Weariness. Mud. Death. So it was with great joy that we would return to billets, to get dry and clean, to eat, sleep, and write letters; to drill, and carry out inspections. Company drill, bayonet-fighting, gas-helmet drill, musketry, and lectures were usually confined to the morning and early afternoon. We thought that we had rather an overdose of lecturing from our medical officer (the M.O.) on sanitation and the care of the feet. “Trench feet,” one lecture always began, “is that state produced by excessive cold or long standing in water or liquid mud.” We soon got to know too much, we felt, about the use of whale-oil and anti-frostbite grease, the changing of socks and the rubbing and stamping of feet. We did get rather “fed up” with it; yet I believe we had only one case of trench feet in our battalion throughout the winter; so perhaps it was worth our discomfort of attending so many lectures! Our C.O.’s lectures on trench warfare were always worth hearing: he was so tremendously keen and such a perfect and whole-hearted soldier.
A chapter might be written on billet-life. Here are a few more extracts from letters:
“Oct. 13th. All day long this little inn has shaken from top to bottom: there is one battery about a hundred yards away that makes the whole house rattle like the inside of a motor-bus. The Germans might any time try and locate the battery, and a shell would reduce the house to ruins. Yet the old woman here declares she will not leave the house as long as she lives!
It is a strange place, this belt of land behind the firing-line. The men are out of the trenches for three days, and it is their duty, after perhaps a running parade before breakfast and two or three hours’ drill and inspection in the morning, to rest for the remainder of the day. In the morning you will see all the evolutions of company drill carried out in a small meadow behind a strip of woodland; in the next field an old man and woman are unconcernedly hoeing a cabbage-patch; then behind here are a battalion’s transport lines, with rows of horses picketed. Along the road an A.S.C. convoy is passing, each lorry at regulation distance from the next. In the afternoon you will see groups of Tommies doing nothing most religiously, smoking cigarettes, writing letters home. From six to eight the estaminets are open, and everyone flocks to them to get bad beer. They are also open an hour at midday, and then the orderly officer, accompanied by the provost-sergeant, produces an electric silence with ‘Any complaints?’ It does not pay an estaminet-keeper to dilute his beer too much, or else he will lose his licence.
I often wonder if these peasants think much. Think they must have done at the beginning, when their men were hastily called up. But now, after fifteen months of war? It is the children, chiefly, who are interested in the aeroplanes, shining like eagles silver-white against the blue sky; or in the boom from the battery across the street. But for their mothers and grandparents these things have settled into their lives; they are all one with the canal and the poplar trees. If a squad starts drilling on their lettuces, they are tremendously alert; but as for these other things, they are not interested, only unutterably tired of them. And after awhile you adopt the same attitude. The noise of the guns is boring and you hardly look up at an aeroplane, unless it is shrapnelled by the ‘Archies’ (anti-aircraft guns); then it is worth watching the pin-prick flashes dotting the sky all round it, leaving little white curls of smoke floating in the blue.”
That billet was close to the firing-line. Here is a letter from a village, eight miles back:
“20th Oct., 1915. We came out here on Monday. The whole division marched out together. It was really an impressive sight, over a mile of troops on the march. Perfect order, perfect arrangement. Where the road bent you could often see the column for a mile in front, a great snake curling along the right side of the road. Occasionally an adjutant would break out of the line to trot back and correct some straggling; or a C.O. would emerge for a gallop over the adjacent ploughland.
Our company is billeted in a big prosperous farm. The men are in a roomy barn and look very comfortable. We are in a big room, on the right as you enter the front door of the farm: on a tiled floor stands a round table with an oilcloth cover, originally of a bright red pattern, but now subdued by constant scrubbings to the palest pink with occasional scarlet dottings. There are big tall windows, a wardrobe and sideboard, a big chimney-place fitted with a coke stove, and on the walls hang three very dirty old prints. The only war touch (beside our scattered possessions) is a picture from a French Illustrated of L’Assaut de Vermelles. Outside is a yard animated by cows, turkeys, geese, chicken, and ducks: also a donkey and a peacock, not to mention the usual dogs and cats. At 5 a.m. I am awakened by an amazing chorus.
The ‘patron’ is a strong, competent man, with many fine buxom daughters, who do the farm work with great capacity and energy. Henriette with a pitchfork is strength and grace in action. Tommy is much in awe of her. She hustles the pigs relentlessly. The sons are at the war. Etienne and Marcelle, aged ten and eight respectively, complete the family; with Madame, of course, who makes inimitable coffee; and various grandparents who appear in white caps and cook and bake all day.