It is this caprice of shell-fire that makes such a veritable hell of it.
Trenches with sides blown in; here a hole like a good-sized cellar; there a traverse filled to the level of the ground around it; a gap in the defence wall in front; iron-work twisted into grotesque shapes; stone-work pulverised; débris in piles; with clothing, bedding, household implements, farm machinery and gear, child's toys, religious emblems, personal effects, and bundles of every description, all jumbled together in such an odd, unnatural way, that a laugh and a catch in the throat often came together.
Vermelles on that sodden day in January was full of French soldiers in reserve—men of the 131st and 262nd Infantry Brigades, some from 16th and some from 18th Corps units. The firing line proper was from three to four kilometres to the eastward. On the west side of the town a French battery was firing regularly, the shells singing over our heads. The German shells were falling frequently half a mile in front of us.
It was my good fortune to discover a French soldier who had seen the actual final bayonet attack which won the position. His story was graphic, but told in few words. The creeping up to the forward French trenches, the fierce bombardment, the wild charge, the discovery that in spite of the fact that the place had been literally blown to bits, and German dead strewn everywhere, some defenders still held on and manned the murderous machine-guns, until they felt the cold steel—it all seemed so matter-of-fact, and such a matter-of-course sort of story in such surroundings.
In each of the yards of the better-class dwellings and farms, including the grounds of the château and brewery, were graves of German soldiers. Many of these were marked with rude crosses bearing touching inscriptions. One such epitaph that caught my eye described the dead soldier as a good comrade; another as a brave man who had died for the Fatherland. Many of them bore a simple religious touch. One grave covered a German officer, buried by the French after the capture of the town. The French soldiers had marked his name and a respectful word or two on the rude cross above it, in obvious keeping with the inscriptions the Germans had written on adjacent crosses raised while they were in occupation.
In an effort to tell me how full the redoubts were of German dead, when Vermelles was at last taken, my soldier guide found that words failed him. They were everywhere, he said.
A winter Cavalry shelter in France
face p. 32