All through the day "snipers" are busy on both sides. They occupy pits, or craters made by shells, or ensconce themselves in ruins, or hide amidst the branches of trees, and try to pick off all opponents who show themselves. At night patrols steal out to the "No Man's Land" between the lines, and sometimes fall in with an enemy patrol and rush it with the bayonet. What are called "listening patrols" creep as near as possible to the opposite trenches, and try to overhear conversation, and find out what is going on in the enemy's lines. Each side burns flares to light up the darkness and make visible all movements in "No Man's Land."
Bomb-throwers at Work. By permission of The Sphere.
In this war every device which science can suggest is in use. In trench fighting, however, we have gone back to the ways of our forefathers. Mortars are employed to throw bombs into the enemy's trenches, and hand grenades, such as those used by the earliest grenadiers, are flung by each side. A correspondent of the Times thus describes the bomb-throwers:—
"Around their middle they carry some twenty or thirty bombs, little cylinders fastened on a long stick, around which fall streamers of ribbon. The clothing of ribbons suggests a mixed breed of Scotsmen and Red Indians who have taken to wearing the Red Indian head-dress as a kilt. In action they are stranger still. Crouching down among the barbed wire, the bombers, with their supporting infantrymen with fixed bayonets, raise themselves a little from the earth, and seizing one of these rocket-like bombs from their belts, grasp it by the stick and hurl it high above the parapet. It twists and travels uncertainly through the air, and then finally the streamers settle it in its flight, and it plunges straight as a plumb line down into the trench. There is a noise as though a gigantic Chinese cracker were jumping along the zigzag trench, and clouds of greenish smoke rise up, through which hurtle lumps of earth and stone and fragments of the outer iron ring of the bomb which constitute its shrapnel."[192]
Life in the trenches must always be uncomfortable, and may be very trying indeed. During the winter West Flanders was a huge bog; the canals and rivers overflowed their banks, and many of the trenches were always knee-deep in slime and icy water. Large numbers of our men suffered from frost-bite in the feet. Though they were clad in sheepskin coats, and everything possible was done for their comfort, they had to bear trials and hardships such as few troops have ever endured before. The cheerfulness of our men during those bitter, dreary, and trying days was amazing. The British food supplies were excellent and unfailing. Never before has an army been fed so well. Arrangements were also made for giving the men a hot bath and a change of clothing when they returned from the trenches to their billets in the villages behind the firing line.
So the year wore on, and the season of "peace and good will towards men" arrived. On Christmas Eve a hard frost set in, and Christmas Day broke cold and misty. On that morning every officer and man in the field received a card from the King and the Queen, bearing portraits of their Majesties, and this greeting copied from the King's own handwriting: "With our best wishes for Christmas, 1914. May God protect you and bring you home safe.—Mary R. George R. I." The special card for the sick and wounded bore these words: "May you soon be restored to health." From Princess Mary's Soldiers' and Sailors' Christmas Fund came a box with an embossed cover, and inside a small gilt casket, containing a photograph of the Princess, and a card on which was printed: "With best wishes for a Happy Christmas and a Victorious New Year from Princess Mary and friends at home." Smokers found a pipe, an ounce of tobacco, and a packet of cigarettes in the box; while non-smokers discovered a supply of chocolate. An immense number of parcels containing other Christmas gifts also arrived, and everywhere Christmas fare was abundant.
Strange scenes were witnessed in parts of the firing line during the festive season. A member of the London Rifle Brigade says:—