Meanwhile the company sergeant-major has received the orders from the orderly, and summons unto him the orderly-sergeant, and from his “roster,” or roll, ticks off the men and N.C.O.’s to be warned for the working party. This the orderly-sergeant does by going round to the various barns and personally reading out each man’s name, and on getting the answer, saying, “You’re for working party, 3.15 to-day.” The exact nature of the remarks when he is gone are beyond my province. Only, as an officer taking the party, one knows that at 3.25 p.m. the senior sergeant calls the two lines of waiting “other ranks” to attention, and with a slap on his rifle, announces “Working-party present, Sir,” as you stroll up. Working-parties are dressed in “musketry order” usually—that is to say, with equipment, but no packs; rifles and ammunition, of course, and waterproof sheets rolled and fastened to the webbing belt. The officer then tells the sergeant to “stand them easy,” while he asks one or two questions, and looks once more at “orders” which the senior sergeant has probably brought on parade, and at 3.30, with a “Company-Shern! Slo-o-ope hip! Right-in-fours: form-fórs! Right! By the right, Quick march!” leads off his party, giving “March at ease, march-easy!” almost in one breath as soon as he rounds the corner. Then there is a hitching of rifles to the favourite position, and a buzz of remarks and whistles and song behind, while the sergeant edges up to the officer or the officer edges back to the sergeant, according to their degree of intimacy, and the working-party is on its way.
One working-party I remember very well. We were in billets at ——, and really tired out. It was Nov. 6th, and on looking up my letters I find our movements for the last week had been as follows:
| Oct. 29th. | 9.0 a.m. Moved off from billets. |
| 12.0 midday. Lunch. | |
| 3.0 p.m. Arrived in front trenches. | |
| Oct. 30th. | Front trenches. |
| Oct. 31st. | Front trenches. |
| Nov. 1st. | Relieved at 3.0 p.m. (The Devons were very late relieving us, owing to bad rain and mud.) |
| 5.30 p.m. Reached billets. | |
| Nov. 2nd. | Rain all day. Morning spent by men in trying to clean up. Afternoon, baths. |
| Nov. 3rd. | 9.0 a.m. Started off for trenches again. It had rained incessantly. Mud terrible. |
| 1.0 p.m. Arrived in front trenches. | |
| Nov. 4th. | Front trenches. Rained all day. |
| Nov. 5th. | 2.30 p.m. Relieved late again. Mud colossal. Billets 5.0 p.m. |
| Nov. 6th. | Morning. Cleaning up. Inspection by C.O. |
| Afternoon. Sudden and unexpected Working-Party. 3.0 p.m.—11.0 p.m.!! |
Yet I thoroughly enjoyed those eight hours, I remember. There were, I suppose, about eighty N.C.O.’s and men from “B” Company. I was in charge, with one other officer. We halted at a place whither the “cooker” had been previously despatched, and where the men had their tea. Luckily it was fine. The men sat about on lumps of trench-boards and coils of barbed wire, for the place was an “R.E. Dump,” where a large accumulation of R.E. stores of all description was to be found. I apologised to the R.E. officer for keeping him a few minutes while the men finished their tea; he, however, a second-lieutenant, was in no hurry whatever, it seemed, and waited about a quarter of an hour for us. Then I fell the men in, and they “drew tools,” so many men a pick, so many a shovel (the usual proportion is one pick, two shovels), and we splodged along through whitish clay of the stickiest calibre in the gathering twilight. An R.E. corporal and two R.E. privates had joined us mysteriously by now, as well as the second-lieutenant, and crossing H—— Street we plunged down into a communication trench, and started the long mazy grope. The R.E. corporal was guide. The trench was all paved with trench-mats, but these were not “laid,” only “shoved down” anyhow; consequently they wobbled, and one’s boot slipped off the side into squelch, rubbing the ankle. Continually came up the message from behind, “Lost touch, Sir!” This involved a wait—one, two minutes—until the “All-up” or “All-in” came up. (One hears it coming in a hoarse whisper, and starts before it actually arrives. Infinite patience is necessary. R.E. officers are sometimes eager to go ahead; but once lose the last ten men at night in an unknown trench, and it may take three hours to find them.) The other officer was bringing up the rear.
At last we reached our destination, and the R.E. officer and myself told off the men to work along the trench. This particular work was clearing what is known as a “berm,” that is, the flat strip of ground between the edge of the trench and the thrown-up earth, each side of a C.T. (communication trench).
When a trench is first dug, the earth is thrown up each side; the recent rains were, however, causing the trenches to crumble in everywhere, and the weight of the thrown-up earth was especially the cause of this. Consequently, if the earth were cleared away a yard on each side of the trench, and thrown further back, the trench would probably be saved from falling in to any serious extent, and the light labour of shovelling dry earth a yard or so back would be substituted for the heart-breaking toil of throwing sloppy mud or sticky clay out of a trench higher than yourself.
The work to be done had been explained to the sergeants before we left our starting-point. As we went along, the R.E. officer told off men at ten or five yards’ interval, according to the amount of earth to be moved. Each man stopped when told off, and the rest of the company passed him. Sergeants and corporals stopped with their section or platoon, and got the men started as soon as the last man of the company had passed. At last up came the last man, sergeant, and the other officer, and together we went back all along. The men were on top (that is why the working-party was a night one); sometimes they had not understood their orders and were doing something wrong (a slack sergeant would then probably have to be routed out and told off). The men worked like fun, of course, it being known, to every one’s joy, that this was a piece-job, and that we went home as soon as it was finished. There was absolute silence, except the sound of falling earth, and an occasional chink of iron against stone; or a swish, and muttered cursings, as a bit of trench fell in with a slide, dragging a man with it; for it is not always easy to clear a yard-wide “berm” without crumbling the trench-edge in. One would not think these men were “worn out,” to see them working as no other men in the world can work; for nearly every man was a miner. The novice will do only half the work a trained miner will do, with the same effort.
Sometimes I was appealed to as to the “yard.” Was this wide enough? One man had had an unlucky bit given him with a lot of extra earth from a dug-out thrown on to the original lot. So I redivided the task. It is amazing the way the time passes while going along a line of workers, noticing, talking, correcting, praising. By the time I got to the first men of the company, they were half-way through the task.
At last the job was finished. As many men as space allowed were put on to help one section that somehow was behind; whether it was bad luck in distribution or slack work no one knew or cared. The work must be finished. The men wanted to smoke, but I would not let them; it was too near the front trenches. And then I did a foolish thing, which might have been disastrous! The R.E. corporal had remained, though the officer had left long ago. The corporal was to act as guide back, and this he was quite ready to do if I was not quite sure of the way. I, however, felt sure of it, and as the corporal would be saved a long tramp if he could go off to his dug-out direct without coming with us, I foolishly said I had no need of him, and let him go. I then lost my way completely. We had never been in that section before, and none of the sergeants knew it. We had come from the “R.E. Dump,” and thither we must return, leaving our tools on the way. But I had been told to take the men to the Divisional Soup Kitchen first, which was about four hundred yards north of X, the spot where we entered the C.T. and which I was trying to find. For all I knew I was going miles in the wrong direction. My only guide was the flares behind, which assured me I was not walking to the Germans but away from them. The unknown trenches began to excite among the sergeants the suspicion that all was not well. But I took the most colossal risk of stating that I knew perfectly well what I was doing, and strode on ahead.