Nor were such more or less natural phenomena our only hindrances. No sooner were the pits completed, than somebody more perspicacious than his fellows discovered that we had been ordered to lay them out in the wrong direction, and they had to be cut out still further to allow the platforms to be slewed round through the required angle. This order reached us one evening just as we were promising ourselves a night in bed after our strenuous labours, and the despair of all ranks spread like a mephitic vapour over the country-side in a mist of strange profanity. The men, however, whose spirits are proof against continued despondency under the most depressing circumstances, set to work with a will, and the tedious digging was finished at last. Then came the far more interesting business of revetting and roofing. Now, obviously revetting and roofing require planks, beams, iron sheets, and material of that nature, and equally obviously the department that professes to provide stores of this description, and whose imagination rarely soars above the level of sandbags, is utterly unable to supply such things. The only course left is to find them for oneself, and fortunately a row of houses whose inhabitants had been evicted stood on this occasion near at hand, and these we gutted. Doors, shutters, floor-boards, rafters, everything but the bricks themselves, we contrived to utilize, until we had everything we could desire except girders for our roofs, which were to be of earth. Now a fifteen-foot span of earth two feet in thickness requires a good deal of supporting, and after several experiments with rafters, experiments that sometimes had unpleasant results for those who conducted them, we decided that something stronger was required. Here, again, almost in the manner of the Swiss Family Robinson, we found what we required at our very door, but not before one adventurous spirit had invited an early death (from which may he long be spared!) by driving a particularly noisy lorry into a coal mine overlooking the German lines in search of pit-props. Our discovery was due to an eagle eye that discovered a notice-board bearing the words "Défense de circuler sur la voie," whose owner, realizing that there could be no temptation to circulate on the line if there was no line upon which to circulate, investigated further and found a grass-grown colliery siding. Here were our long-sought girders, and with their discovery our troubles were practically over. Certainly the guns had yet to be lowered into the pits, and hauling heavy guns over soft garden mould on a dark night is an undertaking to try the most angelic patience, but on this occasion, for the first and last time, the Mud-god smiled upon us, and that midnight we knew the true happiness that comes of the successful completion of strenuous labour.
Here we remained for some weeks, until again disturbed by the order to change position. Again everything has to be done by night, the guns hauled out of the pits, the thousand and one small stores necessary to the interior economy of the battery packed each in its proper place, the heavy platforms raised and loaded into the lorries. The ease with which any particular article can be mislaid under those circumstances is incredible. Relative weight or importance seems to have no bearing on the matter at all, one is just as likely, upon arriving at dawn in some unknown land, to discover that one has left behind a spare wheel or a handcart or even a battery quartermaster-sergeant, as one is to find a small screwdriver missing. After a while the whole business becomes a nightmare in which one is condemned eternally to spend one's time counting handspikes and lorries and men, and to make the total utterly different every time. And then the line of march! A procession of heavy lorries, some drawing the guns, the rest laden with men, stores and ammunition, looking for all the world like some huge travelling circus, sets off upon a dark foggy night, carrying of course no lights, over roads already laden to their utmost capacity with troops and supply columns, and plentifully besprinkled with shell holes. At the head of the procession rides a group of officers in a car, one of whom has possibly been over the road once by daylight, and about the length of the convoy are scattered here and there men wrestling with recalcitrant motor-bicycles, which they vainly try to restrict to the speed of the column, perhaps four or five miles an hour. Much can happen under these circumstances. Perhaps the rearmost lorry has to stop for adjustment, and by the time the word has passed along the line the car at the head is far away, and the column strung out over a mile or so of road. Or the foremost lorry commences to boil frantically and slows down, whereupon the remainder tread upon one another's heels, until it stops altogether, when the column forms a compact mass that nothing can attempt to pass. Or the geographical instinct of the leader of the expedition fails at a cross-roads, and recourse has to be had to the sentry who stands there. One of two things then happens. Either the man does not know the way and says so, or he does not know the way and with the utmost positiveness declares the route to be by the first road that strikes his fancy. Those to whom the former of these certainties happens are by far the most fortunate, for the attempt to turn a column of lorries on a narrow road, especially if it consists, as it usually does, of a central strip of pavé bordered by fathomless mud, is certain to be fraught with disaster. A fully-loaded ammunition lorry stuck in a ditch is a most heartbreaking sight, particularly (if the bull may be forgiven) if the night is so dark that one cannot see it. It must be unloaded, dragged out by the help of another lorry, which sometimes slides into the ditch itself in the process, and then loaded up again, usually to the accompaniment of uncomplimentary observations from the traffic that it is holding up.
Certainly the accidents that may happen to mechanical transport are many and various, but there are some to which it is not liable. One of the first messages that we received upon our arrival in a certain new position ran as follows, "Report at once all cases of glanders occurring amongst your transport." One has trouble enough without infectious disease to contend with. A motor lorry is a capital thing on a road, even if that road is in a very bad state, but, once take it on to soft or slippery ground, and its imperfections become manifest. First of all its wheels start to slip, and chains are fixed round the felloes to give them a grip. This answers for a while, but suddenly the wheels begin to revolve at a terrific speed, and the chains fly hurtling through the air to the obvious disadvantage of any one who gets in their way. A few men with lamps are sent to look for these, whilst the rest endeavour to give the lorry a start by pushing behind. Start she does, with a sudden leap, and, before she can be stopped, finds the softest part of the whole field and sinks gently but firmly into it until supported on her axles. By this time the search party, having taken all the lanterns with them, is far away, and you feel the lorry sinking without a possibility of doing anything by the light of the one match that the battery possesses. The only thing left to do is to dig her out, support her wheels on planks, and haul her on to the road again with ropes.
But the march ends at last, usually at about two o'clock in the morning, and one arrives tired, cold and very sleepy, in the unknown land. This village is the place we were told to stop at, and the men's billets are said to be somewhere over there. Glad of a walk, I set out to find them, and find in succession a row of tents knee-deep in mud, apparently completely surrounded by barbed wire entanglements, a barn without a roof, and a shed tenanted by two inquisitive and particularly skittish cows. I return to the lorries and find the men drawn up at the side of the road. Having explained the situation, I call for volunteers to spend the night with the cows. The country-bred members of the battery fall out and are marched off to deal with the fierce beasts as best they can. The remainder are carefully shepherded into the roofless barn and the bottomless tents. Judging by the language that arises, this latter party are foiled in their first attack by the wire. But the gunner is an adaptable person, and all contrive to settle themselves as comfortably as possible in a wonderfully short time, leaving me free to find the officer's billet, which turns out to be the drawing-room of a small miller's house. The only corner left is under the grand piano, and there I lay out my valise and am soon fast asleep. Let the troubles of the morning care for themselves!
X
TELEPHONES
The Field Telephone system, that is to say a series of portable telephone instruments connected by a wire laid as required, forms the nervous system of every battery, without which it is useless, or at all events so heavily handicapped that it might as well be out of action. The observing officer depends upon it to transmit his orders to the guns, the group or brigade commander transmits his instructions to his battery commander by its means, and in the battery itself it is used for intercommunication between the control station, the section commanders, billets and other points. All these various lines must be laid as soon as the battery comes into position, and once laid they must be kept under constant supervision. The test of the efficiency of any battery is first the accuracy of its shooting, and second its ability to bring fire to bear upon any point in its area immediately it is ordered to do so. And experience shows that failure in either of these respects can be traced in nearly every case to some factor connected with the telephone system, an instrument or line being out of order at the critical moment, or an inattentive or careless telephonist. It is easy to realize, therefore, the importance of the part played by this instrument in modern artillery practice, and some account of its habits may not be out of place as throwing light upon a particularly interesting phase of life in the zone of war.
The line between the battery and the observation post is the most important of the whole system, for, without it, properly directed fire is impossible. It is also, from the fact that the observation post is usually close to the front line, the most exposed, and therefore most liable to accident. To lay a wire between two given points may seem to be the simplest thing in the world, as indeed it is, but so to lay that wire that it will not constantly be cut is a fine art. There are two ways of laying it, overhead amongst trees and other supports, or underground, digging a narrow trench in which to bury it. The first method is the quickest, and if a line is required for use immediately, the best plan is to lay it overhead, and bury it subsequently if required. But many perils lie in wait for an overhead line. Lay it by any route you will, some wandering shrapnel will burst near by, and one of the bullets, singling out the wire as though it were its especial target, will cut it neatly through, for preference at its most inaccessible point. But the enemy is by no means its greatest danger. There are roads to cross, along which come heavy lorries laden high with stores of all kinds. Put the line up as high as you think absolutely safe, and sooner or later an extra tall load brings it down. Or natural support, such as trees or houses, fails, and at considerable pains you plant a row of light posts. The next party of wire layers that comes along, finding these convenient to their purpose, lay their own line on them in addition. So the process continues, until the light posts, that you designed to carry one wire only, collapse under the strain, and down comes the whole tangle. Worst of all are the unpardonable crimes of some miscreants, who, running short of wire, cut off as much from your line as they require, leaving the cable with a yawning gulf in the middle, or, as a variation, tap their own instruments on to the wire, when the unfortunate observation officer is left to play a maddening game of cross questions and crooked answers with some strange unknown battery. If, on the other hand, the wire is laid underground, a high-explosive shell is sure to find it and make a neat crater in the middle of it, or else the infantry dig a communication trench across it, or its insulation breaks down late one evening and the ensuing night is spent digging it up and looking for the fault.