Our Division, I believe, took the extreme right of the British line on the Aisne; anyway, the French were joining us. They were very quiet by day, but as soon as darkness set in they would start a rapid fire all along their line, our boys remarking: "The French have got the wind up." Our orders were not to fire on any account, but to use the bayonet. At night every other man in the front line was posted as sentry, doing one hour, after which the alternate men would do an hour. This continued until daybreak, when sentries were lowered to one in three.
The third night after taking the Aisne we expected an attack from the enemy, and the whole Regiment stood to till morning. It was truly beautiful—it rained incessantly, and one could not see more than a yard in front of one's nose! That night a man of the Black Watch came in having been left out since Monday's battle: he had nearly every toe shot off and was almost blind. He had—so he told us—been in one of the boilers of the beet-sugar factory, and a German had fired several shots into the boiler, killing some more men who were in there with him. A Guardsman also came in, shot all over.
On the fourth night I was allotted a nice job. My Section Sergeant, coming to me just after dark, said: "I've a nice little job for you."
"Oh yes," says I—thinking it was a nice little berth behind with the transport—"what is it?"
"Do you know anything about barbed wire?" says he; "just twisting it around stakes?"
"I don't know," says I: "I may be able to do it; anyhow I could have a try."
"Well, out in front about forty yards," says this Sergeant, "you will find a lot of stakes and two reels of barbed wire. Now you go out and I'll send another fellow to knock in the stakes while you can twist the wire round them and make some entanglements."
I can't say I liked the job, because I didn't! The enemy lay only a few hundred yards away, and I had to go out there attracting attention by knocking in stakes and twisting barbed wire around them, a thing the enemy would be sure to try their best to prevent. But it had to be done, so off we started, creeping over the top. We were looking for nearly an hour for this wire and, after twice nearly walking into the enemy's lines, we at length found it, and managed, after several volleys from the enemy, to accomplish our task, and rig up some sort of defence. Every night after that, whenever we occupied the front line, I was one of the men erecting the barbed wire entanglements, and many were the narrow squeaks I had at the hands of the Germans.
At the end of the first week we were relieved by the 21st Brigade, containing the Sherwood Foresters and West Yorkshires. They were a new importation from England. My word! didn't they look smart, while we who had gone through so much looked worse than tramps, absolutely reeking of mud. We were taken back to a village about five miles in the rear, and on the way back we had again to go through the defile by which we entered. Our batteries were still there, but the stench from dead horses was awful. This village was at the back of the wooded hill aforementioned, and there were several caves there, perfectly safe from the shells of the biggest guns yet made. In these caves we were lodged, and we had a chance of a rest—the first real rest we had since commencing the Retirement. At the bottom of the hill was also a river, where every one indulged in a bathe.
We were in those caves for two days; on the third day we were called out at 4 a.m., and we proceeded to a village on our right previously occupied by the French. To get there we had to cross a sky-line, fully in view of the German observers. We men knew that sky-line, for while we lay in our trenches the whole of the previous week we had watched the Germans shell it when the French troops marched over it. Unluckily for me, my Regiment was the last regiment of the Brigade to go over. The other three got through safely; but, as the road was thick with mud, we had taken to the field, and thus gave the Germans an even better view of us. Two companies were nearly over before we had it: we were the last two, when over they came in batteries, five shells at a time. We were of course forced to fall back over the crest, but not before we had had twenty-five casualties, though we eventually reached our objective without any further losses.