Fighting the Boche Underground

by H. D. Trounce

After having spent several months in so-called rest-billets pretty close to the line and shelled regularly, we were all immensely pleased to find that our new rest-camp was to be situated in a very pretty little village named Berles, near Aubigny, and some eight miles from the firing-line. This camp, of course, was only intended as a rest-camp, and billets for only a quarter to a third of the company were necessary, as this represented the number of men who would be on rest at any one time. We soon made acquaintance with our advance billets, and these were close enough, being only a mile behind. Captain M. had preceded us to Berles as the billeting officer. The officer who talks French best is usually the man for this job, and he always does very well for himself when it comes to picking his own billet, having first choice. Incidentally it may be remarked the man who talks French well always has the edge on the other fellows. The usual old-fashioned and picturesque farm-house furnished us with a room for a mess. We looked out from this mess-room on to the inevitable midden which is a feature of all the French farm-houses in this part of the world. The buildings of these farms are always arranged in the form of a square, with the house on one side, and barns, stables, and granaries on the other three sides all enclosing a yard in the middle of which is invariably a very filthy pool. The manure from the stables is brought out and dumped into this yard and in addition everything else in the way of refuse from the house. Needless to say, the atmosphere around these middens on warm days in summer might have been healthy, but was certainly not pleasant.

We had been sent down to take over the underground mining at these trenches to meet what the Third Army termed "an urgent situation." It was well described. The fact of the matter was that the Germans had by extraordinary underground activity succeeded in forcing the French and British to abandon the majority of their advanced trenches in this neighborhood. No Man's Land looked like the view one gets of a full moon as seen through very strong telescopes with its numerous craters and shell-holes.

Sector near Neuville-St.-Vaast, Vimy Ridge trenches, April 3, 1916.

View taken from an airplane, showing the British and German front-line trenches and mine craters.

The aeroplane photograph shows the state of affairs when we reached the trenches. The pock-marked appearance of the ground will be noticed. All the smaller marks are shell-craters and the larger or real craters those formed by mine explosions. Note also how the Germans and British have run saps or trenches out to them from their front lines. The Germans had blown mine after mine, sometimes as often as 2 or 3 a day on less than a 500-yard front, until they had succeeded in making life decidedly unpleasant for the poor infantrymen holding these trenches. Whole platoons of men at a time had been engulfed in these terrific mine explosions, which were being blown at all hours, but principally at night. Things were so bad that, when we arrived, the most advanced trenches were practically abandoned, only being held by a few isolated groups of bombing sentries and Lewis gunners for a few hours at a time. The later aeroplane pictures show the state of affairs some six weeks later. By the beginning of July approximately twenty more craters had been fired by the Germans and ourselves in No Man's Land and the trenches adjacent. Unfortunately, I was unable to obtain an aeroplane picture taken at that time. There was an observation-line ahead of the firing-trench; most of our mine-entrances started from this most advanced line of trenches. On some occasions we were left alone underground without any one on top, that is, without any infantry. When this happened we usually posted our own sentries. One night when it happened that no sentries had been posted in one of our trenches, the Huns came over on a short and sharp raid, and actually occupied for a few minutes the trench above us under which we were working, while we continued our work quite placidly below, not knowing what was happening on top. The Jocks, bombing their way through from the firing-line, very soon took care of them, though some Huns got away in the dark.

With the exception of my experience during the Somme offensive, I have never seen anywhere more corpses in the trenches than here. They were so numerous that one could not cut out a new trench thirty feet in length without unearthing as many bodies. All of them were six months old, and the summer was coming on. The barbed wire in No Man's Land was not a pleasant sight. Bodies were tangled up with it everywhere, and the wire in many places was supporting bodies, or at least skeletons, still covered with their tattered uniforms. This was a gruesome sight to us when working at night on top—ghastly and pitiful. During the day the air was heavy with the sickening smell. The only way we could improve matters at all was by smoking hard. Quicklime was provided, but not used in sufficient quantities. I always felt sorry for the few men I ran across who did not smoke. When we first walked up the trenches we would notice what were apparently boots sticking out of the sides of the trenches. On closer examination we would find that there were feet still in them. One particularly callous old Scotch sergeant of ours who used to lose himself frequently adopted the habit of chalking direction signs on these boots.

The same sector, Vimy Ridge trenches, May 16, 1916.

The same points can be easily identified on both pictures. The new mine craters show up plainly.