They glanced back upon Ypres. He would try for it ... take it? Day after day the black budget of "falling back", "prisoners", "using up our man-power," put the wind up them to such an extent that they began to curse at their own impotency and helplessness; to fret angrily at a forced comparative inactivity.
Why were they kept up there while "nothing was doing"? Why were they not sent south to give a hand to the lads who were daily fighting a stubborn retreat against avalanches of German reserves?
The Passchendaele sector remained unusually quiet; little strafing occurred from either artillery, with the exception of a sunset entertainment organised daily for the benefit of ration parties and reliefs.
Aeroplanes, after prolonged reconnaissances far into Jerry's territory, returned and the observers reported no movement or massing of enemy troops, guns or transport were taking place on a scale beyond the customary. No advance upon Ypres was at the moment anticipated unless he still farther stretched out an already extended, far-flung battle zone.
The working parties put their backs into the work with every intention of making a line upon which some thousands of Huns would be rendered casualties before it capitulated. Jerry, watching them do it, with ironical humour left them alone as if their labour were in vain, and long before the trenches would be required the British Army would be cut in two. Perhaps!
Fritz adopted a nasty habit in the form of lobbing over from fifteen miles away a new type of heavy shell, apparently under experimental observation. One fell among the Guernsey cookers, tearing a chunk cut of Sergt. Le Lacheur (he had been waiting for a Blighty for months), wounding several and mauling a few into fearsome masses of red flesh.
Grouser—he had not been with the Battalion long—found vent for his feelings. "Ain't got any blarsted sense, them Germans aint. War—it ain't war to smash up the bloomin' cookers ... 'ow the 'ell does 'e think we'll do about grub now?"
"Complain. Grouser, ole son, to the C.O." (C.O.: Commanding Officer—the colonel.—Draws the best paying winner in the Battalion Stakes and also the softest job). He was let in for a baiting.
"Send Jerry a bar of chocolate in exchange for a new cooker."
"Ask 'em to confer the O.B.E. on the Jerry wot fired the shell."