 CHAPTER 1 NOTE. This brief narrative is by no means a complete record of life in a battalion in one of Lord Kitchener's first armies. It is rather a story in outline. A mere suggestion of that life that has lived in the British lines along the Western Front. If those who re-gained thereby a more intimate view of trench warfare and the men who are so gallantly and carefully laying down their lives for England, the purpose of the writer will have been accomplished. CHAPTER 1 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 it patronizingly, the great British public, hopefully, the world at large doubtfully. When there was but a scant sixty thousand under arms, with millions yet to come, Kitchener's mob it remains today fighting in hundreds of thousands in France, Belgium, Africa, the Balkans. And tomorrow, when the war is ended, who will come marching home again? Old campaigners. War won't remnants of once mighty armies. It is not a pleasing name for the greatest volunteer army in the history of the world, for more than three millions of toughened, disciplined fighting men united under one flag, all parts of one magnificent military organization. And yet, Kitchener's own tommies are responsible for it. The rank and file, with their inherent love of ridicule even at their own expense, and their intense dislike of swank. They fastened the name upon themselves, lest the world at large think they regarded themselves too highly. There it hangs, there it will hang for all time. It was on the eighteenth of August 1914 that the mob spirit gained its mastery over me. After three weeks of solitary tramping in the mountains of north Wales, I walked suddenly into news of the Great War, and when it wants to London with a longing for home, which seems strong enough to carry me through the week of idleness until my boat should sail. But in a spirit of adventure, I suppose, I tempted myself with the possibility of assuming the increasingly popular alias Atkins. On two successive mornings, I joined a long line of prospective recruits before the officers at Great Scotland Yard, withdrawing each time, after moving a convenient distance towards the desk of the recruiting sergeant. Disregarding the proven fatality of third times, I joined it on another morning, dangerously near the head of the procession. Now then, you, step along. There is something compelling about a military command, given by a military officer accustomed to being obeyed. While the doctors were thumping me, measuring me, and making an inventory of physical peculiarities, if any, I tried to analyze my unhesitating, almost instinctive reaction to that stern, confident, step along. Was it an act of weakness, a want of character, evidenced by my inability to say no, or was it the blood of military forebearers, asserting itself after many years of intonation? The latter conclusion being the more pleasing. I decided that I was the grandson of my Civil War grandfather, and the worthy descendant of stalwart warriors of a yet earlier period. I was frank with the recruiting officers. I admitted rather boasted of my American citizenship, but expressed my entire willingness to serve in the 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 had been done in Paris. The announcement was received for some surprise. A brief conference was held, during which there was much vigorous shaking of heads. While I awaited the decision, I thought of the steamship ticket in my pocket. I remembered that my boat was to sail on Friday. I thought of my plans for the future, and anticipated joy of an early homecoming. Sent against this was the prospect of an indefinite period of soldiering amongst rangers. Three years for their duration of the war were the terms of the enlistment contract. I had visions of bloody engagements of feverish nights in hospitals, of endless years in a home for disabled soldiers. The conference is over, and the recruiting officer returned to his desk, smiling broadly. And I will take him, my lad. If you want to join, you'll just say you are an Englishman, and won't you, as a matter of formality. Here was an avenue of escape, beckoning me like an alluring country road winding over the hills of home. I refused it with the same instinctive swiftness of decision that had brought me to the medical inspection room. And a few moments later I took the king's shilling, and promised upon my oath as a loyal British subject to bear true allegiance to the Union Jack. During the completion of other less important formalities, I was taken in charge by a sergeant who might have stepped out of any the barric room ballot. He was true to type to the last twist in S of Atkins. He told me of service in India, Egypt, South Africa. He showed me both scars and medals with an error of, no, I wouldn't do this for anyone but you. Which is so flattering to the novice. He gave me advice as to my best method of procedure, when I should go to Hans-Lauberix to join my unit. And here, whatever you do, and whatever you say, don't forget to make the lads think you're an out and outer. If you understand my meaning, a Britisher, you know, they'll take you, you strike me blind. Be free and easy with them, no swank mind you, and they'll be downright pals with you. You're different, you know, but don't put on no errors. What I mean is, don't let them think you think you're different. See what I mean? I said that I did. And another thing, talk like them. I confess that this might prove to be a rather large contract. I'd say if I'd have for a day I'd have you talking like an born Londoner. All you got to do is forget all them ages, and you don't want to say can't. Say that. Say quant. I said it. No, say quor blimey, or a house of misses. I did. That's right. Oh, you'll get the swing of it. There was much more instruction of the same nature. By the time I was ready to leave the recruiting offices, I felt I had made great progress in the vernacular. I said good-bye to the sergeant warmly as I was about to leave. He made the most peculiar and amusing gesture of a man drinking. A pint on my own to bitter, he said confidently. The boys always give me the price of a pint. Right you are, sergeant. I used the expression like a born Englishman. And with the liberty of a true soldier, I gave him my shilling, my first day's wages as a British-fighting man. The remainder of the week I spent mingling with the crowds of enlisted men at the Horse Guards Parade, watching the bulletin boards for the appearance of my name, which would mean that I was to report to the regimental depot in Hanselow. My first impression of the men with whom I was to live for three years or the duration of the war was anything but favourable. The newspapers had been asserting that the new army was being recruited from the flower of England's young manhood. The throng at the Horse Guards Parade resembled an army of unemployed, and I thought it likely that most of them were misfits, out of works, the kind of men who joined the army because they can do nothing else. There were in fact a good many of these. I soon learned, however, that the general out at Elbow's appearance was due to another cause. A genial cocky gave me the hint. Have you joined up, mate, he asked. I told him that I had. Well, here's a friendly tip for you. Don't wear them good clothes when you go to the depot. You won't see him again likely, and if you get through the war you might be a wanton of them. Where are the worst braggs you got? I profited by the advice, and when I fell in with the other recruits for the royal fall of Ceres, I felt much more at my ease. CHAPTER II OF KITCHENER'S MOB By James Norman Hall This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mike Vendetti MikeVendetti.com Titchers Knot by James Norman Hall CHAPTER II ROOKIES A mob is genuinely descriptive of the array of would-be soldiers which crowded the long parade ground at Honslof Barracks during that memorable week in August. We herded together like so many sheep. We had lost our individuality, and it was to be months before we regained it in a new aspect, a collective individuality, of which we became increasingly proud. We squeak-squanked across the barracks square in boots which felt large enough for an entire family of feet. Our khaki, service-dress uniforms were strange and uncomfortable. Our hands hung limply along the seams of our pocketless trousers. Having no place in which to conceal them, and nothing for them to do, we tried to ignore them. Many a tommy, in a moment of forgetfulness, would make a dive for the friendly pockets which were no longer there, the look of sheepish disappointment, as his hands licked limply down his trouser leg was most comical to see. Before many days we learned the uses to which soldiers' hands were put. But for the moment 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, and pointed this. Delivered while we stood awkwardly at attention on the barracks square. Listen here, you men. I have never seen such a raw, round-soldered batch of rookies in fifteen years' service. You're pasty-faced and you're thin-chested. God help his majesty if it ever lays with you to save him. However, we're here to do what we can with what we got. Now then, upon the command, form fours. I want to see the even numbers. Take pace to the rear with the left foot and one to the right with the right foot, like so. One, one, two. Platoon, form fours. Oh, awful, awful, as ye are as ye were. If there was doubt in the minds of any of us as to our rawness, it was quickly dispelled by our platoon sergeants, regulators of long-standing, who had been left in England to assist in whipping the new armies into shape. Naturally they were disgruntled at this and we offered them such splendid opportunities for working off over charges of spleen. We had come to Hanslow, believing that within a few weeks' time we should be fighting in France, signed by side with the men of the first British expeditionary force. Lord Kitchener had said that six months of training at the least was essential. This statement we regarded as intentionally misleading. Lord Kitchener was too shrewd as soldier to announce his plans. But England needed men badly, immediately. After a week of training we should be proficient in the use of our rifles. In addition to this, all that was needed was the ability to form fours and march in column of route to the station where we should entrain for Folkstone or Southampton and France. As soon as the battalion was up to strength, we were given a day of preliminary drill before proceeding to our future training area in Essex. It was a disillusioning experience. Equally disappointing was the undignified display of our little skill at Charing Cross station where we 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 Cholster a reenlisted boar-war veteran from the inaccessible heights of South African experience inflated us with a fire of sarcastic comment. I'm going to transfer out of this here mob. It's what I'm going to do. Soldiers say I'd better quit ain't one of you ever saw a rifle before. Soldiers strike me pink. What's kind of Lorde Kutcher odd doing? That's what I don't know. The rest of us smoked in wrathful silence until one of the boys demonstrated to the boar-war veteran that he knew at least how to use his fists. There was some bloodshed, followed by reluctant apologies on the part of the boar-warrior. It was one of innumerable differences of opinion which I witnessed during the months that followed, and most of them were settled in the same decisive way. Although mine was a London regiment, we had men in the ranks from all parts 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 bow-bells. I had planned to follow the friendly advice of the recruiting sergeant, dongle like him, he had said. Therefore I struggled bravely with the peculiarities of the cockney twang, recklessly dropped H's when I should have kept them, and prefixed them indiscriminately before every convenient aspirate. But all my efforts were useless. The impression was apparent to my fellow Tommies immediately. I had only to begin speaking within the hearing of a genuine cockney, when he would say, Hello! Where do you come from? The Stites? Or? I've been a tenor, you're a yank. I decided to make a confession, and have been glad ever since that I did. The boys gave me a warm and hearty welcome when they learned that I was a sure enough American. They called me Jamie the Yank. I was a piece of tangible evidence of the bond of sympathy existing between the two great English-speaking nations. I told them of the many Americans of German extraction whose sympathies were honestly and sincerely on the other side, but they would not have it so. I was the personal representative of the American people. My presence in the British Army was proof positive of this. Being an American, it was very hard at first to understand the class distinctions of British Army life, and having understood them, it was more difficult yet to endure them. I learned that a ranker, or private soldier, is a socially inferior being from the officer's point of view. The officer class and ranker class are East and West, and never between shall meet, except in the respective places upon the parade ground. This does not hold good to the same extent upon active service. Hardships and dangers shared in common tend to break down artificial barriers. But even then, although there was good will and friendliness between officers and men, I saw nothing of genuine comradeship. This seemed to me a great pity. It was a loss for the officer's fully as much as it was for the men. I had to accept, for convenience's sake, the fact of my social inferiority. Centuries of Army tradition demanded it, and I discovered that it was absolutely futile, for one inconsequential American to rebel against the unshakable fortresses of English tradition. Nearly all of my comrades were used to clear-cut class distinctions in civilian life. It made little difference to them that some of our officers were recruits as raw as were we ourselves. They had money enough, and education enough, and influence enough to secure the King's commission. And that fact was proof enough for Tommy that they were gentlemen, and therefore too good for the likes of him to be associating with. Look here, ain't a gentleman a gentleman? I'm asking you, ain't he? I saw the futility of discussing this question with Tommy, and later I realized how important for British Army discipline such distinctions are. So great is the force of prevailing opinion, that I sometimes found myself accepting Tommy's point of view. I wondered if I was, for some eugenic reason, the inferior of these men whom I had to serve and salute whenever I dared speak. Such lapses were only occasional, but I understood, for the first time, how important a part's circumstance and environment play in shaping one's mental attitude. Now I longed at times to chat with colonels and joke with captains on terms of equality. Whenever I confided these aspirations to Tommy, he gazed at me in awe. Don't be a bloomin' idiot! Take a jolly well-ang you for that! CHAPTER III THE MOB IN TRAINING THE ENTH SERVICE PATALION ROYAL, FUSILIERS On the march was a site not easily to be forgotten. To the inhabitants of Colchester, Folkstone, Shorncliffe, Aldershot, and other towns and villages throughout the south of England, we were well known. We displayed ourselves with what must have seemed to them a shameless disregard for appearances. Our approach was announced by a discordant tumult of fives and drums, for our band of which we became later justly proud, was a newly fledged and still imperfect organization. Windows were flung up and doors thrown open along our line of march. But alas, we were greeted with no welcome glances of kindly approval, no waving of handkerchiefs, no clapping of hands, nursemaids who are said to have a nice and discriminating eye for a sultry, gazed and amused and contemptuous silence as we passed. Children looked at us in wide-eyed wonder. Only the dumb beasts were demonstrative, and they in a manner which was not at all to our liking. Dogs barked and sedate old family horses which would stand placidly at the curbing while fire engines thundered past with bells clanging and sirens shrieking, prick up their ears at our approach, and after one startled-glass gallop madly away and disappeared in clouds of dust, far in the distance. We knew why the nursemaids were cool and why family horses developed hysteria with such startling suddenness, but in our pride we did not see that which we did not wish to see. Therefore we marched, or to be more truthful, shambled on, shouting lusty choruses with an air of boisterous gaiety, which was anything but genuine. You do as I do, and you'll do all right. Fall in and follow me! Was a favorite with number twelve platoon. Their enthusiasm might have carried conviction, had it not been, for their personal appearance, which certainly did not. Number fifteen platoon would strive manfully for a hearing with deadly 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 these assertations were quite true. We marched neither steadily nor shoulder to shoulder nor blade by blade. We staggered all over the road and kept step only with the sergeant major doubling forward warning us with threats of extra drills to keep in our fores and pick it up. In fact, the boys of the old brigade, whoever they may have been, would have scornfully repudiated any suggestion that we resembled them in any respect. They would have been justified in doing so had any of them seen us at the end of six weeks of training, for however reluctantly we were forced to admit that Sergeant Harris was right, when he called us a raw bunch of rookies, unpromising we were not. There was good stuff in the ranks, the material from which real soldiers are made, and were made, but it had not yet been rounded into shape. We were still nothing more than a homogeneous assembly of individuals. We declined to accept the responsibility for the seeming slowness of our progress. We threw it unhesentedly upon the war-office, which had not equipped us in a manner befitting our new station in life. Although we were recruited immediately after the outbreak of war, less than half of our number had been provided with uniforms. Many still wore old civilian clothing, others were dressed in canvas fatigue suits, or the worn-out uniforms of policemen and tram-car conductors. Every old clothes shop on Petticoat Lane must have contributed its allotment of cast-off apparel. Our arms and equipment were of an equally nondescript character. We might easily have been mistaken for a mob of vagrants, which had pillaged the seventeenth-century arsenal. With a few slight changes in costuming for the sake of historical fidelity, we would have served as a citizen army for a realistic motion-picture drama depicting an episode in the French Revolution. We derived what comfort we could from the knowledge that we were but one of many battalions of Kitchener's first hundred thousand equip in the same makeshift fashion. We did not need the repeated assurances of cabinet ministers that England was not prepared for war. We were in a position to know that she was not. Otherwise there had been an unpardonable lack of foresight in high places. Supplies came in driblets. Each night when parades for the day were over, there was a rush for the orderly room bulletin board, which was scanned eagerly for news of an early issue of clothing. As likely as not, we were disappointed, but occasionally jaded hopes arrived. Number fifteen platoon will parade at four p.m. on Thursday the twenty-fourth for boots, patis, braces, and service dress caps. Number fifteen is our platoon. Promptly at the hour set, we halt and right turn in front of the quartermaster store's marquee. The quartermaster is there with pencil and notebook, and immediately takes charge of the proceedings. All men needing boots, one pace, step forward, march! The platoon sixty-five strong steps forward as one man. All men needing braces, one step back, march! Again we move as a unit. The quartermaster hesitates for a moment, but he is a resourceful man, and has been through this many times before. We all need boots, quite right? But the question is, who needs the most? Undoubtedly those whose feet are most in evidence through worn soles and tattered uppers. Adapting this sight test, he eliminates more than half the platoon. We're upon, by a further process of elimination, due to the fact that he has only sizes seven and eight. He selects the fortunate twelve who are to walk dry shod. The same method of procedure is carried out in selecting the braces. Private rentals, whose trousers are held in place by a wonderful mechanism composed of shoelaces and bits of string, receives a pair likewise. Private Stevenros, who, at the aid of safety pins, has fashioned coat and trousers into an ingenious one-piece garment. Caps and patees are distributed with like impartiality, and we dismiss. The unfortunate one's growling and grumbling in discreet undertones until the platoon commander is out of hearing, we're upon the murmurs of discontent, become loudly articulate. Gettin' a ragtime army, I calls it, growls a veteran of South African fame. Ain't we an handsome lot of posy wallopers? Service? We ain't never a gonna see service. You blokes won't but watch me. I'm a gonin' to grease off out of this mob. No one remonstrated with this deservedly unpopular reservist when he grumbled about the shortage of supplies. He voiced the general sentiment. We all felt that we would like to grease off out of it. Our deficiencies in clothing and equipment were met by the government with what seemed to us amazing slowness. However, Tommy is a sensible man. He realized that England had a big contract to fulfill, and that the first duty was to provide for the armies in the field. France, Russia, Belgium, all were looking to England for supplies. Kitchener's mob must wait. Trusting to the genius for organization, the faculty forgetting things done, of its great and worthy chief, K of K. Our housing accommodations throughout the Ottoman winter of 1914 through 1915, when England was in such urgent need of shelter for her rapidly increasing army, were also of the makeshift order. We slept in leaky tents or in hastily constructed wooden shelters, many of which were afterward condemned by the medical inspectors. St. Martin's Plain, Sean Cliff, was an ideal camping site for pleasant summer weather. But when the autumn rain set in, the green pasture land became a quagmire. Mud was the great reality of our lives. The malignant deity which we fell down in, and propituated with profane rites. It was a thin watery mud, or a thick viscous mud, as the steady downpour increased or diminished. Late in November we were moved to a city of wooden huts at Sandling Junction to make room for newly recruited units. The dwellings were but half finished, the drains were open ditches, and the rains descended and the floods came as usual. We lived in an amphibious and wretched existence until January, when to our great joy we were transferred to billets in the Metropole, one of Folkstone's most fashionable hotels. To be sure we slept on bare floors, but the roof was rainproof, which was the essential thing. An aesthetically inclined could lie in their blankets at night, gazing at richly gilded mirrors over the mantelpieces and beautifully frescoed ceilings, refinishing our apartments in all their former splendor. Private Henry Morgan was not of this type. Henry came in one evening, rather the worse for liquor, and with clubbed musket, assaulted his unlovely reflection in the expensive mirror. I believe he's still paying for his lack of restraint at the rate of six pence per day, and will have cancelled his obligation by January, 1921. If the war continues until that time. Although we were poorly equipped and sometimes wretchedly housed, the commissariat was excellent and on the most generous scale from the very beginning. Indeed, there was nearly as much food wasted as eaten. Naturally the men made no complaint, although they regretted seeing such quantities of food thrown daily into the refuse barrels. I often felt that something should be done about it. Many exposés were in fact written from all parts of England. It was irritating to read of German efficiency in the presence of England's extravagant and un-business-like methods. Tommy would say, Lord, let me, ain't we got no pigs in England? That their food won't be wasted. We'll be eating it in sausages when we get across the channel. Whereupon he dismissed the whole question from his mind. This seemed to me then the typical Anglo-Saxon attitude. Everywhere there was waste, muddleheadedness, and, apparently, it was nobody's business, nobody's concern. Camps were sited in the wrong places and buildings erected only to be condemned. Tons of food were purchased overseas, transported across thousands of miles of ocean, only to be thrown into refuse barrels. The government was robbed by avarice hotel keepers who made and were granted absurd claims for damages done to their property by billeted troops. But with fast new armies recruited overnight, it was not strange that there should be mismanagement and friction at first. As the months passed, there was a marked change for the better. British efficiently asserted itself. This was made evident to us in scores of ways. The distribution of supplies, the housing and equipping of troops, their movements from one training area to another. At the last, we could only marvel that a great and complicated military machine had been so admirably and quickly perfected. Meanwhile, our rigorous training continued from week to week in all weathers, even the most inclement. Reveille sounded a daybreak. For an hour before breakfast we did Swedish drill, a system of gymnastics which brought every lazy and disused muscle into play. Two hours daily were given to musket repractice. We were instructed in the description and recognition of targets, the use of cover, but chiefly in the use of our rifles. Through constant handling they became a part of us, a third arm which we grew to use quite instinctively. We fired the recruits and later the trained soldiers course in musketry on the rifle ranges, ad height and alder shot, gradually improving our technique until we were able to fire with some accuracy. Fifteen rounds per minute. When we had achieved this difficult feat, we ceased to be recruits. We were skilled soldiers of the proud and illustrious order known as England's mad minute men. After musket repractice, the remainder of the day was given to extended order, company and battalion drill. Twice weekly, we route marched from ten to fifteen miles and at night after the parades for the day were finished. Boxing and wrestling contests arranged and encouraged by our officers kept the red blood flowing through our bodies until lights out, sounded at nine o'clock. The character of our training changed as we progressed. We were done with squad, platoon and company drill. Then came field maneuvers, attacks in open formation upon entrenched positions, finishing always with terrific bayonet charges. There were mimic battles lasting all day with from ten to twenty thousand men on each side, artillery, infantry, cavalry, aircraft, every branch of army service, in fact, had a share in these exciting field days when we gained bloodless victories or died painless and easy death. At the command of red-capped field judges, we rushed boldly to the chard shouting lustrally, each man striving to be first at the enemy's position only to be intercepted by a staff officer on horseback, staying the tide of battle with uplifted hand. Marchmen back, officer. You're out of action. My word, you've made a beastly mess of it. You're not on church parade, you know. You advanced across the open for three-quarters of a mile in close column of platoons. Three batteries of field artillery and four machine guns have blown you to blazes. You have a to-man left. Sometimes we reached our objective with less fearful slaughter, but at the moment when there should have been the sharp clash and clang of steel on steel, the cries and the rones of men fighting for their lives, we heard the bugles from far and near, sounding the stand by, and friend and enemy dropped warily to the ground for a rest while our officers assembled in conference around the motor of the divisional general. All this was playing at war, and Tommy was fed up with play. As we marched back to Barrick's after long day of monotonous field maneuvers, he eased his mind by making sarcastic comments upon this inconclusive kind of warfare. He began to doubt the good faith of the War Office in calling ours a service battalion. As likely as not, we were for home defense 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? Oh, lummy, let's ever been blummy! Became the favorite homeward bound marching song. And so he groused and grumbled after the manner of Tommy's the world over, and in the meantime he was daily approaching more nearly the standard of efficiency set by England's inexorable warlord. It was interesting to note the physical improvement in the men wrought by a life of healthy, well-ordered routine. My battalion was recruited largely 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 labors. Many of them had been used to indoor life. Practically all of them to city life and needed months of the hardest kind of training before they could be made physically fit, before they could be seasoned and toughened to withstand the hardships of active service. Plenty of hard work in the open air brought great and welcome changes. The men talked of their food and anticipated it with a zest which came from realizing, for the first time, the joy of being genuinely hungry. They watched their muscles harden with the satisfaction known to every normal man when he is becoming physically efficient. Food, exercise, and rest taken in wholesome quantities and at regular intervals were having the usual excellent results. For my own part I had never before been in such splendid health. I wished that it might at all times be possible for democracies to exercise a beneficial paternalism over the lives of their citizenry, at least in matters of health. It seems a great pity that the principle of personal freedom should be responsible for so many ill-shaped and ill-sorted physical incompetence. My fellow Tommies were living, really living, for the first time. They had never before known what it means to be radiantly, buoyantly healthy. There were as well more profound and subtle changes in thoughts and habits. The restraints of discipline and the very exacting character of military life and training gave them self-control, mental alertness. At the beginning they were individuals no more cohesive than so many grains of wet sand. After nine months of training, they acted as a unit obeying orders with that instinctive promptness of action which is so essential on the field of battle when men think scarcely at all. But it is true that what was their gain as soldiers was, to a certain extent, their losses as individuals. When we went on active service I noted that men who were excellent followers were not infrequently lost when called upon for independent action. They had not been trained to take the initiative and had become so accustomed to having their thinking done for them that they often became confused and excited when they had to do it for themselves. Discipline was an all-important factor in the daily grind. At the beginning of their training the men of the new armies were generally dealt with. Adlauances were made for civilian frailties and shortcomings. But as they adapted themselves to changed conditions restrictions became increasingly severe. Old privileges disappeared one by one. Individual liberty became a thing of the past. The men resented this bitterly for a time. Fierce hatred of officers and NCOs were engendered. And there was much talk of revenge when we should get to the front. I used to look forward with misgiving to that day. It seemed probable that one night in the trenches would suffice for a wholesale slaughtering of officers. Old scores were to be paid off. Old grudges wiped out with our first issue of ball ammunition. Many a fist-banged board at the wet canteen gave proof of Tommy's earnestness. Shoot him? He would say rattling the beer-glasses the whole length of the table with a mighty blow of his fist. Blimey white! That's all you got to do. Just white till we get on the other side. But all these threats were forgotten, months before the time came for carrying them out. Once Tommy understood the reasonableness of severe discipline, he took his punishment for his offenses without complaint. He realized to the futility of kicking against the pricks. In the army he belonged to the government, body and soul. He might resent its treatment of him. He might behave like a sulky schoolboy, disobey order after order and break rule after rule. In that case he found himself checkmated at every turn. Punishment became more and more severe. No one was all and all concerned about his grievances. He might become a habitual offender from sheer stupidity. But in doing so he injured no one but himself. A few of these incorrigibles were discharged in disgrace. A few followed the lead of the Boer warrior. After many threats which we disparate of his ever carrying out, he finally greased off. He was immediately posted as a deserter, but to our great joy was never captured. With the disappearance of the malcontents and incorrigibles, the battalions soon reached a high grade of efficiency. The physical incompetence were, likewise, ruthlessly weeded out. All of us had passed a fairly tough examination at the recruiting offices, but many had physical defects which were discovered only by the test of actual training. In the early days of the war, requirements were much more severe than later. When England learned how great would be the need for men, many who later re-enlisted in other regiments were discharged as physically unfit for further military service. If the standard of conduct in my battalion is any criterion, then I can say truthfully that there is very little crime in Lord Kitchener's armies either in England or abroad. The Jankers or Defaulters squad was always rather large, but the Jankers men were offenders against minor points in discipline. Their crimes were untidy appearance on parade, inattention in the ranks, tardiness at roll call, and others of the sort, all within the jurisdiction of a company officer. The punishment meted out, varied according to the seriousness of the offense, and the past conduct record of the offender. It usually consisted of from one to ten days C.B., confined to barracks. During the period of his sentence, the offender was forbidden to leave camp after the parades for the day were ended. And in order that he might have no opportunity to do so, he was compelled to answer his name at the guard room whenever it should be sounded. Only twice in England did we have a general court-martial. The offense in each case being assault by a private upon an NCO, and the penalty awarded three months in the military prison at Aldershot. Tommy was quiet and law-abiding in England, his cheap lapses being due to an exaggerated estimate of his capacity for beer. In France, his conduct insofar as my observation goes has been splendid throughout. During six months in the trenches I saw but two instances of drunkenness. Although I witnessed nearly everything which took place in my own battalion and heard the general gossip of many others, never. Did I see or hear of a woman treated otherwise than courteously? Neither did I see or hear of any instances of looting or petty pilfering from the civilian inhabitants. It is true that the men had fewer opportunities for misconduct and they were fighting in a friendly country. Even so, active service as we found it, was by no means free from temptations. The admirable restraint of most of the men in the face of them was a fine thing to see. Frequent changes were made in methods of training in England to correspond with changing conditions of modern warfare as exemplified in the trenches. Textbooks on military tactics and strategy, which were the inspired gospel of the last generation of soldiers, became obsolete overnight. Experience gained in Indian mutiny wars or on the belt in South Africa was of little value in the trenches or in Flanders. The emphasis shifted from open fighting to trench warfare, and the textbook which our officer studied was a typewritten serial issued semi-weekly by the War Office and which was based on the dearly bought experience of officers at the front. We spent many a starry night on the hills above Folkstone, digging trenches and building dugouts according to general staff instructions, and many a rainy one we came home, covered with mud, but happy in the thought that we were approximating as nearly as could be the experience of the boys at the front. Bomb-throwing squads were formed and the best shots in the battalion, the men who had made marksman's scores on the rifle ranges, were given daily instruction in the important business of sniping. More generous provision for the training of machine gun teams was made, but so great was the lack in England of Thuy's important weapons that for many weeks we drilled with wooden substitutes gaining such knowledge of machine gunnery as we could from the study of our MG manuals. These new duties, coming as in addition to our other work, meant an increased period of training. We were impatient to be at the front, but we realized, by this time that Lord Kitchener was serious in his demand, that the men of the new armies be efficiently trained. Therefore, we worked with a will, and at last, after nine months of monotonous toil, the order came. We worked to proceed on active service. CHAPTER IV CHAPTER IV ORDERED RAT One Sunday morning in May we assembled on the Berk Square adulter shot for the last time. Every man was in full marching order. His rifle was the shortly-infold Mark IV, his bayonet, the long singled-edge blade in general used throughout the British Army. In addition to his arms he carried 120 rounds of 303-caliber ammunition, an entrenching 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 the weight of it was equally distributed. His pack contained the following articles—a great coat, a woolen shirt, two or three pairs of socks, a change of underclothing, a housewife, the soldier's sewing kit, a towel, a cake of soap, and a hold-all, in which were a knife, fork, spoon, razor, shaving brush, toothbrush, and comb. All of these were useful, and sometimes essential, articles, particularly the toothbrush, which Tommy regarded as the best little instrument for cleaning the mechanism of a rifle ever invented. Strapped on top of the pack was the blanket roll wrapped in a waterproof ground sheet and hanging beneath it, the canteen in its khaki cloth cover. Each man wore an identification disk on a cord about his neck. It was stamped with his name, regimental number, regiment, and religion, a first aid field-dressing consisting of an antiseptic gauze pad and bandage, and a small vial of iodine, sewn in the lighting of his tunic, completed the equipment. Physically, the men were in the pink, as Tommy says. They were clear-eyed, vigorous, alert, and as hard as nails. With their caps on, they looked the well-trained soldiers, which they were. But with caps removed, they resembled so many uniform convicts, lest the prison power. Oversee haircuts were the last tonsorial cry, and for several days previous to our departure the army hairdressers had been busily wielding the close cutting clippers. Each of us had received a copy of Lord Kitchener's letter to the troops ordered abroad, a brief soldier-like statement of the standard of conduct which England expected her finding men. You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the king, to help our French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy. You will have to perform a task which will need your courage, your energy, your patience. Remember that the honour 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 operation 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. Honour the King. Kitchiner. Field Marshal. It was an effective appeal, and a constant reminder to the men of the glorious traditions of the British army. In the months that followed, I had opportunity to learn how deep and lasting was the impression made upon them by Lord Kitchiner's first, and I believe his only letter to his soldiers. The machinery for moving troops in England works without the slightest friction. The men, transport, horses, commissarot, medical stores, and supplies of a battalion are entrained in less than half an hour. Everything is timed to the minute. Battalion after battalion, and train after train. We moved out of Aldershot at half-hour intervals. Each train arrived at the port of embarkation on schedule time, and pulled out, on the docks, by the side of a troop transport, great slate-coloured liners, taken out of the merchant service. Not a moment was lost. The last man was aboard, and the last wagon on the crane swinging up over the ship's side as the next train came in. By ship we moved down the harbour in the twilight. The boys crowding the rail on both sides, taking their farewell look at England home. It was 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 floresic as our long period of training had been. We were each one a very small part of a tremendous business-organisation which works without any of the display considered so essential in the old days. We left England without a cheer. There was not so much as the wave of the hand from the wharf, for there was no one on the wharf to wave, with the exception of a few dock-labourers, and they had seen too many soldiers off to the front to be sentimental about it. It was a tense moment for the men, but trust Tommy, to relieve a tense situation. As we steamed away from the landing-ship, we passed a barge loaded at the water's edge with coal. Tommy has a song pat to every occasion. He enjoys, above all things, giving a ludicrous twist to a weepy ballad. When we were with inhaling distance of the coal-barge, he began singing one of this variety. Keep the home fires burning to the spuddy-faced barge hands. Everyone joined in heartily, forgetting all about the solemnity of the leave-taking. Tommy is a prosaic chap. This was never more apparent to me than upon the pleasant evening in May when we said good-bye to England. The lights of home were twinkling their farewells far in the distance. Every moment brought us nearer to the great adventure. We were off to the wars, to take our places in the far-flung battle-line. Here was romance lavishly offering gifts dearest to the hearts of youth, offering them to clerks, barbers, tradesmen, draperers, assistants, men who had never known an adventure more thrilling than a holiday excursion to the Isle of Man, or a week of cycling in Kent. And they accepted them, with all the stolidity native to Englishmen. The eyes of the world were upon them. They had become the knights-errant of every schoolgirl. They were figures of heroic proportions to every one, but themselves. French soldiers are conscious of the romantic possibilities offered them by the so-called Divine Accident War. They go forth to fight for glorious France, France, the unconquerable. Tommy's shoulders his rifle and departs for the four corners of the world on a bloomin' fine little holiday. A railway journey and a sieve voyage in one. Blimey, not off bad, what? Perhaps he is stirred at the thought of fighting for England home and beauty. Perhaps he does thrill inwardly, remembering a sweetheart left behind. But he keeps a jolly well to himself. He has read me many of his letters home. Some of them written during an engagement which will figure prominently in the history of the Great World War. Well, I can't think of anything more now. Threads its way through a meager page of common places about the weather, his food, and his personal health. A frugal line of cross-marks for kisses at the bottom of the page is his only concession to sentiment. There was, however, one burst of enthusiasm as we started on our journey which struck me as being spontaneous and splendid and thoroughly English. Outside the harbour we were met by our guardians, a fleet of destroyers, which was to give us safe convoy across the Channel. The moment we saw them the men broke forth into prolonged cheering, and they were glad shouts of, There they are, my lads. There's some old little watch-dog what's keeping them bottled up. Good old Navy. That's where we got them by the throat. Let's give them Sons of the Sea. And they did. They sang with the spirit of exaltation which Englishmen rarely betray, and which convinced me how nearly the sea and England's position 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. Tommy believed that with his whole soul, and on this occasion he sang with all the warmth of religious conviction. Our Channel voyage was uneventful. Each transport was guarded by two destroyers, one on either side. The three vessels keeping abreast and about fifty yards apart during the entire journey. The submarine menace was then at its height, and we were prepared for an emergency. The boats were swung for immediate launching, and all of the men were provided with life preservers. But England had been transporting troops and supplies to the firing line for so many months without accident that none of us were at all concerned about the possibility of danger. Furthermore the men were too busy studying Tommy Atkins' French manual to think about sub-brains. They were putting the final polish on their accent in preparation for tomorrow's landing. Of how's this? Madam Mazzelli, ev'y debing? What do you say for giving me a two-penny packet of nosquet? Bonjour, Moussour. That ain't so dusty, pretty what? Let's try that marté's again. You started, Harry. Let Nobby. He knows the sound better than what I do. Nobby, we got to learn that so we can sing it on the march. Wait till I find it in my book. All right now. Allons infundi la paterie. La jure d'glorie est arrivée. Such bits of conversation may be of little interest, but they have the merit of being genuine. All of them were jotted down in my notebook at the times when I heard them. The following day we crowded into the typical French Army troop train, eight chavaux, forty homies to a car, and started on a leisurely journey to the firing line. We traveled all day at eight or ten miles an hour through Normandy. We passed through pleasant towns and villages lying 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 the fields old men and women and girls leaned silently on their hoes, or the rakes and watched us pass. Occasionally, an old reservist guarding the railway line would lift his cap and shout, Viva Angataire! But more often he would lean on his rifle and smile, nodding his head courteously, but silently to our salutations. Tommy, for all his dulled, dogged cheeriness, sensed the tragedy of France. It was a land, swept bare, of all its fine young manhood. There was no pleasant stir and bustle of civilian life. Those who were left went about their work silently and joylessly. When we asked of the men, we received always the same quiet, courteous reply. Allegère, monsieur. The boys soon learned the meaning of the phrase Allegère. It became a war cry, a slogan. It was shouted back and forth from car to car and from train to train. You can imagine how eager we all were, how we strained our ears whenever the train stopped for the sound of the guns. But not until the following morning when we reached the little village at the end of our railway journey did we hear them, a low muttering, like the sound of thunder beyond the horizon, how we cheered at the first faint sound which was to become so deafening, so terrible to us later. It was music to us then, for we were like others who had gone that way. We knew nothing of war. We thought it must be something adventurous and fine. Something to make the blood leap and the heart sing. We marched through the village and down the popular lines road, surprised, almost disappointed, to see the neat, well- kept houses and the pleasant level fields green with spring crops. We had expected that everything would be at all in ruins. At this stage of the journey, however, we were still some twenty-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 military system, the Army Service Corps. From the village at which we detrained everything was English, long lines of motor transport lorries were parked along the sides of the roads. There were great ammunition bases, commissarot, supply depots, motor repair shops, wheelwrights and blacksmiths shops, where once on none but khaki clad soldiers engaged in all the non- combat business essential to the maintenance of large armies. There were long lines of transport wagons loaded with supplies travelling field kitchens, with chimneys smoking and kettles steaming as they bumped over the cobbled roads, water carts, red cross carts, motor ambulances, batteries of artillery, London omni buses, painted slate gray, filled with troops, seemingly endless columns of infantry on foot, all moving with us along parallel roads toward the firing line. And most of these troops and supply columns belonged to my own division, one small cog in the British fighting machine. We advanced towards the war zone in easy stages, it was intensely hot, and the rough cobbled roads greatly increased the difficulty of marching. In England we had frequently tramped from fifteen to twenty-five miles in a day without fatigue. But the roads there were excellent, and the climate moist and cool. Upon our first day's march in France, a journey of only nine miles, scores of men were overcome by heat and several died. The suffering of the men was so great, in fact, that a halt was made earlier than had been planned, and we bivouacked for the night in the fields. Life with a battalion on the march proceeds with the same or early routine as when in the barracks. Every man has his own particular employment. Within a few moments the level past your land was converted into a busy community of a thousand inhabitants. We made serviceable little dwellings by lacing together two or three waterproof ground sheets and erecting them on sticks or tying them to the wires of the fences. Latrines and refuse pits were dug under the supervision of the battalion medical officer. The sick were cared for and justice dispensed with the same thoroughness as in England. The day's offenders against discipline were punished with what seemed, to us, unusual severity. But we were now on active service, and offenses 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 in the open fields or in the lofts of great rambling farm buildings. Most of these places had been used for soldiers' billets' scores of times before. The walls were covered with the names of the men in regiments, and there were many penciled suggestions as to the best place to go for a basin of café or lay, as Tommy called it. Every roadside cottage was, in fact, Tommy's tavern. The thrifty French peasant women kept open house for soldiers. They served us with delicious coffee and thick slices of French bread for the very reasonable sum of two pence. They were always friendly and hospitable, and the men, in turn, treated them with courteous and kindly respect. Tommy was a great favourite with the French children. They climbed on his lap and rifled his pockets. And they delighted him by talking in his own vernacular, for they were quick to pick up English words and phrases. They sang to Padere, and ruled Britannia, and God save the king, so quaintly and prettily that the men kept them at it for hours at a time. And so, during a week of stifling heat, we moved slowly forward. The sound of the guns grew in intensity from a faint rumbling to a subdued roar. Until one evening, sitting in the open windows of a stable loft, we saw the far-off lightnings of bursting shells, and the French rockets soaring skyward, and we heard bursts of rifle and machine-gun fire. Very faintly, like the sound of chestnuts popping in an oven. CHAPTER V THE PARAPET EDIT SCHOOL We're going in to-night. The word was given out by the orderly sergeants at four in the afternoon at four o' three. Every one in camp had heard the news. Scores of miniature hand-laundries, which were doing a thriving business down by the duck-bond, immediately shut up shop. Damp and doubtfully clean ration bags, towels, and shirts, which were draped along the fences, were hastily gathered together and thrust into the capricious depths of pack sacks. Members of the battalion's sporting contingent broke up their games of two-penny-bragg without any been waiting for just one more hand. An unprecedented thing. The makers of war-pallets, who were shouting choruses to the merry music of the Mouthorgan Band, knocked in the midst of their latest composition and rushed off to get their marching order together. At four ten, every one, with the exception of the officer's servants, was all ready to move off. This too was unprecedented. Never before had we made haste more gladly or less needfully. But never before had there been such an incentive to haste. We were going into the trenches for the first time. The officer's servants, commonly called Batman, were unfortunate rankers who in moments of weakness had sold themselves into slavery for half a crown per week. The battalion's duty was to make tea for his officer, clean his boots, wash his clothes, tuck him into bed at night, and make himself useful, generally. The first test of a good Batman, however, is his carrying capacity. In addition to his own heavy burden, he must carry various articles belonging to his officer, enameled wash basins, rubber boots, bottles of epitolinary water, service editions of the modern English poets, and novelist spirit lamps, packages of food, boxes of cigars, and cigarettes, in fact, all of his personal luggage, which is in excess of the allotted thirty-five pounds which is carried on the battalion transport wagons. In this epic-making day, even the officer's servants were punctual when the order pacts on, fall in, was given, not a man was missing, everyone 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 with ball ammunition. Five long, shiny cartridges were slipped down the charger-guide into the magazine and the cutoff closed. Move off in column of route, acompany leading. We swung into the country road in the gathering twilight and turned sharply to our left at the crossroad where the signboard read, to the firing line, for the use of military only. Coming into the trenches for the first time, when the deadlock along the western front had become seemingly unbreakable, we reaped the benefit of the experience of the gallant, little remnant of the first British expeditionary force. After the retreat from Mons, they had dug themselves in and were holding tenaciously on, awaiting the long heralded arrival of Kitchener's mob. As the units of the new armies arrived in France, they were sent into the trenches for twenty-four hours instruction in trench warfare with a battalion of regulars. This one-day course in trench fighting is preliminary to fitting new troops into their own particular sectors along the front. The facetious sublaterns called it the parapetic school. Months later we ourselves became members of the faculty, but on this first occasion we were marching up as the meekest of undergraduates. It was quite dark when we entered the desolate belt of country known as the Fire Zone. Pipes and cigarettes were put out and talking ceased. We extended to groups of platoons and fours at one hundred paces interval, each platoon keeping in touch with the one in front by means of connecting files. We passed rows of ruined cottages, where only the scent of the roses had neglected little front gardens, reminded one of the home-loving people who had lived there in happier days. Dim lights streamed through chinks and crannies in the walls. Now and then blanket coverings would be lifted from apertures that had been windows or doors. And we would see bright fires blazing in the middle of brick kitchen floors and groups of men sitting about them, luxuriously sipping tea from steaming canteens. They were laughing and talking and singing songs and loud, boisterous voices, which contrasted strangely with our timid noiselessness. I was marching with one of the trench guides who had been sent back to pilot us to our position. I asked him if the tommies in the houses were not in danger of being heard by the enemy. He laughed uproariously at this. Whereupon one of our officers, a little second lieutenant, turned and hissed and mellowed dramatic undertones, silence in the rank there! Where do you think you are? Officers and men, we were new to the game then, and we held rather exaggerated notions as to the amount of care to be observed in moving up to the trenches. I, my son, whispered our trench guide. You might think we was only a couple of hundred yards from Princey's trenches. We're a good doin' an hour of miles back here. I'll write to be careful after you get closer up, but there no use of whispering when you ain't even in rifle range. With lights, of course, it was a different matter altogether. Can't be too careful about giving the enemy artillery an aiming mark. This was the reason all the doors and windows of the ruined cottages were so carefully blanketed. Little fritzy sealant! Lo, he says, blokes and billets and overcomes a half dozen shells knockin' ya all to blazes. As we came within the range of rifle fire, we again changed our formation and marched in single file along the edge of the road. The sharp crack-crack of small arms now sounded with vicious and ominous distinctness. We heard the melancholy song of the ricochets and spent bullets as a world in a wide arc high over our heads, and occasionally the less pleasing those speeding straight from the muzzle of a German rifle. We breathed more freely when we entered the communication trench in the center of the little thicket a mile more back of the first-line trenches. We wound in and out of what appeared to in the darkness to be a hopeless labyrinth of earthworks. Cross streets and alleys led off in every direction. All along the way we had glimpses of dugouts lighted by candles. The doorways carefully concealed with blankets or pieces of old sacking. Groups of Tommy's, uncomfortable nooks and corners, were boiling tea or frying bacon over little stoves made of iron buckets or biscuit tins. I marveled at the skill of our trench guide, who went confidently on in the darkness, with scarcely a pause. At length, after a winding zig-zagging journey, 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 the Gloucesters. They welcomed us so heartily and initiated us into all the mysteries of trench etiquette and trench tradition. We were at best, but amateur Tommy's. In them I recognized the lineal descendants of the line Atkins, men whose grandfathers had fought in the Crimea and whose fathers in Indian mutinies. They were the fighting sons of fighting sires, and they taught us more of life in the trenches, in twenty-four hours, than we had learned during nine months of training in England. An infantryman in my company has a very kindly feeling towards one of them who probably saved his life before we had been in the trenches five minutes. Our first question was, of course, how far is it to the German lines? And, in his eagerness to see, my fellow Tommy jumped up on the firing bench for a look, with his lighted cigarette in his mouth. He was pulled down into the trench just as a rifle cracked in a bullet wound, sinking from the parapet, precisely where he had been standing. Then the Gloucester gave him a friendly little lecture, which none of us afterward forgot. And look here, son. Never get up for a squint at Fritz for the Faggon. He's got every sandbag along this parapet numbered, same as we got it. His snipers is a lane for us, same as ours is a lane for him. Then turning to the rest of us. Now, we ain't asking to have no burial parties, but any of you bloke's wants to be the stiff, stand up where this guy lit at the gas. There weren't any takers, and a moment later another bullet struck a sandbag in the same spot. See? He spotted ya. He'll keep a pompin' away at that place for an hour. Open to get ya lookin' over again. Let's see if we can find him. Give us that biscuit tin, Henry. Then we learned the biscuit tin finder trick for locating snipers. It's only approximate, of course, but it gives a pretty good hint at the direction from which the shots come. It doesn't work in a day time for a sniper is too clever to fire at it, but a biscuit tin set on the parapet 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 tin around the bullet holes. Then, as the Gloucester said, give him a nice little April shower out of your machine gun in that direction. You may fetch him, but if you don't, he won't bother ya no more for an hour or two. 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 sentries are posted and their duties. We saw the intricate mazes of telephone wires 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 when there are no dugouts, how to hunch up on the firing benches with our waterproof sheets over our heads and does with our knees for a pillow. We learned the order of precedence for troops in the communication trenches. Never forget that outgoing troops as the right-of-way, they ain't at no rest, and they're all slathered in mud, likely in dead beat for sleep. Common troops are fresh, and they stand to one side to let the others pass. We saw the listening patrols go out at night, through the underground passage which leads to the far side of the barbed wire entanglements. From there they creep far out between the opposing line of trenches, to keep watch upon the movements of the enemy, and to report the presence of his working-parties or patrols. This is dangerous, nerve-trying work, for the men sent out upon it are exposed not only to the shots of the enemy, but the wild shots of their own comrades as well. I saw one patrol come in just before dawn. One of the men brought with him a piece of barbed wire clipped from the German entanglements two hundred and fifty yards away. Have me ever look at this ear. Three plies to what you can are to get your nippers through, and to saw and saw, and when I utter at it, lummy if they didn't send up a rocket while bleeding near it me in the head. I could tell Captain Stevens, I heard him say, he's wanting a bit of tissue to one of the artillery blokes. He's got a bed on with him, and it's three ply of wire. Now don't forget, Bobby, touch him for a couple of packets of fags. I was tremendously interested. At that time it seemed incredible to me that men crawled over to the German lines in this manner and clipped pieces of German wire for souvenirs. Did you hear anything I asked him? Erda Flute, some frits he was a playin' of, and Ianta of Erdem's singin', doleful as hell. Several men were killed and wounded during the night. One of them was a sentry with whom I had been talking only a few moments before. He was standing on the firing bench, looking out into the darkness, when he fell back into the trench without a cry. It was a terrible wound. I would not have believed that a bullet could so horribly disfigure one. He was given first aid by the light of a candle, but it was useless. Silently his comrades removed his identification disc and wrapped him in a blanket. Oral Walt, they said. An hour later he was buried in a shell hole at the back of the trench. One thing we learned during our first night in the trenches was of the very first importance, and that was respect for our enemies. We came from England full of absurd newspaper tales about the German soldier's inferiority as a fighting man. We had read that he was a wretched marksman. He would not stand up to the bayonet whenever opportunity offered he crept over and gave himself up. He was poorly fed and clothed and was so weary of the war that his officers had to drive him to fight at the muzzles of the revolvers. We thought him almost beneath contempt. We were convinced, in a night that we had greatly underestimated his abilities as a marksman, as for his all-around inferiority as a fighting man, one of the Gloucesters put it rather well. Air, if the Germans is so bloom and rotten, how is it that we ain't a fighting somewhere along the Rhine, or in Austria hungry? No, they ain't a fire and a wild. I give you my word, not around this part of France they ain't. What do you say, Jerry? Jerry made a most illuminating contribution to the discussion of Fritz as a fighting man. I'll tell you what, if ever I get through this here war, if I as the luck to go home again, with me eyesight, I'll never feel safe when I seize a fritzy, unless I'm a look and add him through my periscope, from behind a bit of cover. How am I to give a really vivid picture of trench life as I saw it for the first time? How make it lie for others? When I remember that the many descriptive accounts I had read of it in England did not in the least visualize it for me. I watched the rockets rising from the German lines, watched them burst into points of light over the devastated strip of country called No Man's Land, and drift slowly down. And I watched the charitable shadows rush back, like the very wind of darkness. The desolate landscape emerged from the gloom and receded again, like a series of pictures thrown upon a screen. All of this was so new, so terrible, I doubted its reality. Indeed, I doubted my own identity, as one does at times when brought face to face with some experiences which cannot be compared with past experiences or even measured by them. I groped darkly for some new truth, which was flickering just beyond the border of consciousness. But I was so blinded by the glamour of the adventure that it did not come to me then. Later I understood. It was my first glimmering realization of the tremendous sadness. The awful futility of war. Private Holloway, Professor of Hygiene The following morning we wandered through the trenches, listening to learned discord of the genial professors of the parapet edict school, storing up much useful information for future reference. I made a serious blunder when I asked one of them a question about Ypres. For I pronounced the name French fashion which put me under suspicion as a swanker. Don't try to come at sun, he says. Say, wipers. That's what we call it. Henceforth it was wipers for me, although I learned that ips, that yips, were sanctioned by some trench authorities. I made no further mistakes of this nature, and by keeping silent about the names of the towns and villages along our front, I soon learned the accepted pronunciation of all of them. Emiteurs is called armour-teeners, Balliol, Balliol, Hayes Brock, Hazy Brook, and what more natural than Plugg Street at Kenees for Pluggistra. 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 many favours, Private Shorty Holloway, upon learning that I was a yank offered to tell me every bloomin' thing about the trenches that a bloke needs to know. I was only too glad to place myself under his instruction. Right you are, said Shorty. Now sit down here while I'm going over me shirt, and ask me anything you're mine to. I began immediately by asking him what he meant by going over his shirt. Lie me, you are new to the game, mate. You mean say you ain't got any graybacks? I confessed, shamefully, that I had not. He stripped of the waist, turned his shirt wrong side out, and laid it upon his knee. Have a look, he said proudly. The less said about my discoveries, the better for the fastidiously minded. Suffice it to say that I made my first acquaintance with members of a British expeditionary force which is not mentioned in official communiqués. Trench pets, said Shorty. Then he told me that they were not all graybacks. There is a great variety of species, but they all belong to the same parasitical family, and wage a nondiscriminating warfare upon the soldierly. On both sides of no man's land, Germans, British, French, Belgians alike, were all the victims. You'll soon have plenty, he said reassuringly. I give you about a week to go get covered with him. Now what you want to do is this. Always have an extra shirt in your pack. Don't be a bloomin' ass and sell it for a package of fags like I did. And the next time you ratch to England, you get someone to send you out some keatings. He displayed a box of gray-colored powder. It won't kill them, mind you. They ain't nothing but fire that'll kill them. But keatings takes all the ginger out of them. They ain't near so lively after you scrape them with this air-powder. I remembered Shorty's advice later when I became a reluctant host to a prolific colony of graybacks. For nearly six months I was never without a box of keatings. And I was never without the need for it. Barbed wire had a new and terrible significance for me from the first day which we spent in the trenches. I could more readily understand why there had been so long a deadlock on the western front. The entanglements in front of the first line of trenches were from fifteen to twenty yards wide. The wires being twisted from post to post in such a hopeless jumble that no man could possibly get through them under fire. The posts were set firmly in the ground, but there were movable segments every fifty or sixty yards which could be put to one side in case an attack was to be launched against the German lines. At certain positions there were what appeared to be openings through the wire, but these were nothing less than mantraps which have been found serviceable in case of an enemy attack. In an assault men follow the line of least resistance when they reach the barbed wire. These apparent openings are V-shaped, with the open end toward the enemy. The attacking troops think they see a clear passage way. They rush into the trap, and then it is filled with struggling men. Machine guns are turned upon them, and, as Shorty said, he got them cold. That at least was the presumption. Practically, mantraps were not always a success. The intensive bombardments which precede infantry attacks play havoc with entanglements, but there is always a chance of the destruction being incomplete, as upon one occasion further north, where Shorty told me a mantrap caught a whole platoon of Germans dead to rights. But this is what gives you the pip, he said. Here we got three lines of trenches, all of them wired up so Ratkin could get through without scratching his self to death. Frenchies got better wire than what we have. And more of it. And he's got more machine guns, more artillery, more shells. There ain't any old man-killer ever invented what they haven't got more of than we have. And, at all, they're saying, why don't they get on with it? Why don't they smash through? Let some of them come over here and have a try. That's all I gotta say. I didn't tell Shorty that I had been, not exactly an armchair critic, but at least a barrick room critic in England. I had wondered why British and French troops had failed to smash through. A few weeks in the trenches gave me a new viewpoint. I could only wonder at the magnificent fighting qualities of soldiers, who had held their own so effectively against armies equipped and armed and munitioned, as the Germans were. After he had finished drugging his trench vets, Shorty and I made a tour of the trenches. I was much surprised at seeing how clean and comfortable they can be kept in pleasant summer weather. Men were busily at work sweeping up the walks, collecting the rubbish, which was put into sandbags, hung on pegs, and intervals along the fire trench. At night the refuge was taken back out of the trenches and buried. Most of this work devolved upon the pioneers whose business it was to keep the trenches sanitary. The fire trench was built in much the same way as those which we had made during our training in England. In pattern it was something like a tasseled border. For the space of five yards it ran straight. Then it turned 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, which is called a bay, offered firing room for five men. The traverses, of course, were for the purpose of preventing infallate fire. They also limited the execution which might be done by one shell. Even so, they were not an unmixed blessing, for they were always in the way when you wanted to get anywhere in a hurry. And you are in a hurry when you see so many. Many were for coming your way. But you get trench legs after a while. It'll be a funny sight to see blokes walking along the street in London when the war is over. They'll be so used to dodging in and out of traverses they won't be able to go in a straight line. As we walked through the firing line trenches, I could quite understand the possibility of one's acquiring trench legs. Five paces forward, two to the right, two to the left, two to the left again, then five to the right, and so on, to Switzerland. Surely was of the opinion that one could enter the trenches on the Channel Coast and walk through to the Alps without once coming out on top of the ground. I am not in a position either to affirm or to question this statement. My own experience was confirmed to the part of the British Front which lies between Messines and Belgium and Luz 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 intertrench business passed through the travelling trench about fifteen yards in rear of the fire trench and running parallel to it. The two were connected by many passageways. The chief difference between them being that the fire trench was the business district while the travelling trench was primarily residential. Along the ladder were built most of the dugouts, lavatories, and trench kitchens. The sleeping quarters for the men were not very elaborate. Recesses were made in the wall of the trench about two feet above the floor. They were not more than three feet high so that one had to crawl in head first when going to bed. They were partitioned in the middle and were supposed to offer accommodation for four men, two on each side. But, as Shorty said, everything depended on the ration allowance. Two men who had eaten, two—replation, could not hope to occupy the same apartment. One had a choice of going to bed hungry or of eating hardly and sleeping outside on the firing bench. There's a funny thing, he said. What do you suppose they make the dugouts open at one end? I had no explanation to offer. Craw on side and I'll show you. I stood my rifle against the side of the trench and crept in. Now you're supposed to be asleep, said Shorty, and with that he gave me a whack on the soles of my boots with his entrenching tool-handle. I can still feel a pain of the blow. Stand too, wake up here, stand too, he shouted, and gave me another resounding wallop. I backed out in all haste. Good idea? That's how to wake you up at stand too, and when your turn comes for sentry. Not bad, what? I said that it all depended on whether one was doing the waking or the sleeping, and that, for my part, when sleeping, I would lie with my head out. You wouldn't if you belonged to our lot. They'd give it to you on the napper just as quick as on the feet. You ain't on to the game. That's all. Let me show you something. He crept inside and drew his knees up to his chest so that his feet were well out of reach. At his suggestion I tried to use the active service alarm clock on him. But there was not room enough in which to weld it. My feet were tingling from the effect of his blows, and I felt like the reputation for the resourcefulness of Kitchener's mob was at stake. In a moment of inspiration I seized my rifle, gave him a dig on the shins with a butt, and shot at stand too shorty. He came out rubbing his leg roofily. You got the idea, mate, he said. That's just what he does when he tries to duggle, cross him up, pull on your feet in. I'm sure where I likes it best, but on the shins or the feet. This explanation of the reason for building three-sided dugouts, while not, of course, the true one, was none the less interesting. And certainly the task of arousing sleeping men for sentry duty was greatly facilitated with rows of protruding boot soles. Simply askin' to be it, as Shorty put it. All of the dugouts for privates and NCOs were of equal size and built on the same model, the reason being that the walls and floors which were made of wood and the roofs, which were corrugated iron, were put together in sections at the headquarters of the Royal Engineers, who superintended all the work of trench construction. The material was brought up at night ready to be fitted into excavations. Furthermore, with thousands of men to house within a very limited area, space was the most important consideration. There was no room for indulging individual tastes in dugout architecture. The roofs were covered with from three to four feet of earth, which made them proof against shrapnel or shell splinters. In case of a heavy bombardment with high explosive, the men took shelter in deep and narrow slip trenches. These were blind alleyways leading off from the traveling trench, with room for from ten to fifteen men in each. At this point of the line, there were none of the very deep shell-proof shelters, from fifteen to twenty feet below the surface of the ground, of which I had read. Most of the men seemed to be glad of this. They preferred taking their chances in that open trench during heavy shell fire. Realists and Romanticists lived side by side in the traveling trench. My little grey home in the west was the modest legend over one apartment. The Ritz Carlton was next door. The rats retreat with Vermenvilla next door. But one, the suicide club, was the suburban residence of some members of the bombing squad. I remarked that the bombers seemed to take a rather pessimistic view of their profession, whereupon Schorke told me that if there were any men slated for the order of the wooden cross, the bombers, were those unfortunate ones. In assault, they were first at the enemy's position. They had dangerous work to do, even on the quietest of days. But Thurs was a post of honour, and no one of them, but was proud of his membership in the suicide club. The officer's quarters were on a much more generous and elaborate scale than those of the men. This I gathered from Schorke's description of them, for I saw only the exteriors as we passed along the trench. Those for platoon and company commanders were built along the traveling trench. The colonel, major, and adjutant, lived in a luxurious palace, about fifty yards down a communication trench. Near it was the officer's mess, a cafe de luxe, with glass panels in the door, a cooking stove, a long wooden table, chairs, everything. In fact, but hot and cold running water. You know, said Schorke, the officers think they asked to rough it, but they got it soft. I'm telling you, wooden bunks to sleep in? Batman to bring them hot, hot water for shaving in the morning? All the facts they want? Blimey! I wondered what they called Lim and I. I agreed that in so far as living quarters are concerned, they were roughing it under very pleasant circumstances. However, they were not always so fortunate, as later experience proved. Here there had been little serious fighting for months, and the trenches were at their best, elsewhere the officer's dugouts were often but little better than those of the men. The first-line trenches were connected with two lines of support or reserve trenches, built in precisely the same fashion, and each heavily wired. The communication trenches which joined them were from seven to eight feet deep and wide enough to permit the convenient passage of incoming and outgoing troops, and the transport of wounded back to the field dressing stations. From the last reserve line they wound on backward through the fields until troops might leave them well out of range of rifle fire. Under shortage's guidance I saw the field dressing stations, the dugouts for the reserve ammunition supply and the stores of bombs and hand grenades, battalion and brigade trench headquarters. We wandered from one part of the line to another through trenches, all of which were kept amazingly neat and clean. The walls were stayed with fine mesh wire to hold the earth in place. The floors were covered with boardwalks carefully laid over the drains, which ran along the center of the trench and emptied into deep wells, built in recesses in the walls. I felt very much encouraged when I saw the careful provisions for sanitation and range. On a fine June morning it seemed probable that living in ditches was not to be so unpleasant as I had imagined it. Shorty listened to my comments with a smile. Don't pat yourself on the back yet, a wildmate," he said. They look right enough now, but white until you've seen them on the ardor and the heavy rain. I had this opportunity many times during the summer and autumn. A more wretched existence than that of soldiering in wet weather can hardly be imagined. The walls of the trenches caved in, in great masses. The drains filled overflowing and the trench walks were covered, deep in mud. After a few hours of rain dry and comfortable trenches became a quagmire, and we were kept busy for days afterward repairing the damage. As a machine gunner I was particularly interested in the construction of the machine gunning placements. The covered battle positions were very solidly built. The roofs were supported with immense logs or steel girders, covered over with many layers of sandbags. There were two carefully concealed loopholes looking out to a flank, but none for frontal fire, as this dangerous little weapon best enjoys catching troops and infolade owing to the rapidity and the narrow cone of its fire. Its own front is protected by the guns on the right and left. At each emplacement there was a range chart giving the ranges to all parts of the enemy's trenches and to every prominent object both in front and behind them. Within this field of fire, when not in use, the gun was kept mounted and ready for action in the battle position. But remember this, said Shorty. It never fires from your battle position except in case of attack. When you go out at night and have a little go at fritzy, you'll always take your gun somewhere else. If you don't, you'll have many and Betsy Bertha and all the rest of the cropped children coming over to see where 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 the locality from which they are fired becomes very unhealthy for some little time thereafter. We stopped for a time at the Mudwerks Hairdressing Partner, a very important institution of one might judge by its patronage. It was housed in a recess in the wall of the traveling trench and was open to the sky. There I saw the latest fashion in overseas haircuts. The victim sat on a ration box while the barber mowed great swath through tangled thatch with a pair of close cutting clippers. But instead of making a complete job of it, a thick fringe of hair which resembled a misplaced galping tuft was left for decorative purposes just above the forehead. The effect was so grotesque that I had to invent an excuse for laughing. It was a lame one, I fear, for shorty looked at me warningly. When we had gone on a little way, he said, Ain't it a proper beauty parlor? But you got to be careful about larvin. Some of the blokes think that edge row is a regular ornament. I had supposed that a daily shave was out of the question on the firing line. But the British tommy is nothing, if not resourceful. Although water is scarce and fuel even more so, the self-respecting soldier easily surmounts difficulties and the glusters were all nice and matters pertaining to the toilet. Instead of draining their canteens of tea, they saved a few drops for shaving purposes. It's a bit sticky, said shorty, but it's Aunt Ann. Not off bad when you get used to it. Now another thing you don't want to forget is this. When you're moving up for your week in the first line, always bring a bundle of firewood with you. There ain't so much as a matchstick left in the trenches. Then you want to be saving of it. Don't go and use it all the first day or you'll have to do without your tea the rest of the week. I remember his emphasis on the point afterward when I saw men risking their lives in order to procure firewood. Without his tea, tommy was a wretched being. I do not remember a day, no matter how serious the fighting, when he did not find both the time and the means for making it. Shorty was a PhD in every subject in the curriculum, including domestic science. In preparing breakfast, he gave me a practical demonstration of the art of conserving a limited source of fuel, bringing our two canteens to a boil with a very meager handful of sticks, and while doing so he delivered an oral thesis on the best methods of food preparation. For example, there was an item of corned beef, familiarly called bully. It was a piece de résistance at every meal, with the possible exception 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 or months. To use the German expression, one doesn't eat it gern. But it is not a question of liking it. One must eat it or more hungry. Therefore, said Shorty, save carefully all of your bacon grease, and, instead of eating your bully cold, out in the tin, mix it with breadcrumbs and grated cheese and fry it in the grease. He prepared some in this way and I thought it a most delectable dish. Another way of stimulating the palate was to boil the beef in a solution of bacon grease and water, and then while eating it, kid yourself it's Irish stew. This second method of taking away the curse did not appeal to me very strongly, and Shorty admitted that he practiced such self-deception with very indifferent successes. For, after all, bully was bully in whatever form you ate it. In addition to this table, the daily rations consisted of bacon, bread, cheese, jam, army biscuits, tea, and sugar. Sometimes they received a tinned meat and vegetables ration, already cooked, and at welcome intervals fresh meat and potatoes were substituted for corn to beef. Each man got a very generous allowance of food. A great deal more, I thought, than he could possibly eat. Shorty explained this by saying that allowance was made for the amount which would be consumed by the rats and the blue-bottle flies. There were, in fact, millions of flies. They settled in great swarms along the walls of their trenches, which were filled to the brim with warm light as soon as the sun had climbed a little way up the sky. Empty tin-lined ammunition boxes were used as cupboards for food. But of what avail were cupboards to a jam-loving and jam-fed British army living in open dishes in the summer time, fly-traps made of empty jam tins were set along the top of the parapet. As soon as one was filled another was set in its place. But it was an unequal war against an expeditionary force of countless numbers. They ain't nothing you can do, said Shorty. They steal a jam right off your bread. As for the rats, speaking in the light of later experience, I can say that an army core of pike-pipers would not have sufficed to entice away the hordes of them that infested the trenches, living like house-pets on our urations. They were great, lazy animals, almost as large as cats, and so gorged with food that they could hardly move. They ran over us in the dugouts at night and flinched cheese and crackers right through the heavy waterproof covering of our havers-tacks. They squealed and fought among themselves at all hours. I think it possible that they were carrion-eaters but never to my knowledge did they attack living men. While they were unpleasant bedfills, we became so accustomed to them that we were not greatly concerned about our very intimate associations. Our course of instruction at the parapetic school was brought to a close late in the evening when we shouldered our packs, bade goodbye to our friends the Gloucesters, and marched back in the moonlight to our billets. I had gained an entirely new conception of trench life, of the difficulties involved in trench-building and the immense amount of material and labor needed for the work. Americans who are interested in learning of these things at first hand will do well to make the grand tour of the trenches when the war is finished. Perhaps the thirty continentals will seek to commercialize such advantage, as misfortune has brought them, in providing favorable opportunities. Perhaps the touring club of France will lay out a new route, following the windings of the firing line from the Channel Coast across the level fields of Flanders, over the Visage Mountains, to the borders of Switzerland. Pedestrians may wish to make the journey on foot, cooking their supper over Tommy's rusty, biscuit-tinned stoves, sleeping at night in the dugouts, where he lay shivering with cold during the winter nights of 1914 and 1915. If there are enthusiasts who will be satisfied with only the most intimate personal view of the trenches, if there are those who would try to understand the hardships and discomforts of trench life by living it during a summer vacation, I would suggest that they remember private, shorty Hallowe's parting injunction to me. Now don't forget, Jamie, he said as we shook hands, always have a box of Keatings, Andy, and hang on to your extra shirt.