"Temporary Gentleman."
AN UNHEALTHY BIT OF LINE
Rather to the general surprise, we have been moved into a new sector of the line, immediately south of what we called "our own." We have not been told why—the Olympians do not deal in whys and wherefores—but, according to gossip, we can take our choice between the wish to make us all familiar with the general lie of the land round here, to be the better prepared for a push; and the undoubted fact that a new Division is being moved into the line, and that our move southward facilitates this. Perhaps the real reason of the move is a mixture of both these; but, whether or no, the move itself provides striking evidence of the marked differences which exist between different parts of the line, and the extremely narrow and circumscribed nature of the knowledge one gets of the Front while serving in trenches.
Our "B" Company is holding just now the subsection which actually adjoins the right of the sector we used to hold. We are on the right of "B," and "C" is on our right, with "D" back in the support line. Even "B's" bit, though it does adjoin our old beat, differs greatly from that; and our present short line is hemispheres away from the sector we knew before. There's not very much of it—about half the length of the line we last held—but what there is is hot and strong, I can tell you. The way in which "B" Company's bit differs is chiefly that it's in sandy soil, instead of all clay, and so is much drier and cleaner, more habitable in every way than anything we are accustomed to. But our bit, variously known as Petticoat Lane (why, I can't imagine), Cut-Throat Alley (obvious enough), and The Gut—well, our bit is, as "the Peacemaker" said directly he saw it, "very interesting." I think that's about the kindest thing you can say of it; and interesting it certainly is.
To begin with, the greatest distance between any one spot in it and the Boche front line is seventy or eighty yards; and there's a place at which it's only half that. But the salient point in the whole sector is this: the half of our line that is seventy or eighty yards from the Boche line has between it and the Boche line a string of craters, the far lips of which are not more than fifteen to twenty paces from Fritz's sentries. These craters are sometimes occupied by the Boche and sometimes by us; but nobody attempts to hold them by day; they don't give shelter enough for that; and the betting as to who is to hold them on any given night is about even.
You might almost say, "But why should anybody want to hold the beastly things?" And if you ever set foot in one of them, you'd say it with some feeling, for it's like trying to walk, or rather to crawl, in a bottomless pit of porridge. When dusk is coming on of an evening half a dozen of our bombers may start crawling from our parapet, making for the nearest crater. Maybe Fritz is dull and misses them. Maybe he opens such a hot fire they have to shin back quick. Maybe, just as we are getting close to the near edge of a crater, and flattering ourselves we've been a bit too nippy for the Boche this time, we get a rousing welcome from the crater itself, in the shape of three or four well-aimed bombs among us. Then those of us who are still able to think realise that the Boche has been a bit beforehand and got there first. Next night the process is reversed. During last night those confounded craters changed hands three times, remaining at last, I am glad to say, with us. We lost one man killed and two wounded. But we brought back two wounded and one dead Boche, and we reckon to have knocked out at least six others.
It was a nightmare of a night, to tell the truth, but nothing big enough to get into dispatches. One point about the holding of these craters is that it enables you to lob bombs, or almost anything else for that matter, into the Boche front trench. Down here we really are learning something about oil-cans, mortars, and short range heavy stuff generally. It's very much hand-to-hand warfare, and, I suppose because of that, much more savage and more primitive than anything we've seen before. There practically isn't any No Man's Land here. It's just our trench and their trench and the muddy, bloody cock-pit between, all churned into a slushy batter by high explosives, and full of all manner of ghastly remains. Souvenirs! By Heavens! the curio hunters could find all they wanted here within a few yards of where I'm sitting, but not many of 'em would have the spunk to gather 'em in. You see, I haven't any great respect for the souvenir hunter. He seems a ghoulish sort of a creature to me, and I can't believe the cynical old "Peacemaker" when he says the bulk of them, and all the more inveterate sort, are women.
The C.O. tells "the Peacemaker" he is so arranging things that no Company will get more than four days on end in Petticoat Lane, and then the other three days of the turn in trenches, in the support line, where Battalion Headquarters is. "A" Company, of course, takes glory to itself for having been the first to be sent in here, and I think this fully compensates them for the fact that nobody's had any rest worth speaking about since we got in. We shall probably do better in that respect when we have time to get used to the change. In fact, I can see a difference already in the men's attitude. But, mind you, the change is radical, from two hundred yards' interval between yourself and Fritz, down to fifty yards. It affects every moment of your life, and every mortal thing you do. More, it actually affects what you say. You don't make any telephonic arrangements about patrols and that sort of thing here. We are learning German at a great rate. But it was very startling to our fellows the first night, when they found they could hear voices in the enemy line. It seemed to bring Fritz and his ingenious engines very close indeed.