It did not happen very often that battalion headquarters were in the front line trench; yet it so happened when we were at Monchy. Indeed, the first night, on going up to the trenches, I actually walked through No Man’s Land in order to reach headquarters’ dugout. It was a part of the line that we had retaken from the Germans, and for this reason the opening of the shaft leading down to the dugout faced the German front instead of our own back area.
The second night I spent in the line at Monchy I was awakened suddenly by a terrific bombardment by the Germans. The dugout was shaking from the concussion of the shells bursting on the ground above us. I had been sleeping fully dressed and with my trench coat on; for although it was July it was very cold underground. My bed was a berth of meshed wire stretched between rough scantling—nothing else, not even a blanket; my pillow was my haversack. When I awoke I was trembling violently, I was not sure whether through cold or fear. Yet after I stood up and walked up and down a little while talking to the officers, I ceased to tremble.
The Germans were putting on a box barrage, that is, they were bombarding us in such a way that the shells were dropping behind us, and to our left and right, so that we could not retreat and no troops could come to our aid. The only way open to approach us was from the German trenches opposite, by way of No Man’s Land. This was the way the Germans would be coming presently, either to order us up or to throw bombs or tubes of amenol down to blow us into minutest fragments. We talked quietly as we waited there at bay; but we were all a little nervous. I shall never forget those minutes we spent there, caught like rats in a trap.
We waited and waited; the very atmosphere of the dugout seemed heavy and sickening. Then suddenly the bombarding ceased. Surely, Fritz had not changed his mind; yet it was always under cover of his own artillery fire that he made his advances or raids. We became a little cheerful. Finally, after half an hour of quiet we concluded that for some unknown reason Fritz had decided not to come. Then, our hearts filled with relief, we sat about the candle-lit dugout chatting like happy boys on their way home for vacation.
The following morning, with God’s beautiful sunlight over all the land, I stepped out into No Man’s Land with Colonel Peck and we took a little walk. Beautiful red flowers resembling in size and shape the sweet pea, only they were short-stemmed and in clusters, grew near an old pile of stones. It was the first time I had ever seen flowers growing in “No Man’s Land,” and I began to pick a few. The colonel, however, told me to hurry. Indeed, it was no place to loiter, for although No Man’s Land was very wide here, one could see the parapets of the German trenches.
Chapter LXXVI
Cambligneul
Here we came for a week’s rest after our turn in the line. We little knew then what strenuous days were before us, nor what terrible toll was to be taken of our ranks before we would rest again. It was a very pretty countryside, though not so open as the area we had occupied in June.
It was now the end of July, and although my troops were scattered over very wide areas I managed to do good work with the Thirteenth and Fourteenth. Indeed, one evening I found one hundred and twenty-five lads of the Fourteenth waiting for me in a quaint little church at a place called Chelers, or Villers-Chatel. This was indeed extraordinary for an evening during the week, when there was no hint of our soon leaving for the front line. The Fifteenth and Sixteenth had not been having a very good chance of late to go to confession. Whenever the four battalions were separated, I always gave the Thirteenth and Fourteenth the preference for Masses, as there were more Catholics in either one of these than in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth together. These two latter battalions were often obliged to attend the village Mass said by the curé of the parish in which they happened to be.
August came, and the rich promise that was over all the land in June was now being fulfilled: great brown stacks of hay, like dark hillocks, stood over all the green land, and here and there were large golden patches of rye, weighed and bent low with the full kernels, so that now they were not much higher than my waist. In fields and gardens were low bivouacs, about three feet in height, where soldiers slept at night.
Cambligneul was a very small village and had no resident priest but was served from Camblain L’Abbey, which was only about a mile and a half distant. I was billeted in a farmhouse not far from the church. The old lady of the house resembled very much the wife of the captain in the “Katzenjammer Kids.”