So much for Maple Redoubt. In case of attack, as I have said, it was a strong point that must hold out at all costs, while the company at 71 North came up to Rue Albert, and would support either of the front companies as the C.O. directed. The front companies of course held the front line to the last man. Meanwhile, the two battalions in billets would be marching up from Morlancourt, to the high ground above Redoubt A (that is, just east of D on Map II). Up there were a series of entrenched “works,” known as the “intermediate line.” (The “second line” ran a little north of point 90, N.E. of Morlancourt. But no one took that seriously, anyway.) The battalions marching up from billets might have to hold these positions, or, what was more likely, be ordered to counter-attack immediately. Such was the defence scheme.
“Six days in billets: three days in support. Not particularly hard, that sounds,” I can hear someone say. I tried to disillusion people in an earlier chapter about the easiness of the “rest” in billets, owing to the incessant working-parties. These were even more incessant during these four months. Let me say a few words then, also, about life in support trenches. I admit that for officers it was not always an over-strenuous time; but look at Tommy’s ordinary programme:—
This would be a typical day, say, in April.
4 a.m. Stand to, until it got light enough to clean your rifle; then clean it.
About 5 a.m. Get your rifle inspected, and turn in again.
6.30 a.m. Turn out to carry breakfast up to company in front line. (Old Kent Road very muddy after rain. A heavy dixie to be carried from top of Weymouth Avenue, up viâ Trafalgar Square, and 76 Street to the platoon holding the trench at the Loop.)
7.45 a.m. Get your own breakfast.
9 a.m. Turn out for working-party; spend morning filling sandbags for building traverses in Maple Redoubt.
11.30 a.m. Carry dinner up to front company. Same as 6.30 a.m.
1 p.m. Get your own dinner.
1 to 4 p.m. (With luck) rest.
4 p.m. Carry tea up to front company.
5 p.m. Get your own tea.
5.15 to 7.15 p.m. (With luck) rest.
7.15 p.m. Clean rifle.
7.30 p.m. Stand to. Rifle inspected.
Jones puts his big ugly boot out suddenly, just after you have finished cleaning rifle, and upsets it. Result—mud all over barrel and nose-cap.
8.30 p.m. Stand down. Have to clean rifle again and show platoon sergeant.
9 p.m. Turn out for working-party till 12 midnight in front line.
12 midnight. Hot soup.
12.15 a.m. Dug-out at last till
4 a.m. Stand to.
Jones puts his big ugly boot out suddenly, just after you have finished cleaning rifle, and upsets it. Result—mud all over barrel and nose-cap.
And so on for three days and nights. This is really quite a moderate programme: it is one that you would aim at for your men. But there are disturbing elements that sometimes compel you to dock a man’s afternoon rest, for instance. A couple of canisters block Watling Street; you must send a party of ten men and an N.C.O. to clear it at once: or you suddenly have to supply a party to carry “footballs” up to Rue Albert for the trench-mortar man. The Adjutant is sorry; he could not let you know before; but they have just come up to the Citadel, and must be unloaded at once. So you have to find the men for this on the spur of the moment. And so it goes on night and day. Oh, it’s not all rum and sleep, is life in Maple Redoubt.
Three days and nights in support, and then comes the three days in the front line.
Now we will take it that “B” Company is holding from 80 A to the Lewis-gun position to the right of 76 Street. You will notice at once that almost the whole of No Man’s Land in front of this sector of trenches is a chain of mine craters. No one can have much idea of a crater until he actually sees one. I can best describe it as a hollow like a quarry or chalk hole about fifty yards in diameter and some forty or fifty feet deep. (They vary in size, of course, but that is about the average.) The sides, which are steepish, and vary in angle between thirty and sixty degrees, are composed of a very fine thin soil, which is, in point of fact, a thick sediment of powdered soil that has returned to earth after a tempestuous ascent into the sky. A large mine always causes a “lip” above the ground level, which appears in section somewhat like this:—
There is usually water in the bottom of the deeper craters. When a series of craters is formed, running into one another, you get a very uneven floor that appears in lengthwise section thus:—