But this is a digression, typical of the observation officer, whose thoughts stray into strange channels during the course of the long days of watching. How keenly he longs sometimes for "something to happen," especially during his first experiences of the work, before he realizes that something is always happening under his eyes, if he can only detect it. My own pet longing was to see my first real live Hun in his natural surroundings, a longing conceived in much the same sort of inquiring spirit that inspires the naturalist. I saw him at last, he sprang from a trench in which a shell had just fallen, ran literally as if his life depended on it, which, in grim earnest, it did, and dived like a rabbit into a support trench a few yards away, followed by cheers and bullets from our own lines. My observation post was at that time not more than a hundred yards behind our front line, but, owing to the intricate nature of the country, no signs of immediate war could be seen except from the little slit in the wall from which I observed. One day I was stretching my legs in the road outside, when a staff officer, somewhat of a rara avis in so advanced a spot, came by, having evidently lost his way. Now a staff officer was once defined to me by a very distinguished regimental officer as "a being whose natural common sense was buried for ever beneath the vast mountain of his own ignorance." This magnificent gentleman—he had probably been a distinguished grocer, the pride of the local volunteers, before the war—informed me that observation was impossible from where I then was, and, indicating a ruin, the remains of whose roof could just be seen above the hedges, expressed his intention of surveying the country from its more favourable eminence. Bowing before his superior wisdom, I saluted and we parted, he to pursue the even tenor of his way, I to my seat behind the window to watch the fun, knowing that his objective was about half a mile behind the German lines. With an unholy delight, I saw him blunder into our trenches, exchange a hurried word with an officer who came forward to meet him, and then beat a precipitate retreat pursued by a most audible titter that ran swiftly along the line.
He took care to avoid on his return the Bath Club, as we called that O.P., from the number of flooded cellars it contained.
The study of nomenclature at the front is a very fascinating one, if only for the light that it throws upon the psychology of nostalgia. Every road, every communication trench is christened with some name around which hang the memories of the men who gave it, so that the native origins of these shrewd godfathers is never for a moment in doubt. Who but a native-born Londoner would have evolved a Harrow Road, off which, in an orgy of local geography, branch Edgware Road, Finchley Road, Maida Vale and a dozen other familiar names? Who but a young subaltern—his heart still unforgetful of the old joie de vivre, having established an O.P. at the end of a muddy ditch already known as Burlington Arcade, would have proudly labelled it "The Bristol," or who, but his envious friends near Shaftesbury Avenue, would have emulated him with "Maxime's" and "The Villa-villa"! Moray Avenue, Prince's Street, Deansgate, Dale Street, College Green, all tell their own story. And where association ends, description begins. Stink Farm, is, I believe, now marked as such on the official maps. Quality Street has already a place in history that may one day be shared by Mud Cottage, Canadian Orchard, la Maison des Mitrailleurs, Rue d'Enfer, and Le Tirebouchon. Sometimes the names of places have been anglicized almost out of recognition. Wingles and Hinges are pronounced as they appear to an English eye, Choques is Chokes, Gris Pot is Grease Pot, Lozinghem is Lozenges, to quote a very few examples. The same may be found on the German side. The Hohenzollern Redoubt is familiar by name to everybody. Near it is Breslauer Chausée Loos contained Unter den Linden, Friedrichstrasse, and, rather curiously, Ringstrasse; Vendin le Vieil is Alt-Vendin, Lens, Lenze. But this is yet another digression, the wandering thoughts of the idle observer; let us suppose him suddenly recalled to the affairs of the moment by the insistent voice of the telephone.
"Message for you, sir—from headquarters," says the telephonist, bearing a piece of pink paper in his hand. I take it, and read, "Fire twenty rounds at intersection of communication trenches at——" Here follow a combination of figures and letters that denote the position on the map. "Very well, call up the battery and give 'action.' Tell them to report when ready." Out comes the map, and the point mentioned in the message found. A road runs east and west close by it, yes, I know that road, have often noticed it. A communication trench runs along it for some way, then turns off at right angles by a hedge, which it follows for a couple of hundred yards till it meets its fellow, which place of meeting I am ordered, in the parlance of the front, to "strafe." Can I see that hedge, I wonder? Prolonged inspection through the glasses assures me that I cannot. There is nothing for it but to take a bearing. One hundred and seventeen degrees from my position, five degrees left of the church tower. Compass and sextant agree, giving me the line to the corner of a wood on the horizon, on which line my target must somewhere be situated. Out come the glasses again. There certainly is a mound right in line with my mark in the centre of that meadow, but it might be anything. Yes, the telescope shows it to be earth thrown up from some excavation or other, it must be the trench junction. It looks hopelessly foreshortened, nothing like the map, but then the map seems to look down on things with a calm judicial air, whilst I can only peer at them from their own level. A very little practice in observation soon shows one that the human eye is utterly unreliable as a gauge of the length of anything that stretches away from it. "Battery reports ready for action, sir," says the telephonist. "Thank you. No. 1 gun ranging, elevation nineteen degrees, etc., etc." Back comes the warning, "No. 1 reports ready to fire, sir." "Fire No. 1!" "No. 1 fired, sir!" and then an eternity of breathless anxiety, during which all the fabled deadly sins of gunners long since condemned to everlasting execration rush upon my memory. Suppose I have read the map wrong, and that is not the place at all? An instant's piercing scrutiny, which fails to reassure me in the least. Even if that is the place, it is not very far from our own trenches. Did I give the right elevation? Did I allow enough for wind? Were my orders perfectly clear to the section commander? Did the layer lay correctly? Shall I be "broke" if I slaughter a whole platoon in our own trenches, or only shot?... Eternity comes to an end at last after a life of some ten seconds, and I hear the whistle of the shell coming ever nearer—safely over my head, anyhow, thank heaven! Yes, she must have passed the trenches by now; where's she going to fall? The whistle ends abruptly, but nowhere is there any sign of smoke, nor does the sound of the burst reach me. A blind, I suppose, the shell must have fallen into something soft, but I'd give ten years of my life to know where. Well, there is nothing for it—"No. 1, repeat, fire!" "No. 1 fired, sir!" The whistle again, then right in line with the target, and hiding it, a bright flash, a spout of earth and a cloud of black smoke, followed by a peculiar, sharp crash, and the hell of doubt gives way to the heaven of satisfaction. Such are the delights of observation.
And variously the excitement infects the blood of the observer. One will sit far back from his window, lest prying eyes should detect him through it, and give his orders slowly and methodically, weighing each carefully and making elaborate calculations the while, and occasionally exhorting the battery to care and deliberation. Another will thrust a telescope through a chink between two sandbags so that it shines like a heliograph in the morning sun and one wonders if some well-disposed angel has smitten the enemy with blindness for that every battery within range does not open fire on him. He, meanwhile, oblivious of such minor dangers, roars contradictory orders as through a megaphone, calling on the inhabitants of Tophet with strange formulæ because his orders are not obeyed before he gives them. I have seen a French Territorial battery in action for the first time in their lives, Mons. le capitaine subdued, almost tearful, but resolved to die in his O.P. as befits a soldier. His telephonists and assistants (he appeared to have dozens) equally anxious to see the fray, festoon themselves all over the building, hanging out of windows, clambering on to the roof, expressing their delight at the top of their voices. Eventually he restores some degree of order, and, rushing to the telephone, sweeps aside the operators, and gives the word himself. "Tirez, tirez, pour l'honneur de la belle France!" The shot falls apparently in a totally different direction to where he anticipates. Again he rushes to the instrument, more perhaps in sorrow than in anger, and demands the presence of the section commander. "Mon lieutenant!" he says, "ce n'est pas juste, c'est épouvantable! Je me sens brisé! Nom d'un nom, que vous êtes maladroit! Dirigez la pièce encore vous même!" He finishes his series at last, and as he turns to go, he salutes me gravely, saying, "Au revoir, monsieur, j'aimerais bien travailler ici à coté de vous, mais, hélas! c'est fort impossible. Dans cette observatoire il y en a toujours de bruit!" It must not for a moment be supposed that I speak disparagingly of the French gunners. They are, as a matter of fact, far better artillerists than ourselves, and we have much to learn from them. Possibly they lack something of our insular calm, as we certainly lack the vivid power of imagination and discernment that contributes very largely to their success. For this same calm the British gunner is hard to beat. On one occasion a heavy shell hit an O.P. fair and square, bringing it down in a heap of ruins. The observer, who by some miracle was not hurt, extricated himself from the pile of rubbish under which he found himself, and rushed down to the cellar, where he expected to find the mangled remains of his telephonist. There was the man, his hands full of fragments that had once been a telephone, standing with a puzzled expression on his face. "I 'ardly know what to do with this 'ere instrument, sir," was his greeting. "I don't see as 'ow I'm goin' to mend it without goin' back to the battery for some spare parts."
Observation by night is sometimes useful, as then the flashes of hostile batteries can be seen most distinctly. It is, however, a peculiarity of modern propellants that the actinic power of the flame produced on their combustion is such as to attract attention in broad daylight. I have had my eye caught by the flash of a ten-centimetre gun about four miles away at four o'clock on a sunny afternoon in September, and there is no doubt that this distance has frequently been exceeded. Still, night of course is the best time, although then it is very much easier to mistake the flash of a bursting shell for that of a gun, and even if flashes are observed, nothing can be noted except their direction, their surroundings being invisible. And a few hours at night in an O.P. have their compensations. Over the trenches rise continually the searching lights, throwing everything into sudden contrast of light and shade, making of the familiar scene whose every stone and blade of grass one thought to know by heart, a strange land of white snow islands standing sheer out of yawning black gulfs. Every now and then sharp tongues of flame dart out from the parapet, a sudden lurid flash in the air shows a bursting shrapnel, or a brighter one on the ground the more violent detonation of high explosive. Perhaps a rocket signal of green and red goes up, followed by a quicker succession of flashes of all kinds as a patrol between the trenches is discovered. Perhaps one may be lucky enough to see a chance shell start a huge fire, such as burnt once for three days and three nights in Cité St. Pierre, producing a glow as of twilight two good miles away. Whatever may be seen, night has its fascination in this strange world of sleepless activity as much as in a land of quiet, but here its fascination is a stirring into life of eager pulses, a whispering in the ear of that ever-ready lust of battle that makes of war the finest sport that man ever devised. Somehow at night all deeds seem possible.
IV
THE FOUR DAYS