That village was one of the very worst I had come across—dead horses and dead men everywhere. It was full of caves, in which we were kept; but we stayed there only one day, during which an enemy aeroplane passed over, and on seeing us dropped a silver ball which slowly floated down to where we were, thereby giving the range to the German batteries. But they could not hurt us on account of the good cover afforded by the caves. It was the first silver ball we had seen, and at first we took it for a bomb.
That night we returned to our old caves once more. I afterwards heard that the reason of our being called out was that the 21st Brigade, which had relieved us, had lost the trenches through a great enemy attack, but had regained them by nightfall. Whether that was the true reason or not I was never really able to learn, but, on going back to those trenches at the end of the week, which we did, we found a large grave, with a heading which read: "Thirty-seven Officers and Men of the Sherwood Foresters lie here." It was a Thursday night on which we went back to our old billets in the caves, and on the following Saturday we once more returned to our old positions, only a little further to the right, the 1st Brigade taking over those we had dug in the first place. There we spent another three weeks, two regiments taking the front line and two in trenches in support a little lower down the hill. First of all we worked this arrangement alternately four days in the front line and then four days in reserve, but this was soon altered to forty-eight hours.
It was a fine sight when we were in the trenches in front to see the relieving battalions coming up to relieve us: there were no communication trenches then, and they had to advance in extended order—lines and lines of them; and when the enemy opened fire, as indeed they did occasionally, they all dropped down as one man. As soon as the firing ceased they were off again, and so on until they reached the trenches, when they would fall down just in rear, and on the word of an Officer we would get out and they would get in. We would retire in the same order as they advanced.
There was plenty of work on the Aisne during those days, the men in the front line connecting each single trench up with another, so as to form one long continual line; also the making of bunny holes. During the day we had the usual order: one man in three on sentry, now commonly termed in the trenches "look-out"; and, at night, every other man—if a quiet night, one would be on sentry, one resting, and one taken for digging a communication trench, each man taking his turn an hour about. Those in the reserve lines would all turn out with picks and shovels the whole of the night, digging one main communication trench.
One Sunday morning we came in for a bad time. The enemy finding our reserve trenches, which we then occupied with the 2nd Royal Sussex, with enfilading shell-fire, put several sixty-pounders amongst us, causing a lot of damage. After that occasion those trenches were never occupied, but we made up straw dummies in khaki, and set them around each dug-out; and we used to get great fun from watching the enemy shelling them, our boys remarking: "That's it, Fritz! Go ahead, and let them have it!" One shell went right through the Officers' mess-cart while the Officers were at tea, killing two. That cart had a history; how we came by it is worth relating. During the Retirement we were ordered to give in our great-coats, which were placed on the baggage-waggons. There was also on one of these waggons my Company's money for paying out the men. This was done early one morning, and, when we marched off, the Armourer Sergeant and a certain number of men were left behind in charge, to follow on when everything was ready. I was afterwards told by one of this party that the Regiment had not got very far down the road when the Germans entered the village. One of our men, seeing the Germans coming and noticing this Cape cart with horse attached on the other side of the road, made a dash for it, and drove hard after us. He succeeded in getting away and joining the Regiment, but the Germans had done their best to stop him, as the cart was riddled with bullet-holes. The other men rushed out the other side of the village, thereby being cut off; there were about fifty of them from various Regiments, and, when called upon to surrender, preferred to make a fight of it. They lost one killed and two wounded; and some then gave in and some made off. One man who joined us again told me they used the open country by night and hid by day, for four days. They went about like that in khaki, and on the fifth day got into a house and, procuring civilian clothing, made their way to Dunkirk, whence, after seeing the British Consul, they were sent to England. Of course, as there was no line established like that which the Germans have now in France, it was possible to do so. The Armourer Sergeant was amongst those taken, but he escaped from Germany later.
We were much better off now than at any time before; supplies came up more regularly, and we also had an issue of rum, as well as the Paris edition of The Daily Mail every day. We learnt whom we were up against—the great Von Kluck, immediately dubbed old "One O'Clock," since every day at that time they used to bombard us. It was here that we first heard that we were "the contemptible little army." Here we also received a draft of reinforcements other than Regulars, the Special Reserve joining the few remaining regulars.
I had here an experience of being a sniper. I was on sentry-go in the front line one morning when an N.C.O. came up to me and inquired "what class shot" I was. I replied "first class"—which I was. "All right," he said, "you're the man we want. Come with me to the Captain." After putting another man on sentry, I followed him. He stated my qualifications to the Captain. "Just the man!" says the Captain; "the reason I sent for you is that we are persistently being troubled by a sniper, and I wish you to crawl out in front and bag him." "Very good, sir," said I—no good saying anything else; so I asked him the position he thought the German was firing from. "Half right," said he; "if you watch closely until those leaves blow aside, you will see his head"; which I did after a minute or so. "I want you to get that man," said the Captain. Off I crept over the top with loaded rifle, and, after going a couple of hundred yards, I lay down and waited, rifle ready cocked. As soon as the leaves moved I let drive my whole magazine at him. Then I waited again. The leaves moved once more, so he was still there. I got suspicious and crawled nearer; but found no enemy sniper—nothing but a post stuck in the ground! No more sniping for me!
Our stay on the Aisne was drawing to a close, but I heard afterwards that two civilians—one an old man and the other a girl—had been shot as spies, the man for working an underground telephone and the girl for sending off carrier-pigeons. These people had lived the whole time along with other civilians in the little village behind the line; they were found out by the French Division who relieved us. Every day, as regular as clockwork, the enemy had shelled us for an hour after daybreak, and for an hour at midday, and again another hour at dusk, with an occasional burst during the night. Rifle-fire was always plentiful on the Aisne at night on both sides.
We left the Aisne in the small hours of the morning of the sixteenth of October, being relieved by a French Division, after we had been in the trenches the whole of the time since the battle of the fourteenth of September. Whilst the French Division was coming up at midnight with the utmost quietness and on a pitch-black night, the enemy poured shrapnel into them, causing the loss of fifty-two to that Division, which simply went to show that the Germans had a pretty good idea of what was afloat.