There was silence behind after that, save for splashings and splodgings. My heart misgave me that I was coming to undrained trenches of the worst description, or to water-logged impasses! Still I strode on, or waited interminable waits for the “All up” signal. At last we reached houses, grim and black, new and awfully unknown. I nearly tumbled down a cellar as a sentry challenged. I was preparing for humble questions as to where we were, the nearest way to X, and a possible joke to the sergeant (this joke had not materialised, and seemed unlikely to be of the easiest), when I recovered myself from the cellar, mounted some steps, and found myself on a road beside a group of Tommies emerging from the Soup Kitchen! My star (the only one visible, I believe, that inky night) had led me there direct! I said nothing, as every one warmed up in spirits as well as bodies with that excellent soup; and no one ever knew of the quailings of my heart along those unknown trenches! To lead men wrong is always bad; but when they are tired out it is unpardonable, and not quickly forgotten. As it was, canteens were soon brimming with thick vegetable soup, filled from a bubbling cauldron with a mighty ladle. In the hot room men glistened and perspired, while a regular steam arose from muddied boots and puttees; every one, from officer to latest joined private, was sipping with dangerous avidity the boiling fluid. Many charges have been laid against divisional staffs, but never a complaint have I heard against a soup kitchen! So in good spirits we tramped along, and dumped our tools in the place where we had found them. “Clank-clank, clank,” as spade fell on spade. Then, “You may smoke” was passed down. The sergeant reported “All correct, Sir!” and we tramped along in file. Soon the bursts of song were swallowed up in a great whistling concert, and we were all merry. The fit passed, and there was silence; then came the singing again, which developed into hymns, and that took us into our billets. Here we were greeted with the most abominable news of réveillé at 5.0 a.m., but I think most of the men were too sleepy to hear it; we two officers deplored our fate while eating a supper set out for us in a greenhouse, our temporary mess-room!
That is a working-party: interesting as a first experience to an officer; but when multiplied exceedingly, by day, by night, in rain, mud, sleet, and snow, carrying trench boards, filling sand-bags, digging clay, bailing out liquid mud, and returning cold and drenched, without soup—then, working-parties became a monotonous succession of discomforts that wore out the spirit as well as the body.
The last six nights before the promised rest were spent in working-parties at Festubert. There the ground was low and wet, and it was decided to build a line of breastwork trenches a few hundred yards behind the existing line, so that we could retire on to dry ground in case of getting swamped out. For six nights in succession we left billets at 10.0 p.m. and returned by 4.0 a.m. The weather was the coldest, it turned out eventually, that winter. It started with snow; then followed hard frost for four nights; and, last but not least, a thaw and incessant sleet and rain. I have never before experienced such cold; but, on the other hand, I have never before had to stand about all night in a severe frost (it was actually, I believe, from 10° to 15° below freezing point). At 2.0 a.m. the stars would glitter with relentless mirth, as the cold pierced through two cardigans and a sheepskin waistcoat. I have skated at night, but always to return by midnight to fire and bed. Bed! At home people were sleeping as comfortably as usual; a few extra blankets, perhaps, or more coals in the grate!
I was out five nights of the six. Captain Dixon was on leave, so we only had three officers in “B,” and two had to go every night. Every night at 9.30 the company would be fallen in and marched off to the rendezvous, there, at 10.0, to join the rest of the battalion. There was no singing; very little talking. In parts the road was very bad, and we marched in file. The road was full of shell-holes, and bad generally; the ice crackled and tinkled in the ruts and puddles; the frozen mud inclined you to stumble over its ridges and bumps. It took us the best part of an hour to reach our destination. The first night we must have gone earlier than the other nights, as I distinctly remember viewing by daylight those most amazing ruins. There was a barrier across the road just before you entered the village; (a barrier is usually made like this—
you can defend the road without blocking it to traffic; at the same time it cannot be rushed by motor-cycles or armoured cars); then just opposite were the few standing fragments of the church; bits of wall and mullion here and there; and all around tombstones leaning in every direction, rooted up, shattered, split. There was one of the crucifixes standing untouched in the middle of it all, about which so much has been written; whether it had fallen and been erected again I cannot say. The houses were more smashed, crumpled, and chaotic than even Cuinchy or Givenchy.
I remember that corner very vividly, because at that spot came one of the few occasions on which I had the “wind up” a little. Why, I know not. We were halted a few moments, when two whizz-bangs shot suddenly into a garden about twenty yards to our right, with a vicious “Vee-bm ... Vee-bm.” We moved on, and just as we got round the corner I saw two flashes on my left, and two more shells hissed right over us and fell with the same stinging snarl into the same spot, just twenty yards over us this time. I was, luckily, marching at the rear of the company at the time, as I ducked and almost sprawled in alarm. For the next minute or two I was all quivery. I am glad to know what it feels like, as I have never experienced since such an abject windiness! I believe it was mainly due to being so exposed on the hard hedgeless road; or, perhaps that last pair did actually go particularly near me. At any rate, such was my experience, and so I record it.
At the entrance to the communication trench R.E. officers told us off: “A” Company, “carrying party”; “B” Company to draw shovels and picks and “follow me.” Then we started off along about a mile and a half of communication trenches. I have already said that Festubert is a very wet district, and it can easily be imagined that the drainage problem is none of the easiest. This long communication trench had been mastered by trench-mats fastened down on long pickets which were driven deep down into the mud. The result was that the trench floor was raised about two feet from the original bottom, and one walked along a hollow-sounding platform over stagnant water. The sound reminded me of walking along a wooden landing-stage off the end of a pier. Every few hundred yards were “passing points,” presumably to facilitate passing other troops coming in the other direction; but as I never had the good fortune to meet the other troops at these particular spots, though I did in many others, I cannot say they were particularly useful. Another disadvantage about these water-logged trenches was that the bad rains had made the water rise in several places even over the raised trench-board platform; others were fastened on top; but even these were often not enough. And when the frost came and froze the water on top of the boards, the procession became a veritable cake-walk, humorous no doubt to the stars and sky, but to the performers, feeling their way in the thick darkness and ever slipping and plunging a boot and puttee into the icy water at the side, a nightmare of painful and jarring experiences.
There was one junction of trenches where one had to cross a dyke full of half-frozen water; there was always a congestion of troops here, ration-parties, relieving-parties, and ourselves. All relieving had to be done at night, as the trenches with their artificially raised floors were no longer deep enough to give cover from view. This crossing had to be negociated in a most gingerly fashion, and several men got wet to their waists when compelled to cross while carrying an awkward-shaped hurdle. After this, the trench was worse than ever; in parts it was built with fire-steps on one side, and one could scramble on to this and proceed on the dry for awhile; but even here the slippery sand-bags would often treacherously slide you back into the worst part of the iced platform, and so gave but a doubtful advantage. At last the open was gained; then came the crossing of the old German trench, full of all kinds of grim relics from the spring fighting. And so to our destination.