III. EARLY DAYS ON THE AISNE
There was a big difference between the first and second occasions on which I joined my regiment.
The first time was as a Sandhurst cadet and I joined a regiment at full strength of officers and men. I remember we sat down to dinner that night some twenty of us, and being bewildered by all the faces and trying to make out which was the colonel and wondering if I should ever learn the names of all the different subalterns and captains. The mess table was laden with silver and outside a band in scarlet tunics played.
The second time was when I rejoined after a year's absence on the outbreak of war, and went with Mulligan and the draft to join them in the trenches on the Aisne. By then they had fought at Mons, Le Cateau, and the Marne.
The Adjutant, who met me behind the lines to take me to the Commanding Officer, prepared me a little for what to expect.
"Blain is commanding," he said, as we threaded our way single file down a path through a wood. Blain, I knew, had been a very junior captain a month before when war broke out.
The Adjutant proceeded to explain:
"The Colonel and Ames were hit at Mons." (Ames was the senior major.) Johnson and Hewett (another major and a captain) had been hit on the Marne. "Clark and Sergeant Johnson—you remember Johnson?" I nodded, well remembering Clark's inimitable colour-sergeant—the pair had been inseparable and the officer greatly dependent on the man for the keeping of his company accounts, etc., in the days of peace—"were killed the day before yesterday. They are buried together by that farm." The Adjutant softened his voice from the tone of matter-of-fact recital as he pointed to a farm building through the trees.
"Well, here we are," he said as we came to a little straw and earth shelter in the wood. "Here's some fresh blood, sir," he said, to a youthful looking captain sitting on a tree stump outside the shelter. This was Blain, who through the accidents of war was now left in command of the regiment. There were left, besides, one other captain and some half-dozen subalterns. Of these the scout officer and machine-gun officer were with Blain, the others out in command of their companies in the trenches.
"Hullo!" said Blain, holding out his hand. "We are going to put you with Goyle's company."
I grinned as unconcernedly as I could. So Goyle was one of the survivors, then. Goyle was the regimental fire-eater. He had been longing for this war for years and was more pleased than many others I knew when it actually happened. To be Goyle's subaltern on active service, I had always surmised, was to have guarantee of plenty of fighting.
If ever a reluctant youth found himself holding out against overwhelming odds in an impossible position it would be one of Goyle's subalterns.
"Goyle has had bad luck with his subalterns," said Blain. "He has lost four."
"I hope he doesn't lose me," I said with some sincerity.
Blain and the Adjutant laughed. "Well, we'll send you on up to him," said the former. "Let's see—I think he has got the forward trench to-day."
"Yes, he has," said the Adjutant; then, turning to me, "You'll be near enough to them for your first day in the trenches—two hundred yards."
I grinned again as genially as possible.
"Have some breakfast before you go up," said the C.O., handing me a biscuit and a pot of jam and pointing to a pannikin of tea.
It was very damp in the wood. The trees were dripping. The tea was cold. The party, with Blain as C.O., and the Adjutant and two subalterns, were a forlorn little group to be left out of a regiment. All had rather a strained air, and my good spirits and feeling of being fresh out from England were evidently not infectious to men who had been through what they had. They had had a shell near them already that morning and were all frankly apprehensive of another. From that moment any ideas I may have had about the pleasures and excitements of active service left me, and I merely wondered what sort of a trench I was going to and what Fate might have to bring me on my first day of active service.
I had always imagined that trenches were only approached by night, and then by crawling on one's belly along narrow communication passages. But we set off in broad daylight, at eight in the morning, to go up to our trench. The reason we were able to do this was because the trenches on the Aisne were along the edges of woods, and it was possible to move through the trees right up to within two hundred yards of the enemy without being observed.
The advanced trench which Goyle was holding with his company lay in a small wood, rather in advance of the main line of trenches. The path which led to it twisted and twined and branched off into other paths so confusedly that I wondered how the Adjutant could find his way. The actual trench itself consisted in a bank along the edge of the wood in which a chain of dug-outs had been excavated. We found Goyle in a dug-out in the centre, which was distinguished from the others by some straw and a couple of water-proof sheets; there was also a wooden box without a lid, in which the officers' rations were kept. Goyle was sitting in the dug-out with Evans, his remaining subaltern, and having taken me thus far, the Adjutant returned to the C.O.
Evans was an old friend of mine and fellow-subaltern. We talked together for a while and then he showed me cautiously how to creep up to the top of the parapet and look through some long grass at the enemy's trenches 200 yards away, and he told me the story of the fight for the position we now held and where so-and-so, and so-and-so—brother officers whom I'd seen leave England a month before with a cheery wave of the hand for me and a joke about meeting "out there" soon—had been killed the day before.
At nine o'clock we rummaged in our ration-box and made breakfast off jam and biscuits and cheese. It was quite pleasant in the dug-out and there was no sound of war. As we were making our breakfast a shot rang out and there was a piercing yell.
"Hullo! they must have got one of the fellows I put on sentry at the edge of the wood," said Goyle, helping himself to more jam.
"Is that one of our fellows?" he called to the sergeant.
"Yessir—hit in the buttocks, sir"; the sergeant slapped the portly part of himself on which he sat.
We all laughed.
The yell gave way to groans—loud, long, and terrible.
I looked as unconcerned as possible and dipped my own biscuit into the pot. "Tell that fellow to stop making such a noise," said Captain Jones, angrily putting his head round the dug-out.
I felt myself that it was a pity the Germans should know the good result of their shooting and that the fellow ought not to make such a fuss. However, the groaning went on as loudly as ever, and at last Jones got up exasperated to go and see what was the matter.
He came back with a grave face.
"Only hit in his 'sit-upon,' wasn't he?" My fellow-subaltern looked up smiling.
"H'm, it's worse—went through and has lodged somewhere in his intestines," and murmuring "in agony, poor fellow!" Captain Jones looked to see if we had emptied the jam-pot while he was away.
It did not take more than an hour or two to pick up the rudiments of trench life. We passed the morning sitting in the dug-out, reading a few old papers and smoking and talking. By eleven the sun was high enough to peep in over the top of the parapet and warm us, and it all seemed to me a very pleasant, lazy sort of existence. There was no firing except for an occasional "ping" from a sniper Goyle kept posted at the corner of the trench, and an answering shot or two from the German side. Rifle fire seemed a matter of tacit arrangement. When our sniper was joined by a friend, or fired two or three times in a minute instead of once every three or four, the German fire grew brisker and life in the trench less tranquil. Our sniper was thereupon reproved by Goyle and was silent, whereupon the German fire died down.
At midday Goyle suggested we should lunch, and Evans pulled the wooden box towards him. He gave us out each two large square army biscuits and opened a small tin of bully beef, which he turned out on a piece of paper and cut into three portions. The beef and biscuits did not make a bad meal at all, but the best was to follow. Goyle produced from his haversack a tin cup, and from the box a wine-bottle about a third full. He then mixed a tot of rum with the same quantity of water in the cup and drank, passing on the emptied cup to Evans, who took his share; after I had had mine there was just enough left for us each to have half a cup more. How delicious that rum was! I rolled myself a cigarette, lay back in the straw, and basked contentedly. I felt comfortable and warm and drowsy.
Away in the distance one could hear the booming of big guns which went on all day, but this was the only thing to remind one that one was in the middle of the battle of the Aisne. I saw Evans opposite me lean back and close his eyes, and remember thinking Goyle was rather energetic to sit so bolt upright all the time.
It was a sound of firing that woke me. Phizz—Phizz—Phizz! through the leaves above and some sharp cracks from our men. Goyle and Evans were still sitting where they had lunched, listening intently. I sat up, too, wondering what was going on. "Were we being attacked or what was happening?" I asked Goyle, who replied briefly that he did not know.
"Just take No. 8 platoon and line that trench along the end there," he said to Evans. Evans got up and crept out of the dug-out along towards the sound of firing.
"Very exposed here," muttered Goyle to himself. "C.O. said if this point went the whole line would go too."
"Um!" I thought to myself, now quite alive to being in the middle of a battle.
"Are you all right?" a voice called. We looked out and saw the C.O. standing in the wood behind us. He had come running up as soon as he heard the firing. I have always remembered him running up like that to see if all was well. Many commanding officers would have thought it best to remain at their headquarters and let reports come in to them from the different companies.
It gave one great confidence to see him standing there calmly. Then suddenly the firing died down.
"Don't think it was anything," said Goyle, "but it is rather a nasty place this; we could not do much if they tried to rush us. I'll keep that platoon out along the flank there for a bit."
"You're going to be relieved to-night," said the C.O. "The Gloucesters are taking over from us."
At ten o'clock that night the company of the regiment which was relieving us filed slowly into our trenches. As each of the new platoons got into position the old platoon made its way out to the place where it had been directed to halt. There could be no talking or asking of questions as the enemy were two hundred yards away, but the simple and explicit instructions which Goyle had given to the platoon commanders in the afternoon enabled the whole movement to be carried out correctly. The section-commander of the leading section of each platoon had to keep in touch with the section commander of the rear section of the platoon in front of him, and by this plan of following my leader the whole company moved as one man in the darkness along the intricate paths which intersected the wood.
By eleven o'clock we had arrived safely at our destination—a clearing in the wood about half a mile behind the front trenches. There we found a series of little straw houses made by the last regiment, wide enough to hold six men laying down and high enough to allow a man to sit up in them. We selected one of these bivouacs for ourselves and distributed the men among the remainder. I so far had escaped having to spend a night in the trenches, but to the men, who had been where I joined them that morning for three days and nights, the bivouacs were a great comfort. The mere relief of tension, which the extra six hundred yards or so we had put between ourselves and the enemy afforded, was appreciated by all, and being now well screened from view we could move about as we liked. Evans told me that Goyle had hardly slept at all any of the three nights, but spent the whole time going round seeing that the sentries were alert and at their posts. After we had chosen our bivouac and put down our haversacks and water-bottles to mark the place where we proposed to sleep, the question arose of supper. We had very little of our day's rations left—however, I saw a dim light peeping from a bivouac which stood by itself, and guessing it meant a party, went across to investigate. Here I found the other officers of the regiment lying round on straw discussing a cold leg of mutton and some bread which had been sent down from the transport. I claimed and was given a share for Goyle, Evans, and myself, and also a small extra tot of rum. Nothing tastes nicer than cold meat and bread when one is hungry, and with the rum and mutton inside us and a few whiffs of a pipe we were soon fast asleep.
We slept till well after six the next morning, and when we woke the sun was breaking through the mist which always haunts the valley of the Aisne at dawn. By nine a glorious autumn day had fully broken. We had two canteens of steaming tea and cold bacon for breakfast. Goyle then produced some cleaning traps and began a prodigious toilet. He shaved himself, he washed his teeth, he soaped his head and plunged it into a bucket of cold water; finally he took off his trousers and poured the water over himself. Then he had a rub down with a tiny towel, put on his trousers and shirt again, and sat down under a tree, saying he felt better. Evans and I, unshaven, muddy, but feeling quite warm and comfortable, watched all this rather cynically.
"Always wash when you get the chance," said Goyle, who, having been through the South African War, played the role of old campaigner.
It seemed to me that it would be time enough to wash the next day when we were to go back to billets. However, after half an hour Evans sent for a bucket of water, washed himself, and declared he felt much fresher. He then joined Goyle under the tree and combed his hair. I began to feel a dirty fellow, and finally borrowing Goyle's soap and towel, washed too.
We passed the day very happily sitting about and sleeping in the sun. At dusk we got orders to move and go and improve some entrenchments.
As soon as it was dark the regiment paraded and moved off, with orders to dig till midnight and then rest and cross the Aisne an hour before dawn.
The place assigned to my company for digging was a ditch running along a fence facing the hills on the enemy's side of the river. The enemy had their trenches on the slopes of these hills, and it seemed funny to be digging under their noses, as it were, under cover of darkness. Evidently the night was good enough cover, for not a shot was fired to disturb us at our work. I noticed, however, that Goyle ran no risks, but made each man lay his equipment and rifle exactly in front of him so that the different working parties could be transformed into a firing-line at an instant's notice. The men worked away with a will as unconcerned as if they were digging a potato patch. The only thing which worried them a little was a searchlight which the enemy continually flashed across the front of their lines. At first the men could not get used to this light, but threw themselves flat on the ground whenever it appeared in their direction, but as the enemy never fired, apparently the searchlight revealed nothing to them. Evans and I studied this light for a little while and then discovered that a knoll lay between it and us, and hid us from its direct rays so that we were all perfectly safe. As a matter of fact Goyle explained that if a man did come into the direct ray of a searchlight, he would only look like the stump of a tree or a shrub to the observer if he stood still. It was by movement alone that he betrayed himself. However, it requires a certain amount of confidence to stand quite still when caught by a searchlight and not try to move away or hide behind a tree. This confidence the men who were not hidden by the knoll lacked at first; in fact, they had a great dislike for the searchlight and were inclined to be reproachful because we had no searchlights ourselves. Thomas Atkins is a keen critic of the art of war, and such things as well-placed searchlights and the superior number of the enemy's machine-guns do not escape his notice. He likes to feel that he has been given as good a start as the man he is fighting against, and it would have been interesting to have heard the comments of our men in the trenches when the Germans first started to employ gas.
At midnight we knocked off digging and retired to a field to sleep. It is extremely cold in the Aisne valley on autumn nights, and the dew-drenched ground did not look inviting. The men were told to lie down where they were, and as it began to dawn on them that no further arrangements were to be made for their comfort, they grinned rather expressively in a way they have when they wish to be quite pleasant but at the same time feel they have a lot to put up with.
I happened to have noticed the field as we passed it on our way to entrench, and to remember that at the top there were several sheaves of corn. Accordingly, when all was quiet, I sent the men of my platoon up two at a time to fetch some of these sheaves down and also to bring me three for myself. Spreading out one underneath me and the other two over my feet and chest I soon was as warm as if I'd been between blankets. It was a glorious night, and it was grand to be there in the warm straw looking up at the stars. About four I was awoken by a sound of stamping, and looking sideways saw the men who had no straw stamping to keep themselves warm and looking reproachfully at my platoon who were all lying snug and comfortable like a litter of puppies. Soon after this the order came to move and we crossed back over the Aisne as day was breaking. The slow-running, mist-hung river was a peaceful-looking object to give a name to a battlefield, but the putting up of the pontoon bridge by which we crossed had cost many men their lives and brought to one the V.C.