Kitchener's Mob

 The Adventures of an American in the British Army

 By

 James Norman Hall

 Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company The Riverside Press Cambridge 1916

 COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY JAMES NORMAN HALL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 _Published May 1916_

 TO TOMMY OF THE GREAT WAR WHO IS ADDING IMMORTAL LUSTER TO THE NAME OF ATKINS

 Note

This brief narrative is by no means a complete record of life in abattalion of one of Lord Kitchener's first armies. It is, rather, astory in outline, a mere suggestion of that life as it is lived in theBritish lines along the western front. If those who read gain therebya more intimate view of trench warfare, and of the men who are sogallantly and cheerfully laying down their lives for England, thepurpose of the writer will have been accomplished. 

The diagram which appears on the front and rear covers of the book is apartially conventionalized design illustrating some features of trenchconstruction mentioned in Chapter VI. For obvious reasons it is notdrawn to scale, and although it is a truthful representation of atypical segment of the British line, it is not an exact sketch of anyexisting sector. 

_April_, 1916. 

 Contents

 I. Joining Up 1

 II. Rookies 9

 III. The Mob in Training 17

 IV. Ordered Abroad 39

 V. The Parapet-etic School 55

 VI. Private Holloway, Professor of Hygiene 69

 VII. Midsummer Calm 92

VIII. Under Cover 108

 IX. Billets 129

 X. New Lodgings 144

 XI. "Sitting Tight" 177

 Kitchener's Mob

 CHAPTER I

 JOINING UP

"Kitchener's Mob" they were called in the early days of August, 1914, when London hoardings were clamorous with the first calls for volunteers. The seasoned regulars of the first British expeditionary force said itpatronizingly, the great British public hopefully, the world at largedoubtfully. "Kitchener's Mob, " when there was but a scant sixty thousandunder arms with millions yet to come. "Kitchener's Mob" it remainsto-day, fighting in hundreds of thousands in France, Belgium, Africa, the Balkans. And to-morrow, when the war is ended, who will comemarching home again, old campaigners, war-worn remnants of once mightyarmies? "Kitchener's Mob. "

It is not a pleasing name for the greatest volunteer army in the historyof the world; for more than three millions of toughened, disciplinedfighting men, united under one flag, all parts of one magnificentmilitary organization. And yet Kitchener's own Tommies are responsiblefor it, the rank and file, with their inherent love of ridicule even attheir own expense, and their intense dislike of "swank. " They fastenedthe name upon themselves, lest the world at large should think theyregarded themselves too highly. There it hangs. There it will hang forall time. 

It was on the 18th of August, 1914, that the mob spirit gained itsmastery over me. After three weeks of solitary tramping in the mountainsof North Wales, I walked suddenly into news of the great war, and wentat once to London, with a longing for home which seemed strong enough tocarry me through the week of idleness until my boat should sail. But, ina spirit of adventure, I suppose, I tempted myself with the possibilityof assuming the increasingly popular _alias_, Atkins. On two successivemornings I joined the long line of prospective recruits before theoffices at Great Scotland Yard, withdrawing each time, after movinga convenient distance toward the desk of the recruiting sergeant. Disregarding the proven fatality of third times, I joined it on anothermorning, dangerously near to the head of the procession. 

"Now, then, you! Step along!"

There is something compelling about a military command, given by amilitary officer accustomed to being obeyed. While the doctors werethumping me, measuring me, and making an inventory of "physicalpeculiarities, if any, " I tried to analyze my unhesitating, almostinstinctive reaction to that stern, confident "Step along!" Was it anact of weakness, a want of character, evidenced by my inability to sayno? Or was it the blood of military forebears asserting itself aftermany years of inanition? The latter conclusion being the more pleasing, I decided that I was the grandson of my Civil War grandfather, and theworthy descendant of stalwart warriors of a yet earlier period. 

I was frank with the recruiting officers. I admitted, rather boasted, ofmy American citizenship, but expressed my entire willingness to serve inthe British army in case this should not expatriate me. I had, in fact, delayed, hoping that an American legion would be formed in London as hadbeen done in Paris. The announcement was received with some surprise. Abrief conference was held, during which there was much vigorous shakingof heads. While I awaited the decision I thought of the steamship ticketin my pocket. I remembered that my boat was to sail on Friday. I thoughtof my plans for the future and anticipated the joy of an earlyhome-coming. Set against this was the prospect of an indefinite periodof soldiering among strangers. "Three years or the duration of the war"were the terms of the enlistment contract. I had visions of bloodyengagements, of feverish nights in hospital, of endless years in a homefor disabled soldiers. The conference was over, and the recruitingofficer returned to his desk, smiling broadly. 

"We'll take you, my lad, if you want to join. You'll just say you are anEnglishman, won't you, as a matter of formality?" Here was an avenue ofescape, beckoning me like an alluring country road winding over thehills of home. I refused it with the same instinctive swiftness ofdecision that had brought me to the medical inspection room. And a fewmoments later, I took "the King's shilling, " and promised, upon my oathas a loyal British subject, to bear true allegiance to the Union Jack. 

During the completion of other, less important formalities, I was takenin charge by a sergeant who might have stepped out of any of the"Barrack-Room Ballads. " He was true to type to the last twist inthe _s_ of Atkins. He told me of service in India, Egypt, SouthAfrica. He showed me both scars and medals with that air of"Now-I-would-n't-do-this-for-any-one-but-you" which is so flattering tothe novice. He gave me advice as to my best method of procedure when Ishould go to Hounslow Barracks to join my unit. 

"'An 'ere! Wotever you do an' wotever you s'y, don't forget to myke thelads think you're an out-an'-outer, if you understand my meaning, --aBritisher, you know. They'll tyke to you. Strike me blind! Be free an'easy with 'em, --no swank, mind you!--an' they'll be downright pals withyou. You're different, you know. But don't put on no airs. Wot I meanis, don't let 'em think that you think you're different. See wot Imean?"

I said that I did. 

"An' another thing; talk like 'em. "

I confessed that this might prove to be rather a large contract. 

"'Ard? S'y! 'Ere! If I 'ad you fer a d'y, I'd 'ave you talkin' like aborn Lunnoner! All you got to do is forget all them aitches. An' youdon't want to s'y 'can't, ' like that. S'y 'cawrn't. '"

I said it. 

"Now s'y, 'Gor blimy, 'Arry, 'ow's the missus?'"

I did. 

"That's right! Oh, you'll soon get the swing of it. "

There was much more instruction of the same nature. By the time I wasready to leave the recruiting offices I felt that I had made greatprogress in the vernacular. I said good-bye to the sergeant warmly. As Iwas about to leave he made the most peculiar and amusing gesture of aman drinking. 

"A pint o' mild an' bitter, " he said confidentially. "The boys alwaysgives me the price of a pint. "

"Right you are, sergeant!" I used the expression like a born Englishman. And with the liberality of a true soldier, I gave him my shilling, myfirst day's wage as a British fighting man. 

The remainder of the week I spent mingling with the crowds of enlistedmen at the Horse Guards Parade, watching the bulletin boards for theappearance of my name which would mean that I was to report at theregimental depot at Hounslow. My first impression of the men with whom Iwas to live for three years, or the duration of the war, was anythingbut favorable. The newspapers had been asserting that the new army wasbeing recruited from the flower of England's young manhood. The throngat the Horse Guards Parade resembled an army of the unemployed, and Ithought it likely that most of them were misfits, out-of-works, the kindof men who join the army because they can do nothing else. There were, in fact, a good many of these. I soon learned, however, that the generalout-at-elbows appearance was due to another cause. A genial Cockney gaveme the hint. 

"'Ave you joined up, matey?" he asked. 

I told him that I had. 

"Well, 'ere's a friendly tip for you. Don't wear them good clo'es w'enyou goes to the depot. You won't see 'em again likely, an' if you getsthrough the war you might be a-wantin' of 'em. Wear the worst rags yougot. "

I profited by the advice, and when I fell in, with the other recruitsfor the Royal Fusiliers, I felt much more at my ease. 

 CHAPTER II

 ROOKIES

"A mob" is genuinely descriptive of the array of would-be soldiers whichcrowded the long parade-ground at Hounslow Barracks during that memorablelast week in August. We herded together like so many sheep. We had lostour individuality, and it was to be months before we regained it in a newaspect, a collective individuality of which we became increasingly proud. We squeak-squawked across the barrack square in boots which felt largeenough for an entire family of feet. Our khaki service dress uniformswere strange and uncomfortable. Our hands hung limply along the seams ofour pocketless trousers. Having no place in which to conceal them, andnothing for them to do, we tried to ignore them. Many a Tommy, in amoment of forgetfulness, would make a dive for the friendly pockets whichwere no longer there. The look of sheepish disappointment, as his handsslid limply down his trouser-legs, was most comical to see. Before manydays we learned the uses to which soldiers' hands are put. But for themoment they seemed absurdly unnecessary. 

We must have been unpromising material from the military point of view. That was evidently the opinion of my own platoon sergeant. I remember, word for word, his address of welcome, one of soldier-like brevity andpointedness, delivered while we stood awkwardly at attention on thebarrack square. 

"Lissen 'ere, you men! I've never saw such a raw, roun'-shoulderedbatch o' rookies in fifteen years' service. Yer pasty-faced an' yerthin-chested. Gawd 'elp 'Is Majesty if it ever lays with you to save'im! 'Owever, we're 'ere to do wot we can with wot we got. Now, then, upon the command, 'Form Fours, ' I wanna see the even numbers tyke a paceto the rear with the left foot, an' one to the right with the rightfoot. Like so: 'One-one-two!' Platoon! Form Fours! Oh! Orful! Orful! Asy' were! As y' were!"

If there was doubt in the minds of any of us as to our rawness, it wasquickly dispelled by our platoon sergeants, regulars of long standing, who had been left in England to assist in whipping the new armies intoshape. Naturally, they were disgruntled at this, and we offered themsuch splendid opportunities for working off overcharges of spleen. Wehad come to Hounslow, believing that, within a few weeks' time, weshould be fighting in France, side by side with the men of the firstBritish expeditionary force. Lord Kitchener had said that six months oftraining, at the least, was essential. This statement we regarded asintentionally misleading. Lord Kitchener was too shrewd a soldier toannounce his plans; but England needed men badly, immediately. After aweek of training, we should be proficient in the use of our rifles. Inaddition to this, all that was needed was the ability to form fours andmarch, in column of route, to the station where we should entrain forFolkestone or Southampton, and France. 

As soon as the battalion was up to strength, we were given a day ofpreliminary drill before proceeding to our future training area inEssex. It was a disillusioning experience. Equally disappointing was theundignified display of our little skill, at Charing Cross Station, wherewe performed before a large and amused London audience. For my own part, I could scarcely wait until we were safely hidden within the train. During the journey to Colchester, a re-enlisted Boer War veteran, fromthe inaccessible heights of South African experience, enfiladed us witha fire of sarcastic comment. 

"I'm a-go'n' to transfer out o' this 'ere mob, that's wot I'm a go'n' todo! Soldiers! S'y! I'll bet a quid they ain't a one of you ever saw arifle before! Soldiers? Strike me pink! Wot's Lord Kitchener a-doin' of, that's wot I want to know!"

The rest of us smoked in wrathful silence, until one of the boysdemonstrated to the Boer War veteran that he knew, at least, how to usehis fists. There was some bloodshed, followed by reluctant apologies onthe part of the Boer warrior. It was one of innumerable differences ofopinion which I witnessed during the months that followed. And most ofthem were settled in the same decisive way. 

Although mine was a London regiment, we had men in the ranks from allparts of the United Kingdom. There were North-Countrymen, a few Welsh, Scotch, and Irish, men from the Midlands and from the south of England. But for the most part we were Cockneys, born within the sound of BowBells. I had planned to follow the friendly advice of the recruitingsergeant. "Talk like 'em, " he had said. Therefore, I struggled bravelywith the peculiarities of the Cockney twang, recklessly dropped aitcheswhen I should have kept them, and prefixed them indiscriminately beforeevery convenient aspirate. But all my efforts were useless. Theimposition was apparent to my fellow Tommies immediately. I had only tobegin speaking, within the hearing of a genuine Cockney, when he wouldsay, "'Ello! w'ere do you come from? The Stites?" or, "I'll bet a tanneryou're a Yank!" I decided to make a confession, and I have been glad, ever since, that I did. The boys gave me a warm and hearty welcome whenthey learned that I was a sure-enough American. They called me "Jamiethe Yank. " I was a piece of tangible evidence of the bond of sympathyexisting between the two great English-speaking nations. I told them ofthe many Americans of German extraction, whose sympathies were honestlyand sincerely on the other side. But they would not have it so. I wasthe personal representative of the American people. My presence in theBritish army was proof positive of this. 

Being an American, it was very hard, at first, to understand the classdistinctions of British army life. And having understood them, it wasmore difficult yet to endure them. I learned that a ranker, or privatesoldier, is a socially inferior being from the officer's point of view. The officer class and the ranker class are east and west, and neverthe twain shall meet, except in their respective places upon theparade-ground. This does not hold good, to the same extent, upon activeservice. Hardships and dangers, shared in common, tend to break downartificial barriers. But even then, although there was good-will andfriendliness between officers and men, I saw nothing of genuinecomradeship. This seemed to me a great pity. It was a loss for theofficers fully as much as it was for the men. 

I had to accept, for convenience sake, the fact of my social inferiority. Centuries of army tradition demanded it; and I discovered that it isabsolutely futile for one inconsequential American to rebel against theunshakable fortress of English tradition. Nearly all of my comrades wereused to clear-cut class distinctions in civilian life. It made littledifference to them that some of our officers were recruits as raw as werewe ourselves. They had money enough and education enough and influenceenough to secure the king's commission; and that fact was proof enoughfor Tommy that they were gentlemen, and, therefore, too good for thelikes of him to be associating with. 

"Look 'ere! Ain't a gentleman a gentleman? I'm arskin' you, ain't 'e?"

I saw the futility of discussing this question with Tommy. And later, Irealized how important for British army discipline such distinctionsare. 

So great is the force of prevailing opinion that I sometimes foundmyself accepting Tommy's point of view. I wondered if I was, for someeugenic reason, the inferior of these men whom I had to "Sir" and salutewhenever I dared speak. Such lapses were only occasional. But Iunderstood, for the first time, how important a part circumstance andenvironment play in shaping one's mental attitude. How I longed, attimes, to chat with colonels and to joke with captains on terms ofequality! Whenever I confided these aspirations to Tommy he gazed at mein awe. 

"Don't be a bloomin' ijut! They could jolly well 'ang you fer that!"

 CHAPTER III

 THE MOB IN TRAINING

The Nth Service Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, on the march was a sight noteasily to be forgotten. To the inhabitants of Colchester, Folkestone, Shorncliffe, Aldershot, and other towns and villages throughout thesouth of England, we were well known. We displayed ourselves with whatmust have seemed to them a shameless disregard for appearances. Ourapproach was announced by a discordant tumult of fifes and drums, forour band, of which later, we became justly proud, was a newly fledgedand still imperfect organization. Windows were flung up and doors thrownopen along our line of march; but alas, we were greeted with no welcomeglances of kindly approval, no waving of handkerchiefs, no clapping ofhands. Nursemaids, who are said to have a nice and discriminating eyefor soldiery, gazed in amused and contemptuous silence as we passed. Children looked at us in wide-eyed wonder. Only the dumb beasts weredemonstrative, and they in a manner which was not at all to our liking. Dogs barked, and sedate old family horses, which would stand placidly atthe curbing while fire engines thundered past with bells clanging andsirens shrieking, pricked up their ears at our approach, and, after onestartled glance, galloped madly away and disappeared in clouds of dustfar in the distance. 

We knew why the nursemaids were cool, and why family horses developedhysteria with such startling suddenness. But in our pride we did not seethat which we did not wish to see. Therefore we marched, or, to be moretruthful, shambled on, shouting lusty choruses with an air of boisterousgayety which was anything but genuine. 

 "You do as I do and you'll do right, Fall in and follow me!"

was a favorite with number 12 platoon. Their enthusiasm might have carriedconviction had it not been for their personal appearance, which certainlydid not. Number 15 platoon would strive manfully for a hearing with

 "Steadily, shoulder to shoulder, Steadily, blade by blade; Marching along, Sturdy and strong, Like the boys of the old brigade. "

As a strictly accurate historian I must confess that none of theseassertions were quite true. We marched neither steadily, nor shoulder toshoulder, nor blade by blade. We straggled all over the road, and keptstep only when the sergeant major doubled forward, warning us, withthreats of extra drills, to keep in our fours or to "pick it up!" Infact, "the boys of the old brigade, " whoever they may have been, wouldhave scornfully repudiated the suggestion that we resembled them in anyrespect. 

They would have been justified in doing so had any of them seen us at theend of six weeks of training. For, however reluctantly, we were forced toadmit that Sergeant Harris was right when he called us "a raw batch o'rookies. " Unpromising we were not. There was good stuff in the ranks, thematerial from which real soldiers are made, and were made; but it had notyet been rounded into shape. We were still nothing more than ahomogeneous assembly of individuals. 

We declined to accept the responsibility for the seeming slowness of ourprogress. We threw it unhesitatingly upon the War Office, which had notequipped us in a manner befitting our new station in life. Although wewere recruited immediately after the outbreak of war, less than half ofour number had been provided with uniforms. Many still wore their oldcivilian clothing. Others were dressed in canvas fatigue suits, or theworn-out uniforms of policemen and tramcar conductors. Every old-clothesshop on Petticoat Lane must have contributed its allotment of cast-offapparel. 

Our arms and equipment were of an equally nondescript character. We mighteasily have been mistaken for a mob of vagrants which had pillaged aseventeenth-century arsenal. With a few slight changes in costuming forthe sake of historical fidelity, we would have served as a citizen armyfor a realistic motion-picture drama depicting an episode in the FrenchRevolution. 

We derived what comfort we could from the knowledge that we were but oneof many battalions of Kitchener's first hundred thousand equipped in thissame makeshift fashion. We did not need the repeated assurances of cabinetministers that England was not prepared for war. We were in a position toknow that she was not. Otherwise, there had been an unpardonable lack offoresight in high places. Supplies came in driblets. Each night, whenparades for the day were over, there was a rush for the orderly roombulletin board, which was scanned eagerly for news of an early issue ofclothing. As likely as not we were disappointed, but occasionally jadedhopes revived. 

"Number 15 platoon will parade at 4 P. M. On Thursday, the 24th, for boots, puttees, braces, and service dress caps. "

Number 15 is our platoon. Promptly at the hour set we halt and right-turnin front of the Quartermaster Stores marquee. The quartermaster is therewith pencil and notebook, and immediately takes charge of theproceedings. 

"All men needing boots, one pace step forward, March!"

The platoon, sixty-five strong, steps forward as one man. 

"All men needing braces, one pace step back, March!"

Again we move as a unit. The quartermaster hesitates for a moment; but heis a resourceful man and has been through this many times before. We allneed boots, quite right! But the question is, Who need them most?Undoubtedly those whose feet are most in evidence through worn soles andtattered uppers. Adopting this sight test, he eliminates more than halfthe platoon, whereupon, by a further process of elimination, due to thefact that he has only sizes 7 and 8, he selects the fortunate twelve whoare to walk dry shod. 

The same method of procedure is carried out in selecting the braces. Private Reynolds, whose trousers are held in place by a wonderfulmechanism composed of shoe-laces and bits of string, receives a pair;likewise, Private Stenebras, who, with the aid of safety pins, hasfashioned coat and trousers into an ingenious one-piece garment. Caps andputtees are distributed with like impartiality, and we dismiss, theunfortunate ones growling and grumbling in discreet undertones until theplatoon commander is out of hearing, whereupon the murmurs of discontentbecome loudly articulate. 

"Kitchener's Rag-Time Army I calls it!" growls the veteran of SouthAfrican fame. "Ain't we a 'andsome lot o' pozzie wallopers? Service? Weain't never a-go'n' to see service! You blokes won't, but watch me! I'ma-go'n' to grease off out o' this mob!"

No one remonstrated with this deservedly unpopular reservist when hegrumbled about the shortage of supplies. He voiced the general sentiment. We all felt that we would like to "grease off" out of it. Our deficienciesin clothing and equipment were met by the Government with what seemed tous amazing slowness. However, Tommy is a sensible man. He realized thatEngland had a big contract to fulfill, and that the first duty was toprovide for the armies in the field. France, Russia, Belgium, all werelooking to England for supplies. Kitchener's Mob must wait, trusting tothe genius for organization, the faculty for getting things done, of itsgreat and worthy chief, K. Of K. 

 * * * * * *

Our housing accommodations, throughout the autumn and winter of 1914-15, when England was in such urgent need of shelter for her rapidlyincreasing armies, were also of the makeshift order. We slept in leakytents or in hastily constructed wooden shelters, many of which wereafterward condemned by the medical inspectors. St. Martin's Plain, Shorncliffe, was an ideal camping-site for pleasant summer weather. Butwhen the autumnal rains set in, the green pasture land became a quagmire. Mud was the great reality of our lives, the malignant deity which we felldown (in) and propitiated with profane rites. It was a thin, watery mudor a thick, viscous mud, as the steady downpour increased or diminished. Late in November we were moved to a city of wooden huts at SandlingJunction, to make room for newly recruited units. The dwellings were buthalf-finished, the drains were open ditches, and the rains descended andthe floods came as usual. We lived an amphibious and wretched existenceuntil January, when, to our great joy, we were transferred to billets inthe Metropole, one of Folkestone's most fashionable hotels. To be sure, we slept on bare floors, but the roof was rainproof, which was theessential thing. The æsthetically inclined could lie in their blankets atnight, gazing at richly gilded mirrors over the mantelpieces andbeautifully frescoed ceilings refurnishing our apartments in all theirformer splendor. Private Henry Morgan was not of this type. Henry came inone evening rather the worse for liquor and with clubbed musket assaultedhis unlovely reflection in an expensive mirror. I believe he is stillpaying for his lack of restraint at the rate of a sixpence per day, andwill have canceled his obligation by January, 1921, if the war continuesuntil that time. 

 * * * * * *

Although we were poorly equipped and sometimes wretchedly housed, thecommissariat was excellent and on the most generous scale from the verybeginning. Indeed, there was nearly as much food wasted as eaten. Naturally, the men made no complaint, although they regretted seeing suchquantities of food thrown daily into the refuse barrels. I often feltthat something should be done about it. Many _exposés_ were, in fact, written from all parts of England. It was irritating to read of Germanefficiency in the presence of England's extravagant and unbusinesslikemethods. Tommy would say, "Lor, lummy! Ain't we got no pigs in England?That there food won't be wasted. We'll be eatin' it in sausages w'en wegoes acrost the Channel"; whereupon he dismissed the whole question fromhis mind. This seemed to me then the typical Anglo-Saxon attitude. Everywhere there was waste, muddle-headedness, and apparently it wasnobody's business, nobody's concern. Camps were sited in the wrong placesand buildings erected only to be condemned. Tons of food were purchasedoverseas, transported across thousands of miles of ocean, only to bethrown into refuse barrels. The Government was robbed by avaricioushotel-keepers who made and were granted absurd claims for damages done totheir property by billeted troops. But with vast new armies, recruitedovernight, it is not strange that there should be mismanagement andfriction at first. As the months passed, there was a marked change forthe better. British efficiency asserted itself. This was made evident tous in scores of ways--the distribution of supplies, the housing andequipping of troops, their movements from one training area to another. At the last, we could only marvel that a great and complicated militarymachine had been so admirably and quickly perfected. 

 * * * * * *

Meanwhile our rigorous training continued from week to week in allweathers, even the most inclement. Reveille sounded at daybreak. For anhour before breakfast we did Swedish drill, a system of gymnastics whichbrought every lazy and disused muscle into play. Two hours daily weregiven to musketry practice. We were instructed in the description andrecognition of targets, the use of cover, but chiefly in the use of ourrifles. Through constant handling they became a part of us, a third armwhich we grew to use quite instinctively. We fired the recruit's, andlater, the trained soldier's course in musketry on the rifle ranges atHythe and Aldershot, gradually improving our technique, until we wereable to fire with some accuracy, fifteen rounds per minute. When we hadachieved this difficult feat, we ceased to be recruits. We were skilledsoldiers of the proud and illustrious order known as "England'sMad-Minute Men. " After musketry practice, the remainder of the day wasgiven to extended order, company, and battalion drill. Twice weekly weroute-marched from ten to fifteen miles; and at night, after the paradesfor the day were finished, boxing and wrestling contests, arranged andencouraged by our officers, kept the red blood pounding through ourbodies until "lights out" sounded at nine o'clock. 

The character of our training changed as we progressed. We were done withsquad, platoon, and company drill. Then came field maneuvers, attacks inopen formation upon intrenched positions, finishing always with terrificbayonet charges. There were mimic battles, lasting all day, with from tento twenty thousand men on each side. Artillery, infantry, cavalry, aircraft--every branch of army service, in fact--had a share in theseexciting field days when we gained bloodless victories or died painlessand easy deaths at the command of red-capped field judges. We rushedboldly to the charge, shouting lustily, each man striving to be first atthe enemy's position, only to be intercepted by a staff officer onhorseback, staying the tide of battle with uplifted hand. 

"March your men back, officer! You're out of action! My word! You've madea beastly mess of it! You're not on church parade, you know! You advancedacross the open for three quarters of a mile in close column of platoons!Three batteries of field artillery and four machine guns have blown youto blazes! You haven't a man left!"

Sometimes we reached our objective with less fearful slaughter, but atthe moment when there should have been the sharp clash and clang of steelon steel, the cries and groans of men fighting for their lives, we heardthe bugles from far and near, sounding the "stand by, " and friend andenemy dropped wearily to the ground for a rest while our officersassembled in conference around the motor of the divisional general. 

All this was playing at war, and Tommy was "fed up" with play. As wemarched back to barracks after a long day of monotonous field maneuvers, he eased his mind by making sarcastic comments upon this inconclusivekind of warfare. He began to doubt the good faith of the War Office incalling ours a "service" battalion. As likely as not we were for homedefense and would never be sent abroad. 

 "Left! Right! Left! Right! Why did I join the army? Oh! Why did I ever join Kitchener's Mob? Lor lummy! I must 'ave been balmy!"--

became the favorite, homeward-bound marching song. And so he "groused"and grumbled after the manner of Tommies the world over. And in the meantime he was daily approaching more nearly the standard of efficiency setby England's inexorable War Lord. 

 * * * * * *

It was interesting to note the physical improvement in the men wrought bya life of healthy, well-ordered routine. My battalion was recruitedlargely from what is known in England as "the lower middle classes. "There were shop assistants, clerks, railway and city employees, tradesmen, and a generous sprinkling of common laborers. Many of them had been usedto indoor life, practically all of them to city life, and needed monthsof the hardest kind of training before they could be made physically fit, before they could be seasoned and toughened to withstand the hardships ofactive service. 

Plenty of hard work in the open air brought great and welcome changes. The men talked of their food, anticipated it with a zest which came fromrealizing, for the first time, the joy of being genuinely hungry. Theywatched their muscles harden with the satisfaction known to every normalman when he is becoming physically efficient. Food, exercise, and rest, taken in wholesome quantities and at regular intervals, were having theusual excellent results. For my own part, I had never before been in suchsplendid health. I wished that it might at all times be possible fordemocracies to exercise a beneficent paternalism over the lives of theircitizenry, at least in matters of health. It seems a great pity that theprinciple of personal freedom should be responsible for so manyill-shaped and ill-sorted physical incompetents. My fellow Tommies wereliving, really living, for the first time. They had never before knownwhat it means to be radiantly, buoyantly healthy. 

There were, as well, more profound and subtle changes in thoughts andhabits. The restraints of discipline and the very exacting character ofmilitary life and training gave them self-control, mental alertness. Atthe beginning, they were individuals, no more cohesive than so manygrains of wet sand. After nine months of training they acted as a unit, obeying orders with that instinctive promptness of action which is soessential on the field of battle when men think scarcely at all. But itis true that what was their gain as soldiers was, to a certain extent, their loss as individuals. When we went on active service I noted thatmen who were excellent followers were not infrequently lost when calledupon for independent action. They had not been trained to take theinitiative, and had become so accustomed to having their thinking donefor them that they often became confused and excited when they had to doit for themselves. 

Discipline was an all-important factor in the daily grind. At thebeginning of their training, the men of the new armies were gently dealtwith. Allowances were made for civilian frailties and shortcomings. Butas they adapted themselves to changed conditions, restrictions becameincreasingly severe. Old privileges disappeared one by one. Individualliberty became a thing of the past. The men resented this bitterly for atime. Fierce hatreds of officers and N. C. O. S were engendered and therewas much talk of revenge when we should get to the front. I used to lookforward with misgiving to that day. It seemed probable that one night inthe trenches would suffice for a wholesale slaughtering of officers. Oldscores were to be paid off, old grudges wiped out with our first issue ofball ammunition. Many a fist-banged board at the wet canteen gave proofof Tommy's earnestness. 

"Shoot 'im?" he would say, rattling the beer glasses the whole length ofthe table with a mighty blow of his fist. "Blimy! Wite! That's all yougot to do! Just wite till we get on the other side!"

But all these threats were forgotten months before the time came forcarrying them out. Once Tommy understood the reasonableness of severediscipline, he took his punishment for his offenses without complaint. Herealized, too, the futility of kicking against the pricks. In the army hebelonged to the Government body and soul. He might resent its treatmentof him. He might behave like a sulky school-boy, disobey order afterorder, and break rule after rule. In that case he found himselfcheck-mated at every turn. Punishment became more and more severe. No onewas at all concerned about his grievances. He might become an habitualoffender from sheer stupidity, but in doing so, he injured no one buthimself. 

A few of these incorrigibles were discharged in disgrace. A few followedthe lead of the Boer warrior. After many threats which we despaired ofhis ever carrying out, he finally "greased off. " He was immediatelyposted as a deserter, but to our great joy was never captured. With thedisappearance of the malcontents and incorrigibles the battalion soonreached a high grade of efficiency. The physical incompetents werelikewise ruthlessly weeded out. All of us had passed a fairly thoroughexamination at the recruiting offices; but many had physical defectswhich were discovered only by the test of actual training. In the earlydays of the war, requirements were much more severe than later, whenEngland learned how great would be the need for men. Many, who laterreënlisted in other regiments, were discharged as "physically unfit forfurther military service. "

If the standard of conduct in my battalion is any criterion, then I cansay truthfully that there is very little crime in Lord Kitchener's armieseither in England or abroad. The "jankers" or defaulters' squad wasalways rather large; but the "jankers men" were offenders against minorpoints in discipline. Their crimes were untidy appearance on parade, inattention in the ranks, tardiness at roll-call, and others of thesort, all within the jurisdiction of a company officer. The punishmentmeted out varied according to the seriousness of the offense, and thepast-conduct record of the offender. It usually consisted of from one toten days, "C. B. "--confined to barracks. During the period of his sentencethe offender was forbidden to leave camp after the parades for the daywere ended. And in order that he might have no opportunity to do so, hewas compelled to answer his name at the guard-room whenever it should besounded. 

Only twice in England did we have a general court-martial, the offense ineach case being assault by a private upon an N. C. O. , and the penaltyawarded, three months in the military prison at Aldershot. Tommy wasquiet and law-abiding in England, his chief lapses being due to anexaggerated estimate of his capacity for beer. In France, his conduct, inso far as my observation goes, has been splendid throughout. During sixmonths in the trenches I saw but two instances of drunkenness. Although Iwitnessed nearly everything which took place in my own battalion, andheard the general gossip of many others, never did I see or hear of awoman treated otherwise than courteously. Neither did I see or hear ofany instances of looting or petty pilfering from the civilianinhabitants. It is true that the men had fewer opportunities formisconduct, and they were fighting in a friendly country. Even so, activeservice as we found it was by no means free from temptations. Theadmirable restraint of most of the men in the face of them was a finething to see. 

Frequent changes were made in methods of training in England, tocorrespond with changing conditions of modern warfare as exemplified inthe trenches. Textbooks on military tactics and strategy, which were theinspired gospel of the last generation of soldiers, became obsoleteovernight. Experience gained in Indian Mutiny wars or on the veldt inSouth Africa was of little value in the trenches in Flanders. Theemphasis shifted from open fighting to trench warfare, and the textbookwhich our officers studied was a typewritten serial issued semiweekly bythe War Office, and which was based on the dearly bought experience ofofficers at the front. 

We spent many a starry night on the hills above Folkestone diggingtrenches and building dug-outs according to General Staff instructions, and many a rainy one we came home, covered with mud, but happy in thethought that we were approximating, as nearly as could be, the experienceof the boys at the front. Bomb-throwing squads were formed, and the bestshots in the battalion, the men who had made marksmen's scores on therifle ranges, were given daily instruction in the important business ofsniping. More generous provision for the training of machine-gun teamswas made, but so great was the lack in England of these importantweapons, that for many weeks we drilled with wooden substitutes, gainingsuch knowledge of machine gunnery as we could from the study of our M. G. Manuals. 

These new duties, coming as an addition to our other work, meant anincreased period of training. We were impatient to be at the front, butwe realized by this time that Lord Kitchener was serious in his demandthat the men of the new armies be efficiently trained. Therefore weworked with a will, and at last, after nine months of monotonous toil, the order came. We were to proceed on active service. 

 CHAPTER IV

 ORDERED ABROAD

One Sunday morning in May we assembled on the barrack square at Aldershotfor the last time. Every man was in full marching order. His rifle wasthe "Short Lee Enfield, Mark IV, " his bayonet, the long single-edgedblade in general use throughout the British Army. In addition to his armshe carried 120 rounds of ". 303" caliber ammunition, an intrenching-tool, water-bottle, haversack, containing both emergency and the day's rations, and his pack, strapped to shoulders and waist in such a way that theweight of it was equally distributed. His pack contained the followingarticles: A greatcoat, a woolen shirt, two or three pairs of socks, achange of underclothing, a "housewife, "--the soldiers' sewing-kit, --atowel, a cake of soap, and a "hold-all, " in which were a knife, fork, spoon, razor, shaving-brush, toothbrush, and comb. All of these wereuseful and sometimes essential articles, particularly the toothbrush, which Tommy regarded as the best little instrument for cleaning themechanism of a rifle ever invented. Strapped on top of the pack was theblanket roll wrapped in a waterproof ground sheet; and hanging beneathit, the canteen in its khaki-cloth cover. Each man wore an identificationdisk on a cord about his neck. It was stamped with his name, regimentalnumber, regiment, and religion. A first-aid field dressing, consisting ofan antiseptic gauze pad and bandage and a small vial of iodine, sewn inthe lining of his tunic, completed the equipment. 

Physically, the men were "in the pink, " as Tommy says. They wereclear-eyed, vigorous, alert, and as hard as nails. With their caps on, they looked the well-trained soldiers which they were; but with capsremoved, they resembled so many uniformed convicts less the prisonpallor. "Oversea haircuts" were the last tonsorial cry, and for severaldays previous to our departure, the army hairdressers had been busilywielding the close-cutting clippers. 

Each of us had received a copy of Lord Kitchener's letter to the troopsordered abroad, a brief, soldierlike statement of the standard of conductwhich England expected of her fighting men:--

 You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy. You have to perform a task which will need your courage, your energy, your patience. Remember that the honor of the British Army depends upon your individual conduct. It will be your duty not only to set an example of discipline and perfect steadiness under fire, but also to maintain the most friendly relations with those whom you are helping in this struggle. The operations in which you are engaged will, for the most part, take place in a friendly country, and you can do your own country no better service than in showing yourself, in France and Belgium, in the true character of a British soldier. 

 Be invariably courteous, considerate, and kind. Never do anything likely to injure or destroy property, and always look upon looting as a disgraceful act. You are sure to meet with a welcome and to be trusted; and your conduct must justify that welcome and that trust. Your duty cannot be done unless your health is sound. So keep constantly on your guard against any excesses. In this new experience you may find temptations both in wine and women. You must entirely resist both temptations, and while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy. 

 Do your duty bravely. Fear God. Honor the King. 

 Kitchener, _Field-Marshal_. 

It was an effective appeal and a constant reminder to the men of theglorious traditions of the British Army. In the months that followed, Ihad opportunity to learn how deep and lasting was the impression madeupon them by Lord Kitchener's first, and I believe his only, letter tohis soldiers. 

The machinery for moving troops in England works without the slightestfriction. The men, transport, horses, commissariat, medical stores, andsupplies of a battalion are entrained in less than half an hour. Everything is timed to the minute. Battalion after battalion and trainafter train, we moved out of Aldershot at half-hour intervals. Each trainarrived at the port of embarkation on schedule time and pulled up on thedocks by the side of a troop transport, great slate-colored liners takenout of the merchant service. Not a moment was lost. The last man wasaboard and the last wagon on the crane swinging up over the ship's sideas the next train came in. 

Ship by ship we moved down the harbor in the twilight, the boys crowdingthe rail on both sides, taking their farewell look at England--home. Itwas the last farewell for many of them, but there was no martial music, no waving of flags, no tearful good-byes. Our farewell was as prosaic asour long period of training had been. We were each one a very small partof a tremendous business organization which works without any of thedisplay considered so essential in the old days. 

We left England without a cheer. There was not so much as a wave of thehand from the wharf; for there was no one on the wharf to wave, with theexception of a few dock laborers, and they had seen too many soldiers offto the front to be sentimental about it. It was a tense moment for themen, but trust Tommy to relieve a tense situation. As we steamed awayfrom the landing slip, we passed a barge, loaded to the water's edge withcoal. Tommy has a song pat to every occasion. He enjoys, above allthings, giving a ludicrous twist to a "weepy" ballad. When we were withinhailing distance of the coal barge, he began singing one of this variety, "Keep the Home Fires Burning, " to those smutty-faced barge hands. Everyone joined in heartily, forgetting all about the solemnity of theleave-taking. 

Tommy is a prosaic chap. This was never more apparent to me than uponthat pleasant evening in May when we said good-bye to England. The lightsof home were twinkling their farewells far in the distance. Every momentbrought us nearer to the great adventure. We were "off to the wars, " totake our places in the far-flung battle line. Here was Romance lavishlyoffering gifts dearest to the hearts of Youth, offering them to clerks, barbers, tradesmen, drapers' assistants, men who had never known anadventure more thrilling than a holiday excursion to the Isle of Man or aweek of cycling in Kent. And they accepted them with all the stoliditynative to Englishmen. The eyes of the world were upon them. They hadbecome the knights-errant of every schoolgirl. They were figures ofheroic proportions to every one but themselves. 

French soldiers are conscious of the romantic possibilities offered themby the so-called "divine accident of war. " They go forth to fight forGlorious France, France the Unconquerable! Tommy shoulders his rifle anddeparts for the four corners of the world on a "bloomin' fine little'oliday!" A railway journey and a sea voyage in one! "Blimy! Not 'arfbad, wot?" Perhaps he is stirred at the thought of fighting for "England, Home, and Beauty. " Perhaps he does thrill inwardly, remembering asweetheart left behind. But he keeps it jolly well to himself. He hasread me many of his letters home, some of them written during anengagement which will figure prominently in the history of the greatWorld War. "Well, I can't think of anything more now, " threads its waythrough a meager page of commonplaces about the weather, his food, andhis personal health. A frugal line of cross-marks for kisses, at thebottom of the page, is his only concession to sentiment. 

There was, however, one burst of enthusiasm, as we started on ourjourney, which struck me as being spontaneous, and splendid, andthoroughly English. Outside the harbor we were met by our guardians, afleet of destroyers which was to give us safe convoy across the Channel. The moment they saw them the men broke forth into prolonged cheering, andthere were glad shouts of--

"There they are, me lads! There's some o' the little old watch dogs wot'skeepin' 'em bottled up!"

"Good old navy! That's w'ere we got 'em by the throat!"

"Let's give 'em 'Sons of the Sea!'"

And they did. They sang with a spirit of exaltation which Englishmenrarely betray, and which convinced me how nearly the sea and England'sposition as Mistress of the Seas touch the Englishman's heart of hearts. 

 "Sons of the sea, All British born, Sailing the ocean, Laughing foes to scorn. They may build their ships, my lads, And think they know the game; But they can't beat the boys of the bulldog breed Who made old England's name!"

It was a confession of faith. On the sea England can't be beaten. Tommybelieves that with his whole soul, and on this occasion he sang with allthe warmth of religious conviction. 

Our Channel voyage was uneventful. Each transport was guarded by twodestroyers, one on either side, the three vessels keeping abreast andabout fifty yards apart during the entire journey. The submarine menacewas then at its height, and we were prepared for an emergency. The boatswere swung ready for immediate launching, and all of the men wereprovided with life-preservers. But England had been transporting troopsand supplies to the firing-line for so many months without accident thatnone of us were at all concerned about the possibility of danger. Furthermore, the men were too busy studying "Tommy Atkins's FrenchManual" to think about submarines. They were putting the final polish ontheir accent in preparation for to-morrow's landing. 

"Alf, 'ow's this: 'Madamaselly, avay vu dee pang?'"

"Wot do you s'y for 'Gimme a tuppenny packet o' Nosegay'?"

"'Bonjoor, Monseer!' That ain't so dusty, Freddie, wot?"

"Let's try that Marcelase again. You start it, 'Arry. "

"Let Nobby. 'E knows the sounds better'n wot I do. "

"'It 'er up, Nobby! We gotta learn that so we can sing it on the march. "

"Wite till I find it in me book. All right now--

 Allons infants dee la Pat-ree, La joor de glory is arrivay. "

Such bits of conversation may be of little interest, but they have themerit of being genuine. All of them were jotted down in my notebook atthe times when I heard them. 

The following day we crowded into the typical French army troop train, eight _chevaux_ or forty _hommes_ to a car, and started on a leisurelyjourney to the firing-line. We traveled all day, at eight or ten miles anhour, through Normandy. We passed through pleasant towns and villageslying silent in the afternoon sunshine, and seemingly almost deserted, and through the open country fragrant with the scent of apple blossoms. Now and then children waved to us from a cottage window, and in thefields old men and women and girls leaned silently on their hoes or theirrakes and watched us pass. Occasionally an old reservist, guarding therailway line, would lift his cap and shout, "Vive l'Angleterre!" But moreoften he would lean on his rifle and smile, nodding his head courteouslybut silently to our salutations. Tommy, for all his stolid, doggedcheeriness, sensed the tragedy of France. It was a land swept bare of allits fine young manhood. There was no pleasant stir and bustle of civilianlife. Those who were left went about their work silently and joylessly. When we asked of the men, we received, always, the same quiet, courteousreply: "À la guerre, monsieur. "

The boys soon learned the meaning of the phrase, "à la guerre. " It becamea war-cry, a slogan. It was shouted back and forth from car to car andfrom train to train. You can imagine how eager we all were; how westrained our ears, whenever the train stopped, for the sound of the guns. But not until the following morning, when we reached the little villageat the end of our railway journey, did we hear them, a low muttering likethe sound of thunder beyond the horizon. How we cheered at the firstfaint sound which was to become so deafening, so terrible to us later! Itwas music to us then; for we were like the others who had gone that way. We knew nothing of war. We thought it must be something adventurous andfine. Something to make the blood leap and the heart sing. We marchedthrough the village and down the poplar-lined road, surprised, almostdisappointed, to see the neat, well-kept houses, and the pleasant, levelfields, green with spring crops. We had expected that everything would bein ruins. At this stage of the journey, however, we were still sometwenty-five miles from the firing-line. 

During all the journey from the coast, we had seen, on every side, evidences of that wonderfully organized branch of the British militarysystem, the Army Service Corps. From the village at which we detrained, everything was English. Long lines of motor transport lorries were parkedalong the sides of the roads. There were great ammunition bases, commissariat supply depots, motor repair shops, wheel-wright andblacksmith shops, where one saw none but khaki-clad soldiers engaged inall the noncombatant business essential to the maintenance of largearmies. There were long lines of transport wagons loaded with supplies, traveling field-kitchens, with chimneys smoking and kettles steaming asthey bumped over the cobbled roads, water carts, Red Cross carts, motorambulances, batteries of artillery, London omnibuses, painted slate gray, filled with troops, seemingly endless columns of infantry on foot, allmoving with us, along parallel roads, toward the firing-line. And most ofthese troops and supply columns belonged to my own division, one smallcog in the British fighting machine. 

We advanced toward the war zone in easy stages. It was intensely hot, andthe rough, cobbled roads greatly increased the difficulty of marching. InEngland we had frequently tramped from fifteen to twenty-five miles in aday without fatigue. But the roads there were excellent, and the climatemoist and cool. Upon our first day's march in France, a journey of onlynine miles, scores of men were overcome by the heat, and several died. The suffering of the men was so great, in fact, that a halt was madeearlier than had been planned, and we bivouacked for the night in thefields. 

Life with a battalion on the march proceeds with the same orderly routineas when in barracks. Every man has his own particular employment. Withina few moments, the level pasture land was converted into a busy communityof a thousand inhabitants. We made serviceable little dwellings by lacingtogether two or three waterproof ground-sheets and erecting them onsticks or tying them to the wires of the fences. Latrines and refuse pitswere dug under the supervision of the battalion medical officer. The sickwere cared for and justice dispensed with the same thoroughness as inEngland. The day's offenders against discipline were punished with whatseemed to us unusual severity. But we were now on active service, andoffenses which were trivial in England were looked upon, for this reason, in the light of serious crimes. 

Daily we approached a little nearer to our goal, sleeping, at night, inthe open fields or in the lofts of great rambling farm-buildings. Most ofthese places had been used for soldiers' billets scores of times before. The walls were covered with the names of men and regiments, and therewere many penciled suggestions as to the best place to go for a basin of"coffay oh lay, " as Tommy called it. Every roadside cottage was, in fact, Tommy's tavern. The thrifty French peasant women kept open house forsoldiers. They served us with delicious coffee and thick slices of Frenchbread, for the very reasonable sum of twopence. They were always friendlyand hospitable, and the men, in turn, treated them with courteous andkindly respect. Tommy was a great favorite with the French children. Theyclimbed on his lap and rifled his pockets; and they delighted him bytalking in his own vernacular, for they were quick to pick up Englishwords and phrases. They sang "Tipperary" and "Rule Britannia, " and "GodSave the King, " so quaintly and prettily that the men kept them at it forhours at a time. 

And so, during a week of stifling heat, we moved slowly forward. Thesound of the guns grew in intensity, from a faint rumbling to a subduedroar, until one evening, sitting in the open windows of a stable loft, wesaw the far-off lightenings of bursting shells, and the trench rocketssoaring skyward; and we heard bursts of rifle and machine-gun fire, veryfaintly, like the sound of chestnuts popping in an oven. 

 CHAPTER V

 THE PARAPET-ETIC SCHOOL

"We're going in to-night. "

The word was given out by the orderly sergeants at four in the afternoon. At 4. 03 every one in camp had heard the news. Scores of miniature handlaundries, which were doing a thriving business down by the duck pond, immediately shut up shop. Damp and doubtfully clean ration bags, towels, and shirts which were draped along the fences, were hastily gatheredtogether and thrust into the capacious depths of pack-sacks. Members ofthe battalion's sporting contingent broke up their games of tuppenny bragwithout waiting for "just one more hand, " an unprecedented thing. Themakers of war ballads, who were shouting choruses to the merry music ofthe mouth-organ band, stopped in the midst of their latest composition, and rushed off to get their marching order together. At 4. 10 every one, with the exception of the officers' servants, was ready to move off. This, too, was unprecedented. Never before had we made haste more gladlyor less needfully, but never before had there been such an incentive tohaste. We were going into the trenches for the first time. 

The officers' servants, commonly called "batmen, " were unfortunaterankers who, in moments of weakness, had sold themselves into slavery forhalf a crown per week. The batman's duty is to make tea for his officer, clean his boots, wash his clothes, tuck him into bed at night, and makehimself useful generally. The real test of a good batman, however, is hiscarrying capacity. In addition to his own heavy burden he must carryvarious articles belonging to his officer: enameled wash-basins, rubberboots, bottles of Apollinaris water, service editions of the modernEnglish poets and novelists, spirit lamps, packages of food, boxes ofcigars and cigarettes, --in fact, all of his personal luggage which is inexcess of the allotted thirty-five pounds which is carried on thebattalion transport wagons. 

On this epoch-marking day, even the officers' servants were punctual. When the order, "Packs on! Fall in!" was given, not a man was missing. Every one was in harness, standing silently, expectantly, in his place. 

"Charge magazines!"

The bolts clicked open with the sound of one as we loaded our rifles withball ammunition. Five long shiny cartridges were slipped down the chargerguide into the magazine, and the cut-off closed. 

"Move off in column of route, 'A' company leading!"

We swung into the country road in the gathering twilight, and turnedsharply to our left at the crossroad where the signboard read, "To theFiring-Line. For the Use of the Military Only. "

Coming into the trenches for the first time when the deadlock along thewestern front had become seemingly unbreakable, we reaped the benefit ofthe experience of the gallant little remnant of the first BritishExpeditionary Force. After the retreat from Mons, they had dug themselvesin and were holding tenaciously on, awaiting the long-heralded arrival ofKitchener's Mob. As the units of the new armies arrived in France, theywere sent into the trenches for twenty-four hours' instruction in trenchwarfare, with a battalion of regulars. This one-day course in trenchfighting is preliminary to fitting new troops into their own particularsectors along the front. The facetious subalterns called it "TheParapet-etic School. " Months later, we ourselves became members of thefaculty, but on this first occasion we were marching up as the meekest ofundergraduates. 

It was quite dark when we entered the desolate belt of country known asthe "fire zone. " Pipes and cigarettes were put out and talking ceased. Weextended to groups of platoons in fours, at one hundred paces interval, each platoon keeping in touch with the one in front by means ofconnecting files. We passed rows of ruined cottages where only the scentof the roses in neglected little front gardens reminded one of thehome-loving people who had lived there in happier days. Dim lightsstreamed through chinks and crannies in the walls. Now and then blanketcoverings would be lifted from apertures that had been windows or doors, and we would see bright fires blazing in the middle of brick kitchenfloors, and groups of men sitting about them luxuriously sipping tea fromsteaming canteens. They were laughing and talking and singing songs inloud, boisterous voices which contrasted strangely with our timidnoiselessness. I was marching with one of the trench guides who had beensent back to pilot us to our position. I asked him if the Tommies in thehouses were not in danger of being heard by the enemy. He laugheduproariously at this, whereupon one of our officers, a little secondlieutenant, turned and hissed in melodramatic undertones, "Silence in theranks there! Where do you think you are!" Officers and men, we were newto the game then, and we held rather exaggerated notions as to the amountof care to be observed in moving up to the trenches. 

"Blimy, son!" whispered the trench guide, "you might think we was only acouple o' 'unnerd yards away from Fritzie's trenches! We're a good twoan' a 'arf miles back 'ere. All right to be careful arter you gets closerup; but they's no use w'isperin' w'en you ain't even in rifle range. "

With lights, of course, it was a different matter altogether. Can't betoo careful about giving the enemy artillery an aiming mark. This was thereason all the doors and windows of the ruined cottages were so carefullyblanketed. 

"Let old Fritzie see a light, --''Ello!' 'e says, 'blokes in billets!' an'over comes a 'arf-dozen shells knockin' you all to blazes. "

As we came within the range of rifle fire, we again changed ourformation, and marched in single file along the edge of the road. Thesharp _crack! crack!= of small arms now sounded with vicious and ominousdistinctness. We heard the melancholy song of the ricochets and spentbullets as they whirled in a wide arc, high over our heads, andoccasionally the less pleasing _phtt! phtt!_ of those speeding straightfrom the muzzle of a German rifle. We breathed more freely when weentered the communication trench in the center of a little thicket, amile or more back of the first-line trenches. 

We wound in and out of what appeared in the darkness to be a hopelesslabyrinth of earthworks. Cross-streets and alleys led off in everydirection. All along the way we had glimpses of dugouts lighted bycandles, the doorways carefully concealed with blankets or pieces of oldsacking. Groups of Tommies, in comfortable nooks and corners, wereboiling tea or frying bacon over little stoves made of old iron bucketsor biscuit tins. 

I marveled at the skill of our trench guide who went confidently on inthe darkness, with scarcely a pause. At length, after a winding, zigzagjourney, we arrived at our trench where we met the Gloucesters. 

There isn't one of us who hasn't a warm spot in his heart for theGloucesters: they welcomed us so heartily and initiated us into all themysteries of trench etiquette and trench tradition. We were, at best, butamateur Tommies. In them I recognized the lineal descendants of the lineAtkins; men whose grandfathers had fought in the Crimea, and whosefathers in Indian mutinies. They were the fighting sons of fightingsires, and they taught us more of life in the trenches, in twenty-fourhours, than we had learned during nine months of training in England. Aninfantryman of my company has a very kindly feeling toward one of themwho probably saved his life before we had been in the trenches fiveminutes. Our first question was, of course, "How far is it to the Germanlines?" and in his eagerness to see, my fellow Tommy jumped up on thefiring-bench for a look, with a lighted cigarette in his mouth. He waspulled down into the trench just as a rifle cracked and a bullet went_zing-g-g_ from the parapet precisely where he had been standing. Thenthe Gloucester gave him a friendly little lecture which none of usafterward forgot. 

"Now, look 'ere, son! Never get up for a squint at Fritz with a fag on!'E's got every sandbag along this parapet numbered, same as we've got'is. 'Is snipers is a-layin' fer us same as ours is a-layin' fer 'im. "Then, turning to the rest of us, "Now, we ain't arskin' to 'ave no burialparties. But if any of you blokes wants to be the stiff, stand up w'erethis guy lit the gas. "

There weren't any takers, and a moment later another bullet struck asandbag in the same spot. 

"See? 'E spotted you. 'E'll keep a-pottin' away at that place for anhour, 'opin' to catch you lookin' over again. Less see if we can find'im. Give us that biscuit tin, 'Enery. "

Then we learned the biscuit-tin-finder trick for locating snipers. It'sonly approximate, of course, but it gives a pretty good hint at thedirection from which the shots come. It doesn't work in the daytime, fora sniper is too clever to fire at it. But a biscuit tin, set on theparapet at night in a badly sniped position, is almost certain to be hit. The angle from which the shots come is shown by the jagged edges of tinaround the bullet holes. Then, as the Gloucester said, "Give 'im a nicelittle April shower out o' yer machine gun in that direction. You mayfetch 'im. But if you don't, 'e won't bother you no more fer an hour ortwo. "

We learned how orders are passed down the line, from sentry to sentry, quietly, and with the speed of a man running. We learned how the sentriesare posted and their duties. We saw the intricate mazes of telephonewires, and the men of the signaling corps at their posts in the trenches, in communication with brigade, divisional, and army corps headquarters. We learned how to "sleep" five men in a four-by-six dugout; and, whenthere are no dugouts, how to hunch up on the firing-benches with ourwaterproof sheets over our heads, and doze, with our knees for a pillow. We learned the order of precedence for troops in the communicationtrenches. 

"Never forget that! Outgoin' troops 'as the right o' way. They ain't 'adno rest, an' they're all slathered in mud, likely, an' dead beat fersleep. Incomin' troops is fresh, an' they stands to one side to let theothers pass. "

We saw the listening patrols go out at night, through the undergroundpassage which leads to the far side of the barbed-wire entanglements. From there they creep far out between the opposing lines of trenches, tokeep watch upon the movements of the enemy, and to report the presence ofhis working parties or patrols. This is dangerous, nerve-trying work, forthe men sent out upon it are exposed not only to the shots of the enemy, but to the wild shots of their own comrades as well. I saw one patrolcome in just before dawn. One of the men brought with him a piece ofbarbed wire, clipped from the German entanglements two hundred and fiftyyards away. 

"Taffy, 'ave a look at this 'ere. Three-ply stuff wot you can 'ardly getyer nippers through. 'Ad to saw an' saw, an' w'en I all but 'ad it, lummy! if they didn't send up a rocket wot bleedin' near 'it me in the'ead!"

"Tyke it to Captain Stevens. I 'eard 'im s'y 'e's wantin' a bit to showto one of the artill'ry blokes. 'E's got a bet on with 'im that it'sthree-ply wire. Now, don't forget, Bobby! Touch 'im fer a couple o'packets o' fags!"

I was tremendously interested. At that time it seemed incredible to methat men crawled over to the German lines in this manner and clippedpieces of German wire for souvenirs. 

"Did you hear anything?" I asked him. 

"'Eard a flute some Fritzie was a-playin' of. An' you ought to 'ave 'eard'em a-singin'! Doleful as 'ell!"

Several men were killed and wounded during the night. One of them was asentry with whom I had been talking only a few moments before. He wasstanding on the firing-bench looking out into the darkness, when he fellback into the trench without a cry. It was a terrible wound. I would nothave believed that a bullet could so horribly disfigure one. He was givenfirst aid by the light of a candle; but it was useless. Silently hiscomrades removed his identification disk and wrapped him in a blanket. "Poor old Walt!" they said. An hour later he was buried in a shell holeat the back of the trench. 

One thing we learned during our first night in the trenches was of thevery first importance. And that was, respect for our enemies. We camefrom England full of absurd newspaper tales about the German soldier'sinferiority as a fighting man. We had read that he was a wretchedmarksman: he would not stand up to the bayonet: whenever opportunityoffered he crept over and gave himself up: he was poorly fed and clothedand was so weary of the war that his officers had to drive him to fight, at the muzzles of their revolvers. We thought him almost beneathcontempt. We were convinced in a night that we had greatly underestimatedhis abilities as a marksman. As for his all-round inferiority as afighting man, one of the Gloucesters put it rather well:--

"'Ere! If the Germans is so bloomin' rotten, 'ow is it we ain'ta-fightin' 'em sommers along the Rhine, or in Austry-Hungry? No, theyain't a-firin' wild, I give you my word! Not around this part o' Francethey ain't! Wot do you s'y, Jerry?"

Jerry made a most illuminating contribution to the discussion of Fritz asa fighting man:--

"I'll tell you wot! If ever I gets through this 'ere war; if I 'as theluck to go 'ome again, with me eyesight, I'll never feel syfe w'en I seesa Fritzie, unless I'm a-lookin' at 'im through me periscope from be'ind abit o' cover. "

 * * * * * *

How am I to give a really vivid picture of trench life as I saw it forthe first time, how make it live for others, when I remember that themany descriptive accounts I had read of it in England did not in theleast visualize it for me? I watched the rockets rising from the Germanlines, watched them burst into points of light, over the devastated stripof country called "No-Man's-Land" and drift slowly down. And I watchedthe charitable shadows rush back like the very wind of darkness. Thedesolate landscape emerged from the gloom and receded again, like aseries of pictures thrown upon a screen. All of this was so new, soterrible, I doubted its reality. Indeed, I doubted my own identity, asone does at times when brought face to face with some experiences whichcannot be compared with past experiences or even measured by them. Igroped darkly, for some new truth which was flickering just beyond theborder of consciousness. But I was so blinded by the glamour of theadventure that it did not come to me then. Later I understood. It was myfirst glimmering realization of the tremendous sadness, the awfulfutility of war. 

 CHAPTER VI

 PRIVATE HOLLOWAY, PROFESSOR OF HYGIENE

The following morning we wandered through the trenches listening to thelearned discourse of the genial professors of the Parapet-etic School, storing up much useful information for future reference. I made a seriousblunder when I asked one of them a question about Ypres, for I pronouncedthe name French fashion, which put me under suspicion as a "swanker. "

"Don't try to come it, son, " he said. "S'y 'Wipers. ' That's wot we callsit. "

Henceforth it was "Wipers" for me, although I learned that "Eeps" and"Yipps" are sanctioned by some trench authorities. I made no furthermistakes of this nature, and by keeping silent about the names of thetowns and villages along our front, I soon learned the acceptedpronunciation of all of them. Armentières is called "Armenteers";Balleul, "Bally-all"; Hazebrouck, "Hazy-Brook"; and what more naturalthan "Plug-Street, " Atkinsese for Ploegsteert?

As was the case wherever I went, my accent betrayed my American birth;and again, as an American Expeditionary Force of one, I was shown manyfavors. Private Shorty Holloway, upon learning that I was a "Yank, "offered to tell me "every bloomin' thing about the trenches that a blokeneeds to know. " I was only too glad to place myself under hisinstruction. 

"Right you are!" said Shorty; "now, sit down 'ere w'ile I'm goin' over meshirt, an' arsk me anything yer a mind to. " I began immediately by askinghim what he meant by "going over" his shirt. 

"Blimy! You are new to this game, mate! You mean to s'y you ain't got anygraybacks!"

I confessed shamefacedly that I had not. He stripped to the waist, turnedhis shirt wrong side out, and laid it upon his knee. 

"'Ave a look, " he said proudly. 

The less said about my discoveries the better for the fastidiouslyminded. Suffice it to say that I made my first acquaintance with membersof a British Expeditionary Force which is not mentioned in official_communiqués_. 

"Trench pets, " said Shorty. Then he told me that they were not allgraybacks. There is a great variety of species, but they all belong tothe same parasitical family, and wage a non-discriminating warfare uponthe soldiery on both sides of No-man's-Land. Germans, British, French, Belgians alike were their victims. 

"You'll soon 'ave plenty, " he said reassuringly; "I give you about a weekto get covered with 'em. Now, wot you want to do is this: always 'ave anextra shirt in yer pack. Don't be a bloomin' ass an' sell it fer a packeto' fags like I did! An' the next time you writes to England, get some oneto send you out some Keatings"--he displayed a box of grayish-coloredpowder. "It won't kill 'em, mind you! They ain't nothin' but fire that'llkill 'em. But Keatings tykes all the ginger out o' 'em. They ain't nearso lively arter you strafe 'em with this 'ere powder. "

I remembered Shorty's advice later when I became a reluctant host to aprolific colony of graybacks. For nearly six months I was never without abox of Keatings, and I was never without the need for it. 

Barbed wire had a new and terrible significance for me from the first daywhich we spent in the trenches. I could more readily understand why therehad been so long a deadlock on the western front. The entanglements infront of the first line of trenches were from fifteen to twenty yardswide, the wires being twisted from post to post in such a hopeless jumblethat no man could possibly get through them under fire. The posts wereset firmly in the ground, but there were movable segments, every fifty orsixty yards, which could be put to one side in case an attack was to belaunched against the German lines. 

At certain positions there were what appeared to be openings through thewire, but these were nothing less than man-traps which have been foundserviceable in case of an enemy attack. In an assault men follow the lineof least resistance when they reach the barbed wire. These apparentopenings are V-shaped, with the open end toward the enemy. The attackingtroops think they see a clear passageway. They rush into the trap, andwhen it is filled with struggling men, machine guns are turned upon them, and, as Shorty said, "You got 'em cold. "

That, at least, was the presumption. Practically, man-traps were notalways a success. The intensive bombardments which precede infantryattacks play havoc with entanglements, but there is always a chance ofthe destruction being incomplete, as upon one occasion farther north, where, Shorty told me, a man-trap caught a whole platoon of Germans "deadto rights. "

"But this is wot gives you the pip, " he said. "'Ere we got three lines oftrenches, all of 'em wired up so that a rat couldn't get through withoutscratchin' hisself to death. Fritzie's got better wire than wot we 'ave, an' more of it. An' 'e's got more machine guns, more artill'ry, moreshells. They ain't any little old man-killer ever invented wot they'aven't got more of than we 'ave. An' at 'ome they're a-s'yin', 'W'ydon't they get on with it? W'y don't they smash through?' Let some of 'emcome out 'ere an' 'ave a try! That's all I got to s'y. "

I didn't tell Shorty that I had been, not exactly an armchair critic, butat least a barrack-room critic in England. I had wondered why British andFrench troops had failed to smash through. A few weeks in the trenchesgave me a new viewpoint. I could only wonder at the magnificent fightingqualities of soldiers who had held their own so effectively againstarmies equipped and armed and munitioned as the Germans were. 

After he had finished drugging his trench pets, Shorty and I made a tourof the trenches. I was much surprised at seeing how clean and comfortablethey can be kept in pleasant summer weather. Men were busily at worksweeping up the walks, collecting the rubbish, which was put intosandbags hung on pegs at intervals along the fire trench. At night therefuse was taken back of the trenches and buried. Most of this workdevolved upon the pioneers whose business it was to keep the trenchessanitary. 

The fire trench was built in much the same way as those which we had madeduring our training in England. In pattern it was something like atesselated border. For the space of five yards it ran straight, then itturned at right angles around a traverse of solid earth six feet square, then straight again for another five yards, then around another traverse, and so throughout the length of the line. Each five-yard segment, whichis called a "bay, " offered firing room for five men. The traverses, ofcourse, were for the purpose of preventing enfilade fire. They alsolimited the execution which might be done by one shell. Even so they werenot an unmixed blessing, for they were always in the way when you wantedto get anywhere in a hurry. 

"An' you _are_ in a 'urry w'en you sees a Minnie [_Minnenwerfer_] comin'your w'y. But you gets trench legs arter a w'ile. It'll be a funny sightto see blokes walkin' along the street in Lunnon w'en the war's over. They'll be so used to dodgin' in an' out o' traverses they won't be ableto go in a straight line. "

As we walked through the firing-line trenches, I could quite understandthe possibility of one's acquiring trench legs. Five paces forward, twoto the right, two to the left, two to the left again, then five to theright, and so on to Switzerland. Shorty was of the opinion that one couldenter the trenches on the Channel coast and walk through to the Alpswithout once coming out on top of the ground. I am not in a positioneither to affirm or to question this statement. My own experience wasconfined to that part of the British front which lies between Messines inBelgium and Loos in France. There, certainly, one could walk for miles, through an intricate maze of continuous underground passages. 

But the firing-line trench was neither a traffic route nor a promenade. The great bulk of inter-trench business passed through the travelingtrench, about fifteen yards in rear of the fire trench and runningparallel to it. The two were connected by many passageways, the chiefdifference between them being that the fire trench was the businessdistrict, while the traveling trench was primarily residential. Along thelatter were built most of the dugouts, lavatories, and trench kitchens. The sleeping quarters for the men were not very elaborate. Recesses weremade in the wall of the trench about two feet above the floor. They werenot more than three feet high, so that one had to crawl in head firstwhen going to bed. They were partitioned in the middle, and were supposedto offer accommodation for four men, two on each side. But, as Shortysaid, everything depended on the ration allowance. Two men who had eatento repletion could not hope to occupy the same apartment. One had achoice of going to bed hungry or of eating heartily and sleeping outsideon the firing-bench. 

"'Ere's a funny thing, " he said. "W'y do you suppose they makes thedugouts open at one end?"

I had no explanation to offer. 

"Crawl inside an' I'll show you. "

I stood my rifle against the side of the trench and crept in. 

"Now, yer supposed to be asleep, " said Shorty, and with that he gave me awhack on the soles of my boots with his entrenching tool handle. I canstill feel the pain of the blow. 

"Stand to! Wyke up 'ere! Stand to!" he shouted, and gave me anotherresounding wallop. 

I backed out in all haste. 

"Get the idea? That's 'ow they wykes you up at stand-to, or w'en yourturn comes fer sentry. Not bad, wot?"

I said that it all depended on whether one was doing the waking or thesleeping, and that, for my part, when sleeping, I would lie with my headout. 

"You wouldn't if you belonged to our lot. They'd give it to you on thenapper just as quick as 'it you on the feet. You ain't on to the game, that's all. Let me show you suthin'. "

He crept inside and drew his knees up to his chest so that his feet werewell out of reach. At his suggestion I tried to use the active servicealarm clock on him, but there was not room enough in which to wield it. My feet were tingling from the effect of his blows, and I felt that thereputation for resourcefulness of Kitchener's Mob was at stake. In amoment of inspiration I seized my rifle, gave him a dig in the shins withthe butt, and shouted, "Stand to, Shorty!" He came out rubbing his legruefully. 

"You got the idea, mate, " he said. "That's just wot they does w'en youtries to double-cross 'em by pullin' yer feet in. I ain't sure w'ere Ilikes it best, on the shins or on the feet. "

This explanation of the reason for building three-sided dugouts, whilenot, of course, the true one, was none the less interesting. Andcertainly, the task of arousing sleeping men for sentry duty was greatlyfacilitated with rows of protruding boot soles "simply arskin' to be'it, " as Shorty put it. 

All of the dugouts for privates and N. C. O. S were of equal size and builton the same model, the reason being that the walls and floors, which weremade of wood, and the roofs, which were of corrugated iron, were puttogether in sections at the headquarters of the Royal Engineers, whosuperintended all the work of trench construction. The material wasbrought up at night ready to be fitted into excavations. Furthermore, with thousands of men to house within a very limited area, space was amost important consideration. There was no room for indulging individualtastes in dugout architecture. The roofs were covered with from three tofour feet of earth, which made them proof against shrapnel or shellsplinters. In case of a heavy bombardment with high explosives, the mentook shelter in deep and narrow "slip trenches. " These were blindalleyways leading off from the traveling trench, with room for from tento fifteen men in each. At this part of the line there were none of thevery deep shell-proof shelters, from fifteen to twenty feet below thesurface of the ground, of which I had read. Most of the men seemed to beglad of this. They preferred taking their chances in an open trenchduring heavy shell fire. 

Realists and Romanticists lived side by side in the traveling trench. "MyLittle Gray Home in the West" was the modest legend over one apartment. The "Ritz Carlton" was next door to "The Rats' Retreat, " with "VerminVilla" next door but one. "The Suicide Club" was the suburban residenceof some members of the bombing squad. I remarked that the bombers seemedto take rather a pessimistic view of their profession, whereupon Shortytold me that if there were any men slated for the Order of the WoodenCross, the bombers were those unfortunate ones. In an assault they werefirst at the enemy's position. They had dangerous work to do even on thequietest of days. But theirs was a post of honor, and no one of them butwas proud of his membership in the Suicide Club. 

The officers' quarters were on a much more generous and elaborate scalethan those of the men. This I gathered from Shorty's description of them, for I saw only the exteriors as we passed along the trench. Those forplatoon and company commanders were built along the traveling trench. Thecolonel, major, and adjutant lived in a luxurious palace, about fiftyyards down a communication trench. Near it was the officers' mess, a caféde luxe with glass panels in the door, a cooking stove, a long woodentable, chairs, --everything, in fact, but hot and cold running water. 

"You know, " said Shorty, "the officers thinks they 'as to rough it, butthey got it soft, I'm tellin' you! Wooden bunks to sleep in, batmen tobring 'em 'ot water fer shavin' in the mornin', all the fags theywants, --Blimy, I wonder wot they calls livin' 'igh?"

I agreed that in so far as living quarters are concerned, they wereroughing it under very pleasant circumstances. However, they were notalways so fortunate, as later experience proved. Here there had beenlittle serious fighting for months and the trenches were at their best. Elsewhere the officers' dugouts were often but little better than thoseof the men. 

The first-line trenches were connected with two lines of support orreserve trenches built in precisely the same fashion, and each heavilywired. The communication trenches which joined them were from seven toeight feet deep and wide enough to permit the convenient passage ofincoming and outgoing troops, and the transport of the wounded back tothe field dressing stations. From the last reserve line they wound onbackward through the fields until troops might leave them well out ofrange of rifle fire. Under Shorty's guidance I saw the field dressingstations, the dugouts for the reserve ammunition supply and the stores ofbombs and hand grenades, battalion and brigade trench headquarters. Wewandered from one part of the line to another through trenches, all ofwhich were kept amazingly neat and clean. The walls were stayed withfine-mesh wire to hold the earth in place. The floors were covered withboard walks carefully laid over the drains, which ran along the center ofthe trench and emptied into deep wells, built in recesses in the walls. Ifelt very much encouraged when I saw the careful provisions forsanitation and drainage. On a fine June morning it seemed probable thatliving in ditches was not to be so unpleasant as I had imagined it. Shorty listened to my comments with a smile. 

"Don't pat yerself on the back yet a w'ile, mate, " he said. "They looksright enough now, but wite till you've seen 'em arter a 'eavy rain. "

I had this opportunity many times during the summer and autumn. A morewretched existence than that of soldiering in wet weather could hardly beimagined. The walls of the trenches caved in in great masses. The drainsfilled to overflowing, and the trench walks were covered deep in mud. After a few hours of rain, dry and comfortable trenches became aquagmire, and we were kept busy for days afterward repairing the damage. 

As a machine gunner I was particularly interested in the construction ofthe machine-gun emplacements. The covered battle positions were verysolidly built. The roofs were supported with immense logs or steelgirders covered over with many layers of sandbags. There were twocarefully concealed loopholes looking out to a flank, but none forfrontal fire, as this dangerous little weapon best enjoys catching troopsin enfilade owing to the rapidity and the narrow cone of its fire. Itsown front is protected by the guns on its right and left. At eachemplacement there was a range chart giving the ranges to all parts of theenemy's trenches, and to every prominent object both in front of andbehind them, within its field of fire. When not in use the gun was keptmounted and ready for action in the battle position. 

"But remember this, " said Shorty, "you never fires from your battleposition except in case of attack. W'en you goes out at night to 'ave alittle go at Fritzie, you always tykes yer gun sommers else. If youdon't, you'll 'ave Minnie an' Busy Bertha an' all the rest o' the Kruppchildern comin' over to see w'ere you live. "

This was a wise precaution, as we were soon to learn from experience. Machine guns are objects of special interest to the artillery, and thelocality from which they are fired becomes very unhealthy for some littletime thereafter. 

We stopped for a moment at "The Mud Larks' Hairdressing Parlor, " a veryimportant institution if one might judge by its patronage. It was housedin a recess in the wall of the traveling trench, and was open to the sky. There I saw the latest fashion in "oversea" hair cuts. The victims sat ona ration box while the barber mowed great swaths through tangled thatchwith a pair of close-cutting clippers. But instead of making a completejob of it, a thick fringe of hair which resembled a misplaced scalpingtuft was left for decorative purposes, just above the forehead. Theeffect was so grotesque that I had to invent an excuse for laughing. Itwas a lame one, I fear, for Shorty looked at me warningly. When we hadgone on a little way he said:--

"Ain't it a proper beauty parlor? But you got to be careful aboutlarfin'. Some o' the blokes thinks that 'edge-row is a regular ornament. "

I had supposed that a daily shave was out of the question on thefiring-line; but the British Tommy is nothing if not resourceful. Although water is scarce and fuel even more so, the self-respectingsoldier easily surmounts difficulties, and the Gloucesters were all nicein matters pertaining to the toilet. Instead of draining their canteensof tea, they saved a few drops for shaving purposes. 

"It's a bit sticky, " said Shorty, "but it's 'ot, an' not 'arf bad w'enyou gets used to it. Now, another thing you don't want to ferget is this:W'en yer movin' up fer yer week in the first line, always bring a bundleo' firewood with you. They ain't so much as a match-stick left in thetrenches. Then you wants to be savin' of it. Don't go an' use it all thefirst d'y or you'll 'ave to do without yer tea the rest o' the week. "

I remembered his emphasis upon this point afterward when I saw menrisking their lives in order to procure firewood. Without his tea Tommywas a wretched being. I do not remember a day, no matter how serious thefighting, when he did not find both the time and the means for making it. 

Shorty was a Ph. D. In every subject in the curriculum, including domesticscience. In preparing breakfast he gave me a practical demonstration ofthe art of conserving a limited resource of fuel, bringing our twocanteens to a boil with a very meager handful of sticks; and while doingso he delivered an oral thesis on the best methods of food preparation. For example, there was the item of corned beef--familiarly called"bully. " It was the _pièce de résistance_ at every meal with the possibleexception of breakfast, when there was usually a strip of bacon. Now, one's appetite for "bully" becomes jaded in the course of a few weeks ormonths. To use the German expression one doesn't eat it _gern_. But itis not a question of liking it. One must eat it or go hungry. Therefore, said Shorty, save carefully all of your bacon grease, and instead ofeating your "bully" cold out of the tin, mix it with bread crumbs andgrated cheese and fry it in the grease. He prepared some in this way, andI thought it a most delectable dish. Another way of stimulating thepalate was to boil the beef in a solution of bacon grease and water, andthen, while eating it, "kid yerself that it's Irish stew. " This secondmethod of taking away the curse did not appeal to me very strongly, andShorty admitted that he practiced such self-deception with veryindifferent success; for after all "bully" was "bully" in whatever formyou ate it. 

In addition to this staple, the daily rations consisted of bacon, bread, cheese, jam, army biscuits, tea, and sugar. Sometimes they received atinned meat and vegetable ration, already cooked, and at welcomeintervals fresh meat and potatoes were substituted for corned beef. Eachman had a very generous allowance of food, a great deal more, I thought, than he could possibly eat. Shorty explained this by saying thatallowance was made for the amount which would be consumed by the rats andthe blue-bottle flies. 

There were, in fact, millions of flies. They settled in great swarmsalong the walls of the trenches, which were filled to the brim with warmlight as soon as the sun had climbed a little way up the sky. Emptytin-lined ammunition boxes were used as cupboards for food. But of whatavail were cupboards to a jam-loving and jam-fed British army living inopen ditches in the summer time? Flytraps made of empty jam tins were setalong the top of the parapet. As soon as one was filled, another was setin its place. But it was an unequal war against an expeditionary force ofcountless numbers. 

"They ain't nothin' you can do, " said Shorty. "They steal the jam rightoff yer bread. "

As for the rats, speaking in the light of later experience, I can saythat an army corps of pied pipers would not have sufficed to entice awaythe hordes of them that infested the trenches, living like house pets onour rations. They were great lazy animals, almost as large as cats, andso gorged with food that they could hardly move. They ran over us in thedugouts at night, and filched cheese and crackers right through the heavywaterproofed covering of our haversacks. They squealed and fought amongthemselves at all hours. I think it possible that they were carrioneaters, but never, to my knowledge, did they attack living men. Whilethey were unpleasant bedfellows, we became so accustomed to them that wewere not greatly concerned about our very intimate associations. 

Our course of instruction at the Parapet-etic School was brought to aclose late in the evening when we shouldered our packs, bade good-bye toour friends the Gloucesters, and marched back in the moonlight to ourbillets. I had gained an entirely new conception of trench life, of thedifficulties involved in trench building, and the immense amount ofmaterial and labor needed for the work. 

Americans who are interested in learning of these things at first handwill do well to make the grand tour of the trenches when the war isfinished. Perhaps the thrifty continentals will seek to commercializesuch advantage as misfortune has brought them, in providing favorableopportunities. Perhaps the Touring Club of France will lay out a newroute, following the windings of the firing line from the Channel coastacross the level fields of Flanders, over the Vosges Mountains to theborders of Switzerland. Pedestrians may wish to make the journey on foot, cooking their supper over Tommy's rusty biscuit-tin stoves, sleeping atnight in the dugouts where he lay shivering with cold during the winternights of 1914 and 1915. If there are enthusiasts who will be satisfiedwith only the most intimate personal view of the trenches, if there arethose who would try to understand the hardships and discomforts of trenchlife by living it during a summer vacation, I would suggest that theyremember Private Shorty Holloway's parting injunction to me:--

"Now, don't ferget, Jamie!" he said as we shook hands, "always 'ave a boxo' Keatings 'andy, an' 'ang on to yer extra shirt!"

 CHAPTER VII

 MIDSUMMER CALM

During our first summer in the trenches there were days, sometimes weeksat a time, when, in the language of the official bulletins, there was"nothing to report, " or "calm" prevailed "along our entire front. " Fromthe War Office point of view these statements were, doubtless, trueenough. But from Tommy Atkins's point of view, "calm" was putting itsomewhat mildly. Life in the trenches, even on the quietest of days, isfull of adventure highly spiced with danger. Snipers, machine gunners, artillerymen, airmen, engineers of the opposing sides, vie with eachother in skill and daring, in order to secure that coveted advantage, themorale. Tommy calls it the "more-ale, " but he jolly well knows when hehas it and when he hasn't. 

There were many nights of official calm when we machine gunners crept outof the trenches with our guns to positions prepared beforehand, either infront of the line or to the rear of it. There we waited for messages fromour listening patrols, who were lying in the tall grass of "the frontyard. " They sent word to us immediately when they discovered enemyworking parties building up their parapets or mending their barbed-wireentanglements. We would then lay our guns according to instructionsreceived and blaze away, each gun firing at the rate of from threehundred to five hundred rounds per minute. After a heavy burst of fire, we would change our positions at once. It was then that the most excitingpart of our work began. For as soon as we ceased firing, there wereanswering fusillades from hundreds of German rifles. And within two orthree minutes, German field artillery began a search for us withshrapnel. We crawled from one position to another over the open ground oralong shallow ditches, dug for the purpose. These offered protection fromrifle fire, but frequently the shell fire was so heavy and so welldirected that we were given some very unpleasant half-hours, lying flaton our faces, listening to the deafening explosions and the viciouswhistling of flying shrapnel. 

We fired from the trenches, as well as in front and to the rear of them. We were, in fact, busy during most of the night, for it was our duty tosee to it that our guns lived up to their reputation as "weapons ofopportunity and surprise. " With the aid of large-scale maps, we locatedall of the roads, within range, back of the German lines; roads which weknew were used by enemy troops moving in and out of the trenches. Welocated all of their communication trenches leading back to the rear; andat uncertain intervals we covered roads and trenches with bursts ofsearching fire. 

The German gunners were by no means inactive. They, too, profited bytheir knowledge of night life in the firing-line, their knowledge ofsoldier nature. They knew, as did we, that the roads in the rear of thetrenches are filled, at night, with troops, transport wagons, and fatigueparties. They knew, as did we, that men become so utterly weary of livingin ditches--living in holes, like rats--that they are willing to take bigrisks when moving in or out of the trenches, for the pure joy of gettingup on top of the ground. Many a night when we were moving up for our weekin the first line, or back for our week in reserve, we heard the far-offrattle of German Maxims, and in an instant, the bullets would bezip-zipping all around us. There was no need for the sharp word ofcommand. If there was a communication trench at hand, we all made a divefor it at once. If there was not, we fell face down, in ditches, shellholes, in any place which offered a little protection from that terriblehail of lead. Many of our men were killed and wounded nightly bymachine-gun fire, usually because they were too tired to be cautious. And, doubtless, we did as much damage with our own guns. It seemed to mehorrible, something in the nature of murder, that advantage must be takenof these opportunities. But it was all a part of the game of war; andfortunately, we rarely knew, nor did the Germans, what damage was doneduring those summer nights of "calm along the entire front. "

The artillerymen, both British and German, did much to relieve theboredom of those "nothing to report" days. There were desultorybombardments of the trenches at daybreak, and at dusk, when everyinfantryman is at his post, rifle in hand, bayonet fixed, on the alertfor signs of a surprise attack. If it was a bombardment with shrapnel, Tommy was not greatly concerned, for in trenches he is fairly safe fromshrapnel fire. But if the shells were large-caliber high explosives, hecrouched close to the front wall of the trench, lamenting the day he wasfoolish enough to become an infantryman, "a bloomin' 'uman ninepin!"Covered with dirt, sometimes half-buried in fallen trench, he wagered hisnext week's tobacco rations that the London papers would print the sameold story: "Along the western front there is nothing to report. " Andusually he won. 

Trench mortaring was more to our liking. That is an infantryman's game, and, while extremely hazardous, the men in the trenches have a sportingchance. Every one forgot breakfast when word was passed down the linethat we were going to "mortarfy" Fritzie. The last-relief night sentries, who had just tumbled sleepily into their dugouts, tumbled out of themagain to watch the fun. Fatigue parties, working in the communicationtrenches, dropped their picks and shovels and came hurrying up to thefirst line. Eagerly, expectantly, every one waited for the sport tobegin. Our projectiles were immense balls of hollow steel, filled withhigh explosive of tremendous power. They were fired from a small gun, placed, usually, in the first line of reserve trenches. A dull boom fromthe rear warned us that the game had started. 

"There she is!" "See 'er? Goin' true as a die!" "She's go'n' to 'it!She's go'n' to 'it!" All of the boys would be shouting at once. Up itgoes, turning over and over, rising to a height of several hundred feet. Then, if well aimed, it reaches the end of its upward journey directlyover the enemy's line, and falls straight into his trench. There is amoment of silence, followed by a terrific explosion which throws dirt anddébris high in the air. By this time every Tommy along the line isstanding on the firing-bench, head and shoulders above the parapet, quiteforgetting his own danger in his excitement, and shouting at the top ofhis voice. 

"'Ow's that one, Fritzie boy?"

"Gooten morgen, you Proosian sausage-wallopers!"

"Tyke a bit o' that there 'ome to yer missus!"

But Fritzie could be depended upon to keep up his end of the game. Hegave us just as good as we sent, and often he added something for fullmeasure. His surprises were sausage-shaped missiles which came wobblingtoward us, slowly, almost awkwardly; but they dropped with lightningspeed, and alas, for any poor Tommy who misjudged the place of its fall!However, every one had a chance. Trench-mortar projectiles are so largethat one can see them coming, and they describe so leisurely an arcbefore they fall that men have time to run. 

I have always admired Tommy Atkins for his sense of fair play. He enjoyedgiving Fritz "a little bit of all-right, " but he never resented it whenFritz had his own fun at our expense. In the far-off days of peace, Iused to lament the fact that we had fallen upon evil times. I read of oldwars with a feeling of regret that men had lost their old primal love fordangerous sport, their naïve ignorance of fear. All the brave, heroicthings of life were said and done. But on those trench-mortaring days, when I watched boys playing with death with right good zest, heard themshouting and laughing as they tumbled over one another in their eagernessto escape it, I was convinced of my error. Daily I saw men going throughthe test of fire triumphantly, and, at the last, what a severe test itwas! And how splendidly they met it! During six months continuously inthe firing-line, I met less than a dozen natural-born cowards; and myexperience was largely with plumbers, drapers' assistants, clerks, menwho had no fighting traditions to back them up, make them heroic in spiteof themselves. 

The better I knew Tommy, the better I liked him. He hasn't a shred ofsentimentality in his make-up. There is plenty of sentiment, sincerefeeling, but it is admirably concealed. I had been a soldier of the Kingfor many months before I realized that the men with whom I was living, sharing rations and hardships, were anything other than the healthyanimals they looked. They relished their food and talked about it. Theygrumbled at the restraints military discipline imposed upon them, and atthe paltry shilling a day which they received for the first really hardwork they had ever done. They appeared to regard England as a miserlyemployer, exacting their last ounce of energy for a wretchedly inadequatewage. To the casual observer, theirs was not the ardor of loyal sons, fighting for a beloved motherland. Rather, it seemed that ofirresponsible schoolboys on a long holiday. They said nothing aboutpatriotism or the duty of Englishmen in war-time. And if I attempted tostart a conversation along that line, they walked right over me withtheir boots on. 

This was a great disappointment at first. I should never have known, fromanything that was said, that a man of them was stirred at the thought offighting for old England. England was all right, but "I ain't goin' balmyabout the old flag and all that stuff. " Many of them insisted that theywere in the army for personal and selfish reasons alone. They went out oftheir way to ridicule any and every indication of sentiment. 

There was the matter of talk about mothers, for example. I can't imaginethis being the case in a volunteer army of American boys, but not once, during fifteen months of British army life, did I hear a discussion ofmothers. When the weekly parcels from England arrived and the boys weresharing their cake and chocolate and tobacco, one of them would say, "Good old mum. She ain't a bad sort"; to be answered with reluctant, mouth-filled grunts, or grudging nods of approval. As for fathers, Ioften thought to myself, "What a tremendous army of posthumous sons!"Months before I would have been astonished at this reticence. But I hadlearned to understand Tommy. His silences were as eloquent as anysplendid outbursts or glowing tributes could have been. Indeed, they werefar more eloquent! Englishmen seem to have an instinctive understandingof the futility, the emptiness, of words in the face of unspeakableexperiences. It was a matter of constant wonder to me that men, living inthe daily and hourly presence of death, could so surely control andconceal their feelings. Their talk was of anything but home; and yet, Iknew they thought of but little else. 

One of our boys was killed, and there was the letter to be written to hisparents. Three Tommies who knew him best were to attempt this. They madeinnumerable beginnings. Each of them was afraid of blundering, of causingunnecessary pain by an indelicate revelation of the facts. There was afeminine fineness about their concern which was beautiful to see. Thefinal draft of the letter was a little masterpiece, not of English, butof insight; such a letter as any one of us would have wished his ownparents to receive under like circumstances. Nothing was forgotten whichcould have made the news in the slightest degree more endurable. Everytrifling personal belonging was carefully saved and packed in a littlebox to follow the letter. All of this was done amid much boisterousjesting. And there was the usual hilarious singing to the wheezingaccompaniment of an old mouth-organ. But of reference to home, ormothers, or comradeship, --nothing. 

Rarely a night passed without its burial parties. "Digging in the garden"Tommy calls the grave-making. The bodies, wrapped in blankets orwaterproof ground-sheets, are lifted over the parados, and carried back aconvenient twenty yards or more. The desolation of that garden, chokedwith weeds and a wild growth of self-sown crops, is indescribable. It waswreckage-strewn, gaping with shell holes, billowing with innumerablegraves, a waste land speechlessly pathetic. The poplar trees and willowhedges have been blasted and splintered by shell fire. Tommy calls these"Kaiser Bill's flowers. " Coming from England, he feels more deeply thanhe would care to admit the crimes done to trees in the name of war. 

Our chaplain was a devout man, but prudent to a fault. Never, to myknowledge, did he visit us in the trenches. Therefore our burial partiesproceeded without the rites of the Church. This arrangement was highlysatisfactory to Tommy. He liked to "get the planting done" with the leastpossible delay or fuss. His whispered conversations while the graves werebeing scooped were, to say the least, quite out of the spirit of theoccasion. Once we were burying two boys with whom we had been havingsupper a few hours before. There was an artillery duel in progress, theshells whistling high over our heads, and bursting in great splotches ofwhite fire, far in rear of the opposing lines of trenches. Thegrave-making went speedily on, while the burial party argued in whispersas to the caliber of the guns. Some said they were six-inch, while othersthought nine-inch. Discussion was momentarily suspended when a trenchrocket shot in an arc from the enemy's line. We crouched, motionless, until the welcome darkness spread again. 

And then, in loud whispers:--

"'Ere! If they was nine-inch, they would 'ave more screech. "

And one from the other school of opinion would reply:--

"Don't talk so bloomin' silly! Ain't I a-tellin' you that you can'talways size 'em by the screech?"

Not a prayer; not a word, either of censure or of praise, for the boyswho had gone; not an expression of opinion as to the meaning of the greatchange which had come to them and which might come, as suddenly, to anyor all of us. And yet I knew that they were each thinking of thesethings. 

There were days when the front was really quiet. The thin trickle ofrifle fire only accentuated the stillness of an early summer morning. Fardown the line Tommy could be heard, singing to himself as he sat in thedoor of his dugout, cleaning his rifle, or making a careful scrutiny ofhis shirt for those unwelcome little parasites which made life somiserable for him at all times. There were pleasant cracklings of burningpine sticks and the sizzle of frying bacon. Great swarms of bluebottleflies buzzed lazily in the warm sunshine. Sometimes, across a pool ofnoonday silence, we heard birds singing; for the birds didn't desert us. When we gave them a hearing, they did their cheery little best to assureus that everything would come right in the end. Once we heard a skylark, an English skylark, singing over No-Man's-Land! I scarcely know whichgave me more pleasure, the song, or the sight of the faces of thoseEnglish lads as they listened. I was deeply touched when one of themsaid:--

"Ain't 'e a plucky little chap, singin' right in front of Fritzie'strenches fer us English blokes?"

It was a sincere and fitting tribute, as perfect for a soldier asShelley's "Ode" for a poet. 

Along the part of the British front which we held during the summer, theopposing lines of trenches were from less than a hundred to four hundredand fifty or five hundred yards apart. When we were neighborly as regardsdistance, we were also neighborly as regards social intercourse. In theearly mornings when the heavy night mists still concealed the lines, theboys stood head and shoulders above the parapet and shouted:--

"Hi, Fritzie!"

And the greeting was returned:--

"Hi, Tommy!"

Then we conversed. Very few of us knew German, but it is surprising howmany Germans could speak English. Frequently they shouted, "Got any'woodbines, ' Tommy?"--his favorite brand of cigarettes; and Tommy wouldreply, "Sure! Shall I bring 'em over or will you come an' fetch 'em?"This was often the ice-breaker, the beginning of a conversation whichvaried considerably in other details. 

"Who are you?" Fritzie would shout. 

And Tommy, "We're the King's Own 'Ymn of 'Aters"; some such subtlerepartee as that. "Wot's your mob?"

"We're a battalion of Irish rifles. " The Germans liked to provoke us bypretending that the Irish were disloyal to England. 

Sometimes they shouted:--

"Any of you from London?"

"Not arf! Wot was you a-doin' of in London? Witin' tible at Sam Isaac'sfish-shop?"

The rising of the mists put an end to these conversations. Sometimes theywere concluded earlier with bursts of rifle and machine-gun fire. "Allright to be friendly, " Tommy would say, "but we got to let 'em know thisain't no love-feast. "

 CHAPTER VIII

 UNDER COVER

I. UNSEEN FORCES

 "We come acrost the Channel For to wallop Germany; But they 'aven't got no soldiers-- Not that any one can see. They plug us with their rifles An' they let their shrapnel fly, But they never takes a pot at us Exceptin' on the sly. 

 _Chorus_ "Fritzie w'en you comin' out? This wot you calls a fight? You won't never get to Calais Always keepin' out o' sight. 

 "We're a goin' back to Blightey-- Wot's the use a-witin' 'ere Like a lot o' bloomin' mud-larks Fer old Fritzie to appear? 'E never puts 'is napper up Above the parapet. We been in France fer seven months An' 'aven't seen 'im yet!"

So sang Tommy, the incorrigible parodist, during the long summer days andnights of 1915, when he was impatiently waiting for something to turn up. For three months and more we were face to face with an enemy whom werarely saw. It was a weird experience. Rifles cracked, bullets zip-zippedalong the top of the parapet, great shells whistled over our heads ortore immense holes in the trenches, trench-mortar projectiles andhand-grenades were hurled at us, and yet there was not a living soul tobe seen across the narrow strip of No-Man's-Land, whence all thismurderous rain of steel and lead was coming. Daily we kept careful andcontinuous watch, searching the long, curving line of German trenches andthe ground behind them with our periscopes and field-glasses, and nearlyalways with the same barren result. We saw only the thin wreaths of smokerising, morning and evening, from trench fires; the shattered trees, theforlorn and silent ruins, the long grass waving in the wind. 

Although we were often within two hundred yards of thousands of Germansoldiers, rarely farther than four hundred yards away, I did not see oneof them until we had been in the trenches for more than six weeks, andthen only for the interval of a second or two. My German was building upa piece of damaged parapet. I watched the earth being thrown over the topof the trench, when suddenly a head appeared, only to be immediatelywithdrawn. One of our snipers had evidently been watching, too. A riflecracked and I saw a cloud of dust arise where the bullet clipped the topof the parapet. The German waved his spade defiantly in the air andcontinued digging; but he remained discreetly under cover thereafter. 

This marked an epoch in my experience in a war of unseen forces. I hadactually beheld a German, although Tommy insisted that it was only theold caretaker, "the bloke wot keeps the trenches tidy. " This mythicalpersonage, a creature of Tommy's own fancy, assumed a very realimportance during the summer when the attractions at the Western Theaterof War were only mildly interesting. "Carl the caretaker" was supposed tobe a methodical old man whom the Emperor had left in charge of histrenches on the western front during the absence of the German armies inRussia. Many were the stories told about him at different parts of theline. Sometimes he was endowed with a family. His "missus" and his "threelittle nippers" were with him, and together they were blocking the way toBerlin of the entire British Army. Sometimes he was "Hans the Grenadier, "owing to his fondness for nightly bombing parties. Sometimes he was"Minnie's husband, " Minnie being that redoubtable lady known in politemilitary circles as a "Minnenwerfer. " As already explained, she wassausage-like in shape, and frightfully demonstrative. When she wentvisiting at the behest of her husband, Tommy usually contrived to be "notat home, " whereupon Minnie wrecked the house and disappeared in a cloudof dense black smoke. 

One imagines all sorts of monstrous things about an unseen enemy. Thestrain of constantly watching and seeing nothing became almost unbearableat times. We were often too far apart to have our early morninginterchange of courtesies, and then the constant _phtt-phtt_ of bulletsannoyed and exasperated us. I for one welcomed any evidence that ouropponents were fathers and husbands and brothers just as we were. Iremember my delight, one fine summer morning, at seeing three great kitessoaring above the German line. There is much to be said for men who enjoyflying kites. Once they mounted a dummy figure of a man on their parapet. Tommy had great sport shooting at it, the Germans jiggling its arms andlegs in a most laughable manner whenever a hit was registered. In theireagerness to "get a good bead" on the figure, the men threw caution tothe winds, and stood on the firing-benches, shooting over the top of theparapet. Fritz and Hans were true sportsmen while the fun was on, and didnot once fire at us. Then the dummy was taken down, and we returned tothe more serious game of war with the old deadly earnestness. I recallsuch incidents with joy as I remember certain happy events in childhood. We needed these trivial occurrences to keep us sane and human. There werenot many of them, but such as there were, we talked of for days and weeksafterward. 

As for the matter of keeping out of sight, there was a good deal to besaid on both sides. Although Tommy was impatient with his prudent enemyand sang songs, twitting him about always keeping under cover, he did notusually forget, in the daytime at least, to make his own observations ofthe German line with caution. Telescopic sights have made the business ofsniping an exact science. They magnify the object aimed at manydiameters, and if it remains in view long enough to permit the pulling ofa trigger, the chances of a hit are almost one hundred per cent. 

II. "THE BUTT-NOTCHER"

Snipers have a roving commission. They move from one part of the line toanother, sometimes firing from carefully concealed loopholes in theparapet, sometimes from snipers' nests in trees or hedges. Often theycreep out into the tall grass of No-Man's-Land. There, with a plentifulsupply of food and ammunition, they remain for a day or two at a time, lying in wait for victims. It was a cold-blooded business, and hateful tosome of the men. With others, the passion for it grew. They kept tally oftheir victims by cutting notches on the butts of their rifles. 

I well remember the pleasant June day when I first met a "butt-notcher. "I was going for water, to an old farmhouse about half a mile from oursector of trench. It was a day of bright sunshine. Poppies and buttercupshad taken root in the banks of earth heaped up on either side of thecommunication trench. They were nodding their heads as gayly in thebreeze as of old did Wordsworth's daffodils in the quiet countryside atRydal Mount. It was a joy to see them there, reminding one that God wasstill in his heaven, whatever might be wrong with the world. It was a joyto be alive, a joy which one could share unselfishly with friend andenemy alike. The colossal stupidity of war was never more apparent to methan upon that day. I hated my job, and if I hated any man, it was theone who had invented the murderous little weapon known as a machine gun. 

I longed to get out on top of the ground. I wanted to lie at full lengthin the grass; for it was June, and Nature has a way of making one feelthe call of June, even from the bottom of a communication trench sevenfeet deep. Flowers and grass peep down at one, and white clouds sailplacidly across

 "The strip of blue we prisoners call the sky. "

I felt that I must see all of the sky and see it at once. Therefore I setdown my water-cans, one on top of the other, stepped up on them, and wassoon over the top of the trench, crawling through the tall grass toward aclump of willows about fifty yards away. I passed two lonely graves withtheir wooden crosses hidden in depths of shimmering, waving green, andfound an old rifle, its stock weather-warped and the barrel eaten awaywith rust. The ground was covered with tin cans, fragments of shell-casing, and rubbish of all sorts; but it was hidden from view. Men had beenlaying waste the earth during the long winter, and now June was healingthe wounds with flowers and cool green grasses. 

I was sorry that I went to the willows, for it was there that I found thesniper. He had a wonderfully concealed position, which was madebullet-proof with steel plates and sandbags, all covered so naturallywith growing grass and willow bushes that it would have been impossibleto detect it at a distance of ten yards. In fact, I would not havediscovered it had it not been for the loud crack of a rifle sounding soclose at hand. I crept on to investigate and found the sniper lookingquite disappointed. 

"Missed the blighter!" he said. Then he told me that it wasn't a goodplace for a sniper's nest at all. For one thing, it was too far back, nearly a half-mile from the German trenches. Furthermore, it was amistake to plant a nest in a solitary clump of willows such as this: aclump of trees offers too good an aiming mark for artillery: much betterto make a position right out in the open. However, so far he had not beenannoyed by shell fire. A machine gun had searched for him, but he hadadequate cover from machine-gun fire. 

"But, blimy! You ought to 'a' 'eard the row w'en the bullets wasa-smackin' against the sandbags! Somebody was a-knockin' at the door, Igive you _my_ word!"

However, it wasn't such a "dusty little coop, " and he had a good field offire. He had registered four hits during the day, and he proudlydisplayed four new notches on a badly notched butt in proof of the fact. 

"There's a big 'ole w'ere the artill'ry pushed in their parapet larstnight. That's w'ere I caught me larst one, 'bout a 'arf-hour ago. A blokegoes by every little w'ile an' fergets to duck 'is napper. Tyke yerfield-glasses an' watch me clip the next one. Quarter left it is, thisside the old 'ouse with the 'ole in the wall. "

I focused my glasses and waited. Presently he said, in a very cool, matter-of-fact voice:--

"There's one comin'. See 'im? 'E's carryin' a plank. You can see itstickin' up above the parapet. 'E's a-go'n' to get a nasty one if 'edon't duck w'en he comes to that 'ole. "

I found the moving plank and followed it along the trench as itapproached nearer and nearer to the opening; and I was guilty of the mostunprofessional conduct, for I kept thinking, as hard as I could, "Duck, Fritzie! Whatever you do, duck when you come to that hole!" And surelyenough, he did. The plank was lowered into the trench just before theopening was reached, and the top of it reappeared again, a moment later, on the other side of the opening. The sniper was greatly disappointed. 

"Now, wouldn't that give you the camel's 'ump?" he said. "I believeyou're a Joner to me, matey. "

Presently another man carrying a plank went along the trench and heducked, too. 

"Grease off, Jerry!" said the butt-notcher. "Yer bringin' me bad luck. 'Owever, they prob'ly got that place taped. They lost one man there an'they won't lose another, not if they knows it. "

I talked with many snipers at different parts of the line. It wasinteresting to get their points of view, to learn what their reaction wasto their work. The butt-notchers were very few. Although snipersinvariably took pride in their work, it was the sportsman's pride in goodmarksmanship rather than the love of killing for its own sake. Thegeneral attitude was that of a corporal whom I knew. He never firedhastily, but when he did pull the trigger, his bullet went true to themark. 

"You can't 'elp feelin' sorry for the poor blighters, " he would say, "butit's us or them, an' every one you knocks over means one of our blokessaved. "

I have no doubt that the Germans felt the same way about us. At any rate, they thoroughly believed in the policy of attrition, and in carrying itout they often wasted thousands of rounds in sniping every yard of ourparapet. The sound was deafening at times, particularly when there wereruined walls of houses or a row of trees just back of our trenches. Theear-splitting reports were hurled against them and seemed to be shatteredinto thousands of fragments, the sound rattling and tumbling on until itdied away far in the distance. 

III. NIGHT ROUTINE

Meanwhile, like furtive inhabitants of an infamous underworld, weremained hidden in our lairs in the daytime, waiting for night when wecould creep out of our holes and go about our business under cover ofdarkness. Sleep is a luxury indulged in but rarely in the first-linetrenches. When not on sentry duty at night, the men were organized intoworking parties, and sent out in front of the trenches to mend thebarbed-wire entanglements which are being constantly destroyed byartillery fire; or, in summer, to cut the tall grass and the weeds whichwould otherwise offer concealment to enemy listening patrols or bombingparties. Ration fatigues of twenty or thirty men per company went back tomeet the battalion transport wagons at some point several miles in rearof the firing-line. There were trench supplies and stores to be broughtup as well, and the never-finished business of mending and improving thetrenches kept many off-duty men employed during the hours of darkness. 

The men on duty in front of the trenches were always in very greatdanger. They worked swiftly and silently, but they were often discovered, in which case the only warning they received was a sudden burst ofmachine-gun fire. Then would come urgent calls for "Stretcher bearers!"and soon the wreckage was brought in over the parapet. The stretcherswere set down in the bottom of the trench and hasty examinations made bythe light of a flash lamp. 

"W'ere's 'e caught it?"

"'Ere it is, through the leg. Tyke 'is puttee off, one of you!"

"Easy, now! It's smashed the bone! Stick it, matey! We'll soon 'ave youas right as rain!"

"Fer Gawd's sake, boys, go easy! It's givin' me 'ell! Let up! Let up justa minute!"

Many a conversation of this sort did we hear at night when thefield-dressings were being put on. But even in his suffering Tommy neverforgot to be unrighteously indignant if he had been wounded when on aworking party. What could he say to the women of England who would bringhim fruit and flowers in hospital, call him a "poor brave fellow, " andask how he was wounded? He had enlisted as a soldier, and as a reward forhis patriotism the Government had given him a shovel, "an' 'ere I am, workin' like a bloomin' navvy, fillin' sandbags full o' France, w'en I upan' gets plugged!" The men who most bitterly resented the pick-and-shovelphase of army life were given a great deal of it to do for that veryreason. One of my comrades was shot in the leg while digging a refusepit. The wound was a bad one and he suffered much pain, but thehumiliation was even harder to bear. What could he tell them at home?

"Do you think I'm a go'n' to s'y I was a-carryin' a sandbag full of oldjam tins back to the refuse pit w'en Fritzie gave me this 'ere one in theleg? Not so bloomin' likely! I was afraid I'd get one like this! Ain't ita rotten bit o' luck!"

If he had to be a casualty Tommy wanted to be an interesting one. Hewanted to fall in the heat of battle, not in the heat of ingloriousfatigue duty. 

But there was more heroic work to be done: going out on listening patrol, for example. One patrol, consisting of a sergeant or a corporal and fouror five privates, was sent out from each company. It was the duty ofthese men to cover the area immediately in front of the company line oftrench, to see and hear without being discovered, and to reportimmediately any activity of the enemy, above or below ground, of whichthey might learn. They were on duty for from three to five hours, andmight use a wide discretion in their prowlings, provided they kept withinthe limits of frontage allotted to their own company, and returned to themeeting-place where the change of reliefs was made. These requirementswere not easily complied with, unless there were trees or other prominentlandmarks standing out against the sky by means of which a patrol couldkeep its direction. 

The work required, above everything else, cool heads and stout hearts. There was the ever-present danger of meeting an enemy patrol or bombingparty, in which case, if they could not be avoided, there would be ahand-to-hand encounter with bayonets, or a noisy exchange ofhand-grenades. There was danger, too, of a false alarm started by anervous sentry. It needs but a moment for such an alarm to becomegeneral, so great is the nervous tension at which men live on thefiring-line. Terrific fusillades from both sides followed while thelistening patrols flattened themselves out on the ground, and listened, in no pleasant frame of mind, to the bullets whistling over their heads. But at night, and under the stress of great excitement, men fire high. Strange as it may seem, one is comparatively safe even in the open, whenlying flat on the ground. 

Bombing affairs were of almost nightly occurrence. Tommy enjoyed theseextremely hazardous adventures which he called "Carryin' a 'app'orth o''ate to Fritzie, " a halfpenny worth of hate, consisting of six or a dozenhand-grenades which he hurled into the German trenches from the far sideof their entanglements. The more hardy spirits often worked their waythrough the barbed wire and, from a position close under the parapet, they waited for the sound of voices. When they had located the positionof the sentries, they tossed their bombs over with deadly effect. Thesound of the explosions called forth an immediate and heavy fire fromsentries near and far; but lying close under the very muzzles of theGerman rifles, the bombers were in no danger unless a party were sent outin search of them. This, of course, constituted the chief element ofrisk. The strain of waiting for developments was a severe one. I haveseen men come in from a "bombing stunt" worn out and trembling fromnervous fatigue. And yet many of them enjoyed it, and were sent out nightafter night. The excitement of the thing worked into their blood. 

 * * * * * *

Throughout the summer there was a great deal more digging to do thanfighting, for it was not until the arrival on active service ofKitchener's armies that the construction of the double line of reserve orsupport trenches was undertaken. From June until September this work waspushed rapidly forward. There were also trenches to be made in advance ofthe original firing-line, for the purpose of connecting up advancedpoints and removing dangerous salients. At such times there was noloafing until we had reached a depth sufficient to protect us both fromview and from fire. We picked and shoveled with might and main, workingin absolute silence, throwing ourselves flat on the ground whenever atrench rocket was sent up from the German lines. Casualties werefrequent, but this was inevitable, working, as we did, in the open, exposed to every chance shot of an enemy sentry. The stretcher-bearerslay in the tall grass close at hand awaiting the whispered word, "Stretcher-bearers this way!" and they were kept busy during much of thetime we were at work, carrying the wounded to the rear. 

It was surprising how quickly the men became accustomed to thenerve-trying duties in the firing-line. Fortunately for Tommy, the longerhe is in the army, the greater becomes his indifference to danger. Hisphilosophy is fatalistic. "What is to be will be" is his only commentwhen one of his comrades is killed. A bullet or a shell works with suchlightning speed that danger is passed before one realizes that it is athand. Therefore, men work doggedly, carelessly, and in the background ofconsciousness there is always that comforting belief, common to allsoldiers, that "others may be killed, but somehow, I shall escape. "

The most important in-trench duty, as well as the most wearisome one forthe men, is their period on "sentry-go. " Eight hours in twenty-four--fourtwo-hour shifts--each man stands at his post on the firing-bench, riflein hand, keeping a sharp lookout over the "front yard. " At night heobserves as well as he can over the top of the parapet; in the daytime bymeans of his periscope. Most of our large periscopes were shattered bykeen-sighted German snipers. We used a very good substitute, one of thesimplest kind, a piece of broken pocket mirror placed on the end of asplit stick, and set at an angle on top of the parados. During the twohours of sentry duty we had nothing to do other than to keep watch andkeep awake. The latter was by far the more difficult business at night. 

"'Ere, sergeant!" Tommy would say, as the platoon sergeant felt his wayalong the trench in the darkness, "w'en is the next relief comin' on? Yerwatch needs a good blacksmith. I been on sentry three hours if I been aminute!"

"Never you mind about my watch, son! You got another forty-five minutesto do. "

"Will you listen to that, you blokes! S'y! I could myke a bettertimepiece out of an old bully tin! I'm tellin' you straight, I'll beasleep w'en you come 'round again!"

But he isn't. Although the temptation may be great, Tommy isn't longingfor a court-martial. When the platoon officer or the company commandermakes his hourly rounds, flashing his electric pocket lamp before him, heis ready with a cheery "Post all correct, sir!" He whistles or sings tohimself until, at last, he hears the platoon sergeant waking the nextrelief by whacking the soles of their boots with his rifle butt. 

"Wake up 'ere! Come along, my lads! Your sentry-go!"

 CHAPTER IX

 BILLETS

Cave life had its alleviations, and chief among these was the pleasure ofanticipating our week in reserve. We could look forward to this withcertainty. During the long stalemate on the western front, Britishmilitary organization has been perfected until, in times of quiet, itworks with the monotonous smoothness of a machine. (Even during periodsof prolonged and heavy fighting there is but little confusion. Onlytwice, during six months of campaigning, did we fail to receive our dailypost of letters and parcels from England, and then, we were told, thedelay was due to mine-sweeping in the Channel. ) With every detail ofmilitary routine carefully thought out and every possible emergencyprovided for in advance, we lived as methodically in the firing-line aswe had during our months of training in England. 

The movements of troops in and out of the trenches were excellentlyarranged and timed. The outgoing battalion was prepared to move back assoon as the "relief" had taken place. The trench water-cans had beenfilled, --an act of courtesy between battalions, --the dugouts thoroughlycleaned, and the refuse buried. The process of "taking over" was a verybrief one. The sentries of the incoming battalion were posted, andlistening patrols sent out to relieve those of the outgoing battalion, which then moved down the communication trenches, the men happy in theprospect of a night of undisturbed sleep. 

Second only to sleep in importance was the fortnightly bath. Sometimes wecleansed ourselves, as best we could, in muddy little duck ponds, populous with frogs and green with scum; but oh, the joy when our marchended at a military bathhouse! The Government had provided these wheneverpossible, and for several weeks we were within marching distance of one. There we received a fresh change of underclothing, and our uniforms werefumigated while we splashed and scrubbed in great vats of clean warmwater. The order, "Everybody out!" was obeyed with great reluctance, andusually not until the bath attendants of the Army Service Corps enforcedit with the cold-water hose. Tommy, who has a song for every importantceremonial, never sang, "Rule Britannia" with the enthusiasm which markedhis rendition of the following chorus:--

 "Whi--ter than the whitewash on the wall! Whi--ter than the whitewash on the wall! If yer leadin' us to slaughter Let us 'ave our soap an' water--FIRST! Then we'll be whiter than the whitewash on the wall!"

When out of the firing-line we washed and mended our clothing and scrapeda week's accumulation of mud from our uniforms. Before breakfast we wereinflicted with the old punishment, Swedish drill. "Gott strafe Sweden!"Tommy would say as he puffed and perspired under a hot August sun, but hewas really glad that he had no choice but to submit. In the trenchesthere was little opportunity for vigorous exercise, and our arms and legsbecame stiff with the long inactivity. Throughout the mornings we werebusy with a multitude of duties. Arms and equipment were cleaned andinspected, machine guns thoroughly overhauled, gas helmets sprayed; andthere was frequent instruction in bomb-throwing and bayonet-fighting inpreparation for the day to which every soldier looks forward with somemisgiving, but with increasing confidence--the day when the enemy shallbe driven out of France. 

Classes in grenade-fighting were under the supervision of officers of theRoyal Engineers. In the early days of the war there was but one grenadein use, and that a crude affair made by the soldiers themselves. An emptyjam tin was filled with explosive and scrap iron, and tightly bound withwire. A fuse was attached and the bomb was ready for use. But Englandearly anticipated the importance which grenade-fighting was to play intrench warfare. Her experts in explosives were set to work, and by thetime we were ready for active service, ten or a dozen varieties of bombswere in use, all of them made in the munition factories in England. The"hairbrush, " the "lemon bomb, " the "cricket ball, " and the "policeman'struncheon" were the most important of these, all of them so-calledbecause of their resemblance to the articles for which they were named. The first three were exploded by a time-fuse set for from three to fiveseconds. The fourth was a percussion bomb, which had long cloth streamersfastened to the handle to insure greater accuracy in throwing. The menbecame remarkably accurate at a distance of thirty to forty yards. Oldcricketers were especially good, for the bomb must be thrown overhand, with a full-arm movement. 

Instruction in bayonet-fighting was made as realistic as possible. Upon agiven signal, we rushed forward, jumping in and out of successive linesof trenches, where dummy figures--clad in the uniforms of German footsoldiers, to give zest to the game--took our blades both front and rearwith conciliatory indifference. 

In the afternoon Tommy's time was his own. He could sleep, or wanderalong the country roads, --within a prescribed area, --or, which was moreoften the case, indulge in those games of chance which were as the breathof life to him. Pay-day was the event of the week in billets because itgave him the wherewithal to satisfy the promptings of his sporting blood. Our fortnightly allowance of from five to ten francs was not a princelysum; but in pennies and halfpennies, it was quite enough to provide manyhours of absorbing amusement. Tommy gambled because he could not help it. When he had no money he wagered his allowance of cigarettes or his shareof the daily jam ration. I believe that the appeal which war made to himwas largely one to his sporting instincts. Life and Death were playingstakes for his soul with the betting odds about even. 

The most interesting feature of our life in billets was the contact whichit gave us with the civilian population who remained in the war zone, either because they had no place else to go, or because of thatindomitable, unconquerable spirit which is characteristic of the French. There are few British soldiers along the western front who do not havememories of the heroic mothers who clung to their ruined homes as long asthere was a wall standing. It was one of these who summed up for me, infive words, all the heart-breaking tragedy of war. 

She kept a little shop, in Armentières, on one of the streets leading tothe firing-line. We often stopped there, when going up to the trenches, to buy loaves of delicious French bread. She had candles for sale aswell, and chocolate, and packets of stationery. Her stock was exhausteddaily, and in some way replenished daily. I think she made long journeysto the other side of the town, bringing back fresh supplies in a pushcartwhich stood outside her door. Her cottage, which was less than a milefrom our first-line trenches, was partly in ruins. I couldn't understandher being there in such danger. Evidently it was with the consent of themilitary authorities. There were other women living on the same street;but somehow, she was different from the others. There was a spiritualfineness about her which impressed one at once. Her eyes were dry asthough the tears had been drained from them, to the last drop, long ago. 

One day, calling for a packet of candles, I found her standing at thebarricaded window which looks toward the trenches, and the desolate townsand villages back of the German lines. My curiosity got the better of mycourtesy, and I asked her, in my poor French, why she was living there. She was silent for a moment, and then she pointed toward that part ofFrance which was on the other side of the world to us. 

"Monsieur! Mes enfants! Là-bas!"

Her children were over there, or had been at the outbreak of the war. That is all that she told me of her story, and I would have been a beastto have asked more. In some way she had become separated from them, andfor nearly a year she had been watching there, not knowing whether herlittle family was living or dead. 

To many of the soldiers she was just a plain, thrifty little Frenchwomanwho knew not the meaning of fear, willing to risk her life daily, thatshe might put by something for the long hard years which would follow thewar. To me she is the Spirit of France, splendid, superb France. But morethan this she is the Spirit of Mother-love which wars can never alter. 

Strangely enough, I had not thought of the firing-line as a boundary, alimit, during all those weeks of trench warfare. Henceforth it had a newmeaning for me. I realized how completely it cut Europe in half, separating friends and relatives as thousands of miles of ocean could nothave done. Roads crossed from one side to the other, but they werebarricaded with sandbags and barbed-wire entanglements. At night theywere deluged with shrapnel and the cobblestones were chipped and scarredwith machine-gun bullets. 

Tommy had a ready sympathy for the women and children who lived near thetrenches. I remember many incidents which illustrate abundantly his quickunderstanding of the hardship and danger of their lives. Once, atArmentières, we were marching to the baths, when the German artillerywere shelling the town in the usual hit-or-miss fashion. The enemy knew, of course, that many of our troops in reserve were billeted there, andthey searched for them daily. Doubtless they would have destroyed thetown long ago had it not been for the fact that Lille, one of their ownmost important bases, is within such easy range of our batteries. As itwas, they bombarded it as heavily as they dared, and on this particularmorning, they were sending them over too frequently for comfort. 

Some of the shells were exploding close to our line of march, but theboys tramped along with that nonchalant air which they assume in times ofdanger. One immense shell struck an empty house less than a block awayand sent the masonry flying in every direction. The cloud of brick dustshone like gold in the sun. A moment later, a fleshy peasant woman, wearing wooden shoes, turned out of an adjoining street and ran awkwardlytoward the scene of the explosion. Her movements were so clumsy and slow, in proportion to the great exertion she was making, that at any othertime the sight would have been ludicrous. Now it was inevitable that sucha sight should first appeal to Tommy's sense of humor, and thoughtlesslythe boys started laughing and shouting at her. 

"Go it, old dear! Yer makin' a grand race!"

"Two to one on Liza!"

"The other w'y, ma! That's the wrong direction! Yer runnin' right into'em!"

She gave no heed, and a moment later we saw her gather up a little girlfrom a doorstep, hugging and comforting her, and shielding her with herbody, instinctively, at the sound of another exploding shell. Thelaughter in the ranks stopped as though every man had been suddenlystruck dumb. 

They were courageous, those women in the firing-line. Their thoughts werealways for their husbands and sons and brothers who were fighting side byside with us. Meanwhile, they kept their little shops and _estaminets_open for the soldiers' trade and made a brave show of living in the oldway. In Armentières a few old men lent their aid in keeping up thepretense, but the feeble little trickle of civilian life made scarcely animpression in the broad current of military activity. A solitary postman, with a mere handful of letters, made his morning rounds of echoingstreets, and a bent old man with newspapers hobbled slowly along the RueSadi-Carnot shouting, "Le Matin! Le Journal!" to boarded windows andbolted doors. Meanwhile, we marched back and forth between billets in thetown and trenches just outside. And the last thing which we saw uponleaving the town, and the first upon returning, was the lengthening rowof new-made graves close to a sunny wall in the garden of the ruinedconvent. It was a pathetic little burial plot, filled with the bodies ofwomen and children who had been killed in German bombardments of thetown. 

And thus for more than three months, while we were waiting for Fritzie to"come out, " we adapted ourselves to the changing conditions of trenchlife and trench warfare, with a readiness which surprised and gratifiedus. Our very practical training in England had prepared us, in a measure, for simple and primitive living. But even with such preparation we hadconstantly to revise downward our standards. We lived without comfortswhich formerly we had regarded as absolutely essential. We lived a lifeso crude and rough that our army experiences in England seemed Utopian bycomparison. But we throve splendidly. A government, paternalistic in itssolicitude for our welfare, had schooled our bodies to withstandhardships and to endure privations. In England we had been inoculated andvaccinated whether we would or no, and the result was that fevers werepractically non-existent in the trenches. What little sickness there waswas due to inclement weather rather than to unsanitary conditions. 

Although there were sad gaps in our ranks, the trench and camp feversprevalent in other wars were not responsible for them. Bullets, shells, and bombs took their toll day by day, but so gradually that we had beengiven time to forget that we had ever known the security of civilianlife. We were soon to experience the indescribable horrors of modernwarfare at its worst; to be living from morning until evening and fromdusk to dawn, looking upon a new day with a feeling of wonder that we hadsurvived so long. 

About the middle of September it became clear to us that the big drivewas at hand. There was increased artillery activity along the entirefront. The men noted with great satisfaction that the shells from our ownbatteries were of larger calibre. This was a welcome indication thatEngland was at last meeting the longfelt need for high explosives. 

"Lloyd George ain't been asleep, " some unshaven seer would say, noddinghis head wisely. "'E's a long w'ile gettin' ready, but w'en 'e _is_ready, there's suthin' a-go'n' to drop!"

There was a feeling of excitement everywhere. The men looked to theirrifles with greater interest. They examined more carefully theirbandoliers of ammunition and their gas helmets; and they were thoughtfulabout keeping their metal pocket mirrors and their cigarette cases intheir left-hand breast pockets, for any Tommy can tell you of miraculousescapes from death due to such a protective armoring over the heart. 

The thunder of guns increased with every passing day. The fire appearedto be evenly distributed over many miles of frontage. In moments ofcomparative quiet along our sector, we could hear them muttering andrumbling miles away to our right and left. We awaited developments withthe greatest impatience, for we knew that this general bombardment wasbut a preliminary one for the purpose of concealing, until the lastmoment, the plan of attack, the portion of the front where the greatartillery concentration would be made and the infantry assault pushedhome. Then came sudden orders to move. Within twenty-four hours the roadswere filled with the incoming troops of a new division. We made a rapidmarch to a rail-head, entrained, and were soon moving southward by anindirect route; southward, toward the sound of the guns, to take aninconspicuous part in the battle at Loos. 

 CHAPTER X

 NEW LODGINGS

I. MOVING IN

We were wet and tired and cold and hungry, for we had left the trainmiles back of the firing-line and had been marching through the rainsince early morning; but, as the sergeant said, "A bloke standin' by theside o' the road, watchin' this 'ere column pass, would think we wasa-go'n' to a Sunday-school picnic. " The roads were filled with endlessprocessions of singing, shouting soldiers. Seen from a distance the longcolumns gave the appearance of imposing strength. One thought of them asbattalions, brigades, divisions, cohesive parts of a great fightingmachine. But when our lines of march crossed, when we halted to make wayfor each other, what an absorbing pageant of personality! Each rank was aseries of intimate pictures. Everywhere there was laughing, singing, amerry minstrelsy of mouth-organs. 

The jollity in my own part of the line was doubtless a picture in littleof what was happening elsewhere. We were anticipating the exciting timesjust at hand. Mac, who was blown to pieces by a shell a few hours later, was dancing in and out of the ranks singing, --

 "Oh! Won't it be joyful! Oh! Won't it be joyful!"

Preston, who was killed at the same time, threw his rifle in the air andcaught it again in sheer excess of animal spirits. Three rollicking lads, all of whom we buried during the week in the same shell hole under thesame wooden cross, stumbled with an exaggerated show of utter wearinesssinging, --

 "We never knew till now how muddy mud is, We never knew how muddy mud could be. "

And little Charley Harrison, who had fibbed bravely about his age to therecruiting officers, trudged contentedly along, his rifle slung jauntilyover his shoulder, and munched army biscuit with all the relish of an oldcampaigner. Several days later he said good-bye to us, and made thejourney back the same road, this time in a motor ambulance; and as Iwrite, he is hobbling about a London hospital ward, one trouser legpathetically empty. 

I remember that march in the light of our later experiences, in the lightof the official report of the total British casualties at Loos: sixtythousand British lads killed, wounded, and missing. Marching fourabreast, a column of casualties miles in length. I see them ploddinglight-heartedly through the mud as they did on that gray September day, their faces wet with the rain, "an' a bloke standin' by the side of theroad would think they was a-go'n' to a Sunday-school picnic. "

The sergeant was in a talkative mood. 

"Lissen to them guns barkin'! We're in for it this time, straight!"

Then, turning to the men behind, --

"'Ave you got yer wills made out, you lads? You're a-go'n' to see a scrappresently, an' it ain't a-go'n' to be no flea-bite, I give you _my_word!"

"Right you are, sergeant! I'm leavin' me razor to 'is Majesty. 'Ope 'e'lltyke the 'int. "

"Strike me pink, sergeant! You gettin' cold feet?"

"Less sing 'im, 'I want to go 'ome. ' Get 'im to cryin' like a baby. "

"W'ere's yer mouth-organ, Ginger?"

"Right-O! Myke it weepy now! Slow march!"

 "I--want to go 'ome! I--want to go 'ome! Jack-Johnsons, coal-boxes, and shrapnel, oh, Lor'! I don't want to go in the trenches no more. Send me across the sea W'ere the Allemand can't shoot me. Oh, my! I don't want to die! I--want to go 'ome!"

It is one of the most plaintive and yearning of soldiers' songs. Jack-Johnsons and coal-boxes are two greatly dreaded types of highexplosive shells which Tommy would much rather sing about than meet. 

"Wite, " the sergeant said, smiling grimly; "just wite till we reach theend o' this 'ere march! You'll be a-singin' that song out o' the otherside o' yer faces. "

We halted in the evening at a little mining village, and were billetedfor the night in houses, stables, and even in the water-soaked fields, for there was not sufficient accommodation for all of us. With a dozen ofmy comrades I slept on the floor in the kitchen of a miner's cottage, andlistened, far into the night, to the constant procession of motorambulances, the tramp of marching feet, the thunder of guns, the rattleof windows, and the sound of breaking glass. 

The following day we spent in cleaning our rifles, which were caked withrust, and in washing our clothes. We had to put these, still wet, intoour packs, for at dusk we fell in, in column of route, along the villagestreet, when our officers told us what was before us. I remember howvividly and honestly one of them described the situation. 

"Listen carefully, men. We are moving off in a few moments, to take overcaptured German trenches on the left of Loos. No one knows yet just howthe land lies there. The reports we have had are confused and ratherconflicting. The boys you are going to relieve have been having a hardtime. The trenches are full of dead. Those who are left are worn out withthe strain, and they need sleep. They won't care to stop long after youcome in, so you must not expect much information from them. You will haveto find out things for yourselves. But I know you well enough to feelcertain that you will. From now on you'll not have it easy. You will haveto sit tight under a heavy fire from the German batteries. You will haveto repulse counter-attacks, for they will make every effort to retakethose trenches. But remember! You're British soldiers! Whatever happensyou've got to hang on!"

We marched down a road nearly a foot deep in mud. It had been churned toa thick paste by thousands of feet and all the heavy wheel trafficincident to the business of war. The rain was still coming down steadily, and it was pitch dark, except for the reflected light, on the low-hangingclouds, of the flashes from the guns of our batteries and those of thebursting shells of the enemy. We halted frequently, to make way for longfiles of ambulances which moved as rapidly as the darkness and the awfulcondition of the roads would permit. I counted twenty of them during onehalt, and then stopped, thinking of the pain of the poor fellows inside, their wounds wrenched and torn by the constant pitching and jolting. Wehad vivid glimpses of them by the light from flashing guns, and of theRed Cross attendants at the rear of the cars, steadying the upper tiersof stretchers on either side. The heavy Garrison artillery was by thistime far behind us. The big shells went over with a hollow roar like thesound of an express train heard at a distance. Field artillery wasconcealed in the ruins of houses on every side. The guns were firing at atremendous rate, the shells exploding several miles away with a sound ofjarring thunder claps. 

In addition to the ambulances there was a constant stream of outgoingtraffic of other kinds: dispatch riders on motor cycles, feeling theirway cautiously along the side of the road; ammunition supply andbattalion transport wagons, the horses rearing and plunging in thedarkness. We approached a crossroad and halted to make way for somebatteries of field pieces moving to new positions. They went by on aslippery cobbled road, the horses at a dead gallop. In the redlightenings of heavy-gun fire they looked like a series of splendidsculptured groups. 

We moved on and halted, moved on again, stumbled into ditches to get outof the way of headquarters cars and motor lorries, jumped up and pushedon. Every step through the thick mud was taken with an effort. Wefrequently lost touch with the troops ahead of us and would have to marchat the double in order to catch up. I was fast getting into thatdespondent, despairing frame of mind which often follows great physicalweariness, when I remembered a bit of wisdom out of a book by WilliamJames which I had read several years before. He had said, in effect, thatmen have layers of energy, reserves of nervous force, which they arerarely called upon to use, but which are, nevertheless, assets of greatvalue in times of strain. I had occasion to test the truth of thisstatement during that night march, and at intervals later, when I feltthat I had reached the end of my resources of strength. And I found it tobe practical wisdom which stood me in good stead on more than oneoccasion. 

We halted to wait for our trench guides at the village of Vermelles, about three miles back of our lines. The men lay down thankfully in themud and many were soon asleep despite the terrific noise. Our batteries, concealed in the ruins of houses, were keeping up a steady fire and theGerman guns were replying almost as hotly. The weird flashes lit up theshattered walls with a fascinating, bizarre effect. By their light, I sawmen lying with their heads thrown back over their pack-sacks, theirrifles leaning across their bodies; others standing in attitudes ofsuspended animation. The noise was deafening. One was thrown entirelyupon his own resources for comfort and companionship, for it wasimpossible to converse. While we were waiting for the order to move, ahomeless dog put his cold nose into my hand. I patted him and he crept upclose beside me. Every muscle in his body was quivering. I wanted toconsole him in his own language. But I knew very little French, and Ishould have had to shout into his ear at the top of my voice to have mademyself heard. When we marched on I lost him. And I never saw him again. 

There was a further march of two and a half miles over open country, thescene of the great battle. The ground was a maze of abandoned trenchesand was pitted with shell holes. The clay was so slippery and we were soheavily loaded that we fell down at every step. Some of the boys told meafterward that I cursed like blue blazes all the way up. I was notconscious of this, but I can readily understand that it may have beentrue. At any rate, as a result of that march, I lost what reputation Ihad for being temperate in the use of profanity. 

We crossed what had been the first line of British trenches, which markedthe starting-point of the advance, and from there the ground was coveredwith the bodies of our comrades, men who had "done their bit, " as Tommysays, and would never go home again. Some were huddled in pathetic littlegroups of two or three as they might have crept together forcompanionship before they died. Some were lying face downward just asthey had fallen. Others in attitudes revealing dreadful suffering. Manywere hanging upon the tangles of German barbed wire which the heaviest ofbombardments never completely destroys. We saw them only by the light ofdistant trench rockets and stumbled on them and over them when thedarkness returned. 

It is an unpleasant experience, marching under fire, on top of theground, even though it is dark and the enemy is shelling haphazardly. Wemachine gunners were always heavily loaded. In addition to the usualinfantryman's burden, we had our machine guns to carry, and ourammunition, water supply, tools and instruments. We were very eager toget under cover, but we had to go slowly. By the time we reached ourtrench we were nearly exhausted. 

The men whom we were to relieve were packed up, ready to move out, whenwe arrived. We threw our rifles and equipment on the parapet and stoodclose to the side of the trench to allow them to pass. They were cased inmud. Their faces, which I saw by the glow of matches or lightedcigarettes, were haggard and worn. A week's growth of beard gave them awild and barbaric appearance. They talked eagerly. They were hystericallycheerful; voluble from sheer nervous reaction. They had the prospect ofgetting away for a little while from the sickening horrors: the sight ofmaimed and shattered bodies, the deafening noise, the nauseating odor ofdecaying flesh. As they moved out there were the usual conversationswhich take place between incoming and outgoing troops. 

"Wot sort of a week you 'ad, mate?"

"It ain't been a week, son; it's been a lifetime!"

"Lucky fer us you blokes come in just w'en you did. We've about reachedthe limit. "

"'Ow far we got to go fer water?"

"'Bout two miles. Awful journey! Tyke you all night to do it. You got tostop every minute, they's so much traffic along that trench. Go downStanley Road about five 'unnerd yards, turn off to yer left on EssexAlley, then yer first right. Brings you right out by the 'ouse w'ere thepump is. "

"'Ere's a straight tip! Send yer water fatigue down early in the mornin':three o'clock at the latest. They's thousands usin' that well an' shegoes dry arter a little w'ile. "

"You blokes want any souvenirs, all you got to do is pick 'em up:'elmets, revolvers, rifles, German di'ries. You wite till mornin'. You'llsee plenty. "

"Is this the last line o' Fritzie's trenches?"

"Can't tell you, mate. All we know is, we got 'ere some'ow an' we beena-'oldin' on. My Gawd! It's been awful! They calmed down a bit to-night. You blokes is lucky comin' in just w'en you did. "

"I ain't got a pal left out o' my section. You'll see some of 'em. Weain't 'ad time to bury 'em. "

They were soon gone and we were left in ignorance of the situation. Weknew only approximately the direction of the living enemy and the deadspoke to us only in dumb show, telling us unspeakable things about thehorrors of modern warfare. 

Fortunately for us, the fire of the German batteries, during our firstnight in captured trenches, was directed chiefly upon positions to ourright and left. The shells from our own batteries were exploding far inadvance of our sector of trench, and we judged from this that we wereholding what had been the enemy's last line, and that the Britishartillery were shelling the line along which they would dig themselves inanew. We felt more certain of this later in the night when workingparties were sent from the battalion to a point twelve hundred yards infront of the trenches we were then holding. They were to dig a new linethere, to connect with intrenchments which had been pushed forward oneither side of us. 

At daybreak we learned that we were slightly to the left of Hill 70. Hulluch, a small village still in possession of the Germans, was to ourleft front. Midway between Hill 70 and Hulluch and immediately to thefront of our position, there was a long stretch of open country whichsloped gently forward for six or eight hundred yards, and then rosegradually toward the sky-line. In the first assault the British troopshad pushed on past the trenches we were holding and had advanced up theopposite slope, nearly a mile farther on. There they started to digthemselves in, but an unfortunate delay in getting forward had given theenemy time to collect a strong force of local reserves behind his secondline, which was several hundred yards beyond. So heavy a fire had beenconcentrated upon them that the British troops had been forced to retireto the line we were then occupying. They had met with heavy losses bothin advancing and retiring, and the ground in front of us for nearly amile was strewn with bodies. We did not learn all of this at once. Weknew nothing of our exact position during the first night, but as thereappeared to be no enemy within striking distance of our immediate front, we stood on the firing-benches vainly trying to get our bearings. Aboutone o'clock, we witnessed the fascinating spectacle of a counter-attackat night. 

It came with the dramatic suddenness, the striking spectacular display, of a motion-picture battle. The pictorial effect seemed extravagantlyoverdrawn. 

There was a sudden hurricane of rifle and machine-gun fire, and in aninstant all the desolate landscape was revealed under the light ofinnumerable trench rockets. We saw the enemy advancing in irregular linesto the attack. They were exposed to a pitiless infantry fire. I couldfollow the curve of our trenches on the left by the almost solid sheet offlame issuing from the rifles of our comrades against whom the assaultwas launched. The artillery ranged upon the advancing lines at once, andthe air was filled with the roar of bursting shells and the melancholy_whing-g-g-g_ of flying shrapnel. 

I did not believe that any one could cross that fire-swept area alive, but before many moments we heard the staccato of bursting bombs and handgrenades which meant that some of the enemy, at least, were withinstriking distance. There was a sharp crescendo of deafening sound, then, gradually, the firing ceased, and word came down the line, "Counter-attack against the ---- Guards; and jolly well beaten off too. "Another was attempted before daybreak, and again the same torrent oflead, the same hideous uproar, the same sickening smell of lyddite, thesame ghastly noon-day effect, the same gradual silence, and the sameresult. 

II. DAMAGED TRENCHES

The brief respite which we enjoyed during our first night soon came to anend. We were given time, however, to make our trenches tenable. Early thefollowing morning we set to work removing the wreckage of human bodies. Never before had death revealed itself so terribly to us. Many of the menhad been literally blown to pieces, and it was necessary to gather thefragments in blankets. For weeks afterward we had to eat and sleep andwork and think among such awful sights. We became hardened to themfinally. It was absolutely essential that we should. 

The trenches and dugouts had been battered to pieces by the Britishartillery fire before the infantry assault, and since their capture thework of destruction had been carried on by the German gunners. Even intheir wrecked condition we could see how skillfully they had beenconstructed. No labor had been spared in making them as nearlyshell-proof and as comfortable for living quarters as it is possible forsuch earthworks to be. The ground here was unusually favorable. Under aclayish surface soil, there was a stratum of solid chalk. Advantage ofthis had been taken by the German engineers who must have planned andsupervised the work. Many of the shell-proof dugouts were fifteen andeven twenty feet below the surface of the ground. Entrance to these wasmade in the front wall of the trench on a level with the floor. Stairwaysjust large enough to permit the passage of a man's body led down to them. The roofs were reinforced with heavy timbers. They were so strongly builtthroughout that most of them were intact, although the passagewaysleading up to the trench were choked with loose earth. 

There were larger surface dugouts with floors but slightly lower thanthat of the trench. These were evidently built for living quarters intimes of comparative quiet. Many of them were six feet wide and fromtwenty to thirty feet long, and quite palaces compared to the wretchedlittle "funk-holes" to which we had been accustomed. They were roofedwith logs a foot or more in diameter placed close together and one on topof the other in tiers of three, with a covering of earth three or fourfeet thick. But although they were solidly built they had not been proofagainst the rain of high explosives. Many of them were in ruins, the logssplintered like kindling wood and strewn far and wide over the ground. 

We found several dugouts, evidently officers' quarters, which were almostluxuriously furnished. There were rugs for the wooden floors and picturesand mirrors for the walls; and in each of them there was the jolliestlittle stove with a removable lid. We discovered one of these undergroundpalaces at the end of a blind alley leading off from the main trench. Itwas at least fifteen feet underground, with two stairways leading down toit, so that if escape was cut off in one direction, it was still possibleto get out on the other side. We immediately took possession, built aroaring fire, and were soon passing canteens of hot tea around thecircle. Life was worth while again. We all agreed that there were lesscomfortable places in which to have breakfast on rainy autumn morningsthan German officers' dug-outs. 

The haste with which the Germans abandoned their trenches was evidencedby the amount of war material which they left behind. We found twomachine guns and a great deal of small-arms ammunition in our own limitedsector of frontage. Rifles, intrenching tools, haversacks, canteens, greatcoats, bayonets were scattered everywhere. All of this material wasof the very best. Canteens, water-bottles, and small frying-pans weremade of aluminum and most ingeniously fashioned to make them less bulkyfor carrying. Some of the bayonets were saw-edged. We found three ofthese needlessly cruel weapons in a dugout which bore the followinginscription over the door:--

 "_Gott tret' herein. Bring' glück herein. _"

It was an interesting commentary on German character. Tommy Atkins neverwrites inscriptions of a religious nature over the doorway of hissplinter-roof shelter. Neither does he file a saw edge on his bayonet. 

We found many letters, picture post-cards, and newspapers; among thelatter, one called the "Krieg-Zeitung, " published at Lille for thesoldiers in the field, and filled with glowing accounts of battles foughtby the ever victorious German armies. 

Death comes swiftly in war. One's life hangs by a thread. The mosttrivial circumstance saves or destroys. Mac came into the half-ruineddugout where the off-duty machine gunners were making tea over a fire ofsplintered logs. 

"Jamie, " he said, "take my place at sentry for a few minutes, will you?I've lost my water-bottle. It's 'ere in the dugout somew'ere. I'll beonly a minute. "

I went out to the gun position a few yards away, and immediatelyafterward the Germans began a bombardment of our line. One's ear becomesexact in distinguishing the size of shells by the sound which they makein traveling through the air; and it is possible to judge the directionand the probable place of their fall. Two of us stood by the machine gun. We heard at the same time the sound which we knew meant danger, possiblydeath. It was the awful whistling roar of a high explosive. We dropped tothe floor of the trench at once. The explosion blackened our faces withlyddite and half-blinded us. The dugout which I had left less than amoment ago was a mass of wreckage. Seven of our comrades were inside. 

One of them crawled out, pulling himself along with one arm. The otherarm was terribly crushed and one leg was hanging by a tendon and a fewshreds of flesh. 

"My God, boys! Look wot they did to me!"

He kept saying it over and over while we cut the cords from ourbandoliers, tied them about his leg and arm and twisted them up to stopthe flow of blood. He was a fine, healthy lad. A moment before he hadbeen telling us what he was going to do when we went home on furlough. Now his face was the color of ashes, his voice grew weaker and weaker, and he died while we were working over him. 

High explosive shells were bursting all along the line. Great masses ofearth and chalk were blown in on top of men seeking protection wherethere was none. The ground rocked like so much pasteboard. I heardfrantic cries for "Picks and shovels!" "Stretcher-bearers!Stretcher-bearers this way, for God's sake!" The voices sounded as weakand futile as the squeaking of rats in a thunderstorm. 

When the bombardment began, all off-duty men were ordered into thedeepest of the shell-proof dugouts, where they were really quite safe. But those English lads were not cowards. Orders or no orders, they cameout to the rescue of their comrades. They worked without a thought oftheir own danger. I felt actually happy, for I was witnessing splendidheroic things. It was an experience which gave one a new and unshakablefaith in his fellows. 

The sergeant and I rushed into the ruins of our machine-gun dugout. Theroof still held in one place. There we found Mac, his head split in twoas though it had been done with an axe. Gardner's head was blowncompletely off, and his body was so terribly mangled that we did not knowuntil later who he was. Preston was lying on his back with a greatjagged, blood-stained hole through his tunic. Bert Powel was so badlyhurt that we exhausted our supply of field dressings in bandaging him. Wefound little Charlie Harrison lying close to the side of the wall, gazingat his crushed foot with a look of incredulity and horror pitiful to see. One of the men gave him first aid with all the deftness and tenderness ofa woman. 

The rest of us dug hurriedly into a great heap of earth at the other endof the shelter. We quickly uncovered Walter, a lad who had kept uslaughing at his drollery on many a rainy night. The earth had been heapedloosely on him and he was still conscious. 

"Good old boys, " he said weakly; "I was about done for. "

In our haste we dislodged another heap of earth which completely buriedhim again, and it seemed a lifetime before we were able to remove it. Ihave never seen a finer display of pure grit than Walter's. 

"Easy now!" he said. "Can't feel anything below me waist. I think I'm'urt down there. "

We worked as swiftly and as carefully as we could. We knew that he wasbadly wounded, for the earth was soaked with blood; but when we saw, weturned away sick with horror. Fortunately, he lost consciousness while wewere trying to disentangle him from the fallen timbers, and he died onthe way to the field dressing-station. Of the seven lads in the dugout, three were killed outright, three died within half an hour, and oneescaped with a crushed foot which had to be amputated at the fieldhospital. 

What had happened to our little group was happening to others along theentire line. Americans may have read of the bombardment which took placethat autumn morning. The dispatches, I believe, described it with theusual official brevity, giving all the information really necessary fromthe point of view of the general public. 

"Along the Loos-La Bassée sector there was a lively artillery action. Wedemolished some earthworks in the vicinity of Hulluch. Some of ourtrenches near Hill 70 were damaged. "

"Damaged!" It was a guarded admission. Our line was a shambles of looseearth and splintered logs. At some places it was difficult to see justwhere the trench had been. Had the Germans launched a counter-attackimmediately after the bombardment, we should have had difficulty inholding the position. But it was only what Tommy called "a big 'ap'ortho' 'ate. " No attempt was made to follow up the advantage, and we at onceset to work rebuilding. The loose earth had to be put into sandbags, theparapets mended, the holes, blasted out by shells, filled in. 

The worst of it was that we could not get away from the sight of themangled bodies of our comrades. Arms and legs stuck out of the wreckage, and on every side we saw distorted human faces, the faces of men we hadknown, with whom we had lived and shared hardships and dangers for monthspast. Those who have never lived through experiences of this sort cannotpossibly know the horror of them. It is not in the heat of battle thatmen lose their reason. Battle frenzy is, perhaps, a temporary madness. The real danger comes when the strain is relaxed. Men look about them andsee the bodies of their comrades torn to pieces as though they had beenhacked and butchered by fiends. One thinks of the human body asinviolate, a beautiful and sacred thing. The sight of it dismembered ordisemboweled, trampled in the bottom of a trench, smeared with blood andfilth, is so revolting as to be hardly endurable. 

And yet, we had to endure it. We could not escape it. Whichever way welooked, there were the dead. Worse even than the sight of dead men werethe groans and entreaties of those lying wounded in the trenches waitingto be taken back to the dressing-stations. 

"I'm shot through the stomach, matey! Can't you get me back to theambulance? Ain't they _some_ way you can get me back out o' this?"

"Stick it, old lad! You won't 'ave long to wite. They'll be some of theRed Cross along 'ere in a jiffy now. "

"Give me a lift, boys, can't you? Look at my leg! Do you think it'll 'aveto come off? Maybe they could save it if I could get to 'ospital in time!Won't some of you give me a lift? I can 'obble along with a little 'elp. "

"Don't you fret, sonny! You're a-go'n' to ride back in a stretcherpresently. Keep yer courage up a little w'ile longer. "

Some of the men, in their suffering, forgot every one but themselves, andit was not strange that they should. Others, with more iron in theirnatures, endured fearful agony in silence. During memorable half-hours, filled with danger and death, many of my gross misjudgments of characterwere made clear to me. Men whom no one had credited with heroic qualitiesrevealed them. Others failed rather pitiably to live up to one'sexpectations. It seemed to me that there was strength or weakness in men, quite apart from their real selves, for which they were in no wayresponsible; but doubtless it had always been there, waiting to be calledforth at just such crucial times. 

During the afternoon I heard for the first time the hysterical cry of aman whose nerve had given way. He picked up an arm and threw it far outin front of the trenches, shouting as he did so in a way that made one'sblood run cold. Then he sat down and started crying and moaning. He wastaken back to the rear, one of the saddest of casualties in a war ofinconceivable horrors. I heard of many instances of nervous breakdown, but I witnessed surprisingly few of them. Men were often badly shaken andtrembled from head to foot. Usually they pulled themselves together underthe taunts of their less susceptible comrades. 

III. RISSOLES AND A REQUIEM

At the close of a gloomy October day, six unshaven, mud-encrusted machinegunners, the surviving members of two teams, were gathered at the CCompany gun emplacement. D Company's gun had been destroyed by a shell, and so we had joined forces here in front of the wrecked dugout, and werewaiting for night when we could bury our dead comrades. A fine drenchingrain was falling. We sat with our waterproof sheets thrown over ourshoulders and our knees drawn up to our chins, that we might conserve thedamp warmth of our bodies. No one spoke. No reference was made to ourdead comrades who were lying there so close that we could almost touchthem from where we sat. Nevertheless, I believe that we were all thinkingof them, however unwillingly. I tried to see them as they were only a fewhours before. I tried to remember the sound of their voices, how they hadlaughed; but I could think only of the appearance of their mutilatedbodies. 

On a dreary autumn evening one's thoughts often take a melancholy turn, even though one is indoors, sitting before a pleasant fire, and hearingbut faintly the sighing of the wind and the sound of the rain beatingagainst the window. It is hardly to be wondered at that soldiers intrenches become discouraged at times, and on this occasion, when anunquenchably cheerful voice shouted over an adjoining traverse, --

"Wot che'r, lads! Are we downhearted?"--a growling chorus answered withan unmistakable, --

"YES!"

We were in an open ditch. The rain was beating down on our faces. We werewaiting for darkness when we could go to our unpleasant work ofgrave-digging. To-morrow there would be more dead bodies and more gravesto dig, and the day after, the same duty, and the day after that, thesame. Week after week we should be living like this, killing and beingkilled, binding up terrible wounds, digging graves, always doing the samework with not one bright or pleasant thing to look forward to. 

These were my thoughts as I sat on the firing-bench with my head drawndown between my knees watching the water dripping from the edges of myputtees. But I had forgotten one important item in the daily routine:supper. And I had forgotten Private Lemley, our cook, or, to give him hisdue, our _chef_. He was not the man to waste his time in gloomyreflection. With a dozen mouldy potatoes which he had procured Heavenknows where, four tins of corned beef, and a canteen lid filled withbacon grease for raw materials, he had set to work with the enthusiasm ofthe born artist, the result being rissoles, brown, crisp, and piping hot. It is a pleasure to think of that meal. Private Lemley was one of therare souls of earth, one of the Mark Tapleys who never lost his courageor his good spirits. I remember how our spirits rose at the sound of hisvoice, and how gladly and quickly we responded to his summons. 

"'Ere you are, me lads! Bully beef rissoles an' 'ot tea, an' it ain't'arf bad fer the trenches if I do s'y it. "

I can only wonder now at the keenness of our appetites in the midst ofthe most gruesome surroundings. Dead men were lying about us, both in thetrenches and outside of them. And yet our rissoles were not a whit theless enjoyable on that account. 

It was quite dark when we had finished. The sergeant jumped to his feet. 

"Let's get at it, boys, " he said. 

Half an hour later we erected a wooden cross in Tommy's grave-strewngarden. It bore the following inscription written in pencil:

 Pte. # 4326 MacDonald. Pte. # 7864 Gardner. Pte. # 9851 Preston. Pte. # 6940 Allen. Royal Fusiliers. "They did their bit. "

Quietly we slipped back into the trench and piled our picks and shovelson the parados. 

"Got yer mouth-organ 'andy, Nobby?" some one asked. 

"She's always 'andy. Wot'll you 'ave, lads?"

"Give us 'Silk 'At Nat Tony. ' That's a proper funeral 'ymn. "

"Right you are! Sing up, now!"

And then we sang Tommy's favorite kind of requiem:--

 "I'm Silk Hat Nat Tony, I'm down and I'm stony: I'm not only broke, but I'm bent. The fringe of my trousers Keeps lashing the houses, But still I am gay and content. 

 I stroll the West gayly, You'll see me there daily, From Burlington Arcade Up to the Old Bailey. I'm stony! I'm Tony! But that makes no diff'rence, you see. Though I haven't a fraction, I've this satisfaction, They built Piccadilly for me. "

 CHAPTER XI

 "SITTING TIGHT"

I. LEMONS AND CRICKET BALLS

Throughout October we fulfilled the prophecy of the officer who told usthat "sitting tight" in the German trenches was to be our function. Therewere nightly counter-attacks preceded by heavy artillery fire, when theenemy made determined efforts to retake the lost territory. There wereneedless alarms when nervous sentries "got the wind up, " to use theauthentic trench expression, and contagious excitement set men to firinglike mad into blank darkness. In the daytime there were moments of calmwhich we could not savor owing to that other warfare waged upon us byincreasing hordes of parasitic enemies. We moved from one position toanother through trenches where the tangled mass of telephone wires, seemingly gifted with a kind of malignant humor, coiled themselves aboutour feet or caught in the piling swivels of our rifles. There were ordersand counter-orders, alarums and excursions. Through them all Tommy kepthis balance and his air of cheery unconcern, but he wished that he mightbe "struck pink" if he knew "wot we was a-doin' of anyw'y. "

Our ideas of the tactical situation were decidedly vague. However, we didknow, in a general way, our position with reference to important militarylandmarks, and the amateur strategists were busy at all times explainingthe situation to frankly ignorant comrades, and outlining plans fordefinite action. 

"Now, if I was General French, I'd make 'Ulluch me main objective. Theyain't no use tryin' to get by at this part o' the line till you got thatvillage. "

"Don't talk so bloomin' ignorant! Ain't that just wot they been a-tryin'?Wot we got to do is go 'round 'Ulluch. Tyke 'em in the rear an' from bothsides. "

"W'y don't they get on with it? Wot to blazes are we a-doin' of, givin''em a chanct to get dug in again? 'Ere we all but got 'em on the run an'the 'ole show stops!"

The continuation of the offensive was the chief topic of conversation. The men dreaded it, but they were anxious to get through with thebusiness. They believed that now if ever there was the chance to push theGermans out of France. 

In the mean time the day's work was still the day's work. There werenightly bombing affairs, some of them most desperate hand-to-handcontests for the possession of small sectors of trench. One of these Iwitnessed from a trench sixty yards away. The advantage lay with us. Theenemy held only the center of the line and were forced to meet attacksfrom either end. However, they had a communication trench connecting withtheir second line, through which carrying parties brought them alimitless supply of bombs. 

The game of pitch and toss over the barricades had continued for severaldays without a decision. Then came orders for more decisive action. Thebarricades were to be destroyed and the enemy bombed out. In undergroundfighting of this kind the element of surprise is possible. If oneopponent can be suddenly overwhelmed with a heavy rain of bombs, thechances of success for the attacking party are quite favorable. 

The action took place at dusk. Shortly before the hour set, the bombers, all of them boys in their early twenties, filed slowly along the trench, the pockets of their grenade waistcoats bulging with "lemons" and"cricket balls, " as the two most effective kinds of bombs are called. They went to their places with that spirit of stolid cheeriness which isthe wonder and admiration of every one who knows Tommy Atkins intimately. Formerly, when I saw him in this mood, I would think, "He doesn'trealize. Men don't go out to meet death like this. " But long associationwith him had convinced me of the error of this opinion. These men knewthat death or terrible injury was in store for many of them; yet theywere talking in excited and gleeful undertones, as they might have passedthrough the gates at a football match. 

"Are we downhearted? Not likely, old son!"

"Tyke a feel o' this little puffball! Smack on old Fritzie's napper shegoes!"

"I'm a-go'n' to arsk fer a nice Blightey one! Four months in Brentford'ospital an' me Christmas puddin' at 'ome!"

"Now, don't ferget, you blokes! County o' London War 'Ospital fer me if Igets a knock! Write it on a piece o' pyper an' pin it to me tunic w'enyou sends me back to the ambulance. "

The barricades were blown up and the fight was on. A two-hundred-pieceorchestra of blacksmiths, with sledgehammers, beating kettle-drums thesize of brewery vats, might have approximated, in quality and volume, thesound of the battle. The spectacular effect was quite different from thatof a counter-attack across the open. Lurid flashes of light issued fromthe ground as though a door to the infernal regions had been thrownjarringly open. The cloud of thick smoke was shot through with redgleams. Men ran along the parapet hurling bombs down into the trench. Nowthey were hidden by the smoke, now silhouetted for an instant against aglare of blinding light. 

An hour passed and there was no change in the situation. 

"Fritzie's a tough old bird, " said Tommy. "'E's a-go'n' to die game, yougot to give it to 'im. "

The excitement was intense. Urgent calls for "More lemons! More cricketballs!" were sent back constantly. Box after box, each containing a dozengrenades, was passed up the line from hand to hand, and still the callfor "More bombs!" We couldn't send them up fast enough. 

The wounded were coming back in twos and threes. One lad, his eyescovered with a bloody bandage, was led by another with a shattered hand. 

"Poor old Tich! She went off right in 'is face! But you did yer bit, Tich! You ought to 'a' seen 'im, you blokes! Wasn't 'e a-lettin' 'em 'aveit!"

Another man hobbled past on one foot, supporting himself against the sideof the trench. 

"Got a Blightey one, " he said gleefully. "So long you lads! I'll be withyou again arter the 'olidays. "

Those who do not know the horrors of modern warfare cannot readilyunderstand the joy of the soldier at receiving a wound which is notlikely to prove serious. A bullet in the arm or the shoulder, even thoughit shatters the bone, or a piece of shrapnel or shell casing in the leg, was always a matter for congratulation. These were "Blightey wounds. "When Tommy received one of this kind, he was a candidate for hospital in"Blightey, " as England is affectionately called. For several months hewould be far away from the awful turmoil. His body would be clean; hewould be rid of the vermin and sleep comfortably in a bed at night. Thestrain would be relaxed, and, who knows, the war might be over before hewas again fit for active service. And so the less seriously wounded madetheir way painfully but cheerfully along the trench, on their way to thefield dressing-station, the motor ambulance, the hospital ship, and--home! while their unwounded comrades gave them words ofencouragement and good cheer. 

"Good luck to you, Sammy boy! If you sees my missus, tell 'er I'm asright as rain!"

"Sammy, you _lucky_ blighter! W'en yer convalescin', 'ave a pint of aleat the W'ite Lion fer me. "

"An' a good feed o' fish an' chips fer _me_, Sammy. Mind yer foot!There's a 'ole just 'ere!"

"'Ere comes old Sid! W'ere you caught it, mate?"

"In me bloomin' shoulder. It ain't _'arf_ givin' it to me!"

"Never you mind, Sid! Blightey fer you, boy!"

"Hi, Sid! Tell me old lady I'm still up an' comin', will you? You knoww'ere she lives, forty-six Bromley Road. "

One lad, his nerve gone, pushed his way frantically down the trench. Hehad "funked it. " He was hysterical with fright and crying in a dry, shaking voice, --

"It's too 'orrible! I can't stand it! Blow you to 'ell they do! Look atme! I'm slathered in blood! I can't stand it! They ain't no man can standit!"

He met with scant courtesy. A trench during an attack is no place for thefaint-hearted. An unsympathetic Tommy kicked him savagely. 

"Go 'ide yerself, you bloody little coward!"

"More lemons! More cricket balls!" and at last, Victory! Fritzie had"chucked it, " and men of the Royal Engineers, that wonderfully efficientcorps, were on the spot with picks and shovels and sandbags, clearing outthe wreckage, and building a new barricade at the farther end of thecommunication trench. 

It was only a minor affair, one of many which take place nightly in thefiring-line. Twoscore yards of trench were captured. The cost was, perhaps, one man per yard; but as Tommy said, --

"It ain't the trench wot counts. It's the more-ale. Bucks the blokes upto win, an' that's worth a 'ole bloomin' army corps. "

II. "GO IT, THE NORFOLKS!"

Rumors of all degrees of absurdity reached us. The enemy was massing onour right, on our left, on our immediate front. The division was toattack at dawn under cover of a hundred bomb-dropping battle-planes. Units of the new armies to the number of five hundred thousand wereconcentrating behind the line from La Bassée to Arras, and anothertremendous drive was to be made in conjunction with the French, (As amatter of fact, we knew less of what was actually happening than didpeople in England and America. ) Most of these reports sprang, full grown, from the fertile brains of officers' servants. Scraps of informationwhich they gathered while in attendance at the officers' mess dugoutwere pieced together, and much new material of their own inventionadded. The striving was for piquancy rather than plausibility. A wildtale was always better than a dull one; furthermore the "batmen" wereour only sources of official information, and could always command ahearing. When one of them came down the trench with that mysterious"I-could-a-tale-unfold" air, he was certain to be halted by willinglygullible comrades. 

"Wot's up, Jerry? Anything new?"

"Nor 'arf! Now, keep this under yer 'ats, you blokes! My gov'nor wasa-talkin' to Major Bradley this mornin' w'ile I was a-mykin' 'is tea, an''_e_ says--"

Then followed the thrilling narrative, a disclosure of official secretswhile groups of war-worn Tommies listened with eager interest. "Spreadingthe News" was a tragi-comedy enacted daily in the trenches. 

But we were not entirely in the dark. The signs which preceded anengagement were unmistakable, and toward the middle of October there wasgeneral agreement that an important action was about to take place. British aircraft had been patrolling our front ceaselessly for hours. Several battalions (including our own which had just gone into reserve atVermelles) were placed on bomb-carrying fatigue. As we went up to thefiring-line with our first load, we found all of the support trenchesfilled to overflowing with troops in fighting order. 

We reached the first line as the preliminary bombardment started. Scoresof batteries were concentrating their fire on the enemy's trenchesdirectly opposite us. It is useless to attempt to depict what lay beforeus as we looked over the parapet. The trenches were hidden from view in acloud of smoke and flame and dirt. The earth was like a muddy sea dashedhigh in spray against hidden rocks. 

The men who were to lead the attack were standing rifle in hand, waitingfor the sudden cessation of fire which would be the signal for them tomount the parapet. Bombers and bayonet-men alternated in series of two. The bombers wore their mediæval-looking shrapnel-proof helmets and heavycanvas grenade coats with twelve pockets sagging with bombs. Their rifleswere slung on their backs to give them free use of their hands. 

Every one was smoking--some calmly, some with short, nervous puffs. Itwas interesting to watch the faces of the men. One could read, almost toa certainty, what was going on in their minds. Some of them were thinkingof the terrible events so near at hand. They were imagining the horrorsof the attack in detail. Others were unconcernedly intent upon adjustingstraps of their equipment, or in rubbing their clips of ammunition withan oily rag. Several men were singing to a mouth-organ accompaniment. Isaw their lips moving, but not a sound reached me above the din of theguns, although I was standing only a few yards distant. It was like anabsurd pantomime. 

As I watched them, the sense of the unreality of the whole thing sweptover me more strongly than ever before. "This can't be true, " I thought;"I have never been a soldier. There isn't any European war. " I had thecurious feeling that my body and brain were functioning quite apart fromme. I was only a slow-witted, incredulous spectator looking on with astupid animal wonder. I have learned that this feeling is quite commonamong men in the trenches. A part of the mind works normally, and anotherpart, which seems to be one's essential self, refuses to assimilate andclassify experiences so unusual, so different from anything in thecatalogue of memory. 

For two hours and a half the roar of guns continued. Then it stopped assuddenly as it had begun. An officer near me shouted, "Now, men! Followme!" and clambered over the parapet. There was no hesitation. In a momentthe trench was empty save for the bomb-carrying parties and an artilleryobservation officer, who was jumping up and down on the firing-bench, shouting--

"Go it, the Norfolks! _Go it, the Norfolks!_ My God! Isn't it fine!Isn't it splendid!"

There you have the British officer true to type. He is a sportsman: nextto taking part in a fight he loves to see one--and he says "isn't" not"ain't, " even under stress of the greatest excitement. 

The German artillery, which had been reserving fire, now poured forth adeluge of shrapnel. The sound of rifle fire was scattered and ragged atfirst, but it increased steadily in volume. Then came the "boiler-factorychorus, " the sharp rattle of dozens of machine guns. The bullets wereflying over our heads like swarms of angry wasps. A ration-box boardwhich I held above the parapet was struck almost immediately. Fortunatelyfor the artillery officer, a disrespectful N. C. O. Pulled him down intothe trench. 

"It's no use throwin' yer life aw'y, sir. You won't 'elp 'em over bybarkin' at 'em. "

He was up again almost at once, coolly watching the progress of thetroops from behind a small barricade of sandbags, and reporting upon itto batteries several miles in rear. The temptation to look over theparapet was not to be resisted. The artillery lengthened their ranges. Isaw the curtain of flame-shot smoke leap at a bound to the next line ofGerman trenches. 

Within a few moments several lines of reserves filed into the fronttrench and went over the parapet in support of the first line, advancingwith heads down like men bucking into the fury of a gale. We saw themonly for an instant as they jumped to their feet outside the trench andrushed forward. Many were hit before they had passed through the gaps inour barbed wire. Those who were able crept back and were helped into thetrench by comrades. One man was killed as he was about to reach a placeof safety. He lay on the parapet with his head and arms hanging downinside the trench. His face was that of a boy of twenty-one ortwenty-two. I carry the memory of it with me to-day as vividly as when Ileft the trenches in November. 

Following the attacking infantry were those other soldiers whose work, though less spectacular than that of the riflemen, was just as essentialand quite as dangerous. Royal Engineers, with picks and shovels andsandbags, rushed forward to reverse the parapets of the capturedtrenches, and to clear out the wreckage, while the riflemen waited forthe launching of the first counter-attack. They were preceded by men ofthe Signaling Corps, who advanced swiftly and skillfully, unwindingspools of insulated telephone wire as they went. Bomb-carriers, stretcher-bearers, intent upon their widely divergent duties, followed. The work of salvage and destruction went hand in hand. 

The battle continued until evening, when we received orders to move up tothe firing-line. We started at five o'clock, and although we had lessthan three miles to go, we did not reach the end of our journey untilfour the next morning, owing to the fatigue parties and the long streamof wounded which blocked the communication trenches. For more than anhour we lay just outside of the trench looking down on a seeminglyendless procession of casualties. Some of the men were crying likechildren, some groaning pitifully, some laughing despite their wounds. Iheard dialects peculiar to every part of England, and fragmentaryaccounts of hairbreadth escapes and desperate fighting. 

"They was a big Dutchman comin' at me from the other side. Lucky fer methat I 'ad a round in me breach. He'd 'a' got me if it 'adn't 'a' beenfer that ca'tridge. I let 'im 'ave it an' 'e crumpled up like a wetblanket. "

"Seeven of them, an' that dazed like, they wasna good for onything. Mon, it would ha' been fair murder to kill 'em! They wasna wantin' to fight. "

Boys scarcely out of their 'teens talked with the air of old veterans. Many of them had been given their first taste of real fighting, and theywere experiencing a very common and natural reaction. Their courage hadbeen put to the most severe test and had not given way. It was notdifficult to understand their elation, and one could forgive theirboastful talk of bloody deeds. One highly strung lad was dangerously nearto nervous breakdown. He had bayoneted his first German and could notforget the experience. He told of it over and over as the line movedslowly along. 

"I couldn't get me bayonet out, " he said. "Wen 'e fell 'e pulled me overon top of 'im. I 'ad to put me foot against 'im an' pull, an' then itcame out with a jerk. "

We met small groups of prisoners under escort of proud and happy Tommieswho gave us conflicting reports of the success of the attack. Some ofthem said that two more lines of German trenches had been taken; othersdeclared that we had broken completely through and that the enemy were infull retreat. Upon arriving at our position, we were convinced that atleast one trench had been captured; but when we mounted our guns andpeered cautiously over the parapet, the lights which we saw in thedistance were the flashes of German rifles, not the street lamps ofBerlin. 

III. CHRISTIAN PRACTICE

Meanwhile, the inhumanity of a war without truces was being revealed tous on every hand. Hundreds of bodies were lying between the opposinglines of trenches and there was no chance to bury them. Fatigue partieswere sent out at night to dispose of those which were lying close to theparapets, but the work was constantly delayed and interrupted bypersistent sniping and heavy shell fire. Others farther out lay wherethey had fallen day after day and week after week. Many an anxious motherin England was seeking news of a son whose body had become a part of thatFlemish landscape. 

During the week following the commencement of the offensive, the woundedwere brought back in twos and threes from the contested area over whichattacks and counter-attacks were taking place. One plucky Englishman wasdiscovered about fifty yards in front of our trenches. He was waving ahandkerchief tied to the handle of his intrenching tool. Stretcher-bearers ran out under fire and brought him in. He had beenwounded in the foot when his company were advancing up the slope fifteenhundred yards away. When it was found necessary to retire, he had beenleft with many dead and wounded comrades, far from the possibility ofhelp by friends. He had bandaged his wound with his first-aid fielddressing, and started crawling back, a few yards at a time. He securedfood from the haversacks of dead comrades, and at length, after a week ofpainful creeping, reached our lines. 

Another of our comrades was discovered by a listening patrol, six daysafter he had been wounded. He, too, had been struck down close to theenemy's second line. Two kind-hearted German sentries, to whom he hadsignaled, crept out at night and gave him hot coffee to drink. He beggedthem to carry him in, but they told him they were forbidden to take anywounded prisoners. As he was unable to crawl, he must have died had itnot been for the keen ears of the men of the listening patrol. A thirdvictim whom I saw was brought in at daybreak by a working party. He hadbeen shot in the jaw and lay unattended through at least five wet Octoberdays and nights. His eyes were swollen shut. Blood-poisoning had set infrom a wound which would certainly not have been fatal could it havereceived early attention. 

We knew that there must be many wounded still alive in the tall grassbetween our lines. We knew that many were dying who might be saved. TheRed Cross Corps made nightly searches for them, but the difficulties tobe overcome were great. The volume of fire increased tremendously atnight. Furthermore, there was a wide area to be searched, and in thedarkness men lying unconscious, or too weak from the loss of blood togroan or shout, were discovered only by accident. 

Tommy Atkins isn't an advocate of "peace at any price, " but the sight ofawful and needless suffering invariably moved him to declare himselfemphatically against the inhuman practices in war of so-called Christiannations. 

"Christian nations!" he would say scornfully. "If this 'ere is a sampleo' Christianity, I'll tyke me charnces down below w'en I gets knockedout. " His comrades greeted such outbursts with hearty approval. 

"I'm with you there, mate! 'Ell won't be such a dusty old place if allthe Christians go upstairs. "

"They ain't no God 'avin' anything to do with this war, I'm telling you!All the religious blokes in England an' France an' Germany ain't a-go'n'to pray 'Im into it!"

I am not in a position to speak for Hans and Fritz, who faced us from theother side of No-Man's-Land; but as for Tommy, it seemed to me that hehad a higher opinion of the Deity than many of his better-educatedcountrymen at home. 

IV. TOMMY

By the end of the month we had seen more of suffering and death than itis good for men to see in a lifetime. There were attacks andcounter-attacks, hand-to-hand fights in communication trenches with bombsand bayonets, heavy bombardments, nightly burial parties. Tommy Atkinslooked like a beast. His clothing was a hardened-mud casing; his body wasthe color of the sticky Flanders clay in which he lived; but his soul wasclean and fine. I saw him rescuing wounded comrades, tending them in thetrenches, encouraging them and heartening them when he himself wasdiscouraged and sick at heart. 

"You're a-go'n' 'ome, 'Arry! Blimy! think o' that! Back to old Blighteyw'ile the rest of us 'as got to stick it out 'ere! Don't I wish I wasyou! Not 'arf!"

"You ain't bad 'urt! Strike me pink! You'll be as keen as a w'istle in acouple o' months. An' 'ere! Christmas in Blightey, son! S'y! I'll tykeyer busted shoulder if you'll give me the chanct!"

"They ain't nothin' they can't do fer you back at the base 'ospital. 'Member 'ow they fixed old Ginger up? You ain't caught it 'arf as bad!"

In England, before I knew him for the man he is, I said, "How am I toendure living with him?" And now I am thinking, how am I to endure livingwithout him; without the inspiration of his splendid courage; without thevisible example of his unselfish devotion to his fellows? There were afew cowards and shirkers who failed to live up to the standard set bytheir comrades. I remember the man of thirty-five or forty who laywhimpering in the trench when there was unpleasant work to be done, whileboys half his age kicked him in a vain attempt to waken him to a sense ofduty; but instances of this kind were rare. There were not enough of themto serve as a foil to the shining deeds which were of daily and hourlyoccurrence. 

Tommy is sick of the war--dead sick of it. He is weary of theinterminable procession of comfortless nights and days. He is weary ofthe sight of maimed and bleeding men--of the awful suspense of waitingfor death. In the words of his pathetic little song, he does "want to go'ome. " But there is that within him which says, "Hold on!" He is acompound of cheery optimism and grim tenacity which makes him anincomparable fighting man. 

The intimate picture of him which lingers most willingly in my mind isthat which I carried with me from the trenches on the dreary Novemberevening shortly before I bade him good-bye. It had been raining andsleeting for a week. The trenches were knee-deep in water, in some placeswaist-deep, for the ground was as level as a floor and there was nopossibility of drainage. We were wet through and our legs were numb withthe cold. Near our gun position there was a hole in the floor of thetrench where the water had collected in a deep pool. A bridge of boardshad been built around one side of this, but in the darkness a passer-byslipped and fell into the icy water nearly up to his arm-pits. 

"Now, then, matey!" said an exasperating voice, "bathin' in our privatepool without a permit?"

And another, "'Ere, son! This ain't a swimmin' bawth! That's our teawater yer a-standin' in!"

The Tommy in the pool must have been nearly frozen, but for a moment hemade no attempt to get out. 

"One o' you fetch me a bit o' soap, will you?'" he said coaxingly. "Youain't a-go'n' to talk about tea water to a bloke wot ain't 'ad a bawth inseven weeks?"

It is men of this stamp who have the fortunes of England in theirkeeping. And they are called, "The Boys of the Bulldog Breed. "

 THE END

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