Chapter X: The Breaking in

"We take the old road we have taken for years; For you cannot cut corners in war, it appears."

The truth of this old maxim was impressed on us by the roundabout route we took to reach the field only a few hundred yards away where the remainder of the battalion lay.

Actually about two companies strong, they looked a mere handful as they lay huddled close to the hedges in the shallowest of shelter pits scratched in the soil with the field entrenching tool.

The draft was immediately ordered to "dig in," as the plane we had been watching a few minutes before had dropped its signal directly over this position.

We lost no time in digging more of these shallow pits, that reminded one rather gruesomely of graves, and had barely scraped them deep enough to roll into before a hail of small high-explosive shell fell all around us.

For half an hour the whoop and crash of falling and bursting shells kept us alternately ducking our heads and raising them again to see "where that one went," for curiosity is many times a stronger impulse than fear.

Curious things happened. A tree was cut in half by a shell, and the plumed top, falling clear of the stump, planted itself like a dart in the ground a few feet away.

A pack horse suddenly bolted across the open field with a slight cut on one flank, and half a dozen men made wild grasp at its bridle before one succeeded in recapturing the brute. And here and there groups of men finding their corner of the field a bit too "hot" for comfort would just as suddenly bolt across to another part and start feverishly digging in anew.

The shelling ended with as little warning as it had begun. There came a pause, and we thought naturally, "Well, thank God that's over!"--and said so. "Just a minute," said my companion; "there are the Three Sisters to come yet!"

Before one could say "Here they are!" the rush of much larger projectiles was heard, and in quick succession three heavy shells crashed into the foot of the field, throwing up black columns of smoke. "Those are coal-boxes," continued my tutor; "they used to have four guns in that battery, but they are only using three now."

The chuckle with which he added this last showed that he, at any rate, had no doubt as to the fate of the fourth gun.

This was evidently the end of the shelling, the enemy having, theoretically, made the field untenable. The actual casualties were, however, very slight, and the field entrenching tool, until now regarded as a toy, became a valued possession. We were already beginning to learn that the British infantry equipment is the finest in the world.

The shelling over, the draft was divided up amongst the remnants of the four companies, and Lyte and the writer had the good fortune to be placed with the same one.

Our company commander had been a lieutenant till a few days before, and was now a temporary captain. His senior subaltern was wearing a "British warm," the skirt of which had been riddled by machine-gun bullets, and a sergeant was to come out in orders that evening as an officer to take the remaining platoon.

A machine-gun duel in mid-air between one of our planes and an enemy machine that was eventually driven off and the dropping of some large shells into Ypres were the only other events of the day. Most of us slept, as there was work for us to do that night, until the joyful sound of "Tea up!" and the smell of hot "Maconachie" rations told us that supper was ready.

At 7 o'clock the battalion fell in to move up to the front line and dig some trenches. Hardly were we formed up when another violent shelling started, and we hurried back to the cover of our funk-holes.

Again the shelling was singularly ineffective, due, probably, to the fact that the enemy was using high explosive and not shrapnel. One shell by an unfortunate chance caught an artillery limber full of ammunition on the roadway, and it blew up with a sickening roar. The double report of this explosion evidently satisfied the German gunners, for a few minutes later the bombardment ceased and we again fell in.

The greatest secrecy was observed, and nobody but the guides knew our destination, and we followed them in silence up the shell-pitted road and across the pontoon bridge that spanned the Yser Canal. Various dark forms hobbled past, their baggy trousers showing them to be Algerians. A French outpost challenged us, and a party of Ghurkas passed us leading pack horses with the bodies of their fallen officers lashed across the saddles. The Ghurkas never leave an officer's body on the field, so the sergeant in rear of the platoon ahead informed us.

On either side of the road was a ruined trench, and even in the weird half-light of the flares we could see what a shambles they had become. The road was well called "Suicide Alley!"

Then suddenly we left the road and took to the open fields on the left, passing a trench occupied by some Imperial troops--it was our own first line trench. Then we knew what our work was to be; we were to dig an advance trench to link up with the French on our left and the English on our right. The advance continued up a gentle slope across which--nearly a thousand yards of bare bullet-swept field--the Ghurkas had a day or so previously tried to charge. The bodies still lay there in rows just as they had fallen under the bursts of fire that mowed them down--pitiful huddled figures in the grass staring ahead into the great void. Few of the faces showed signs of suffering--such is the mercy of the rifle bullet; and so great was the resemblance to sleep that later, when we came to retire, the writer and others shook the bodies mistaking them for our own men.

In the midst of this ghastly scene, lit up by fitful glances of moonlight as clouds scudded over the sky, two companies moved forward, a long line of shadowy forms, to act as a covering party while the remaining half-battalion dug the new trench.

As we moved forward and lay down we could hear the thudding of the picks as they were driven into the ground, and from somewhere in the darkness ahead the plick-plock of the sniper began. Captain H----, our new company commander, passed down the line to warn us to count our men and see that all bayonets were fixed and magazines loaded.

The sniping increased, and a farmhouse ahead of us that had been smouldering for some time burst into flame. Two colts that were evidently confined near the blaze started to whinny and neigh, and a man who had been hit began to curse vilely.

From somewhere in rear a battery of French "seventy-fives" opened up with their ear-splitting reports, and we could see the outlines of the ruined farm ahead of us silhouetted against the crimson flashes of their bursting shrapnel. But of the enemy there was no sign--nothing but the arching trail of the flares that shot up and the steady plick-plock of the snipers. It was most trying.

It was nearly 2 o'clock before the trench was completed and we wakened our shivering men to retire, for so exhausted were they that, despite the cold and danger, many had dozed there on the body-strewn field with one hand firmly grasping the rifle.

By this time traces of dawn began to show themselves in the eastern sky, and the moon seemed to flood the whole country with light.

Platoon by platoon in Indian file we drew off the field, carefully checking the count of our men as they passed until all were accounted for. Then the march back to billets began. And such a march! Worn out by the week's hard fighting, the older men staggered all over the road, all but dropping out from sheer exhaustion. Nor were the new men in better condition. Unaccustomed as yet to the weight of their packs, shaken by shell fire, and in some cases still weak from the sickness of the rough Channel passage, it was only sheer pride and the cruel taunts of the older men that kept them in the ranks. And thus we straggled on past the French outposts and over the Yser again, and on, on past the field we had lain in all day, on through Brielen to Vlamertinghe, back to billets. But the draft was broken in.