I believe it must be nearly a week since I wrote. The reason is that I'm down at the wagon-lines, supposed to be resting, which is when we work the hardest. First of all, we had a grand inspection of the Brigade, which kept one going from 5 a.m. to 10.30 p.m., cleaning harness. Then we had Brigade sports, which are not yet over, and which don't leave an officer with any leisure. The best time for letter-writing is when one is in action, since you sit in a dug-out for interminable hours with nothing much to keep you busy.
I'm looking forward very much to the receipt of Khaki Courage; it hasn't come yet. It will be like reading something absolutely beyond my knowledge.
It is now evening. This has been a mixed day. I've been orderly officer. This morning I heard Canon Scott preach—he was the father I wrote to you about whom I met going up front in the winter to look for the body of his son. He's a fine old chap, and fully believes that he's fated to leave his bones in France. This afternoon was spent in harness-cleaning and this evening in watching a Brigade display of boxing. A strange world! But you'll judge that we're having quite good times. Last night we had an open-air concert—“Silver Threads among the Gold,” “The Long, Long Trail,” etc. Trenches lay behind us and ahead of us—not so long ago Huns could have reached us with a revolver shot, where we were all sitting. Overhead, like rooks through the twilight, our fighting planes sailed home to bed. Far away on the horizon, observers in the Hun balloons must have been watching us. It was almost possible to forget that a war existed; almost, until' a reminder came with a roar and column of black smoke to a distant flank.
Monday.
This letter gets scribbled in pieces. I'm now waiting for the afternoon parade to fall in. The gramophone is strumming out a banjo song, and in my galvanized hut it's as hot as———. Most of the men strip off everything but their breeches and go about their horses dripping like stokers. The place isn't so unlike Petewawa in some respects, except that there is no water. You look for miles across a landscape of sage-green and chalk, with straight French roads running without a waver from sky-line to sky-line. There's nothing habitable in sight—only grey piles and splintered trees. But in spite of the wholesale destruction one finds beauty. You'd smile if you could see our camp—it looks like a collection of gipsy bivouacs made of lean-tos of wood with canvas and sand-bags for roofs. The rats are getting bold, and coming out of the trenches—rather a nuisance. It's strange to be here playing football on the very ground over which not so long ago I followed the infantry within half an hour of the commencement of the attack. Our wounded chaps were crawling back, trying to drag themselves out of the Hun barrage, which was ploughing up the ground all around, and the Huns were lying like piled-up wheatsacks in their battered front line. One learns to have a very short memory and to be glad of the present.
Within sight a little trench tramway runs just like the Welsh toy-railway of our childhood. It leads all the way to Blighty and New York and Kootenay. One can see the wounded coming out on it, and sometimes sees them with a little envy.
X
France June 23,1917
Last night Khaki Courage arrived. I found the Officers' Mess assembled round my mail—they'd guessed what was in the package. I had intended smuggling the book away, and did actually succeed in getting it into my trench-coat pocket. A free fight ensued and, since there were four against one, I was soon conquered. Then one of them, having taken possession of the little volume, danced about our tin tabernacle reading extracts. I had planned to ride into a neighbouring city for dinner that night, but sat reading till nearly twelve. I can't thank you all enough for your loving work. I think the proof of how well you have done it is, that my brother officers are quite uncynically keen about it. If they, who have shared the atmosphere which I have unconsciously set down in its pages, can read with eagerness and without ridicule, I think the book, as compiled by you, dear people, should stand the test.
Do you remember a description I gave you some months back of seeing Huns brought up from a captured dug-out? That's long enough ago now for me to be able to give you a few details. A fortnight before the show commenced it was planned that an officer from each battery with a party of volunteers should follow up the infantry attack and build a road through the Hun Front line over which our artillery should advance. The initial work was carried on at night, and the road was built right up to our own front-line. On the morning of the attack I took my volunteers forward and hid with the rest of the party in one of our support trenches. We judged that we should escape the Hun barrage there, and should have advanced before his retaliation on our back country commenced. Soon after midnight, on a cold morning when the sleet was falling, we set out. The sky was faintly tinged with a grey dawn when our offensive opened. Suddenly the intense and almost spiritual quiet was changed into frantic chaos. The sky was vividly lit with every kind of ingeniously contrived destruction. In addition to his other shells, the Hun flung back gas and liquid fire. It looked as though no infantry could live in it. Within an hour of the offensive starting, each officer crept out of his trench and went forward to reconnoitre the ground, taking with him one N.C.O. and a runner. My runner carried with him a lot of stakes with white rags attached for marking out our route. We wound our way carefully through the shells until we reached our own Front line. Here the Hun barrage was falling briskly, and gas-shells were coming over to beat the band. The bursting of explosives was for all the world like corn popping in a pan. We ran across what had been No Man's Land and entered the Hun wire. My job was to build from here to his support-trenches. His frontline trench was piled high with dead. The whole spectacle was unreal as something that had been staged; the corpses looked like wax-works. One didn't have time to observe much, for flames seemed to be going off beneath one's feet almost every second, and it seemed marvellous that we contrived to live where there was so much death. As we went farther back we began to find our own khaki-clad dead. I don't think the Huns had got them; it was our own barrage, which they had followed too quickly in the eagerness of the attack. Then we came to where the liquid fire had descended, for the poor fellows had thrown themselves into the pools in the shell-holes and only the faces and arms were sticking out. Then I recognised the support-trench, which was the end of my journey, and planted my Union Jack as a signal for the other officers who were to build ahead of me. With my runner and N.C.O. I started to reconnoitre my road back, planting my stakes to mark the route. When I was again at what had been our Front line, I sent my runner back to guide in my volunteers. What a day it was! For a good part of the time the men had to dig, wearing their gas-helmets. You never saw such a mess—sleet driving in our faces, the ground hissing and boiling as shells descended, dead men everywhere, the wounded crawling desperately, dragging themselves to safety. I saw sights of pity and bravery that it is best not to mention, and all the time my brave chaps dug on, making the road for the guns. Soon through the smoke grey-clad figures came in tottering droves, scorched, battered, absolutely stunned. They looked more like beasts in their pathetic dumbness. One hardly recognized them as enemies. All day we worked, not stopping to eat, and by the evening we saw the first of our guns advancing. It's a great game, this war, and searches the soul out. That night I slept in the mud, clothes and all, the dreamless sleep of the dog-tired.