took off some of the curse of beinga lance corporal. 

Tommy has his favorite in "fags" like anybody else. He likes aboveall Wild Woodbines. This cigarette is composed of glue, cheappaper, and a poor quality of hay. Next in his affection comesGoldflakes--pretty near as bad. 

People over here who have boys at the front mustn't forget thecigarette supply. Send them along early and often. There'll neverbe too many. Smoking is one of the soldier's few comforts. Twobits' worth of makin's a week will help one lad make lifeendurable. It's cheap at the price. Come through for the smokefund whenever you get the chance. 

Café life among us at Petite-Saens was mostly drinking andgambling. That is not half as bad as it sounds. The drinking wasmostly confined to the slushy French beer and vin blanc and citron. Whiskey and absinthe were barred. 

The gambling was on a small scale, necessarily, the British soldiernot being at any time a bloated plutocrat. At the same time thegames were continuous. "House" was the most popular. This is a gamesimilar to the "lotto" we used to play as children. The backersdistribute cards having fifteen numbers, forming what they call aschool. Then numbered cardboard squares are drawn from a bag, thenumbers being called out. When a number comes out which appears onyour card, you cover it with a bit of match. If you get all yournumbers covered, you call out "house", winning the pot. If thereare ten people in at a franc a head, the banker holds out twofrancs, and the winner gets eight. 

It is really quite exciting, as you may get all but one numbercovered and be rooting for a certain number to come. Usually whenyou get as close as that and sweat over a number for ten minutes, somebody else gets his first. Corporal Wells described the game asone where the winner "'ollers 'ouse and the rest 'ollers 'ell!"

Some of the nicknames for the different numbers remind one of theslang of the crap shooter. For instance, "Kelly's eye" means one. "Clickety click" is sixty-six. "Top of the house" is ninety. Othergames are "crown and anchor", which is a dice game, and "pontoon", which is a card game similar to "twenty-one" or "seven and a half. "Most of these are mildly discouraged by the authorities, "house"being the exception. But in any _estaminet_ in a billet town you'llfind one or all of them in progress all the time. The winnerusually spends his winnings for beer, so the money all goes thesame way, game or no game. 

When there are no games on, there is usually a sing-song going. Wehad a merry young nuisance in our platoon named Rolfe, who had avoice like a frog and who used to insist upon singing on alloccasions. Rolfie would climb on the table in the _estaminet_ andsing numerous unprintable verses of his own, entitled "Oh, What aMerry Plyce is Hengland. " The only redeeming feature of this songwas the chorus, which everybody would roar out and which went likethis:

 Cheer, ye beggars, cheer! Britannia rules the wave! 'Ard times, short times Never'll come agyne. Shoutin' out at th' top o' yer lungs: Damn the German army! Oh, wot a lovely plyce is Hengland!

Our ten days _en repos_ at Petite-Saens came to an end all toosoon. 

On the last day we lined up for our official "bawth. "

Petite-Saens was a coal-mining town. The mines were still operated, but only at night--this to avoid shelling from the Bochelong-distance artillery, which are fully capable of sending shellsand hitting the mark at eighteen miles. The water system of thetown depended upon the pumping apparatus of the mines. Everymorning early, before the pressure was off, all hands would turnout for a general "sluicing" under the hydrants. We were as cleanas could be and fairly free of "cooties" at the end of a week, butofficial red tape demanded that we go through an authorizedscouring. 

On the last day we lined up for this at dawn before an oldwarehouse which had been fitted with crude showers. We were turnedin twenty in a batch and were given four minutes to soap ourselvesall over and rinse off. I was in the last lot and had just latheredup good and plenty when the water went dead. If you want to reachthe acme of stickiness, try this stunt. I felt like the inside of amucilage bottle for a week. 

After the official purification we were given clean underwear. Andthen there was a howl. The fresh underthings had been boiled andsterilized, but the immortal cootie had come through unscathed andin all its vigor. Corporal Wells raised a pathetic wail:

"Blimme eyes, mytie! I got more'n two 'undred now an' this supposedto be a bloomin' clean shirt! Why, the blinkin' thing's as lousyas a cookoo now, an me just a-gittin' rid o' the bloomin' chats onme old un. Strike me pink if it hain't a bleedin' crime! Some oneought to write to John Bull abaht it!"

_John Bull_ is the English paper of that name published by HoratioBottomley, which makes a specialty of publishing complaints fromsoldiers and generally criticising the conduct of army affairs. 

Well, we got through the bath and the next day were on our way. This time it was up the line to another sector. My one taste oftrench action had made me keen for more excitement, and in spite ofthe comfortable time at Petite-Saens, I was glad to go. I was yetto know the real horrors and hardships of modern warfare. Therewere many days in those to come when I looked back uponPetite-Saens as a sort of heaven. 

CHAPTER VI

HIKING TO VIMY RIDGE

We left Petite-Saens about nine o'clock Friday night and commencedour march for what we were told would be a short hike. It waspretty warm and muggy. There was a thin, low-lying mist overeverything, but clear enough above, and there was a kind of poormoonlight. There was a good deal of delay in getting away, and wehad begun to sweat before we started, as we were equipped as usualwith about eighty pounds' weight on the back and shoulders. Thateighty pounds is theoretical weight. 

As a matter of practice the pack nearly always runs ten and eventwenty pounds over the official equipment, as Tommy is a greatlittle accumulator of junk. I had acquired the souvenir craze earlyin the game, and was toting excess baggage in the form of a Bochehelmet, a mess of shell noses, and a smashed German automatic. Allthis ran to weight. 

I carried a lot of this kind of stuff all the time I was in theservice, and was constantly thinning out my collection or adding toit. 

When you consider that a soldier has to carry everything he owns onhis person, you'd say that he would want to fly light; but hedoesn't. And that reminds me, before I forget it, I want to saysomething about sending boxes over there. 

It is the policy of the British, and, I suppose, will be of theAmericans, to move the troops about a good deal. This is done sothat no one unit will become too much at home in any one line oftrenches and so get careless. This moving about involves a gooddeal of hiking. 

Now if some chap happens to get a twenty-pound box of good thingsjust before he is shifted, he's going to be in an embarrassingposition. He'll have to give it away or leave it. So--send theboxes two or three pounds at a time, and often. 

But to get back to Petite-Saens. We commenced our hike as it is wasgetting dark. As we swung out along the once good but now badlyfurrowed French road, we could see the Very lights beginning to goup far off to the left, showing where the lines were. We coulddistinguish between our own star lights and the German by theintensity of the flare, theirs being much superior to ours, so muchso that they send them up from the second-line trenches. 

The sound of the guns became more distant as we swung away to thesouth and louder again as the road twisted back toward the front. 

We began to sing the usual songs of the march and I noticed thatthe American ragtime was more popular among the boys than their ownmusic. "Dixie" frequently figured in these songs. 

It is always a good deal easier to march when the men sing, as ithelps to keep time and puts pep into a column and makes the packsseem lighter. The officers see to it that the mouth organs gettuned up the minute a hike begins. 

At the end of each hour we came to a halt for the regulation tenminutes' rest. Troops in heavy marching order move very slowly, even with the music--and the hours drag. The ten minutes' restthough goes like a flash. The men keep an eye on the watches and"wangle" for the last second. 

We passed through two ruined villages with the battered wallssticking up like broken teeth and the gray moonlight shiningthrough empty holes that had been windows. The people were gonefrom these places, but a dog howled over yonder. Several times wepassed batteries of French artillery, and jokes and laughter cameout of the half darkness. 

Topping a little rise, the moon came out bright, and away ahead thesilver ribbon of the Souchez gleamed for an instant; the bare polesthat once had been Bouvigny Wood were behind us, and to the right, to the left, a pulverized ruin where houses had stood. Blofeld toldme this was what was left of the village of Abalaine, which hadbeen demolished some time before when the French held the sector. 

At this point guides came out and met us to conduct us to thetrenches. The order went down the line to fall in, single file, keeping touch, no smoking and no talking, and I supposed we wereabout to enter a communication trench. But no. We swung on to a"duck walk. " This is a slatted wooden walk built to prevent as muchas possible sinking into the mud. The ground was very soft here. 

I never did know why there was no communication trench unless itwas because the ground was so full of moisture. But whatever thereason, there was none, and we were right out in the open on theduck walk. The order for no talk seemed silly as we clattered alongthe boards, making a noise like a four-horse team on a coveredbridge. 

I immediately wondered whether we were near enough for the Bochesto hear. I wasn't in doubt long, for they began to send over the"Berthas" in flocks. The "Bertha" is an uncommonly ugly breed ofnine-inch shell loaded with H. E. It comes sailing over with aquerulous "squeeeeeee", and explodes with an ear-splitting crashand a burst of murky, dull-red flame. 

If it hits you fair, you disappear. At a little distance you areripped to fragments, and a little farther off you get a case ofshell-shock. Just at the edge of the destructive area the wind ofthe explosion whistles by your ears, and then sucks back moreslowly. 

The Boches had the range of that duck walk, and we began to run. Every now and then they would drop one near the walk, and from fourto ten casualties would go down. There was no stopping for thewounded. They lay where they fell. We kept on the run, sometimes onthe duck walk, sometimes in the mud, for three miles. I had reachedthe limit of my endurance when we came to a halt and rested for alittle while at the foot of a slight incline. This was the"Pimple", so called on account of its rounded crest. 

The Pimple forms a part of the well-known Vimy Ridge--is asemi-detached extension of it--and lies between it and the Souchezsector. After a rest here we got into the trenches skirting thePimple and soon came out on the Quarries. This was a bowl-likedepression formed by an old quarry. The place gave a naturalprotection and all around the edge were dug-outs which had beenbuilt by the French, running back into the hill, some of them morethan a hundred feet. 

In the darkness we could see braziers glowing softly red at themouth of each burrow. There was a cheerful, mouth-watering smell ofcookery on the air, a garlicky smell, with now and then a whiff ofspicy wood smoke. 

We were hungry and thirsty, as well as tired, and shed our packs atthe dug-outs assigned us and went at the grub and the char offeredus by the men we were relieving, the Northumberland Fusiliers. 

The dug-outs here in the Quarries were the worst I saw in France. They were reasonably dry and roomy, but they had no ventilationexcept the tunnel entrance, and going back so far the air insidebecame simply stifling in a very short time. 

I took one inhale of the interior atmosphere and decided rightthere that I would bivouac in the open. It was just getting down to"kip" when a sentry came up and said I would have to get inside. Itseemed that Fritz had the range of the Quarries to an inch and wasin the habit of sending over "minnies" at intervals just to let usknow he wasn't asleep. 

I had got settled down comfortably and was dozing off when therecame a call for C company. I got the men from my platoon out asquickly as possible, and in half an hour we were in the trenches. 

Number 10 platoon was assigned to the center sector, Number 11 tothe left sector, and Number 12 to the right sector. Number 9remained behind in supports in the Quarries. 

Now when I speak of these various sectors, I mean that at thispoint there was no continuous line of front trenches, only isolatedstretches of trench separated by intervals of from two hundred tothree hundred yards of open ground. There were no dug-outs. It wasimpossible to leave these trenches except under cover ofdarkness--or to get to them or to get up rations. They were awfulholes. Any raid by the Germans in large numbers at this time wouldhave wiped us out, as there was no means of retreating or gettingup reinforcements. 

The Tommies called the trenches Grouse Spots. It was a good name. We got into them in the dense darkness of just before dawn. Thedivision we relieved gave us hardly any instruction, but beat it onthe hot foot, glad to get away and anxious to go before sun-up. Aswe settled down in our cosey danger spots I heard Rolfie, thefrog-voiced baritone, humming one of his favorite coster songs:

 Oh, why did I leave my little back room in old Bloomsbury? Where I could live for a pound a week in luxury. I wanted to live higher So I married Marier, Out of the frying pan into the bloomin' fire. 

And he meant every word of it. 

In our new positions in the Grouse Spots the orders were to patrolthe open ground between at least four times a night. That firstnight there was one more patrol necessary before daylight. Tired asI was, I volunteered for it. I had had one patrol before, oppositeBully-Grenay, and thought I liked the game. 

I went over with one man, a fellow named Bellinger. We got out andstarted to crawl. All we knew was that the left sector was twohundred yards away. Machine-gun bullets were squealing andsnapping overhead pretty continuously, and we had to hug the dirt. It is surprising to see how flat a man can keep and still get alongat a good rate of speed. We kept straight away to the left andpresently got into wire. And then we heard German voices. Ow! Iwent cold all over. 

Then some "Very" lights went up and I saw the Boche parapet nottwenty feet away. Worst of all there was a little lane throughtheir wire at that point, and there would be, no doubt, a sap heador a listening post near. I tried to lie still and burrow into thedirt at the same time. Nothing happened. Presently the lights died, and Bellinger gave me a poke in the ribs. We started to crawfish. Why we weren't seen I don't know, but we had gone all of onehundred feet before they spotted us. Fortunately we were on theedge of a shallow shell hole when the sentry caught our movementsand Fritz cut loose with the "typewriters. " We rolled in. A perfecttorrent of bullets ripped up the dirt and cascaded us with graveland mud. The noise of the bullets "crackling" a yard above us wasdeafening. 

The fusillade stopped after a bit. I was all for getting out andaway immediately. Bellinger wanted to wait a while. We argued foras much as five minutes, I should think, and then the lights havinggone out, I took matters in my own hands and we went away fromthere. Another piece of luck!

We weren't more than a minute on our way when a pair of bombs wentoff about over the shell hole. Evidently some bold Heinie hadchucked them over to make sure of the job in case the machineshadn't. It was a close pinch--two close pinches. I was in placesafterwards where there was more action and more danger, but, looking back, I don't think I was ever sicker or scareder. I wouldhave been easy meat if they had rushed us. 

We made our way back slowly, and eventually caught the gleam ofsteel helmets. They were British. We had stumbled upon our leftsector. We found out then that the line curved and that instead ofthe left sector being directly to the left of ours--the center--itwas to the left and to the rear. Also there was a telephone wirerunning from one to the other. We reported and made our way back tothe center in about five minutes by feeling along the wire. Thatwas our method afterwards, and the patrol was cushy for us. 

CHAPTER VII

FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK

I want to say a word right here about patrol work in general, because for some reason it fascinated me and was my favorite game. 

If you should be fortunate--or unfortunate enough, as the casemight be--to be squatting in a front-line trench this fine morningand looking through a periscope, you wouldn't see much. Just overthe top, not more than twenty feet away, would be your barbed-wireentanglements, a thick network of wire stretched on iron postsnearly waist high, and perhaps twelve or fifteen feet across. Thenthere would be an intervening stretch of from fifty to one hundredfifty yards of No Man's Land, a tortured, torn expanse of muddysoil, pitted with shell craters, and, over beyond, the German wireand his parapet. 

There would be nothing alive visible. There would probably be afew corpses lying about or hanging in the wire. Everything would bestill except for the flutter of some rag of a dead man's uniform. Perhaps not that. Daylight movements in No Man's Land are somehowdisconcerting. Once I was in a trench where a leg--a booted Germanleg, stuck up stark and stiff out of the mud not twenty yards infront. Some idiotic joker on patrol hung a helmet on the foot, andall the next day that helmet dangled and swung in the breeze. Itirritated the periscope watchers, and the next night it was takendown. 

Ordinarily, however, there is little movement between the wires, nor behind them. And yet you know that over yonder there arethousands of men lurking in the trenches and shelters. 

After dark these men, or some of them, crawl out like huntedanimals and prowl in the black mystery of No Man's Land. They arethe patrol. 

The patrol goes out armed and equipped lightly. He has to movesoftly and at times very quickly. It is his duty to get as closeto the enemy lines as possible and find out if they are repairingtheir wire or if any of their parties are out, and to get back wordto the machine gunners, who immediately cut loose on the indicatedspot. 

Sometimes he lies with his head to the ground over some suspectedarea, straining his ears for the faint "scrape, scrape" that meansa German mining party is down there, getting ready to plant a tonor so of high explosive, or, it may be, is preparing to touch itoff at that very moment. 

Always the patrol is supposed to avoid encounter with enemypatrols. He carries two or three Mills bombs and a pistol, but notfor use except in extreme emergency. Also a persuader stick or atrench knife, which he may use if he is near enough to do itsilently. 

The patrol stares constantly through the dark and gets so he cansee almost as well as a cat. He must avoid being seen. When a Verylight goes up, he lies still. If he happens to be standing, hestands still. Unless the light is behind him so that he issilhouetted, he is invisible to the enemy. 

Approaching a corpse, the patrol lies quiet and watches it forseveral minutes, unless it is one he has seen before and isacquainted with. Because sometimes the man isn't dead, but aperfectly live Boche patrol lying "doggo. " You can't be toocareful. 

If you happen to be pussyfooting forward erect and encounter aGerman patrol, it is policy to scuttle back unless you are nearenough to get in one good lick with the persuader. He will retreatslowly himself, and you mustn't follow him. Because: The Britishpatrol usually goes out singly or at the most in pairs or threes. 

The Germans, on the other hand, hunt in parties. One man leads. Twoothers follow to the rear, one to each side. And then two more, andtwo more, so that they form a V, like a flock of geese. Now if youfollow up the lead man when he retreats, you are baited into a trapand find yourself surrounded, smothered by superior numbers, andtaken prisoner. Then back to the Boche trench, where exceedinglyunpleasant things are apt to happen. 

It is, in fact, most unwholesome for a British patrol to becaptured. I recall a case in point which I witnessed and which isfar enough in the past so that it can be told. It occurred, not atVimy Ridge, but further down the line, nearer the Somme. 

I was out one night with another man, prowling in the dark, when Iencountered a Canadian sergeant who was alone. There was a Canadianbattalion holding the next trench to us, and another farther down. He was from the farther one. We lay in the mud and compared notes. Once, when a light floated down near us, I saw his face, and he wasa man I knew, though not by name. 

After a while we separated, and he went back, as he wasconsiderably off his patrol. An hour or so later the mist began toget gray, and it was evident that dawn was near. I was a couple ofhundred yards down from our battalion, and my man and I made forthe trenches opposite where we were. As we climbed into a sap head, I was greeted by a Canadian corporal. He invited me to a tin of"char", and I sent my man up the line to our own position. 

We sat on the fire step drinking, and I told the corporal aboutmeeting the sergeant out in front. While we were at the "char" itkept getting lighter, and presently a pair of Lewises started torattle a hundred yards or so away down the line. Then came a suddencommotion and a kind of low, growling shout. That is the best way Ican describe it. We stood up, and below we saw men going over thetop. 

"What the dickens can this be?" stuttered the corporal. "There'sbeen no barrage. There's no orders for a charge. What is it? Whatis it?"

Well, there they were, going over, as many as two hundred ofthem--growling. The corporal and I climbed out of the trench at therear, over the parados, and ran across lots down to a pointopposite where the Canadians had gone over, and watched. 

They swept across No Man's Land and into the Boche trench. Therewas the deuce of a ruckus over there for maybe two minutes, andthen back they came--carrying something. Strangely enough there hadbeen no machine-gun fire turned on them as they crossed, nor wasthere as they returned. They had cleaned that German trench! Andthey brought back the body of a man--nailed to a rude crucifix. Thething was more like a T than a cross. It was made of planks, perhaps two by five, and the man was spiked on by his hands andfeet. Across the abdomen he was riddled with bullets and again withanother row a little higher up near his chest. The man was thesergeant I had talked to earlier in the night. What had happenedwas this. He had, no doubt, been taken by a German patrol. Probablyhe had refused to answer questions. Perhaps he had insulted anofficer. They had crucified him and held him up above the parapet. With the first light his own comrades had naturally opened on thething with the Lewises, not knowing what it was. When it gotlighter, and they recognized the hellish thing that had been doneto one of their men, they went over. Nothing in this world couldhave stopped them. 

The M. O. Who viewed the body said that without question the man hadbeen crucified alive. Also it was said that the same thing hadhappened before. 

I told Captain Green of the occurrence when I got back to our owntrenches, and he ordered me to keep silent, which I did. It wasfeared that if the affair got about the men would be "windy" onpatrol. However, the thing did get about and was pretty well talkedover. Too many saw it. 

The Canadians were reprimanded for going over without orders. Butthey were not punished. For their officers went with them--ledthem. 

Occasionally the temptation is too great. Once I was out on patrolalone, having sent my man back with a message, when I encountered aHeinie. I was lying down at the time. A flock of lights went up andshowed this fellow standing about ten feet from me. He had frozenand stayed that way till the flares died, but I was close enough tosee that he was a German. Also--marvel of marvels--he was alone. 

When the darkness settled again, I got to my feet and jumped athim. He jumped at me--another marvel. Going into the clinch Imissed him with the persuader and lost my grip on it, leaving theweapon dangling by the leather loop on my wrist. He had struck atme with his automatic, which I think he must have dropped, thoughI'm not sure of that. Anyway we fell into each other's arms andwent at it barehanded. He was bigger than I. I got under the ribsand tried to squeeze the breath out of him, but he was too rugged. 

At the same time I felt that he didn't relish the clinch. I slippedmy elbow up and got under his chin, forcing his head back. Hisbreath smelled of beer and onions. I was choking him when hebrought his knee up and got me in the stomach and again on theinstep when he brought his heel down. 

It broke my hold, and I staggered back groping for the persuader. He jumped back as far as I did. I felt somehow that he was glad. Sowas I. We stood for a minute, and I heard him gutter out somethingthat sounded like "Verdamder swinehunt. " Then we both backed away. 

It seemed to me to be the nicest way out of the situation. No doubthe felt the same. 

I seem to have wandered far from the Quarries and the Grouse Spots. Let's go back. 

We were two days in the Grouse Spots and were then relieved, goingback to the Quarries and taking the place of Number 9 in support. While lying there, I drew a patrol that was interesting because itwas different. 

The Souchez River flowed down from Abalaine and Souchez villagesand through our lines to those of the Germans, and on to Lens. Spies, either in the army itself or in the villages, had beenplacing messages in bottles and floating them down the river to theGermans. 

Somebody found this out, and a net of chicken wire had been placedacross the river in No Man's Land. Some one had to go down thereand fish for bottles twice nightly. I took this patrol alone. Thelines were rather far apart along the river, owing to the swampynature of the ground, which made livable trenches impossible. 

I slipped out and down the slight incline, and presently foundmyself in a little valley. The grass was rank and high, sometimesnearly up to my chin, and the ground was slimy and treacherous. Islipped into several shell holes and was almost over my head in thestagnant, smelly water. 

I made the river all right, but there was no bridge or net insight. The river was not over ten feet wide and there was supposedto be a footbridge of two planks where the net was. 

I got back into the grass and made my way downstream. Slidinggently through the grass, I kept catching my feet in something hardthat felt like roots; but there were no trees in the neighborhood. I reached down and groped in the grass and brought up a human rib. The place was full of them, and skulls. Stooping, I could see them, grinning up out of the dusk, hundreds of them. I learned afterwardsthat this was called the Valley of Death. Early in the war severalthousand Zouaves had perished there, and no attempt had been madeto bury them. 

After getting out of the skeletons, I scouted along downstream andpresently heard the low voices of Germans. Evidently they had foundthe net and planned to get the messages first. Creeping to the edgeof the grass, I peeped out. I was opposite the bottle trap. I coulddimly make out the forms of two men standing on the nearer end ofthe plank bridge. They were, I should judge, about ten yards away, and they hadn't heard me. I got out a Mills, pulled the pin, andpitched it. The bomb exploded, perhaps five feet this side of themen. One dropped, and the other ran. 

After a short wait I ran over to the German. I searched him forpapers, found none, and rolled him into the river. 

After a few days in the Quarries we were moved to what was known asthe Warren, so called because the works resembled a rabbit warren. This was on the lower side and to the left end of Vimy Ridge, andwas extra dangerous. It did seem as though each place was worsethan the last. The Warren was a regular network of trenches, burrows, and funk holes, and we needed them all. 

The position was downhill from the Huns, and they kept sending overand down a continuous stream of "pip-squeaks", "whiz-bangs", and"minnies. " The "pip-squeak" is a shell that starts with a silly"pip", goes on with a sillier "squeeeeee", and goes off with aman's-size bang. 

The "whiz-bang" starts with a rough whirr like a flushing cockpartridge, and goes off on contact with a tremendous bang. It isnot as dangerous as it sounds, but bad enough. 

The "minnie" is about the size of a two-gallon kerosene can, andcomes somersaulting over in a high arc and is concentrated deathand destruction when it lands. It has one virtue--you can see itcoming and dodge, and at night it most considerately leaves a trailof sparks. 

The Boche served us full portions of all three of these man-killersin the Warren and kept us ducking in and out pretty much all thetime, night and day. 

I was lucky enough after the first day to be put on sappers' duty. The Sappers, or Engineers, are the men whose duty it is to runmines under No Man's Land and plant huge quantities of explosives. There was a great amount of mining going on all the time at VimyRidge from both sides. 

Sometimes Fritz would run a sap out reasonably near the surface, and we would counter with one lower down. Then he'd go us onebetter and go still deeper. Some of the mines went down and underhundreds of feet. The result of all this was that on our side atleast, the Sappers were under-manned and a good many infantry weredrafted into that service. 

I had charge of a gang and had to fill sandbags with the earthremoved from the end of the sap and get it out and pile the bags onthe parapets. We were well out toward the German lines and deepunder the hill when we heard them digging below us. An engineerofficer came in and listened for an hour and decided that they weregetting in explosives and that it was up to us to beat them to it. Digging stopped at once and we began rushing in H. E. In fifty-poundboxes. I was ordered back into supports with my section. 

Right here I began to have luck. Just see how this worked out. First a rushing party was organized whose duty it was to rush thecrater made by the mine explosion and occupy it before the Germansgot there. Sixty men were selected, a few from each company, andplaced where they were supposedly safe, but where they could get upfast. This is the most dangerous duty an infantryman has to do, because both sides after a mine explosion shower in fifty-sevenvarieties of sudden death, including a perfect rain of machine-gunbullets. The chances of coming out of a rushing party with a wholehide are about one in five. 

Well, for a wonder, I didn't get drawn for this one, and I breathedone long, deep sigh of relief, put my hand inside my tunic andpatted Dinky on the back. Dinky is my mascot. I'll tell you abouthim later. 

On top of that another bit of luck came along, though it didn'tseem like it at the moment. It was the custom for a ration party togo out each night and get up the grub. This party had to go overthe duck walk and was under fire both going and coming. One of thecorporals who had been out on rations two nights in successionbegan to "grouse. "

Of course Sergeant Page spotted me and detailed me to the"wangler's" duty. I "groused" too, like a good fellow, but had togo. 

"Garn, " says Wellsie. "Wot's the diff if yer gets it 'ere or there. If ye clicks, I'll draw yer fags from Blighty and say a prayer foryer soul. On yer way. "

Cheerful beggar, Wellsie. He was doing me a favor and didn't knowit. 

I did the three miles along the duck walk with the ration party, and there wasn't a shell came our way. Queer! Nor on the way back. Queerer! When we were nearly back and were about five hundred yardsfrom the base of the Pimple, a dead silence fell on the German sideof the line. There wasn't a gun nor a mortar nor even a rifle inaction for a mile in either direction. There was, too, a kind ofsympathetic let-up on our side. There weren't any lights going up. There was an electric tension in the very air. You could tell bythe feel that something big was going to happen. 

I halted the ration party at the end of the duck walk and waited. But not for long. Suddenly the "Very" lights went up from theGerman side, literally in hundreds, illuminating the top of theridge and the sky behind with a thin greenish white flare. Thencame a deep rumble that shook the ground, and a dull boom. A spurtof blood-red flame squirted up from the near side of the hill, anda rolling column of gray smoke. 

Then another rumble, and another, and then the whole side ofthe ridge seemed to open up and move slowly skyward with aworld-wrecking, soul-paralyzing crash. A murky red glare lit up thesmoke screen, and against it a mass of tossed-up debris, and for aninstant I caught the black silhouette of a whole human bodyspread-eagled and spinning like a pin-wheel. 

Most of our party, even at the distance, were knocked down by thegigantic impact of the explosion. A shower of earth and rockchunks, some as big as a barrel, fell around us. 

Then we heard a far-away cheering, and in the light of the flareswe saw a newly made hill and our men swarming up it to the crater. Two mines had exploded, and the whole side of the Pimple had beentorn away. Half of our rushing party were killed and we had sixtycasualties from shock and wounds among men who were supposed to beat a safe distance from the mining operation. But we took and heldthe new crater positions. 

The corporal whose place I had taken on the ration party was killedby falling stones. Inasmuch as he was where I would have been, Iconsidered that I had had a narrow escape from "going west!" Moreluck!

CHAPTER VIII

ON THE GO

 Marching, marching, marching, Always ruddy well marching. Marching all the morning, And marching all the night. Marching, marching, marching, Always ruddy well marching, Roll on till my time is up And I shall march no more. 

We sung it to the tune of "Holy, Holy, Holy", the whole bloomingbattalion. As we swung down the Boulevard Alsace-Lorraine in Amiensand passed the great cathedral up there to the left, on its littlerise of ground, the chant lifted and lilted and throbbed up fromnear a thousand throats, much as the unisoned devotions of theolden monks must have done in other days. 

Ours was a holy cause, but despite the association of the tune thesong was far from being a holy song. It was, rather, a chantedremonstrance against all hiking and against this one inparticular. 

After our service at Vimy Ridge some one in authority somewheredecided that the 22nd Battalion and two others were not quite goodenough for really smart work. We were, indeed, hard. But not hardenough. So some superior intellect squatting somewhere in thesafety of the rear, with a finger on the pulse of the army, decreedthat we were to get not only hard but tough; and to that end wewere to hike. Hike we did. 

For more than three weeks we went from place to place with noapparent destination, wandering aimlessly up and down thecountry-side of Northern France, imposing ourselves upon the peopleof little villages, shamming battle over their cultivated fields, and sleeping in their hen coops. 

I kept a diary on that hike. It was a thing forbidden, but Imanaged it. One manages many things out there. I have just readover that diary. There isn't much to it but a succession of townnames, --Villiers du Bois, Maisincourt, Barly, Oneaux, Canchy, Amiens, Bourdon, Villiers Bocage, Agenvilliers, Behencourt, andothers that I failed to set down and have forgotten. We sweptacross that country, sweating under our packs, hardening ourmuscles, stopping here for a day, there for five days forextended-order drills and bayonet and musketry practice, andsomewhere else for a sham battle. We were getting ready to go intothe Somme. 

The weather, by some perversity of fate, was fair during all ofthat hiking time. Whenever I was in the trenches it always rained, whether the season warranted it or not. Except on days when we werescheduled to go over the top. Then, probably because rain willsometimes hold up a planned-for attack, it was always fair. 

On the hike, with good roads under foot, the soldier does not minda little wet and welcomes a lot of clouds. No such luck for us. Itwas clear all the time. Not only clear but blazing hot Augustweather. 

On our first march out of the Cabaret Rouge communication trench wecovered a matter of ten miles to a place called Villiers du Bois. Before that I had never fully realized just what it meant to go itin full heavy equipment. 

Often on the march I compared my lot with that of the medievalsoldier who had done his fighting over these same fields ofNorthern France. 

The knight of the Middle Ages was all dressed up like a hardwarestore with, I should judge, about a hundred pounds of armor. But herode a horse and had a squire or some such striker trailing alongin the rear with the things to make him comfortable, when thefighting was over. 

The modern soldier gets very little help in his war making. He is, in fact, more likely to be helping somebody else than asking forassistance for himself. The soldier has two basic functions: first, to keep himself whole and healthy; second, to kill the otherfellow. To the end that he may do these two perfectly simplethings, he has to carry about eighty pounds of weight all the time. 

He has a blanket, a waterproof sheet, a greatcoat, extra boots, extra underwear, a haversack with iron rations, entrenching tools, a bayonet, a water bottle, a mess kit, a rifle, two hundred fiftyrounds of ammo, a tin hat, two gas helmets, and a lot ofmiscellaneous small junk. All this is draped, hung, and otherwisedisposed over his figure by means of a web harness having morehooks than a hatrack. He parallels the old-time knight only in thematter of the steel helmet and the rifle, which, with the bayonet, corresponds to the lance, sword, and battle-ax, three in one. 

The modern soldier carries all his worldly goods with him all thetime. He hates to hike. But he has to. 

I remember very vividly that first day. The temperature was around90°, and some fool officers had arranged that we start at one, --thevery worst time of the day. The roads so near the front werepulverized, and the dust rose in dense clouds. The long straightlines of poplars beside the road were gray with it, and the heatwaves shimmered up from the fields. 

Before we had gone five miles the men began to wilt. Right away Ihad some more of the joys of being a corporal brought home to me. I was already touched with trench fever and was away under par. That didn't make any difference. 

On the march, when the men begin to weaken, an officer is sure totrot up and say:

"Corporal Holmes, just carry this man's rifle, " or "CorporalCollins, take that man's pack. He's jolly well done. "

Seemingly the corporal never is supposed to be jolly well done. Ifone complained, his officer would look at him with astoundedreproach and say:

"Why, Corporal. We cawn't have this, you know! You are aNon-commissioned Officer, and you must set an example. You must, rahly. "

When we finally hit the town where our billets were, we found ourcompany quartered in an old barn. It was dirty, and there was apigpen at one end, --very smelly in the August heat. We flopped inthe ancient filth. The cooties were very active, as we weredrenched with sweat and hadn't had a bath since heavens knew when. We had had about ten minutes' rest and were thinking about gettingout of the harness when up came Mad Harry, one of our "leftenants", and ordered us out for foot inspection. 

I don't want to say anything unfair about this man. He is dead now. I saw him die. He was brave. He knew his job all right, but he wasa fine example of what an officer ought not to be. The only reasonI speak of him is because I want to say something about officers ingeneral. 

This Mad Harry, --I do not give his surname for obviousreasons, --was the son of one of the richest-new-rich-merchantfamilies in England. He was very highly educated, had, I take it, spent the most of his life with the classics. He was long and thinand sallow and fish-eyed. He spoke in a low colorless monotone, absolutely without any inflection whatever. The men thought he wasbalmy. Hence the nickname Mad Harry. 

Mad Harry was a fiend for walking. And at the end of a twenty-milehike in heavy marching order he would casually stroll alongsidesome sweating soldier and drone out, "I say, Private Stetson. Don't you just love to hike?"

Then and there he made a lifelong personal enemy of PrivateStetson. In the same or similar ways he made personal enemies ofevery private soldier he came in contact with. 

It may do no harm to tell how Mad Harry died. He came very nearbeing shot by one of his own men. 

It was on the Somme. We were in the middle of a bit of a show, andwe were all hands down in shell holes with a heavy machine-gun firecrackling overhead. I was in one hole, and in the next, whichmerged with mine, were two chaps who were cousins. 

Mad Harry came along, walking perfectly upright, regardless ofdanger, with his left arm shattered. He dropped into the next shellhole and with his expressionless drawl unshaken, said, "Private X. Dress my arm. "

Private X got out his own emergency bandage and fixed the arm. Whenit was done Mad Harry, still speaking in his monotonous drone, said:

"Now, Private X, get up out of this hole. Don't be hiding. "

Private X obeyed orders without a question. He climbed out and fellwith a bullet through his head. His cousin, who was a very dearfriend of the boy, evidently went more or less crazy at this. I sawhim leap at Mad Harry and snatch his pistol from the holster. Hewas, I think, about to shoot his officer when a shell burstoverhead and killed them both. 

Well, on this first day of the hike Mad Harry ordered us out forfoot inspection, as I have said. I found that I simply couldn't getthem out. They were in no condition for foot inspection, --hadn'twashed for days. Harry came round and gave me a royal dressing downand ordered the whole bunch out for parade and helmet inspection. We were kept standing for an hour. You couldn't blame the men forhating an officer of that kind. 

It is only fair to say that Mad Harry was not a usual type ofBritish officer. He simply carried to excess the idea of disciplineand unquestioning obedience. The principle of discipline is theguts and backbone of any army. I am inclined to think that it ismore than half the making of any soldier. There has been a gooddeal of talk in the press about a democratic army. As a matter offact fraternization between men and officers is impossible exceptin nations of exceptional temperament and imagination, like theFrench. The French are unique in everything. It follows that theirarmy can do things that no other army can. It is common to see aFrench officer sitting in a cafe drinking with a private. 

In the British army that could not be. The new British army is moredemocratic, no doubt, than the old. But except in the heat ofbattle, no British officer can relax his dignity very much. Withthe exception of Mr. Blofeld, who was one of those rare characterswho can be personally close and sympathetic and at the same timecommand respect and implicit obedience, I never knew a successfulofficer who did not seem to be almost of another world. 

Our Colonel was a fine man, but he was as dignified as a SupremeCourt Judge. Incidentally he was as just. I have watched ColonelFlowers many times when he was holding orders. This is a kind ofcourt when all men who have committed crimes and have been passedon by the captains appear before the Colonel. 

Colonel Flowers would sit smiling behind his hand, and would tryhis hardest to find "mitigating circumstances"; but when none couldbe dug out he passed sentence with the last limit of severity, andthe man that was up for orders didn't come again if he knew whatwas good for himself. 

I think that on the hike we all got to know our officers betterthan we had known them in the trenches. Their real characters cameout. You knew how far you could go with them, and what was moreimportant, how far you couldn't go. 

It was at Dieval that my rank as lance corporal was confirmed. Itis customary, when a rookie has been made a non-com in training, toreduce him immediately when he gets to France. I had joined in thetrenches and had volunteered for a raiding party and there had beenno opportunity to reduce me. I had not, however, had a corporal'spay. My confirmation came at Dieval, and I was put on pay. I wouldhave willingly sacrificed the pay and the so-called honor to havebeen a private. 

Our routine throughout the hike was always about the same, that isin the intervals when we were in any one place for a day or more. It was, up at six, breakfast of tea, bread, and bacon. Drill tillnoon; dinner; drill till five. After that nothing to do tillto-morrow, unless we got night 'ops, which was about two nights outof three. 

There were few Y. M. C. A. Huts so far behind the lines, and the shorttime up to nine was usually spent in the _estaminets_. The games ofhouse were in full blast all the time. 

On the hike we were paid weekly. Privates got five francs, corporals ten, and sergeants fifteen to twenty a week. That's a lotof money. Anything left over was held back to be paid when we gotto Blighty. Parcels and mail came along with perfect regularity onthat hike. It was and is a marvel to me how they do it. A battalionchasing around all over the place gets its stuff from Blighty dayafter day, right on the tick and without any question. I only hopethat whatever the system is, our army will take advantage of it. Ashortage of letters and luxury parcels is a real hardship. 

We finally brought up at a place called Oneux (pronounced Oh, no)and were there five days. I fell into luck here. It was customary, when we were marching on some unsuspecting village, to send thequartermaster sergeants ahead on bicycles to locate billets. We hadan old granny named Cypress, better known as Lizzie. The othersergeants were accustomed to flim-flam Lizzie to a finish on theselection of billets, with the result that C company usually sleptin pigpens of stables. 

The day we approached Oneux, Lizzie was sick, and I was delegatedto his job. I went into the town with the three other quartermastersergeants, got them into an _estaminet_, bought about a dollar'sworth of drinks, sneaked out the back door, and preempted theschoolhouse for C company. I also took the house next door, whichwas big and clean, for the officers. We were royally comfortablethere, and the other companies used the stables that usually fellto our lot. 

As a reward, I suspect, I was picked for Orderly Corporal, a cushyjob. We all of us had it fairly easy at Oneux. It was hot weather, and nights we used to sit out in the schoolhouse yard and talkabout the war. 

Some of the opinions voiced out there with more frankness than anyone would dare to use at home would, I am sure, shock some of thepatriots. The fact is that any one who has fought in France wantspeace, and the sooner the better. 

We had one old-timer, out since Mons, who habitually, night afternight, day after day, would pipe up with the same old plaint. Something like this:

"Hi arsks yer. Wot are we fightin' for? Wot'd th' Belgiums hever dofer us? Wot? Wot'd th' Rooshians hever do fer us? Wot's th' good ofth' Frenchies? Wot's th' good of hanybody but th' Henglish? Gawdlumme! I'm fed up. "

And yet this man had gone out at the beginning and would fightlike the very devil, and I verily believe will be homesick for thetrenches if he is alive when it is all over. 

Bones, who was educated and a thoughtful reader, had it figured outthat the war was all due to the tyranny of the ruling classes, withthe Kaiser the chief offender. 

A lot of the men wanted peace at any reasonable price. Anything, sothey would get back to 'Arriet or Sadie or Maria. 

I should say offhand that there was not one man in a hundred whowas fighting consciously for any great recognized principle. Andyet, with all their grousing and criticism, and all theiroverwhelming desire to have it over with, every one of them wasloyal and brave and a hard fighter. 

A good deal has been written about the brilliancy of the Canadiansand the other Colonials. Too much credit cannot be given these men. In an attack there are no troops with more dash than the Canadians, but when it comes to taking punishment and hanging on a hopelesssituation, there are no troops in the wide world who can equal, much less surpass, the English. Personally I think that comparisonsshould be avoided. All the Allies are doing their full duty withall that is in them. 

During most of the war talk, it was my habit to keep discreetlyquiet. We were not in the war yet, and any remarks from me usuallydrew some hot shot about Mr. Wilson's "blankety-blinked bloomin'notes. "

There was another American, a chap named Sanford from Virginia, in B company, and he and I used to furnish a large amount ofentertainment in these war talks. Sanford was a F. F. V. And didn'tcare who knew it. Also he thought General Lee was the greatestmilitary genius ever known. One night he and I got started and hadit hot and heavy as to the merits of the Civil War. This for somereason tickled the Tommies half to death, and after that they wouldegg us on to a discussion. 

One of them would slyly say, "Darby, 'oo th' blinkin' 'ell was thisblighter, General Grant?"

Or, "Hi sye, Sandy, Hi 'eard Darby syin' 'ow this General Lee was ableedin' swab. "

Then Sanford and I would pass the wink and go at it tooth andnail. It was ridiculous, arguing the toss on a long-gone-bysmall-time scrap like the Civil War with the greatest show inhistory going on all around us. Anyway the Tommies loved it andwould fairly howl with delight when we got to going good. 

It is strange, but with so many Americans in the British service, Iran up against very few. I remember one night when we were making anight march from one village to another, we stopped for thecustomary ten-minutes-in-the-hour rest. Over yonder in a fieldthere was a camp of some kind, --probably field artillery. There wasdim light of a fire and the low murmur of voices. And then a fellowbegan to sing in a nice tenor:

 Bury me not on the lone prairie Where the wild coyotes howl o'er me. Bury me down in the little churchyard In a grave just six by three. 

The last time I had heard that song was in New Orleans, and it wassung by a wild Texan. So I yelled, "Hello there, Texas. "

He answered, "Hello, Yank. Where from?"

I answered, "Boston. "

"Give my regards to Tremont Street and go to hell, " says he. A galeof laughter came out of the night. Just then we had the order tofall in, and away we went. I'd like to know sometime who that chapwas. 

After knocking about all over the north of France seemingly, webrought up at Canchy of a Sunday afternoon. Here the whole brigade, four battalions, had church parade, and after that the band playedragtime and the officers had a gabfest and compared medals, on topof which we were soaked with two hours' steady drill. We were atCanchy ten days, and they gave it to us good and plenty. We woulddrill all day and after dark it would be night 'ops. Finally somany men were going to the doctor worn out that he ordered a wholeday and a half of rest. 

Mr. Blofeld on Saturday night suggested that, as we were going intothe Somme within a few weeks, the non-coms ought to have a littleblow-out. It would be the last time we would all ever be together. He furnished us with all the drinkables we could get away with, including some very choice Johnny Walker. There was a lot ofcanned stuff, mostly sardines. Mr. Blofeld loaned us the officers'phonograph. 

It was a large, wet night. Everybody made a speech or sang a song, and we didn't go home until morning. It was a farewell party, andwe went the limit. If there is one thing that the Britisher doesbetter than another, it is getting ready to die. He does it with asmile, --and he dies with a laugh. 

Poor chaps! Nearly all of them are pushing up the daisies somewherein France. Those who are not are, with one or two exceptions, outof the army with broken bodies. 

CHAPTER IX

FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS

Late in the summer I accumulated a nice little case of trenchfever. 

This disease is due to remaining for long periods in the wet andmud, to racked nerves, and, I am inclined to think, to sleepingin the foul air of the dug-outs. The chief symptom is hightemperature, and the patient aches a good deal. I was sent back toa place in the neighborhood of Arras and was there a weekrecuperating. 

While I was there a woman spy whom I had known in Abalaine wasbrought to the village and shot. The frequency with which the duckwalk at Abalaine had been shelled, especially when ration partiesor troops were going over it, had attracted a good deal ofattention. 

There was a single house not far from the end of that duck walkwest of Abalaine, occupied by a woman and two or three children. She had lived there for years and was, so far as anybody knew, aFrenchwoman in breeding and sympathies. She was in the habit ofselling coffee to the soldiers, and, of course, gossiped with themand thus gained a good deal of information about troop movements. 

She was not suspected for a long time. Then a gunner of a batterywhich was stationed near by noticed that certain children'sgarments, a red shirt and a blue one and several white garments, were on the clothesline in certain arrangement on the days whentroops were to be moved along the duck walk the following night. This soldier notified his officers, and evidence was accumulatedthat the woman was signalling to the Boche airplanes. 

She was arrested, taken to the rear, and shot. I don't like tothink that this woman was really French. She was, no doubt, one ofthe myriad of spies who were planted in France by the Germans longbefore the war. 

After getting over the fever, I rejoined my battalion in the earlypart of September in the Somme district at a place called MillStreet. This was in reality a series of dug-outs along a road somelittle distance behind our second lines, but in the range of theGerman guns, which persistently tried for our artillery just besideus. 

Within an hour of my arrival I was treated to a taste of one of theforms of German kultur which was new at the time. At least it wasnew to me--tear gas. This delectable vapor came over in shells, comparatively harmless in themselves, but which loosed a gas, smelling at first a little like pineapple. When you got a goodinhale you choked, and the eyes began to run. There was nocontrolling the tears, and the victim would fairly drip for along time, leaving him wholly incapacitated. 

Goggles provided for this gas were nearly useless, and we allresorted to the regular gas helmet. In this way we were able tostand the stuff. 

The gas mask, by the way, was the bane of my existence in thetrenches--one of the banes. I found that almost invariably after Ihad had mine on for a few minutes I got faint. Very often I wouldkeel over entirely. A good many of the men were affected the sameway, either from the lack of air inside the mask or by theinfluence of the chemicals with which the protector is impregnated. 

One of the closest calls I had in all my war experience was atMills Street. And Fritz was not to blame. 

Several of the men, including myself, were squatted around abrazier cooking char and getting warm, for the nights were cold, when there was a terrific explosion. Investigation proved that anunexploded bomb had been buried under the brazier, and that it hadgone off as the heat penetrated the ground. It is a wonder thereweren't more of these accidents, as Tommy was forever throwing awayhis Millses. 

The Mills bomb fires by pulling out a pin which releases a leverwhich explodes the bomb after four seconds. Lots of men neverreally trust a bomb. If you have one in your pocket, you feel thatthe pin may somehow get out, and if it does you know that you'll goto glory in small bits. I always had that feeling myself and usedto throw away my Millses and scoop a hatful of dirt over them withmy foot. 

This particular bomb killed one man, wounded several, and shockedall of us. Two of the men managed to "swing" a "blighty" case outof it. I could have done the same if I had been wise enough. 

I think I ought to say a word right here about the psychology ofthe Tommy in swinging a "blighty" case. 

It is the one first, last, and always ambition of the Tommy to getback to Blighty. Usually he isn't "out there" because he wants tobe but because he has to be. He is a patriot all right. His love ofBlighty shows that. He will fight like a bag of wildcats when hegets where the fighting is, but he isn't going around looking fortrouble. He knows that his officers will find that for hima-plenty. 

When he gets letters from home and knows that the wife or the"nippers" or the old mother is sick, he wants to go home. And so heputs in his time hoping for a wound that will be "cushy" enough notto discommode him much and that will be bad enough to swingBlighty on. Sometimes when he wants very much to get back hestretches his conscience to the limit--and it is pretty elasticanyhow--and he fakes all sorts of illness. The M. O. Is usually abit too clever for Tommy, however, and out and out fakes seldom getby. Sometimes they do, and in the most unexpected cases. 

I had a man named Isadore Epstein in my section who wasinstrumental in getting Blighty for himself and one other. Issy wasa tailor by trade. He was no fighting man and didn't pretend to be, and he didn't care who knew it. He was wild to get a "blighty one"or shell shock, or anything that would take him home. 

One morning as we were preparing to go over the top, and the menwere a little jumpy and nervous, I heard a shot behind me, and abullet chugged into the sandbags beside my head. I whirled around, my first thought being that some one of our own men was trying todo me in. This is a thing that sometimes happens to unpopularofficers and less frequently to the men. But not in this case. 

It was Issy Epstein. He had been monkeying with his rifle and hadshot himself in the hand. Of course, Issy was at once undersuspicion of a self-inflicted wound, which is one of the worstcrimes in the calendar. But the suspicion was removed instantly. Issy was hopping around, raising a terrific row. 

"Oi, oi, " he wailed. "I'm ruint. I'm ruint. My thimble finger isgone. My thimble finger! I'm ruint. Oi, oi, oi, oi. "

The poor fellow was so sincerely desolated over the loss of hisnecessary finger that I couldn't accuse him of shooting himselfintentionally. I detailed a man named Bealer to take Issy back to adressing station. Well, Bealer never came back. 

Months later in England I met up with Epstein and asked aboutBealer. It seems that after Issy had been fixed up, the surgeonturned to Bealer and said:

"What's the matter with you?"

Bealer happened to be dreaming of something else and didn't answer. 

"I say, " barked the doctor, "speak up. What's wrong?"

Bealer was startled and jumped and begun to stutter. 

"Oh, I see, " said the surgeon. "Shell shock. "

Bealer was bright enough and quick enough after that to play it upand was tagged for Blighty. He had it thrust upon him. And you canbet he grabbed it and thanked his lucky stars. 

We had been on Mill Street a day and a night when an order came forour company to move up to the second line and to be ready to goover the top the next day. At first there was the usual grousing, as there seemed to be no reason why our company should be pickedfrom the whole battalion. We soon learned that all hands were goingover, and after that we felt better. 

We got our equipment on and started up to the second line. It wasright here that I got my first dose of real honest-to-goodnessmodern war. The big push had been on all summer, and the whole ofthe Somme district was battered and smashed. 

Going up from Mill Street there were no communication trenches. Wewere right out in the open, exposed to rifle and machine-gun fireand to shrapnel, and the Boches were fairly raining it in on theterritory they had been pushed back from and of which they had therange to an inch. We went up under that steady fire for a fullhour. The casualties were heavy, and the galling part of it wasthat we couldn't hurry, it was so dark. Every time a shell burstoverhead and the shrapnel pattered in the dirt all about, I kissedmyself good-by and thought of the baked beans at home. Men keptfalling, and I wished I hadn't enlisted. 

When we finally got up to the trench, believe me, we didn't needany orders to get in. We relieved the Black Watch, and theyencouraged us by telling us they had lost over half their men inthat trench, and that Fritz kept a constant fire on it. They didn'tneed to tell us. The big boys were coming over all the time. 

The dead here were enough to give you the horrors. I had never seenso many before and never saw so many afterwards in one place. Theywere all over the place, both Germans and our own men. And in allstates of mutilation and decomposition. 

There were arms and legs sticking out of the trench sides. Youcould tell their nationality by the uniforms. The Scotchpredominated. And their dead lay in the trenches and outside andhanging over the edges. I think it was here that I first got thereal meaning of that old quotation about the curse of a dead man'seye. With so many lying about, there were always eyes staring atyou. 

Sometimes a particularly wide-staring corpse would seem to followyou with his gaze, like one of these posters with the pointingfinger that they use to advertise Liberty Bonds. We would coverthem up or turn them over. Here and there one would have a scornfuldeath smile on his lips, as though he were laughing at the folly ofthe whole thing. 

The stench here was appalling. That frightful, sickening smell thatstrikes one in the face like something tangible. Ugh! I immediatelygrew dizzy and faint and had a mad desire to run. I think if Ihadn't been a non-com with a certain small amount of responsibilityto live up to, I should have gone crazy. 

I managed to pull myself together and placed my men as comfortablyas possible. The Germans were five hundred yards away, and therewas but little danger of an attack, so comparatively few had to"stand to. " The rest took to the shelters. 

I found a little two-man shelter that everybody else had avoidedand crawled in. I crowded up against a man in there and spoke tohim. He didn't answer and then suddenly I became aware of a stenchmore powerful than ordinary. I put out my hand and thrust it into aslimy, cold mess. I had found a dead German with a gaping, putrefying wound in his abdomen. I crawled out of that shelter, gagging and retching. This time I simply couldn't smother myimpulse to run, and run I did, into the next traverse, where I sankweak and faint on the fire step. I sat there the rest of the night, regardless of shells, my mind milling wildly on the problem of warand the reason thereof and cursing myself for a fool. 

 [Illustration: HEAD-ON VIEW OF A BRITISH TANK. ]

It was very early in the morning when Wells shook me up with, "Hisye, Darby, wot the blinkin' blazes is that noise?"

We listened, and away from the rear came a tremendous whirring, burring, rumbling buzz, like a swarm of giant bees. I thought ofeverything from a Zeppelin to a donkey engine but couldn't make itout. Blofeld ran around the corner of a traverse and told us to getthe men out. He didn't know what was coming and wasn't taking anychances. 

It was getting a little light though heavily misty. We waited, andthen out of the gray blanket of fog waddled the great steelmonsters that we were to know afterwards as the "tanks. " I shallnever forget it. 

In the half darkness they looked twice as big as they really were. They lurched forward, slow, clumsy but irresistible, nosing downinto shell holes and out, crushing the unburied dead, sliding overmere trenches as though they did not exist. 

There were five in all. One passed directly over us. We scuttledout of the way, and the men let go a cheer. For we knew that herewas something that could and would win battles. 

The tanks were an absolutely new thing to us. Their secret had beenguarded so carefully even in our own army that our battalion hadheard nothing of them. 

But we didn't need to be told that they would be effective. Onelook was enough to convince us. Later it convinced Fritzie. 

CHAPTER X

FOLLOWING THE TANKS INTO BATTLE

The tanks passed beyond us and half-way up to the first line andstopped. Trapdoors in the decks opened, and the crews poured outand began to pile sandbags in front of the machines so that whenday broke fully and the mists lifted, the enemy could not see whathad been brought up in the night. 

Day dawned, and a frisky little breeze from the west scattered thefog and swept the sky clean. There wasn't a cloud by eight o'clock. The sun shone bright, and we cursed it, for if it had been rainythe attack would not have been made. 

We made the usual last preparations that morning, such as writingletters and delivering farewell messages; and the latest rooks madetheir wills in the little blanks provided for the purpose in theback of the pay books. We judged from the number of dead and theevident punishment other divisions had taken there that thechances of coming back would be slim. Around nine o'clock CaptainGreen gave us a little talk that confirmed our suspicions that theday was to be a hard one. 

He said, as nearly as I can remember:

"Lads, I want to tell you that there is to be a most importantbattle--one of the most important in the whole war. High Wood outthere commands a view of the whole of this part of the Somme and ismost valuable. There are estimated to be about ten thousand Germansin that wood and in the surrounding supports. The positions aremostly of concrete with hundreds of machine guns and fieldartillery. Our heavies have for some reason made no impression onthem, and regiment after regiment has attempted to take the woodsand failed with heavy losses. Now it is up to the 47th Division todo the seemingly impossible. Zero is at eleven. We go over then. The best of luck and God bless you. "

We were all feeling pretty sour on the world when the sky pilotcame along and cheered us up. 

He was a good little man, that chaplain, brave as they make 'em. He always went over the top with us and was in the thick of thefighting, and he had the military cross for bravery. He passed downthe line, giving us a slap on the back or a hand grip and startedus singing. No gospel hymns either, but any old rollicking, good-natured song that he happened to think of that would loosenthings up and relieve the tension. 

Somehow he made you feel that you wouldn't mind going to hell if hewas along, and you knew that he'd be willing to come if he could doany good. A good little man! Peace to his ashes. 

At ten o'clock things busted loose, and the most intensebombardment ever known in warfare up to that time began. Thousandsof guns, both French and English, in fact every available gunwithin a radius of fifteen miles, poured it in. In the Bedlamitishdin and roar it was impossible to hear the next man unless he puthis mouth up close to your ear and yelled. 

My ear drums ached, and I thought I should go insane if the racketdidn't stop. I was frightfully nervous and scared, but tried notto show it. An officer or a non-com must conceal his nervousness, though he be dying with fright. 

The faces of the men were hard-set and pale. Some of them lookedpositively green. They smoked fag after fag, lighting the new oneson the butts. 

All through the bombardment Fritz was comparatively quiet. He wassaving all his for the time when we should come over. Probably, too, he was holed up to a large extent in his concrete dug-outs. Ilooked over the top once or twice and wondered if I, too, would belying there unburied with the rats and maggots gnawing me into anunrecognizable mass. There were moments in that hour from ten toeleven when I was distinctly sorry for myself. 

The time, strangely enough, went fast--as it probably does with acondemned man in his last hour. At zero minus ten the word wentdown the line "Ten to go" and we got to the better positions of thetrench and secured our footing on the side of the parapet to makeour climb over when the signal came. Some of the men gave theirbayonets a last fond rub, and I looked to my bolt action to seethat it worked well. I had ten rounds in the magazine, and I didn'tintend to rely too much on the bayonet. At a few seconds of elevenI looked at my wrist watch and was afflicted again with that emptyfeeling in the solar plexus. Then the whistles shrilled; I blewmine, and over we went. 

To a disinterested spectator who was far enough up in the air to beout of range it must have been a wonderful spectacle to see thosethousands of men go over, wave after wave. 

The terrain was level out to the point where the little hill ofHigh Wood rose covered with the splintered poles of what had oncebeen a forest. This position and the supports to the left and rearof it began to fairly belch machine-gun and shell fire. If Fritzhad been quiet before, he gave us all he had now. 

Our battalion went over from the second trench, and we got thecream of it. 

The tanks were just ahead of us and lumbered along in an imposingrow. They lurched down into deep craters and out again, tipped andreeled and listed, and sometimes seemed as though they must upset;but they came up each time and went on and on. And how slow theydid seem to move! Lord, I thought we should never cover that fiveor six hundred yards. 

The tank machine guns were spitting fire over the heads of ourfirst wave, and their Hotchkiss guns were rattling. A beautifulcreeping barrage preceded us. Row after row of shells burst at justthe right distance ahead, spewing gobs of smoke and flashes offlame, made thin by the bright sunlight. Half a dozen airplanescircled like dragonflies up there in the blue. 

There was a tank just ahead of me. I got behind it. And marchedthere. Slow! God, how slow! Anyhow, it kept off the machine-gunbullets, but not, the shrapnel. It was breaking over us in clouds. I felt the stunning patter of the fragments on my tin hat, cringedunder it, and wondered vaguely why it didn't do me in. 

Men in the front wave were going down like tenpins. Off therediagonally to the right and forward I glimpsed a blinding burst, and as much as a whole platoon went down. 

Around me men were dropping all the time--men I knew. I saw Dolbsieclawing at his throat as he reeled forward, falling. I saw Vickersdouble up, drop his rifle, and somersault, hanging on to hisabdomen. 

A hundred yards away, to the right, an officer walked backwardswith an automatic pistol balanced on his finger, smiling, pullinghis men along like a drum major. A shell or something hit him. Hedisappeared in a welter of blood and half a dozen of the front filefell with him. 

I thought we must be nearly there and sneaked a look around theedge of the tank. A traversing machine gun raked the mud, throwingup handfuls, and I heard the gruff "row, row" of flattened bulletsas they ricocheted off the steel armor. I ducked back, and on wewent. 

Slow! Slow! I found myself planning what I would do when I got tothe front trenches--if we ever did. There would be a grand rumpus, and I would click a dozen or more. 

And then we arrived. 

I don't suppose that trip across No Man's Land behind the tankstook over five minutes, but it seemed like an hour. 

At the end of it my participation in the battle of High Wood ended. No, I wasn't wounded. But when we reached the Boche front trenchesa strange thing happened. There was no fight worth mentioning. Thetanks stopped over the trenches and blazed away right and left withtheir all-around traverse. 

A few Boches ran out and threw silly little bombs at the monsters. The tanks, noses in air, moved slowly on. And then the Graybacksswarmed up out of shelters and dug-outs, literally in hundreds, andheld up their hands, whining "Mercy, kamarad. "

We took prisoners by platoons. Blofeld grabbed me and turned over agang of thirty to me. We searched them rapidly, cut theirsuspenders and belts, and I started to the rear with them. Theyseemed glad to go. So was I. 

As we hurried back over the five hundred yards that had been NoMan's Land and was now British ground, I looked back and saw theirresistible tanks smashing their way through the tree stumps ofHigh Wood, still spitting death and destruction in threedirections. 

Going back we were under almost as heavy fire as we had been comingup. When we were about half-way across, shrapnel burst directlyover our party and seven of the prisoners were killed and half adozen wounded. I myself was unscratched. I stuck my hand inside mytunic and patted Dinky on the back, sent up a prayer for some moreluck like that, and carried on. 

After getting my prisoners back to the rear, I came up again butcouldn't find my battalion. I threw in with a battalion ofAustralians and was with them for twenty-four hours. 

When I found my chaps again, the battle of High Wood was prettywell over. Our company for some reason had suffered very fewcasualties, less than twenty-nine. Company B, however, had beenpractically wiped out, losing all but thirteen men out of twohundred. The other two companies had less than one hundredcasualties. We had lost about a third of our strength. It is aliving wonder to me that any of us came through. 

I don't believe any of us would have if it hadn't been for thetanks. 

The net result of the battle of High Wood was that our troopscarried on for nearly two miles beyond the position to be taken. They had to fall back but held the wood and the heights. Three ofthe tanks were stalled in the farther edge of the woods--out offuel--and remained there for three days unharmed under the fire ofthe German guns. 

Eventually some one ventured out and got some juice into them, andthey returned to our lines. The tanks had proved themselves, notonly as effective fighting machines, but as destroyers of Germanmorale. 

CHAPTER XI

PRISONERS

For weeks after our first introduction to the tanks they were thechief topic of conversation in our battalion. And, notwithstandingthe fact that we had seen the monsters go into action, had seenwhat they did and the effect they had on the Boche, the details oftheir building and of their mechanism remained a mystery for a longtime. 

For weeks about all we knew about them was what we gathered fromtheir appearance as they reeled along, camouflaged with browns andyellows like great toads, and that they were named with quaintnames like "Creme de Menthe" and "Diplodocus. "

Eventually I met with a member of the crews who had manned thetanks at the battle of High Wood, and I obtained from him adescription of some of his sensations. It was a thing we had allwondered about, --how the men inside felt as they went over. 

My tanker was a young fellow not over twenty-five, a machinegunner, and in a little _estaminet_, over a glass of citron andsoda, he told me of his first battle. 

"Before we went in, " he said, "I was a little bit uncertain as tohow we were coming out. We had tried the old boats out and hadgiven them every reasonable test. We knew how much they would standin the way of shells on top and in the way of bombs or minesunderneath. Still there was all the difference between rehearsaland the actual going on the stage. 

"When we crawled in through the trapdoor for the first time over, the shut-up feeling got me. I'd felt it before but not that way. Igot to imagining what would happen if we got stalled somewhere inthe Boche lines, and they built a fire around us. That was natural, because it's hot inside a tank at the best. You mustn't smokeeither. I hadn't minded that in rehearsal, but in action I wascrazy for a fag. 

"We went across, you remember, at eleven, and the sun was shiningbright. We were parboiled before we started, and when we got goinggood it was like a Turkish bath. I was stripped to the waist andwas dripping. Besides that, when we begun to give 'em hell, theplace filled with gas, and it was stifling. The old boat pitched agood deal going into shell holes, and it was all a man could do tokeep his station. I put my nose up to my loop-hole to get air, butonly once. The machine-gun bullets were simply rattling on ourhide. Tock, tock, tock they kept drumming. The first shell that hitus must have been head on and a direct hit. There was a terrificcrash, and the old girl shook all over, --seemed to pause a littleeven. But no harm was done. After that we breathed easier. Wehadn't been quite sure that the Boche shells wouldn't do us in. 

"By the time we got to the Boche trenches, we knew he hadn'tanything that could hurt us. We just sat and raked him and laughedand wished it was over, so we could get the air. "

I had already seen the effect of the tanks on the Germans. Thebatch of prisoners who had been turned over to me seemed dazed. Onewho spoke English said in a quavering voice:

"Gott in Himmel, Kamarad, how could one endure? These things arenot human. They are not fair. "

That "fair" thing made a hit with me after going against tear gasand hearing about liquid fire and such things. 

The great number of the prisoners we took at High Wood were veryscared looking at first and very surly. They apparently expected tobe badly treated and perhaps tortured. They were tractable enoughfor the most part. But they needed watching, and they got it fromme, as I had heard much of the treachery of the Boche prisoners. 

On the way to the rear with my bunch, I ran into a little episodewhich showed the foolishness of trusting a German, --particularly anofficer. 

I was herding my lot along when we came up with about twelve incharge of a young fellow from a Leicester regiment. He was aprivate, and as most of his non-commissioned officers had been putout of action, he was acting corporal. We were walking togetherbehind the prisoners, swapping notes on the fight, when one of hisstopped, and no amount of coaxing would induce him to go anyfarther. He was an officer, of what rank I don't know, but judgingfrom his age probably a lieutenant. 

Finally Crane--that was the Leicester chap--went up to the officer, threatened him with his bayonet, and let him know that he was duefor the cold steel if he didn't get up and hike. 

Whereupon Mr. Fritz pulled an automatic from under his coat--heevidently had not been carefully searched--and aimed it at Crane. Crane dove at him and grabbed his wrist, but was too late. The gunwent off and tore away Crane's right cheek. He didn't go down, however, and before I could get in without danger to Crane, hepolished off the officer on the spot. 

The prisoners looked almost pleased. I suppose they knew theofficer too well. I bandaged Crane and offered to take hisprisoners in, but he insisted upon carrying on. He got very weakfrom loss of blood after a bit, and I had two of the Boches carryhim to the nearest dressing station, where they took care of him. Ihave often wondered whether the poor chap "clicked" it. 

Eventually I got my batch of prisoners back to headquarters andturned them over. I want to say a word right here as to thetreatment of the German prisoners by the British. In spite of theverified stories of the brutality shown to the Allied prisoners bythe Hun, the English and French have too much humanity toretaliate. Time and again I have seen British soldiers who werebringing in Germans stop and spend their own scanty pocket moneyfor their captives' comfort. I have done it myself. 

Almost inevitably the Boche prisoners were expecting harshtreatment. I found several who said that they had been told bytheir officers that they would be skinned alive if they surrenderedto the English. They believed it, and you could hardly blame thepoor devils for being scared. 

Whenever we were taking prisoners back, we always, unless we werein too much of a hurry, took them to the nearest canteen run by theY. M. C. A. Or by one of the artillery companies, and here we wouldbuy English or American fags. And believe me, they liked them. Anyone who has smoked the tobacco issued to the German army couldalmost understand a soldier surrendering just to get away from it. 

Usually, too, we bought bread and sweets, if we could stand theprice. The Heinies would bolt the food down as though they werehalf starved. And it was perfectly clear from the way they wentafter the luxuries that they got little more than the hardnecessities of army fare. 

At the battle of High Wood the prisoners we took ran largely tovery young fellows and to men of fifty or over. Some of theyoungsters said they were only seventeen and they looked not overfifteen. Many of them had never shaved. 

I think the sight of those war-worn boys, haggard and hard, already touched with cruelty and blood lust, brought home to mecloser than ever before what a hellish thing war is, and how keenlyGermany must be suffering, along with the rest of us. 

CHAPTER XII

I BECOME A BOMBER

When I found my battalion, the battle of High Wood had pretty wellquieted down. We had taken the position we went after, and thefighting was going on to the north and beyond the Wood. The BigPush progressed very rapidly as the summer drew to a close. Our menwere holding one of the captured positions in the neighborhood ofthe Wood. 

It must have been two days after we went over the top with thetanks that Captain Green had me up and told me that I was promoted. At least that was what he called it. I differed with him, butdidn't say so. 

The Captain said that as I had had a course in bombing, he thoughthe would put me in the Battalion Bombers. 

I protested that the honor was too great and that I really didn'tthink I was good enough. 

After that the Captain said that he didn't _think_ I was going inthe bombers. He _knew_ it. I was elected!

I didn't take any joy whatever in the appointment, but orders areorders and they have to be obeyed. The bombers are called the"Suicide Club" and are well named. The mortality in this branch ofthe service is as great if not greater than in any other. 

In spite of my feelings in the matter, I accepted the decisioncheerfully--like a man being sentenced to be electrocuted--andmanaged to convey the impression to Captain Green that I wasgreatly elated and that I looked forward to future performanceswith large relish. After that I went back to my shelter and made anew will. 

That very night I was called upon to take charge of a bombing partyof twelve men. A lieutenant, Mr. May, one of the bravest men I everknew, was to be of the party and in direct command. I was to havethe selection of the men. 

Captain Green had me up along with Lieutenant May early in theevening, and as nearly as I can remember these were hisinstructions:

"Just beyond High Wood and to the left there is a sap or smalltrench leading to the sunken road that lies between the towns ofAlbert and Bapaume. That position commands a military point that wefind necessary to hold before we can make another attack. TheGermans are in the trench. They have two machine guns and willraise the devil with us unless we get them out. It will cost a goodmany lives if we attempt to take the position by attack, but we areunder the impression that a bombing party in the night on asurprise attack will be able to take it with little loss of life. Take your twelve men out there at ten o'clock and _take thattrench_! You will take only bombs with you. You and Mr. May willhave revolvers. After taking the trench, consolidate it, and beforemorning there will be relief sent out to you. The best of luck!'"

The whole thing sounded as simple as ABC. All we had to do was goover there and take the place. The captain didn't say how manyGermans there would be nor what they would be doing while we weretaking their comfortable little position. Indeed he seemed to quitecarelessly leave the Boche out of the reckoning. I didn't. I knewthat some of us, and quite probably most of us, would never comeback. 

I selected my men carefully, taking only the coolest and steadiestand the best bombers. Most of them were men who had been at Doverwith me. I felt like an executioner when I notified them of theirselection. 

At nine-thirty we were ready, stripped to the lightest of necessaryequipment. Each of the men was armed with a bucket of bombs. Somecarried an extra supply in satchels, so we knew there would be noshortage of Millses. 

Lieutenant May took us out over the top on schedule time, and westarted for the position to be taken. We walked erect but in thestrictest silence for about a thousand yards. At that time thedistances were great on the Somme, as the Big Push was in fullswing, and the advance had been fast. Trench systems had beendemolished, and in many places there were only shell holes andisolated pieces of trench defended by machine guns. The wholemovement had progressed so far that the lines were far apart andbroken, so much so that in many cases the fighting had come back tothe open work of early in the war. 

Poking along out there, I had the feeling that we were an awfullylong way from the comparative safety of our main body--too far awayfor comfort. We were. Any doubts on the matter disappeared beforemorning. 

At the end of the thousand yards Lieutenant May gave the signal tolie down. We lay still half an hour or so and then crawled forward. Fortunately there was no barbed wire, as all entanglements had beendestroyed by the terrific bombardment that had been going on forweeks. The Germans made no attempt to repair it nor did we. 

We crawled along for about ten minutes, and the Lieutenant passedthe word in whispers to get ready, as we were nearly on them. Eachof us got out a bomb, pulled the pin with our teeth, and waited forthe signal. It was fairly still. Away off to the rear, guns weregoing, but they seemed a long way off. Forward, and away off tothe right beyond the Wood, there was a lot of rifle and machine-gunfire, and we could see the sharp little lavender stabs of flamelike electric flashes. It was light enough so that we could seedimly. 

Just ahead we could hear the murmur of the Huns as they chatted inthe trench. They hadn't seen us. Evidently they didn't suspect andwere more or less careless. 

The Lieutenant waited until the sound of voices was a little louderthan before, the Boches evidently being engaged in a firesideargument of some kind, and then he jumped to his feet shouting, "Now then, my lads. All together!"

We came up all standing and let 'em go. It was about fifteen yardsto Fritz, and that is easy to a good bomber, as my men all were. Ayell of surprise and fright went up from the trench, and theystarted to run. We spread out so as to get room, gave them anotherround of Millses, and rushed. 

The trench wasn't really a trench at all. It was the remains of aperfectly good one, but had been bashed all to pieces, and was nowonly five or six shell craters connected by the ruined traverses. At no point was it more than waist high and in some places onlyknee high. We swarmed into what was left of the trench and afterthe Heinies. There must have been forty of them, and it didn't takethem long to find out that we were only a dozen. Then they cameback at us. We got into a crooked bit of traverse that was inrelatively good shape and threw up a barricade of sandbags. Therewas any amount of them lying about. 

The Germans gave us a bomb or two and considerable rifle fire, andwe beat it around the corner of the bay. Then we had it back andforth, a regular seesaw game. We would chase them back from thebarricade, and then they would rush us and back we would go. Afterwe had lost three men and Lieutenant May had got a slight wound, wegot desperate and got out of the trench and rushed them for furtherorders. We fairly showered them as we followed them up, regardlessof danger to ourselves. All this scrap through they hadn't doneanything with the machine guns. One was in our end of the trench, and we found that the other was out of commission. They must havebeen short of small-arm ammunition and bombs, because on that laststrafing they cleared out and stayed. 

After the row was over we counted noses and found four dead andthree slightly wounded, including Lieutenant May. I detailed twomen to take the wounded and the Lieutenant back. That left four ofus to consolidate the position. The Lieutenant promised to returnwith relief, but as it turned out he was worse than he thought, andhe didn't get back. 

I turned to and inspected the position. It was pretty hopeless. There really wasn't much to consolidate. The whole works wasknocked about and was only fit for a temporary defence. There wereabout a dozen German dead, and we searched them but found nothingof value. So we strengthened our cross-trench barricade and waitedfor the relief. It never came. 

When it began to get light, the place looked even morediscouraging. There was little or no cover. We knew that unless wegot some sort of concealment, the airplanes would spot us, andthat we would get a shell or two. So we got out the entrenchingtools and dug into the side of the best part of the shallowtraverse. We finally got a slight overhang scraped out. We didn'tdare go very far under for fear that it would cave. We got somesandbags up on the sides and three of us crawled into the shelter. The other man made a similar place for himself a little distanceoff. 

The day dawned clear and bright and gave promise of being hot. Along about seven we began to get hungry. A Tommy is always hungry, whether he is in danger or not. When we took account of stock andfound that none of us had brought along "iron rations", wediscovered that we were all nearly starved. Killing is hungry work. 

We had only ourselves to blame. We had been told repeatedly neverto go anywhere without "iron rations", but Tommy is a good deal ofa child and unless you show him the immediate reason for a thing heis likely to disregard instructions. I rather blamed myself in thiscase for not seeing that the men had their emergency food. Infact, it was my duty to see that they had. But I had overlooked it. And I hadn't brought any myself. 

The "iron ration" consists of a pound of "bully beef", a small tincontaining tea and sugar enough for two doses, some Oxo cubes, anda few biscuits made of reinforced concrete. They are issued forjust such an emergency as we were in as we lay in our isolateddug-out. The soldier is apt to get into that sort of situationalmost any time, and it is folly ever to be without the ration. 

Well, we didn't have ours, and we knew we wouldn't get any beforenight, if we did then. One thing we had too much of. That was rum. The night before a bunch of us had been out on a ration party, andwe had come across a Brigade Dump. This is a station where rationsare left for the various companies to come and draw their own, alsoammo and other necessities. There was no one about, and we had gonethrough the outfit. We found two cases of rum, four gallons in acase, and we promptly filled our bottles, more than a pint each. 

Tommy is always very keen on his rum. The brand used in the army ishigh proof and burns like fire going down, but it is warming. Theregular ration as served after a cold sentry go is called a "tot. "It is enough to keep the cold out and make a man wish he hadanother. The average Tommy will steal rum whenever he can withoutthe danger of getting caught. 

It happened that all four of us were in the looting party and hadour bottles full. Also it happened that we were all normally quitetemperate and hadn't touched our supply. 

So we all took a nip and tightened up our belts. Then we tookanother and another. We lay on our backs with our heads out of theburrow, packed in like sardines and looking up at the sky. Half adozen airplanes came out and flew over. We had had a hard night andwe all dozed off, at least I did, and I guess the others did also. 

Around nine we all waked up, and Bones--he was the fellow in themiddle--began to complain of thirst. Then we all took another nipand wished it was water. We discussed the matter of crawling downto a muddy pool at the end of the traverse and having some out ofthat, but passed it up as there was a dead man lying in it. Bones, who was pretty well educated--he once asked me if I had visitedEmerson's home and was astounded that I hadn't--quoted from Kiplingsomething to the effect that, When you come to slaughter You'll do your work on water, An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it. 

Then Bones cursed the rum and took another nip. So did the rest ofus. 

There was a considerable bombardment going on all the forenoon, butfew shells came anywhere near us. Some shrapnel burst over us alittle way off to the right, and some of the fragments fell in thetrench, but on the whole the morning was uncomfortable but notdangerous. 

Around half-past ten we saw an airplane fight that was almost worththe forenoon's discomfort. A lot of them had been circling aroundever since daybreak. When the fight started, two of our planes werenearly over us. Suddenly we saw three Boche planes volplaning downfrom away up above. They grew bigger and bigger and opened withtheir guns when they were nearly on top of our fellows. No hits. Then all five started circling for top position. One of the Bochesstarted to fall and came down spinning, but righted himself notmore than a thousand feet up. Our anti air-craft guns opened onhim, and we could see the shells bursting with little cottony puffsall around. Some of the shrapnel struck near us. They missed him, and up he went again. Presently all five came circling lower andlower, jockeying for position and spitting away with their guns. Asthey all got to the lower levels, the anti air-craft guns stoppedfiring, fearing to get our men. 

Suddenly one of the Huns burst into flames and came toppling downbehind his lines, his gas tank ablaze. Almost immediately one ofours dropped, also burning and behind the Boche lines. 

After that it was two to one, and the fight lasted more than tenminutes. Then down went a Hun, not afire but tumbling end over endbehind our lines. I learned afterwards that this fellow was unhurtand was taken prisoner. That left it an even thing. We could seehalf a dozen planes rushing to attack the lone Boche. He saw themtoo. For he turned tail and skedaddled for home. 

Bonesie began to philosophize on the cold-bloodedness of airfighting and really worked himself up into an almost optimisticframe of mind. He was right in the midst of a flowery oration onour comparative safety, "nestling on the bosom of Mother Earth", when, without any warning whatever, there came a perfect avalancheof shell all around us. 

I knew perfectly well that we were caught. The shells, as near aswe could see, were coming from our side. Doubtless our peoplethought that the trench was still manned by Germans, and they wereshelling for the big noon attack. Such an attack was made, as Ilearned afterwards, but I never saw it. 

At eleven o'clock I looked at my watch. Somehow I didn't feardeath, although I felt it was near. Maybe the rum was working. Iturned to Bonesie and said, "What about that safety stuff, oldtop?"

"Cheer, cheer, Darby, " said he. "We may pull through yet. "

"Don't think so, " I insisted. "It's us for pushing up the daisies. Good luck if we don't meet again!"

I put my hand in and patted Dinky on the back, and sent up anotherlittle prayer for luck. Then there was a terrific shock, andeverything went black. 

When I came out of it, I had the sensation of struggling up out ofwater. I thought for an instant that I was drowning. And in effectthat was almost what was happening to me. I was buried, all but oneside of my face. A tremendous weight pressed down on me, and Icould only breathe in little gasps. 

I tried to move my legs and arms and couldn't. Then I wiggled myfingers and toes to see if any bones were broken. They wiggled allright. My right nostril and eye were full of dirt; also my mouth. Ispit out the dirt and moved my head until my nose and eye wereclear. I ached all over. 

It was along toward sundown. Up aloft a single airplane was wingingtoward our lines. I remember that I wondered vaguely if he was thesame fellow who had been fighting just before the world fell in onme. 

I tried to sing out to the rest of the men, but the best I could dowas a kind of loud gurgle. There was no answer. My head washumming, and the blood seemed to be bursting my ears. I wasterribly sorry for myself and tried to pull my strength togetherfor a big try at throwing the weight off my chest, but I wasabsolutely helpless. Then again I slid out of consciousness. 

It was dark when I struggled up through the imaginary water again. I was still breathing in gasps, and I could feel my heart going ingreat thumps that hurt and seemed to shake the ground. My tonguewas curled up and dry, and fever was simply burning me up. My mindwas clear, and I wished that I hadn't drunk that rum. Finding Icould raise my head a little, I cocked it up, squinting over mycheek bones--I was on my back--and could catch the far-off flickerof the silver-green flare lights. There was a rattle of musketryoff in the direction where the Boche lines ought to be. From behindcame the constant boom of big guns. I lay back and watched thestars, which were bright and uncommonly low. Then a shell burstnear by, --not near enough to hurt, --but buried as I was the wholeearth seemed to shake. My heart stopped beating, and I went outagain. 

When I came to the next time, it was still dark, and somebody waslifting me on to a stretcher. My first impression was of getting along breath. I gulped it down, and with every grateful inhalation Ifelt my ribs painfully snapping back into place. Oh, Lady! Didn't Ijust eat that air up. 

And then, having gotten filled up with the long-denied oxygen, Iasked, "Where's the others?"

"Ayen't no hothers, " was the brief reply. 

And there weren't. Later I reconstructed the occurrences of thenight from what I was told by the rescuing party. 

A big shell had slammed down on us, drilling Bonesie, the man inthe middle, from end to end. He was demolished. The shell was a"dud", that is, it didn't explode. If it had, there wouldn't havebeen anything whatever left of any of us. As it was our overhangcaved in, letting sandbags and earth down on the remaining man andmyself. The other man was buried clean under. He had life in himstill when he was dug out but "went west" in about ten minutes. 

The fourth man was found dead from shrapnel. I found, too, that thetwo unwounded men who had gone back with Lieutenant May had bothbeen killed on the way in. So out of the twelve men who started onthe "suicide club" stunt I was the only one left. Dinky was stillinside my tunic, and I laid the luck all to him. 

Back in hospital I was found to be suffering from shell shock. Alsomy heart was pushed out of place. There were no bones broken, though I was sore all over, and several ribs were pulled around sothat it was like a knife thrust at every breath. Besides that, mynerves were shattered. I jumped a foot at the slightest noise andtwitched a good deal. 

At the end of a week I asked the M. O. If I would get Blighty and hesaid he didn't think so, not directly. He rather thought that theywould keep me in hospital for a month or two and see how I cameout. The officer was a Canadian and had a sense of humor and wasmost affable. I told him if this jamming wasn't going to get meBlighty, I wanted to go back to duty and get a real one. He laughedand tagged me for a beach resort at Ault-Onival on the northerncoast of France. 

I was there a week and had a bully time. The place had been afashionable watering place before the war, and when I was there thetransient population was largely wealthy Belgians. They entertaineda good deal and did all they could for the pleasure of the fourthousand boys who were at the camp. The Y. M. C. A. Had a huge tentand spread themselves in taking care of the soldiers. There wereentertainments almost every night, moving pictures, and music. Thefood was awfully good and the beds comfortable, and that prettynearly spells heaven to a man down from the front. 

Best of all, the bathing was fine, and it was possible to keep thecooties under control, --more or less. I went in bathing two andthree times daily as the sloping shore made it just as good at lowtide as at high. 

I think that glorious week at the beach made the hardships of thefront just left behind almost worth while. My chum, Corporal Wells, who had a quaint Cockney philosophy, used to say that he liked tohave the stomach ache because it felt so good when it stopped. Onthe same theory I became nearly convinced that a month in thetrenches was good fun because it felt so good to get out. 

At the end of the week I was better but still shaky. I startedpestering the M. O. To tag me for Blighty. He wouldn't, so I sprungthe same proposition on him that I had on the doctor at thebase, --to send me back to duty if he couldn't send me to England. The brute took me at my word and sent me back to the battalion. 

I rejoined on the Somme again just as they were going back for thesecond time in that most awful part of the line. Many of the oldfaces were gone. Some had got the wooden cross, and some had goneto Blighty. 

I sure was glad when old Wellsie hopped out and grabbed me. 

"Gawd lumme, Darby, " he said. "Hi sye, an' me thinkin' as 'ow youwas back in Blighty. An' 'ere ye are yer blinkin' old self. Or isit yer bloomin' ghost. I awsks ye. Strike me pink, Yank. I'm glad. "

And he was. At that I did feel more or less ghostly. I seemed tohave lost some of my confidence. I expected to "go west" on thenext time in. And that's a bad way to feel out there. 

CHAPTER XIII

BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN

When I rejoined the battalion they were just going into the Sommeagain after a two weeks' rest. They didn't like it a bit. 

"Gawd lumme, " says Wellsie, "'ave we got to fight th' 'ole blinkin'war. Is it right? I awsks yer. Is it?"

It was all wrong. We had been told after High Wood that we wouldnot have to go into action again in that part of the line but thatwe would have a month of rest and after that would be sent up tothe Ypres sector. "Wipers" hadn't been any garden of roses early inthe war, but it was paradise now compared with the Somme. 

It was a sad lot of men when we swung out on the road again back tothe Somme, and there was less singing than usual. That first nightwe remained at Mametz Wood. We figured that we would get to kipwhile the kipping was good. There were some old Boche dug-outs infair condition, and we were in a fair way to get comfortable. Noluck!

We were hardly down to a good sleep when C company was called tofall in without equipment, and we knew that meant fatigue of somesort. I have often admired the unknown who invented that word"fatigue" as applied in a military term. He used it as a disguisefor just plain hard work. It means anything whatever in the way ofduty that does not have to do directly with the manning of thetrenches. 

This time we clicked a burial fatigue. It was my first. I neverwant another. I took a party of ten men and we set out, armed withpicks and shovels, and, of course, rifles and bandoliers (clothpockets containing fifty rounds of ammo). 

We hiked three miles up to High Wood and in the early morning beganthe job of getting some of the dead under ground. We were almostexactly in the same place from which we had gone over after thetanks. I kept expecting all the time to run across the bodies ofsome of our own men. It was a most unpleasant feeling. 

Some cleaning up had already been done, so the place was not so badas it had been, but it was bad enough. The advance had gone forwardso far that we were practically out of shell range, and we weresafe working. 

The burial method was to dig a pit four feet deep and big enough tohold six men. Then we packed them in. The worst part of it was thatmost of the bodies were pretty far gone and in the falling awaystage. It was hard to move them. I had to put on my gas mask toendure the stench and so did some of the other men. Some who haddone this work before rather seemed to like it. 

I would search a body for identification marks and jot down thedata found on a piece of paper. When the man was buried under, Iwould stick a rifle up over him and tuck the record into the trapin the butt of the gun where the oil bottle is carried. 

When the pioneers came up, they would remove the rifle andsubstitute a little wooden cross with the name painted on it. Theindifference with which the men soon came to regard this burialfatigue was amazing. I remember one incident of that first morning, a thing that didn't seem at all shocking at the time, but which, looking back upon it, illustrates the matter-of-factness of thesoldier's viewpoint on death. 

"Hi sye, Darby, " sang out one fellow. "Hi got a blighter 'ere wifonly one leg. Wot'll Hi do wif 'im?"

"Put him under with only one, you blinking idiot, " said I. 

Presently he called out again, this time with a little note ofsatisfaction and triumph in his voice. 

"Darby, Hi sye. I got a leg for that bleeder. Fits 'im perfect. "

Well, I went over and took a look and to my horror found that thefool had stuck a German leg on the body, high boot and all. Iwouldn't stand for that and had it out again. I wasn't going tosend a poor fellow on his last pilgrimage with any Boche leg, andsaid so. Later I heard this undertaking genius of a Tommy grousingand muttering to himself. 

"Cawn't please Darby, " says he, "no matter wot. Fawncy theblighter'd feel better wif two legs, if one was Boche. It's a faircrime sendin' 'im hover the river wif only one. "

I was sure thankful when that burial fatigue was over, and early inthe forenoon we started back to rest. 

Rest, did I say? Not that trip. We were hardly back to Mametz anddown to breakfast when along came an order to fall in for acarrying party. All that day we carried boxes of Millses up to thedump that was by High Wood, three long miles over hard going. Beinga corporal had its compensations at this game, as I had no carryingto do; but inasmuch as the bombs were moved two boxes to a man, Igot my share of the hard work helping men out of holes and lendinga hand when they were mired. 

Millses are packed with the bombs and detonators separate in thebox, and the men are very careful in the handling of them. So themoving of material of this kind is wearing. 

Another line of man-killers that we had to move were "toffyapples. " This quaint toy is a huge bomb, perfectly round andweighing sixty pounds, with a long rod or pipe which inserts intothe mortar. Toffy apples are about the awkwardest thing imaginableto carry. 

This carrying stunt went on for eight long days and nights. Weworked on an average sixteen hours a day. It rained nearly all thetime, and we never got dried out. The food was awful, as theadvance had been so fast that it was almost impossible to get upthe supplies, and the men in the front trenches had the first pickof the grub. It was also up to us to get the water up to the front. The method on this was to use the five-gallon gasoline cans. Sometimes they were washed out, oftener they weren't. Always thewater tasted of gas. We got the same thing, and several times Ibecame sick drinking the stuff. 

When that eight days of carrying was over, we were so fed up thatwe didn't care whether we clicked or not. Maybe it was good mentalpreparation for what was to come, for on top of it all it turnedout that we were to go over the top in another big attack. 

When we got that news, I got Dinky out and scolded him. Maybe I'dbetter tell you all about Dinky before I go any farther. Soldiersare rather prone to superstitions. Relieved of all responsibilityand with most of their thinking done for them, they revertsurprisingly quick to a state of more or less savage mentality. Perhaps it would be better to call the state childlike. At any ratethey accumulate a lot of fool superstitions and hang to them. Theheight of folly and the superlative invitation to bad luck islighting three fags on one match. When that happens one of thethree is sure to click it soon. 

As one out of any group of three anywhere stands a fair chance of"getting his", fag or no fag, the thing is reasonably sure to workout according to the popular belief. Most every man has his unluckyday in the trenches. One of mine was Monday. The others wereTuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 

Practically every soldier carries some kind of mascot or charm. Agood many are crucifixes and religious tokens. Some are coins. Corporal Wells had a sea shell with three little black spots onit. He considered three his lucky number. Thirteen was mine. Mymascot was the aforesaid and much revered Dinky. Dinky was and is asmall black cat made of velvet. He's entirely flat except his head, which is becomingly round with yellow glass eyes. I carried Dinkyinside my tunic always and felt safer with him there. He hangs atthe head of my bed now and I feel better with him there. I realizeperfectly that all this sounds like tommyrot, and that superstitionmay be a relic of barbarism and ignorance. Never mind! Wellsiesized the situation up one day when we were talking about this verything. 

"Maybe my shell ayen't doin' me no good, " says Wells. "Maybe Dinkyayen't doin' you no good. But 'e ayen't doin' ye no 'arm. So 'angon to 'im. "

I figure that if there's anything in war that "ayen't doin' ye no'arm", it is pretty good policy to "'ang on to it. "

It was Sunday the eighth day of October that the order came to moveinto what was called the "O. G. I. ", that is, the old German firstline. You will understand that this was the line the Boches hadoccupied a few days before and out of which they had been driven inthe Big Push. In front of this trench was Eaucort Abbaye, which hadbeen razed with the aid of the tanks. 

We had watched this battle from the rear from the slight elevationof High Wood, and it had been a wonderful sight to see other men goout over the top without having ourselves to think about. They hadpoured out, wave after wave, a large part of them Scotch with theirkilted rumps swinging in perfect time, a smashing barrage going onahead, and the tanks lumbering along with a kind of clumsy majesty. When they hit the objective, the tanks crawled in and made shortwork of it. 

The infantry had hard work of it after the positions were taken, asthere were numerous underground caverns and passages which had tobe mopped out. This was done by dropping smoke bombs in theentrances and smoking the Boches out like bees. 

When we came up, we inherited these underground shelters, and theywere mighty comfortable after the kipping in the muck. There werea lot of souvenirs to be picked up, and almost everybody annexedhelmets and other truck that had been left behind by the Germans. 

Sometimes it was dangerous to go after souvenirs too greedily. Theinventive Hun had a habit of fixing up a body with a bomb under itand a tempting wrist watch on the hand. If you started to take thewatch, the bomb went off, and after that you didn't care what timeit was. 

I accumulated a number of very fine razors, and one of thesaw-tooth bayonets the Boche pioneers use. This is a perfectlyhellish weapon that slips in easily and mangles terribly when it iswithdrawn. I had thought that I would have a nice collection ofsouvenirs to take to Blighty if I ever got leave. I got the leaveall right, and shortly, but the collection stayed behind. 

The dug-out that Number 10 drew was built of concrete and was bigenough to accommodate the entire platoon. We were well within theBoche range and early in the day had several casualties, one ofthem a chap named Stransfield, a young Yorkshireman who was a verygood friend of mine. Stransie was sitting on the top step cleaninghis rifle and was blown to pieces by a falling shell. After that wekept to cover all day and slept all the time. We needed it afterthe exhausting work of the past eight days. 

It was along about dark when I was awakened by a runner fromheadquarters, which was in a dug-out a little way up the line, withword that the platoon commanders were wanted. I happened to be incommand of the platoon, as Mr. Blofeld was acting second in commandof the company, Sergeant Page was away in Havre as instructor for amonth, and I was next senior. 

I thought that probably this was merely another detail for somefatigue, so I asked Wells if he would go. He did and in about halfan hour came back with a face as long as my arm. I was sitting onthe fire step cleaning my rifle and Wellsie sank dejectedly downbeside me. 

"Darby, " he sighed hopelessly, "wot th' blinkin' 'ell do you thinkis up now?"

I hadn't the faintest idea and said so. I had, however, as theeducated Bones used to say "a premonition of impending disaster. "As a premonitor I was a success. Disaster was right. 

Wellsie sighed again and spilled the news. 

"We're goin' over th' bleedin' top at nine. We don't 'ave to carryno tools. We're in the first bloomin' wave. "

Going without tools was supposed to be a sort of consolation forbeing in the first wave. The other three waves carry either picksor shovels. They consolidate the trenches after they have beentaken by the first wave. That is, they turn the trench around, facing the other way, to be ready for a counter attack. It is amiserable job. The tools are heavy and awkward, and the last wavesget the cream of the artillery fire, as the Boche naturally doesnot want to take the chance of shelling the first wave for fear ofgetting his own men. However, the first wave gets the machine-gunfire and gets it good. At that the first wave is the preference. Ihave heard hundreds of men say so. Probably the reason is that abullet, unless it is explosive, makes a relatively clean wound, while a shell fragment may mangle fearfully. 

Wells and I were talking over the infernal injustice of thesituation when another runner arrived from the Sergeant Major's, ordering us up for the rum issue. I went up for the rum and leftWells to break the news about going over. 

I got an extra large supply, as the Sergeant Major was goodhumored. It was the last rum he ever served. I got enough for thefull platoon and then some, which was a lot, as the platoon waswell down in numbers owing to casualties. I went among the boyswith a spoon and the rum in a mess tin and served out two totsinstead of the customary one. After that all hands felt a littlebetter, but not much. They were all fagged out after the week'shard work. I don't think I ever saw a more discouraged lot gettingready to go over. For myself I didn't seem to care much, I was insuch rotten condition physically. I rather hoped it would be mylast time. 

CHAPTER XIV

THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP

A general cleaning of rifles started, although it was dark. Minewas already in good shape, and I leaned it against the side of thetrench and went below for the rest of my equipment. While I wasgone, a shell fragment undid all my work by smashing the breech. 

I had seen a new short German rifle in the dug-out with a bayonetand ammo, and decided to use that. I hid all my souvenirs, planningto get them when I came out if I ever came out. I hadn't much nerveleft after the bashing I had taken a fortnight before and didn'thold much hope. 

Our instructions were of the briefest. It was the old story thatthere would probably be little resistance, if any. There would be afew machine guns to stop us, but nothing more. The situation we hadto handle was this: A certain small sector had held on the attacksof the few previous days, and the line had bent back around it. All we had to do was to straighten the line. We had heard this oldghost story too often to believe a word of it. 

Our place had been designated where we were to get into extendedformation, and our general direction was clear. We filed out of thetrench at eight-thirty, and as we passed the other platoons, --wehad been to the rear, --they tossed us the familiar farewell hail, "The best o' luck, mytie. "

We soon found ourselves in the old sunken road that ran in front ofEaucort Abbaye. At this point we were not under observation, as arise in the ground would have protected us even though it had beendaylight. The moon was shining brilliantly, and we knew that itwould not be anything in the nature of a surprise attack. We gotinto extended formation and waited for the order to advance. Ithought I should go crazy during that short wait. Shells had begunto burst over and around us, and I was sure the next would be mine. 

Presently one burst a little behind me, and down went Captain Greenand the Sergeant Major with whom he had been talking. CaptainGreen died a few days later at Rouen, and the Sergeant Major lostan arm. This was a hard blow right at the start, and it spelleddisaster. Everything started to go wrong. Mr. Blofeld was incommand, and another officer thought that he was in charge. We gotconflicting orders, and there was one grand mix-up. Eventually weadvanced and went straight up over the ridge. We walked slap-banginto perfectly directed fire. Torrents of machine-gun bulletscrackled about us, and we went forward with our heads down, likemen facing into a storm. It was a living marvel that any one couldcome through it. 

A lot of them didn't. Mr. Blofeld, who was near me, leaped in theair, letting go a hideous yell. I ran to him, disregarding theinstruction not to stop to help any one. He was struck in theabdomen with an explosive bullet and was done for. I felt terriblyabout Mr. Blofeld, as he had been a good friend to me. He was thefinest type of officer of the new English army, the rare sort whocan be democratic and yet command respect. He had talked with meoften, and I knew of his family and home life. He was more like anelder brother to me than a superior officer. I left Mr. Blofeld andwent on. 

The hail of bullets grew even worse. They whistled and cracked andsquealed, and I began to wonder why on earth I didn't get mine. Menwere falling on all sides and the shrieks of those hit were theworst I had heard. The darkness made it worse, and although I hadbeen over the top before by daylight this was the last limit ofhellishness. And nothing but plain, unmixed machine-gun fire. Asyet there was no artillery action to amount to anything. 

Once again I put my hand inside my tunic and stroked Dinky and saidto him, "For God's sake, Dink, see me through this time. " I meantit too. I was actually praying, --to my mascot. I realize that thiswas plain, unadulterated, heathenish fetish worship, but it showswhat a man reverts to in the barbaric stress of war. 

By this time we were within about thirty yards of the Boche parapetand could see them standing shoulder to shoulder on the fire step, swarms of them, packed in, with the bayonets gleaming. Machineguns were emplaced and vomiting death at incredibly short intervalsalong the parapet. Flares were going up continuously, and it wasalmost as light as day. 

We were terribly outnumbered, and the casualties had already beenso great that I saw we were in for the worst thing we had everknown. Moreover, the next waves hadn't appeared behind us. 

I was in command, as all the officers and non-coms so far as Icould make out had snuffed. I signalled to halt and take cover, myidea being to wait for the other waves to catch up. The men neededno second invitation to lie low. They rolled into the shell holesand burrowed where there was no cover. 

I drew a pretty decent hole myself, and a man came pitching in ontop of me, screaming horribly. It was Corporal Hoskins, a closefriend of mine. He had it in the stomach and clicked in a minute ortwo. 

During the few minutes that I lay in that hole, I suffered theworst mental anguish I ever knew. Seeing so many of my closestchums go west so horribly had nearly broken me, shaky as I was whenthe attack started. I was dripping with sweat and frightfullynauseated. A sudden overpowering impulse seized me to get out inthe open and have it over with. I was ready to die. 

Sooner than I ought, for the second wave had not yet shown up, Ishrilled the whistle and lifted them out. It was a hopeless charge, but I was done. I would have gone at them alone. Anything to closethe act. To blazes with everything!

As I scrambled out of the shell hole, there was a blinding, ear-splitting explosion slightly to my left, and I went down. I didnot lose consciousness entirely. A red-hot iron was through myright arm, and some one had hit me on the left shoulder with asledge hammer. I felt crushed, --shattered. 

My impressions of the rest of that night are, for the most part, vague and indistinct; but in spots they stand out clear and vivid. The first thing I knew definitely was when Smith bent over me, cutting the sleeve out of my tunic. 

"It's a Blighty one, " says Smithy. That was some consolation. I wasback in the shell hole, or in another, and there were five or sixother fellows piled in there too. All of them were dead exceptSmith and a man named Collins, who had his arm clean off, andmyself. Smith dressed my wound and Collins', and said:

"We'd better get out of here before Fritz rushes us. The attack wasa ruddy failure, and they'll come over and bomb us out of here. "

Smith and I got out of the hole and started to crawl. It appearedthat he had a bullet through the thigh, though he hadn't saidanything about it before. We crawled a little way, and then thebullets were flying so thick that I got an insane desire to run andget away from them. I got to my feet and legged it. So did Smith, though how he did it with a wounded thigh I don't know. 

The next thing I remember I was on a stretcher. The beastly thingswayed and pitched, and I got seasick. Then came another crashdirectly over head, and out I went again. When I came to, my headwas as clear as a bell. A shell had burst over us and had killedone stretcher bearer. The other had disappeared. Smith was there. He and I got to our feet and put our arms around each other andstaggered on. The next I knew I was in the Cough Drop dressingstation, so called from the peculiar formation of the place. We hadtea and rum here and a couple of fags from a sergeant major of theR. A. M. C. 

After that there was a ride on a flat car on a light railway andanother in an ambulance with an American driver. Snatches ofconversation about Broadway and a girl in Newark floated back, andI tried to work up ambition enough to sing out and ask where thechap came from. So far I hadn't had much pain. When we landed in aregular dressing station, the M. O. Gave me another going over andsaid, "Blighty for you, son. " I had a piece of shrapnel or somethingthrough the right upper arm, clearing the bone and making a holeabout as big as a half dollar. My left shoulder was full ofshrapnel fragments, and began to pain like fury. More tea. Morerum. More fags. Another faint. When I woke up the next time, somebody was sticking a hypodermic needle into my chest with a shotof anti-lockjaw serum, and shortly after I was tucked away in awhite enameled Red Cross train with a pretty nurse taking mytemperature. I loved that nurse. She looked sort of cool and holy. 

I finally brought up in General Hospital Number 12 in Rouen. I wasthere four days and had a real bath, --a genuine boiling out. Alsohad some shrapnel picked out of my anatomy. I got in fairly goodshape, though still in a good deal of dull pain. It was a glad daywhen they put a batch of us on a train for Havre, tagged forBlighty. We went direct from the train to the hospital ship, _Carisbrook Castle_. The quarters were good, --real bunks, cleansheets, good food, careful nurses. It was some different from thecrowded transport that had taken me over to France. 

There were a lot of German prisoners aboard, wounded, and weswapped stories with them. It was really a lot of fun comparingnotes, and they were pretty good chaps on the whole. They were asglad as we were to see land. Their troubles were over for theduration of the war. 

Never shall I forget that wonderful morning when I looked out andsaw again the coast of England, hazy under the mists of dawn. Itlooked like the promised land. And it was. It meant freedom againfrom battle, murder, and sudden death, from trenches and stenches, rats, cooties, and all the rest that goes to make up the worst ofman-made inventions, war. 

It was Friday the thirteenth. And don't let anybody dare say thatdate is unlucky. For it brought me back to the best thing that cangladden the eyes of a broken Tommy. Blighty! Blighty!! Blighty!!!

CHAPTER XV

BITS OF BLIGHTY

Blighty meant life, --life and happiness and physical comfort. Whatwe had left behind over there was death and mutilation and bodilyand mental suffering. Up from the depths of hell we came andreached out our hands with pathetic eagerness to the good thingsthat Blighty had for us. 

I never saw a finer sight than the faces of those boys, glowingwith love, as they strained their eyes for the first sight of thehomeland. Those in the bunks below, unable to move, begged those ondeck to come down at the first land raise and tell them how it alllooked. 

A lump swelled in my throat, and I prayed that I might never goback to the trenches. And I prayed, too, that the brave boys stillover there might soon be out of it. 

We steamed into the harbor of Southampton early in the afternoon. Within an hour all of those that could walk had gone ashore. As wegot into the waiting trains the civilian populace cheered. I, likeeverybody else I suppose, had dreamed often of coming back sometimeas a hero and being greeted as a hero. But the cheering, though itcame straight from the hearts of a grateful people, seemed, afterall, rather hollow. I wanted to get somewhere and rest. 

It seemed good to look out of the windows and see the signs printedin English. That made it all seem less like a dream. 

I was taken first to the Clearing Hospital at Eastleigh. As we gotoff the train there the people cheered again, and among thecivilians were many wounded men who had just recently come back. They knew how we felt. 

 [Illustration: CORPORAL HOLMES WITH STAFF NURSE AND ANOTHER PATIENT, AT FULHAM MILITARY HOSPITAL, LONDON, S. W. ]

The first thing at the hospital was a real honest-to-God bath. _Ina tub. With hot water!_ Heavens, how I wallowed. The orderly helpedme and had to drag me out. I'd have stayed in that tub all night ifhe would have let me. 

Out of the tub I had clean things straight through, with a neatblue uniform, and for once was free of the cooties. The olduniform, blood-stained and ragged, went to the baking anddisinfecting plant. 

That night all of us newly arrived men who could went to theY. M. C. A. To a concert given in our honor. The chaplain came aroundand cheered us up and gave us good fags. 

Next morning I went around to the M. O. He looked my arm over andcalmly said that it would have to come off as gangrene had set in. For a moment I wished that piece of shrapnel had gone through myhead. I pictured myself going around with only one arm, and theprospect didn't look good. 

However, the doctor dressed the arm with the greatest care and toldme I could go to a London hospital as I had asked, for I wanted tobe near my people at Southall. These were the friends I had madebefore leaving Blighty and who had sent me weekly parcels andletters. 

I arrived in London on Tuesday and was taken in a big Red Crossmotor loaned by Sir Charles Dickerson to the Fulham Hospital inHammersmith. I was overjoyed, as the hospital was very nearSouthall, and Mr. And Mrs. Puttee were both there to meet me. 

The Sister in charge of my ward, Miss Malin, is one of the finestwomen I have met. I owe it to her care and skill that I still havemy good right arm. She has since married and the lucky man has oneof the best of wives. Miss Malin advised me right at the beginningnot to submit to an amputation. 

My next few weeks were pretty awful. I was in constant pain, andafter the old arm began to come around under Miss Malin's treatmentone of the doctors discovered that my left hand was queer. It hadbeen somewhat swollen, but not really bad. The doctor insisted uponan X-ray and found a bit of shrapnel imbedded. He was all for anoperation. Operations seemed to be the long suit of most of thosedoctors. I imagine they couldn't resist the temptation to get somepractice with so much cheap material all about. I consented thistime, and went down for the pictures on Lord Mayor's Day. Going tothe pictures is Tommy's expression for undergoing an anesthetic. 

I was under ether two hours and a half, and when I came out of itthe left hand was all to the bad and has been ever since. Therefollowed weeks of agonizing massage treatments. Between treatmentsthough, I had it cushy. 

My friends were very good to me, and several Americans entertainedme a good deal. I had a permanent walking-out pass good from ninein the morning until nine at night. I saw almost every show in thecity, and heard a special performance of the Messiah at WestminsterAbbey. Also I enjoyed a good deal of restaurant life. 

London is good to the wounded men. There is entertainment for allof them. A good many of these slightly wounded complain becausethey cannot get anything to drink, but undoubtedly it is the bestthing for them. It is against the law to serve men in the blueuniform of the wounded. Men in khaki can buy all the liquor theywant, the public houses being open from noon to two-thirty and fromsix P. M. To nine-thirty. Treating is not allowed. Altogether itworks out very well and there is little drunkenness among thesoldiers. 

I eventually brought up in a Convalescent Hospital in Brentford, Middlesex, and was there for three weeks. At the end of that time Iwas placed in category C 3. 

The system of marking the men in England is by categories, A, B, and C. A 1, 2, and 3 are for active service. A 4 is for theunder-aged. B categories are for base service, and C is for homeservice. C 3 was for clerical duty, and as I was not likely tobecome efficient again as a soldier, it looked like some kind ofbookkeeping for me for the duration of the war. 

Unless one is all shot to pieces, literally with something gone, itis hard to get a discharge from the British army. Back in the earlydays of 1915, a leg off was about the only thing that would producea discharge. 

When I was put at clerical duty, I immediately began to furnishtrouble for the British army, not intentionally, of course, butquite effectively. The first thing I did was to drop a typewriterand smash it. My hands had spells when they absolutely refused towork. Usually it was when I had something breakable in them. AfterI had done about two hundred dollars' damage indoors they tried meout as bayonet instructor. I immediately dropped a rifle on aconcrete walk and smashed it. They wanted me to pay for it, but theM. O. Called attention to the fact that I shouldn't have been put atthe work under my category. 

 [Illustration: CORPORAL HOLMES WITH COMPANY OFFICE FORCE, AT WINCHESTER, ENGLAND, A WEEK PRIOR TO DISCHARGE. ]

They then put me back at bookkeeping at Command Headquarters, Salisbury, but I couldn't figure English money and had a bad habitof fainting and falling off the high stool. To cap the climax, Ifinally fell one day and knocked down the stovepipe, and nearly setthe office afire. The M. O. Then ordered me back to the depot atWinchester and recommended me for discharge. I guess he thought itwould be the cheapest in the long run. 

The adjutant at Winchester didn't seem any too pleased to see me. He said I looked as healthy as a wolf, which I did, and that theywould never let me out of the army. He seemed to think that myquite normal appearance would be looked upon as a personal insultby the medical board. I said that I was sorry I didn't have a legor two gone, but it couldn't be helped. 

While waiting for the Board, I was sent to the German Prison Campat Winnal Downs as corporal of the permanent guard. I began to fearthat at last they had found something that I could do withoutdamaging anything, and my visions of the U. S. A. Went a-glimmering. I was with the Fritzies for over a week, and they certainly have itsoft and cushy. 

They have as good food as the Tommies. They are paid ninepence aday, and the work they do is a joke. They are well housed and keptclean and have their own canteens, where they can buy almostanything in the way of delicacies. They are decently treated by theEnglish soldiers, who even buy them fags out of their own money. The nearest thing I ever saw to humiliation of a German was a fewgood-natured jokes at their expense by some of the wits in theguard. The English know how to play fair with an enemy when theyhave him down. 

I had about given up hope of ever getting out of the army when Iwas summoned to appear before the Travelling Medical Board. You canwager I lost no time in appearing. 

The board looked me over with a discouraging and cynical suspicion. I certainly did look as rugged as a navvy. When they gave me agoing over, they found that my heart was out of place and that myleft hand might never limber up again. They voted for a dischargein jig time. I had all I could do to keep from howling with joy. 

It was some weeks before the final formalities were closed up. Thepension board passed on my case, and I was given the magnificentsum of sixteen shillings and sixpence a week, or $3. 75. I spent thenext few weeks in visiting my friends and, eventually, at the 22ndHeadquarters at Bermondsey, London, S. C. , received the papers thatonce more made me a free man. 

The papers read in part, "He is discharged in consequence ofparagraph 392, King's Rules and Regulations. No longer fit forservice. " In another part of the book you will find a reproductionof the character discharge also given. The discharged man alsoreceives a little silver badge bearing the inscription, "For Kingand Empire, Services Rendered. " I think that I value this badgemore than any other possession. 

Once free, I lost no time in getting my passport into shape andengaged a passage on the _St. Paul_, to sail on the second of June. Since my discharge is dated the twenty-eighth of May, you can seethat I didn't waste any time. My friends at Southall thought I wasdoing things in a good deal of a hurry. The fact is, I was fed upon war. I had had a plenty. And I was going to make my get-awaybefore the British War Office changed its mind and got me back inuniform. Mrs. Puttee and her eldest son saw me off at EustonStation. Leaving them was the one wrench, as they had become verydear to me. But I had to go. If Blighty had looked good, thethought of the U. S. A. Was better. 

My passage was uneventful. No submarines, no bad weather, nothingdisagreeable. On the eighth day I looked out through a welter offog and rain to the place where the Statue of Liberty should havebeen waving a greeting across New York harbor. The lady wasn'tvisible, but I knew she was there. And even in a downpour equal toanything furnished by the choicest of Flanders rainstorms, littleold New York looked better than anything I could imagine, exceptsober and staid old Boston. 

That I am at home, safe and free of the horrors of war, is to me astrange thing. I think it comes into the experience of most of themen who have been over there and who have been invalided out of theservice. Looking back on the awfulness of the trenches and theagonies of mind and body, the sacrifice seems to fade intoinsignificance beside the satisfaction of having done a bit in thegreat and just cause. 

Now that our own men are going over, I find myself with a very deepregret that I cannot go too. I can only wish them the best of luckand rest in confidence that every man will do his uttermost. 

CHAPTER XVI

SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY"

I cannot end this book without saying something to those who haveboys over there and, what is more to the point, to those boys whomay go over there. 

First as to the things that should be sent in parcels; and a greatdeal of consideration should be given to this. You must be verycareful not to send things that will load your Sammy down, as everyounce counts in the pack when he is hiking, and he is likely to behiking any time or all the time. 

In the line of eatables the soldier wants something sweet. Goodhard cookies are all right. I wish more people in this country knewhow to make the English plum pudding in bags, the kind that willkeep forever and be good when it is boiled. Mainly, though, chocolate is the thing. The milk kind is well enough, but it is aptto cause overmuch thirst. Personally I would rather have the plainchocolate, --the water variety. 

Chewing gum is always in demand and is not bulky in the package. Send a lot of it. Lime and lemon tablets in the summertime aregreat for checking thirst on the march. A few of them won't do anyharm in any parcel, summer or winter. 

Now about smoking materials. Unless the man to whom the parcel isto be sent is definitely known to be prejudiced against cigarettes, don't send him pipe tobacco or a pipe. There are smokers who hatecigarettes just as there are some people who think that the littlepaper roll is an invention of the devil. If any one has a boy overthere, he--or she--had better overcome any possible personalfeeling against the use of cigarettes and send them in preferenceto anything else. 

From my own experience I know that cigarettes are the mostimportant thing that can be sent to a soldier. When I went outthere, I was a pipe smoker. After I had been in the trenches a weekI quit the pipe and threw it away. It is seldom enough that one hasthe opportunity to enjoy a full pipe. It is very hard to getlighted when the matches are wet in bad weather, which is nearlyalways. Besides which, say what you will, a pipe does not soothethe nerves as a fag does. 

Now when sending the cigarettes out, don't try to think of thespecial brand that Harold or Percival used when he was home. Likelyenough his name has changed, and instead of being Percy or Haroldhe is now Pigeye or Sour-belly; and his taste in the weed haschanged too. He won't be so keen on his own particular brand ofTurkish. Just send him the common or garden Virginia sort at fivecents the package. That is the kind that gives most comfort to theoutworn Tommy or Sammy. 

Don't think that you can send too many. I have had five hundredsent to me in a week many times and have none left at the end. There are always men who do not get any parcels, and they have tobe looked out for. Out there all things are common property, andthe soldier shares his last with his less fortunate comrade. Subscribe when you get the chance to any and all smoke funds. 

Don't listen to the pestilential fuddy-duds who do not approve oftobacco, particularly the fussy-old-maids. Personally, when I hearany of these conscientious objectors to My Lady Nicotine air theiropinions, I wish that they could be placed in the trenches for awhile. They would soon change their minds about rum issues andtobacco, and I'll wager they would be first in the line when theissues came around. 

One thing that many people forget to put in the soldier's parcel, or don't see the point of, is talcum powder. Razors get dull veryquickly, and the face gets sore. The powder is almost a necessitywhen one is shaving in luke-warm tea and laundry soap, with asafety razor blade that wasn't sharp in the first place. In thesummer on the march men sweat and accumulate all the dirt there isin the world. There are forty hitherto unsuspected places on thebody that chafe under the weight of equipment. Talc helps. In thematter of sore feet, it is a life saver. 

Soap, --don't forget that. Always some good, pure, plain whitesoap, like Ivory or Castile; and a small bath towel now and then. There is so little chance to wash towels that they soon getunusable. 

In the way of wearing apparel, socks are always good. But, girlie, make 'em right. That last pair sent me nearly cost me a courtmartial by my getting my feet into trench-foot condition. If youcan't leave out the seams, wear them yourself for a while, and seehow you like it. 

Sleeveless sweaters are good and easy to make, I am told. Theydon't last long at the best, so should not be elaborate. Anygarment worn close to the body gets cooty in a few weeks and has tobe ditched. However, keep right on with the knitting, with theexception of the socks. If you're not an expert on those, betterbuy them. You may in that way retain the affection of yoursweetheart over there. 

Knitted helmets are a great comfort. I had one that was fine notonly to wear under the tin hat but to sleep in. I am not keen onwristlets or gloves. Better buy the gloves you send in the shops. So that's the knitted stuff, --helmets, sweaters, and mufflers and, for the expert, socks. 

Be very moderate in the matter of reading matter. I mean by that, don't send a lot at a time or any very bulky stuff at all. 

If it is possible to get a louse pomade called Harrison's in thiscountry, send it, as it is a cooty killer. So far as I know, it isthe only thing sold that will do the cooty in. There's a fortunewaiting for the one who compounds a louse eradicator that will killthe cooty and not irritate or nearly kill the one who uses it. Ishall expect a royalty from the successful chemist who produces themuch needed compound. 

For the wealthier people, I would suggest that good things to sendare silk shirts and drawers. It is possible to get the cooties outof these garments much easier than out of the thick woollies. Thereare many other things that may be sent, but I have mentioned themost important. The main thing to remember is not to run to bulk. And don't forget that it takes a long time for stuff to getacross. 

Don't overlook the letters, --this especially if you are a mother, wife, or sweetheart. It is an easy thing to forget. You mustn't. Out there life is chiefly squalor, filth, and stench. The boy getsdisgusted and lonesome and homesick, even though he may write tothe contrary. Write to him at least three times a week. Alwayswrite cheerfully, even although something may have happened thathas plunged you into the depths of despair. If it is necessary tocover up something that would cause a soldier worry, cover it up. Even lie to him. It will be justified. Keep in mind the now famous, war song, "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile. " Keep your own packed up and don't send any overthere for some soldier to worry over. 

Just a few words to the men themselves who may go. Don't takeelaborate shaving tackle, just brush, razor, soap, and a smallmirror. Most of the time you won't need the mirror. You'll use theperiscope mirror in the trenches. Don't load up on books andunnecessary clothing. Impress it upon your relatives that yourstuff, tobacco and sweets, is to come along in small parcels andoften and regularly. Let all your friends and relatives know youraddress and ask them to write often. Don't hesitate to tell themall that a parcel now and again will be acceptable. Have more thanone source of supply if possible. 

When you get out there, hunt up the Y. M. C. A. Huts. You will findgood cheer, warmth, music, and above all a place to do yourwriting. Write home often. Your people are concerned about you allthe time. Write at least once a week to the one nearest and dearestto you. I used to average ten letters a week to friends in Blightyand back here, and that was a lot more than I was allowed. I founda way. Most of you won't be able to go over your allowance. But dogo the limit. 

Over there you will find a lot of attractive girls and women. Mostany girl is attractive when you are just out of the misery of thetrenches. Be careful of them. Remember the country has been full ofsoldiers for three years. Don't make love too easily. One of thesingers in the Divisional Follies recently revived the once popularmusic-hall song, "If You Can't Be Good Be Careful. " It shouldappeal to the soldier as much as "Smile, smile, smile", and isequally good advice. For the sake of those at home and for the sakeof your own peace of mind come back from overseas clean. 

After all it is possible to no more than give hints to the boys whoare going. All of you will have to learn by experience. My partingword to you all is just, "The best of luck. "

GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG

All around traverse - A machine gun placed on a swivel to turnin any direction. 

Ammo - Ammunition. Usually for rifles, though occasionally usedto indicate that for artillery. 

Argue the toss - Argue the point. 

Back of the line - Anywhere to the rear and out of the dangerzone. 

Barbed wire - Ordinary barbed wire used for entanglements. Athicker and heavier military wire is sometimes used. 

Barrage - Shells dropped simultaneously and in a row so as toform a curtain of fire. Literal translation "a barrier. "

Bashed - Smashed. 

Big boys - Big guns or the shells they send over. 

Big push - The battles of the Somme. 

Billets - The quarters of the soldier when back of the line. Any place from a pigpen to a palace. 

Bleeder or Blighter - Cockney slang for fellow. Roughlycorresponding to American "guy. "

Blighty - England. East Indian derivation. The paradise lookedforward to by all good soldiers, --and all bad ones too. 

Blighty one - A wound that will take the soldier to Blighty. 

Bloody - The universal Cockney adjective. It is vaguelysupposed to be highly obscene, though just why nobody seems toknow. 

Blooming - A meaningless and greatly used adjective. Applied toanything and everything. 

Bomb - A hand grenade. 

Bully beef - Corned beef, high grade and good of the kind, ifyou like the kind. It sets hard on the chest. 

Carry on - To go ahead with the matter in hand. 

Char - Tea. East Indian derivation. 

Chat - Officers' term for cootie; supposed to be more delicate. 

Click - Variously used. To die. To be killed. To kill. To drawsome disagreeable job, as: I clicked a burial fatigue. 

Communication trench - A trench leading up to the front trench. 

Consolidate - To turn around and prepare for occupation acaptured trench. 

Cootie - The common, --the too common, --body louse. Everybodyhas 'em. 

Crater - A round pit made by an underground explosion or by ashell. 

Cushy - Easy. Soft. 

Dixie - An oblong iron pot or box fitting into a field kitchen. Used for cooking anything and everything. Nobody seems to know whyit is so called. 

Doggo - Still. Quiet. East Indian derivation. 

Doing in - Killing. 

Doss - Sleep. 

Duck walk - A slatted wooden walk in soft ground. 

Dud - An unexploded shell. A dangerous thing to fool with. 

Dug-out - A hole more or less deep in the side of a trenchwhere soldiers are supposed to rest. 

Dump - A place where supplies are left for distribution. 

Entrenching tool - A sort of small shovel for quick digging. Carried as part of equipment. 

Estaminet - A French saloon or cafe. 

Fag - A cigarette. 

Fatigue - Any kind of work except manning the trenches. 

Fed up - Tommy's way of saying "too much is enough. "

Firing step - A narrow ledge running along the parapet on whicha soldier stands to look over the top. 

Flare - A star light sent up from a pistol to light up out infront. 

Fritz - An affectionate term for our friend the enemy. 

Funk hole - A dug-out. 

Gas - Any poisonous gas sent across when the wind is right. Used by both sides. Invented by the Germans. 

Goggles - A piece of equipment similar to that used bymotorists, supposed to keep off tear gas. The rims are backed withstrips of sponge which Tommy tears off and throws the goggle frameaway. 

Go west - To die. 

Grouse - Complain. Growl. Kick. 

Hun - A German. 

Identification disc - A fiber tablet bearing the soldier'sname, regiment, and rank. Worn around the neck on a string. 

Iron rations - About two pounds of nonperishable rations to beused in an emergency. 

Knuckle knife - A short dagger with a studded hilt. Invented bythe Germans. 

Lance Corporal - The lowest grade of non-commissioned officer. 

Lewis gun - A very light machine gun invented by one Lewis, anofficer in the American army. 

Light railway - A very narrow-gauge railway on which are pushedlittle hand cars. 

Listening post - One or more men go out in front, at night, ofcourse, and listen for movements by the enemy. 

Maconochie - A scientifically compounded and well-balancedration, so the authorities say. It looks, smells, and tastes likerancid lard. 

M. O. - Medical Officer. A foxy cove who can't be fooled withfaked symptoms. 

Mess tin - A combination teapot, fry pan, and plate. 

Military cross - An officer's decoration for bravery. 

Military medal - A decoration for bravery given to enlistedmen. 

Mills - The most commonly used hand grenade. 

Minnies - German trench mortar projectiles. 

Napper - The head. 

Night 'ops - A much hated practice manoeuvre done at night. 

No Man's Land - The area between the trenches. 

On your own - At liberty. Your time is your own. 

Out or over there - Somewhere in France. 

Parados - The back wall of a trench. 

Parapet - The front wall of a trench. 

Patrol - One or more men who go out in front and prowl in thedark, seeking information of the enemy. 

Periscope - A boxlike arrangement with two mirrors for lookingover the top without exposing the napper. 

Persuader - A short club with a nail-studded head. 

Pip squeak - A German shell which makes that kind of noise whenit comes over. 

Push up the daisies - To be killed and buried. 

Ration party - A party of men which goes to the rear and bringsup rations for the front line. 

Rest - Relief from trench service. Mostly one works constantlywhen "resting. "

Ruddy - Same as bloody, but not quite so bad. 

Sandbag - A bag which is filled with mud and used for buildingthe parapet. 

Sentry go - Time on guard in the front trench, or at rest atheadquarters. 

Shell hole - A pit made by the explosion of a shell. 

Souvenir - Any kind of junk picked up for keepsakes. Also usedas a begging word by the French children. 

Stand to - Order for all men to stand ready in the trench inevent of a surprise attack, usually at sundown and sunrise. 

Stand down - Countermanding "stand to. "

Stokes - A bomb weighing about eleven pounds usually thrownfrom a mortar, but sometimes used by hand. 

Strafing - One of the few words Tommy has borrowed from Fritz. To punish. 

Suicide club - The battalion bombers. 

Tin hat - Steel helmet. 

Wave - A line of men going over the top. 

Whacked - Exhausted. Played out. 

Whiz-bang - A German shell that makes that sort of noise. 

Wind up or windy - Nervous. Jumpy. Temporary involuntary fear. 

Wooden cross - The small wooden cross placed over a soldier'sgrave.