VII. Life in and Behind the Trenches
Viscount French in his last despatch remarks that the exhaustion of men and materials which results after a great battle necessarily leads to a time of comparative inactivity. From August, 1914, till October in the following year the fighting, as we have seen, had been tremendous in France and Flanders, and both the Germans and ourselves had suffered casualties till then unheard of in history. It is not therefore surprising that after the comparatively unsuccessful efforts at Loos and its neighbourhood, warfare on the Western front subsided into dogged defence of the trenches occupied, into a sort of stalemate, as many people believed. It was a wearying and very trying time. The looked-for peace seemed as far off as ever. Each side appeared to be absolutely resolute to hold its own, but no progress towards a settlement could be observed. It is true that there was a good deal of fighting between the enemy and the French south of the British lines, that the Canadians made a raid south-west of Messines on the 18th November, and that another was made by British troops near Neuve Chapelle on the 12th December. It is true also that the artillery on both sides woke now and again to abnormal activity, particularly on the 30th November, and that the Germans fired, it is estimated, three thousand shells on our Ypres positions on the 10th December; but there is no first-class action to report for the remainder of the year 1915, though hundreds of interesting episodes occurred during the latter part of it, which are impossible to record here, and casualties were of daily occurrence.
People in England, both officially and by private arrangement, took care that the horrors of war should be mitigated as far as possible and that every indulgence that could be granted to our fighting men should be theirs. The greatest privilege of all and the most appreciated was a regular system of leave to England: every officer and man took his turn to go home, visit his friends and enjoy the most striking and tremendous change that can come to be the lot of man; change from the awful trenches and daily and hourly peril of life to a smiling, happy welcome in the Old Country; decent, cleanly existence for a few days; the delights of bed, baths, theatres, dinner-parties and other social delights; together perhaps with a little of the old sports and pastimes of a previous existence. Yes, leave to England was a glorious thing to live for and look forward to.
The rationing of the soldier when in France was truly marvellous. Never before had the old soldiers known the like. The food was excellent and more than sufficient and of very considerable variety. Except in cases of real emergency, too, it was punctually delivered. The Army Service Corps brought up the food, tobacco and rum to certain dumps behind the trenches; from these they were carried up by regimental transport to advanced dumps, where the stuff was packed into sandbags, eight complete rations to a bag, and carried by hand to the consumer. Half a gill of rum per man was issued in the presence of an officer two or three times a week and was naturally very much appreciated, and the Quartermaster always had a little reserve of this precious commodity in hand for emergency days.
For troops resting—that is, taking their regular turn behind the lines in billets—all sorts of sports were organized. There were divisional inter-battalion football cups to be competed for. There were long-distance cross-country races arranged and, in fact, all sorts of manly games, as well as dramatic entertainments, “sing-songs,” and even divisional cinemas. During any war the arrival of the English mail is a tremendous event, and on the Western front it was immense. Ships and shiploads of letters and parcels were constantly crossing the narrow seas and bringing loving messages and welcome presents to the fighting men.
Mrs. Hickson, whose husband, Br.-General R. A. Hickson, C.B., commanded the 2nd Battalion in the South African War, had at that time organized a fund to provide soldiers with comforts at the front, and this organization had been a marked success; so that lady, being in 1914 settled in Kent, wrote to the colonels of both the 1st and 2nd Battalions and offered to undertake the very onerous task of doing the same again. Needless to say the proposal was eagerly accepted, and Mrs. Hickson promptly sent round the necessary notices throughout East Kent and elsewhere and commenced the kindly work. The immediate response to the appeal was splendid and help was offered by very many, including Lord Harris, Sir Arthur Paget, the officers of the regiment then in England and the regimental institutes at Dover and Canterbury. Mrs. Hickson, however, had all the real work to do unaided, except by her maid; yet bales of comforts were despatched weekly and work was placed in various organized centres—notably Hawkhurst, Canterbury, Cranbrook, Benenden and Chartham.
Yes, the fighting soldiers were well looked after; but it was soon made clear that the really needy were the unfortunate prisoners of war, and, when this fact was appreciated, a Prisoners of War Fund was promptly added to the one in existence, and this brought comfort and some resignation to many a wretched captive wearing out his heart in longing for the end. This good work was kept up till the Kent Prisoners County Fund was centred at Rochester.
Nor were Mrs. Hickson and her friends the only women to give practical expression to their sympathy: Lady George Hamilton and Mrs. W. D. Johnson soon started a small fund for the prisoners of the 8th Battalion and, indeed, sent many a parcel out themselves. Mrs. Eaton followed suit, taking her husband’s 6th Battalion under her special care; and Viscountess Goschen interested herself in the 5th. The 7th was added to Mrs. Hickson’s task, she being ultimately president of a committee to administer the funds collected by very many friends for the 1st, 2nd and 7th Battalions. Mrs. Geddes worked on this committee, as did the officers of the depot. As a mark of common gratitude it would be decent to publish here the list of contributors, more especially as there appears to be no record of any formal thanks either to subscribers or those who worked so strenuously, but space forbids the publication of the names here. They appeared at intervals in the regimental newspaper.