Huts in Hell

by Daniel A. Poling

With a wild clatter a twelve-foot section of the ceiling came down. We sat up in our bunks and waited. It occurred to me that no shell had exploded above, within, or immediately about the "hut," and that this interruption of our peaceful slumbers must be due to the vibrations from our own batteries; there was consolation in the thought. But I did not fall asleep again. Our guns were going on at a terrific rate now. It was no ordinary shelling of enemy objectives, no mere following of a regular schedule by which "big ones" and "little ones" are dropped on military roads, headquarters, and concentration-points in "Germany."

Pest, secretary in charge of the "hut," who in happier times is physical director of the Young Men's Christian Association in Newark, N. J., said: "Something doing. That's a barrage; wonder whether they're coming across or whether we are going over. The first brigade is due for relief to-day; guess the Hun knows it, and is 'speeding the departing guest.' We'll sure have company for breakfast if our fellows keep on stirring up the animals."

Presently the "company" arrived. First the gas-alarm was given, and we hurried into our masks. I kept on my waterproof, so that my friends would not see my knees in action! Then the shrapnel began to spray, and high explosives felt out our guns. The throaty roar of our seventy-fives mingled with the longer and nearly double shocks of enemy explosions. We knew that "William" would not waste shells on us; but we knew, too, that we were desperately near the places he was trying to find, and that even modern military science is not always exact.

There was a stern patter on the roof—spent shrapnel; a few minutes later it came again with a sterner knocking and the sound of an explosion directly overhead, but high. Hummel got up and opened the door. He looked out, and then closed the door. Simultaneously with the banging of the door a huge explosion took place in our back yard. Hummel said that he saw the field go up as high as the spire of the ruined village church. There was a mighty rush of wind and a scream of steel; a fragment of high explosive tore out the sash of a window, and "carried on." This particular piece of projectile passed through the hut less than twenty-five feet from the cots.

From three o'clock in the morning until seven the shelling was heavy, the roar of the guns was continuous. It then lessened, but for the rest of the day and through the night there was no quiet. During the barrage, the reason for which we learned a few hours later, our village suffered more than usual. In one billet six men were instantly killed and five were horribly wounded. In another billet there was a fatality, and a French soldier was killed at the meeting of two streets as he walked towards his home, going back on his first "leave" in two years.

We waded through the mud to our "mess" just across the street; good, steaming hot, and well prepared it was. I went back for a "second," as is the privilege of every man provided he waits until all have had the first serving.

It was the first day of the month, and so while Pest fixed the packs for the trenches, and Hummel (Rev. Mr. Hummel, of California, if you please) completed a sink and drain which his deft hands had begun the day before, I took account of stock, and incidentally packed more securely on the shelves the supplies that were in quantity. The bombardment was shaking things loose. At 10 A.M. Pest and I started for the trenches, with the former remarking to Hummel that if things continued so active the supply-truck would hardly get in, and that it might be well to "shove the stuff" a bit easy to conserve what we had.

Up the road we hiked toward Germany. Our sacks held a hundred pounds of chocolate, nuts, cigarettes, and oranges, things that the regular and necessarily severe front-line mess could not duplicate. The oranges came from Italy, and the chocolate was made by Americans in French or Swiss factories taken over by the Y. M. C. A. Trench supplies are never sold; these are "specials," gifts to those who for days at a time must bear the body and nerve destroying ordeal of the most advanced places. No man who has not seen the faces of the men and heard their "Thank yous" can appreciate what these trench trips of the Red Triangle mean to the soldiers of the Republic. Every day the secretaries go "in," and clear in. To the last observation-post they carry the extra food, the bit of luxury, and the strong man's word and grip of comradeship that build fighting spirit and morale.

For a mile the going was easy, the road-bed straight away toward the trenches; and the footing beneath five or six inches of mud was firm. At "Dead Man's Curve," a bad spot which bends out from behind a great ammunition-dump and passes between batteries on into another ruined village, we took a short cut across the field. The mud at the bend was red, and the road was filled with blood; an empty supply-wagon had been caught there earlier in the morning. The two men on the driver's seat and all of the mules had been killed. For five hundred yards we continued across the shell-ploughed field; now and then we were forced to turn out of the direct path to avoid shell-holes close together; several times I found as many as three small craters with rim touching rim.