Chapter XXIV: Graphic Descriptions

Many things surprised our soldiers on coming to France, and they described them with much humour. Speaking of the French soldiers a sergeant remarked: "Aren't their trousers baggy? They can march all the same, though. D'you know what they're paid? They get a halfpenny a day, and they're paid every five days in a crossed cheque. Well, they seem glad to see us, don't they, sir? As soon as ever I pull up they gather round and want to shake my hand. It's as bad as bein' a parliamentary candidate."

This is what a soldier said of the American Ambulance at Neuilly, where he spent four weeks when wounded: "My word, what an 'ospital. Had American millionaires to wait on us. They did it right, too. They're a decent lot, them millionaires. Waited on us 'and an' foot. An' the grub! All French, an' cooked by a real French chef."

Another soldier described French tobacco as "something you have to smoke all day to get a smoke."

After his first fight with the Germans a soldier who had been through the last Boer war, said; "This is fighting if you like. South Africa was a tea-party to it. The shells go by with a horrible sort of hiss, and then burst with a roar that puts thunder in the shade, and if you are near you probably lose your head and arms, and various portions of your anatomy."

Writing of a wound, a sporting soldier said: "The next day, when partridge shooting was beginning at home, sure enough I was 'winged' among the turnips."

Another man said that when the shrapnel came it seemed as big as a motor-'bus and to hit him all over. "The shells were like small beer barrels in the air."

An Irish soldier wrote: "We charged the Kaiser's crush with a yell that would have put the fear of death into the heart of the most stoical, and with our bayonets we dug them out of their trenches, same as you'd dig bully beef out of a can."

An Irish soldier remarked to an interviewer when asked what the war was like: "There ain't anything to talk about. It's fight, an' march, an' fight again, with maybe a crack on the 'ead once in a while. It is the biggest rifle meeting I ever saw--Bisley isn't in it."

The rain that fell in September in the trenches, he said, was so heavy that it was like as if the earth had been turned upside down and water had been poured in at the other side.

Another remark was that he had slept so much in odd places that now he thought he could sleep on a clothes-line.

Another soldier who slept in odd places was Lance-Corporal Waller, of the 4th Royal Fusiliers: "I have slept with strange company since I came out. One night with sheep, another in a schoolroom, once on top of a pigsty, once in a manger, in several ditches, in a first-class drawing-room, in 4 inches of snow, behind the counter of a café, and in a feather bed."

A gunner thus described the work of his battery: "We just rained shells on the Germans until we were deaf and choking. I don't think a gun on the position could have sold for old iron after we had finished, and the German gunners would be just odd pieces of clothing and bits of accoutrement."

One of the Black Watch wrote: "We have had a fiendish week of fighting around A----. We had to force our way step by step. Every inch we marched was coloured red with the blood of our men and the Germans. It was like passing through a graveyard where an earthquake had turned up all the corpses and left them lying above ground. As we picked our way through the long lane of dead, that never seemed to have any turning, we noticed among them now and then wounded men, who begged hard for water or some assistance in doing up their bandages. It was pitiful, and we were so helpless."

Another soldier wrote: "You can always tell the Germans who have never been in action against us before. The ones who know what to expect come up very gingerly, like men sneaking into the vestry of a church to rob the collection boxes. The new hands come across in a fine, jaunty way until they get a volley into them, and then they stare up at the sky to see who's throwing things at them. That's the ones who are able to look up, for some of them are done for, and have looked at the sky for the last time. We are showing the Germans that there are a few goods marked 'Made in England.' Our officers are the real goods, the very best. If the Germans had been worth their house-room they would have put an end to the whole of us at the battle of Mons. They came on like a swarm of bees, and we did enjoy it. It was like firing at a mountain; you could not miss it. Sorry I can't stop to write more. We are going to business at 7 p.m. ('Where's my gun?') What would you like out of the crown jewels in Berlin? That's where we are bound for."

Some soldiers who had lost their regiments gave this description of hiding from the Germans: "When night came we endeavoured to escape from our perilous position, and just outside the door we found a German sentry. We passed quite close to him, but didn't stop to say 'Good-night.' How we did it I can't for the life of me tell, but we did it, and then made off as we thought towards the British lines, but to our disgust found we were going right into the German lines. We decided, therefore, to anchor there for the night and get away in the morning. We found this was the German Headquarters Staff, so that we can say we dined with the German generals that night, the only difference being that they were inside and we were outside; they were having wines, etc., and we had swedes and no etc."

A soldier said of a battle that it was "like a display of fireworks at the Crystal Palace with the wounded and dead left out. Last week we got shrapnel for breakfast, dinner, and tea, but the enemy might have saved himself the trouble of dishing out those doses, as they were absolutely ineffective."

One of our men gave a dying German soldier's opinion of the British Army: "When I was hit I lay for hours on the ground, and got chummy with a German chap, who had got a nasty sabre cut in the head as well as a bayonet stab in the kidneys, and was 'booked through.' He knew his number was up, but he was as cheery as though he were at a wedding instead of a funeral. He talked about the fighting, and dealt out praise and blame to French, German, and British alike. He thought a lot of our Army, and spoke highly of its fighting capacity. He said it was wonderful the way we faced odds and difficulties that would have beaten any other army. Almost the last words he said were: 'You'll win this time, and you deserve to win your victory, but we'll never forget or forgive, and some day a new Germany will avenge us.'"

The following descriptions are from the letters of soldiers: "Fighting's kindergarten work compared with lying in your damp clothes in the washed out trenches night and day with, maybe, not a chance of getting any more warmth than you can get from a wax match. We were lying in the trenches in the early morning, with chattering teeth, between which we were muttering prayers for only a spoonful of good brandy or rum to put some heat into us, when there arose a frightful din all round, and the pickets were driven in as though a team of mad bulls was chasing them through the meadows at home. 'We're in for it,' says I to Tommy Gledhill, my chum. 'Anything's better than lying here,' said he. 'Anyhow, it'll warm us up just as well as brandy, and it'll help a few more Germans to a place where they'll not be bothered with chills.'"

"We have had a lot of fighting since the 5th. On Sunday we got it very hot indeed. Nothing less than hell with the lid off will describe it accurately, but please excuse my strong words. We had a fine time, I can tell you--a proper Guy Fawkes' turnout."

Three men of the 5th Lancers found a house that had been left in a hurry all complete with cooking pots. "I am preparing the supper, which smells all right. I am perfectly happy, as this seems the proper country for me, and I never felt better in my life. I am picking up French all right, but I have not started eating frogs yet."

One of the Somerset Light Infantry wrote: "I made a pudding for the boys the other day. I swear it was bullet-proof, but, all the same, it went down with a little jam."

The following is from a letter written by one of the Connaught Rangers and printed in _The Evening News_: "Sure, and it was the grand time we had entirely, and I wouldn't have missed it for lashings of money. It was near to Cambrai when we had our best time. The Germans kept pressing our rearguard all the time, and at last we could stand it no longer, so the word was passed round that we were to give them hell and all. They kept pressing on and on in spite of our murderous fire until there was at least five to one, and we were like to be cut off. With that up got the colonel. 'Rangers of Connaught,' says he, 'the eyes of all Ireland are on you this day, and I know you never could disgrace the old country by letting Germans beat you while you have arms in your hands and hearts in your breasts. On, then, and at them, and if you don't give them the soundest thrashing they ever got in their lives you needn't look me in the face again in this world or the next.' And we went for them with just what you would know of a prayer to the Blessed Mother of our Lord to be merciful to the loved ones at home if we should fall in the fight. We charged through and through them until they broke and ran like frightened hares in terror of the hounds. They screamed just like babies. After that taste of the fighting quality of the Rangers they never troubled us any more that day, but next day more of them came up, and managed to cut off half a company of our boys holding a post on our left. The German officer rushed off to Tim Flanagan, the biggest caution in the whole regiment, and called on him to surrender the file of men under his orders. 'Is it me your honour's after talking to in that way?' says Tim, in that bold way of his. 'Sure, now, it's yourself that ought to be surrendering, and if you're not off this very minute, you ill-mannered German omadhaun, it's me will be after giving you as much cold steel as'll do you between this and the Kingdom of Heaven.' Then the German officer gave the word to his men, and what happened after that I can't tell to you, for it was just then I got a bullet between my ribs; but I can tell you that neither Tim nor any of his men surrendered, nor did the Germans get that position until it pleased the colonel to order the retirement."

The Connaught Rangers, however, were not the only soldiers who revelled in a fray. Here is what even a sensible English soldier wrote in reference to a battle: "At 12.30 a shell hit my rifle and smashed it to matchwood. I next got my cap knocked off my head, and I went to pick it up. Then I got a bullet in the muscle of my right arm, which put me down for a couple of hours. But, never mind, my dear, I had a good run for my money."

Here is a pen picture of part of a battle: "Fellows were being knocked out all round, and wounded were crying for help. Frequently one would say to his neighbour, 'Bill, how's ta gettin' on?' but Bill, who had been as cheery as a cricket just before, was found to be picked off. Our ranks were so thinned that by the time we got within charging distance of the enemy's trenches we had not sufficient men left for a charge. A shell burst close to me, and I thought I had lost both my legs. I crawled to a haystack, where there were a number of other wounded fellows, and one who was not. The latter was assisting the wounded. Presently some Germans came up, and ordered the unwounded man to run. He had not gone 10 yards when they shot him dead. I thought my time had come, but the Germans made off. An R.A.M.C. man had his head blown off while putting wounded men into an ambulance. I was close to Colonel Knight when he was killed. His last words were, 'Never mind me, men; go on and capture the guns.' The German shrapnel firing was absolutely deadly."

The effect of searchlights is thus described: "In the dark the Germans turned on searchlights. We could see them hunting about for someone to pot at. Uncanny that was. To see the blooming big lane of light working round and round. It was like a monstrous eye, looking for its prey. Then we heard the shells whistle. And when the pale, weird light came round to us and lit us up so that we could see each other's faces, Lord, it made my blood run cold--just as I used to feel when I was a nipper and woke up and saw a light and thought it was a ghost, and lay there wondering what would happen next."