On the open ground lay a tracing of white tape like this—
forming a serpentine series of contacting squares; in the blackness only two white-bordered squares were visible from one position. Each man was given a square to dig. I forget the measurements; about two yards square, I think, and two feet deep. The earth had to be thrown about eight yards back against a breastwork of hurdles. These hurdles were being brought up by the “carrying-parties” and fastened by wires by the R.E’s; the R.E. officers had, of course, laid our white tapes for us previously. Eventually the sentries will stand behind the hurdle breastwork with a water-ditch ten yards in front of them, which obstacle will be suitably enhanced by strong wire entanglements.
But all this vision of completion is hid from the eyes of Private Jones, who only knows he has his white-taped square to dig. Arms and equipment are laid carefully on the side of the trench furthest from the breastwork; and nothing can be heard but the hard breathing and the shovelling and scraping of the “other ranks.” For two hours those men worked their hardest; indeed, it was much the best job to have on those cold nights. I did more digging then than I have ever done before or since. “Come on, Davies, you’re all behind,” and for ten minutes I would do an abnormal amount of shovelling, until, out of breath, I would hand the boy back his shovel, and tell him to carry on, while all aglow I went along the line examining the progress of the work. We had quite a number of bullets singing and cracking across, and there were one or two casualties every night. Sometimes flares would pop over, and every one would freeze into static posture; but on the whole things were very quiet, the enemy doubtless as full of water as ourselves.
That intense cold! Yet I did not know then that it is far worse being on sentry in the frost than marching and digging. And I am not sure that the last night, when it rained incessantly, was not worse than all the rest. We had a particularly bad piece of ground that night, pitted with shell-holes, full of frozen water: you were bound to fall in one at last, and get wet to the waist; but even if you did escape that sticky humiliation, the driving sleet and rain were bad enough in themselves. That was a night when I found certain sergeants sheltered together in a corner; and certain other sergeants in the middle of their men and the howling gale. I soon routed the former out, but did not forget; and have since discovered how valuable a test of the good and the useless N.C.O. is a working party in the rain.
Never have I longed for 2.0 a.m. as I did that night! My feet were wet, my body tired, my whole frame shivering with an approaching cold. The men could do nothing any longer in that stinking slush (for these old shell-holes of stagnant water were, to say the least of it, unsavoury!). I was so heavy with sleep I could scarce keep my eyes open. But when at last the order came from our second-in-command “Cease work,” I was filled with a dogged energy that carried me back to billets in the best of spirits, though I actually fell asleep as I marched behind the company, and bumped into the last four, when they halted suddenly half-way home! And so at four o’clock the men tumbled upstairs to breakfast and braziers (thanks to a good quartermaster-sergeant). I drank Bovril down below, and then, in pyjamas, sweaters, and innumerable blankets, turned in till 11.0 a.m. Next afternoon we left Rue de l’Epinette and halted at a village on the road to Lillers, whence we were to train to “a more northern part of the line,” and enjoy at last our long-earned rest.
CHAPTER IV
REST
Rumours were rife again, and mostly right this time. “The C.O. knew the part we were going to: a chalk country ... rolling downs ... four or five weeks’ rest ... field training thirty miles from the firing-line.” Chalk downs! To a Kentish man the words were magic, after the dull sodden flats of Flanders. I longed for a map of France, but could not get hold of one. As we marched to Lillers I looked at the flat straight roads and the ditches, at the weary monotony, uninspired by hill or view, at the floods on the roads, and the uninteresting straightness of the villages; and I felt that I was at the end of a chapter. Any change must be better than this. And chalk! chalk! short dry turf, and slopes with purple woods! I had forgotten these things existed.
I forget the name of the village where we halted for two nights. I had a little room to myself, reached by a rickety staircase from the yard. One shut the staircase door to keep out the yard. Here several new officers joined us, Clark being posted to our company, and soon I began to see my last two months as history. For we began to tell our adventures to Clark, who had never been in the firing-line! Think of it! He was envious of our experiences! So I listened in awe and heard a tale develop, a true tale, the tale of the night the mine went up. It was no longer a case of disputing how many trench-mortars came over, but telling an interested audience that trench-mortars did come over! Clark had never seen one. And I listened agape to hear myself the hero of a humorous story. When the mine went up, I had come out of my dug-out rather late and asked if anything had happened. This tale became elaborated: I was putting my gloves on calmly, it seems, as I strolled out casually and asked if anyone had heard a rather loud noise! And so stories crystallised, a word altered here and there for effect, but true, and as past history quite interesting.