Upon August days when the breeze that passed overhead was only tantalization to men in communication trenches carrying up ammunition and bombs, when dugouts were ovens, when the sun made the steel helmet a hot skillet-lid over throbbing temples, the horse-drawn water carts wound up the slope to assuage burning thirst and back again, between the gates of hell and the piping station, making no more fuss than a country postman on his rounds.
Practically all the water that the fighters had, aside from what was in their canteens, must be brought up in this way, for the village wells were filled with the remains of shell-crushed houses. Gossips of battle the water men, they and the stretcher-bearers both non-combatants going and coming under the shells up to the battle line, but particularly so the water men, who passed the time of day with every branch, each working in its own compartment. When the weather was bad the water man's business became slack and the lot of the stretcher-bearer grew worse in the mud. What stories the stretcher-bearers brought in of wounded blown off litters by shells, of the necessity of choosing the man most likely to survive when only one of two could be carried, of whispered messages from the dying, and themselves keeping to their work with cheery British phlegm; and the water men told of new gun positions, of where the shells were thickest, of how the fight was going.
It irritated the water men, prosaic in their disregard of danger, to have a tank hit on the way out. If it were hit on the way back when it was empty this was of less account, for new tanks were waiting in reserve. Tragedy for them was when a horse was killed and often they returned with horses wounded. It did not occur to the man that he might be hit; it was the loss of a horse or a tank that worried him. One had his cart knocked over by a salvo of shells and set upright by the next, whereupon, according to the account, he said to his mare: "Come on, Mary, I always told you the Boches were bad shots!" But there are too many stories of the water men to repeat without sifting.
We must not forget the little donkeys which the French brought from Africa to take the place of men in carrying supplies up to the trenches. Single file they trotted along on their errand and they had their own hospitals for wounded. It is said that when curtains of fire began ahead they would throw forward their long ears inquiringly and hug close to the side of the trench for cover and even edge into a dugout with the men, who made room for as much donkey as possible, or when in the open they would seek the shelter of shell-craters. Lest their perspicacity be underrated, French soldiers even credited the wise elders among them with the ability to distinguish between different calibers of shells.
XXII
THE MASTERY OF THE AIR
"Nose dives" and "crashers"—The most intense duels in history—Aviators the pride of nations—Beauchamp—The D'Artagnan of the air—Mastery of the air—The aristocrat of war, the golden youth of adventure—Nearer immortality than any other living man can be—The British are reckless aviators—Aerial influence on the soldier's psychology—Varieties of aeroplanes—Immense numbers of aeroplanes in the battles in the air.
Wing tip touching wing tip two phantoms passed in the mist fifteen thousand feet above the earth and British plane and German plane which had grazed each other were lost in the bank of cloud. The dark mass which an aviator sees approaching when he is over the battlefield proves to be a fifteen-inch shell at the top of its parabola which passes ten feet over his head. A German aviator thinking he is near home circles downward on an overcast day toward a British aerodrome to find out his mistake too late, and steps out of his machine to be asked by his captors if he won't come in and have tea. Thus, true accounts that come to the aviators' mess make it unnecessary to carry your imagination with you at the front.
They talk of "nose dives" and "crashers," which mean the way an enemy's plane was brought down, and although they have no pose or theatricalism the consciousness of belonging to the wonder corps of modern war is not lacking. One returns from a flight and finds that a three-inch anti-aircraft gun-shell has gone through the body of his plane.