Fighting the Boche Underground

by H. D. Trounce

Our advanced billets were within 100 yards of the villages of Neuville-St.-Vaast and La Targette. Both of these villages were levelled by enemy fire, nothing remaining but a mass of ruins. All the cellars were used by troops as billets. We were lucky enough to get a very decent old French officers' dugout by the side of the road, with about six to seven feet of earth cover. The timbers of the structure were substantial, and lucky it was for us that they were for we were very heavily bombarded by the Hun artillery. Our men had very curious billets. In this part of France and for some distance south the subsoil is a hard chalk, and this has been quarried underground nearly everywhere, leaving a clay top-soil and good grazing-land above. The houses and buildings are constructed of chalk building-blocks with brick foundations. Every house, also, no matter how small, has a cellar. These cellars are not proof against direct hits with enemy artillery, but they can be easily reinforced and are exceedingly useful in any case.

Chalk caverns are numerous, and one of the large variety was handed over to us as a billet for our men. Although our entire company was about 600 strong, we had plenty of room for 400 or 500 extra men in this cavern, and for a long time we took care of over a thousand there. It was in decidedly bad condition when it was turned over to us. The air could almost be cut with a knife at that time; however, we put in another upcast and managed to clean it up as well. As it was over 70 feet deep, there was no loss of sleep from enemy-shelling activity. Stories were current as to a big fight which had occurred down in this cavern in the previous September, and I should judge that there was some truth in the report, on account of the large French cemetery at the crossroads above and the number of bodies which we unearthed below in the cavern.

These caverns exist almost everywhere in Artois, Picardy, and the Somme district. Under nearly every church there are big caverns or crypts. At Foncquevillers in some large crypts under the church we stored millions of bombs and trench-mortars, and stores of ammunition, altogether sufficient to blot out the whole of the German army. An interesting way of salvaging and sorting the Mills hand-grenades in one of those crypts was practised here. The bombers would sit around a circular iron tank nearly filled with water. Halfway up the sides of the tank clay sand-bags were placed. When a bomb-fuse started to fizz, the bombers would quickly drop it in the tank, where it would explode at the bottom and do no harm. Some of these caverns existed also right in our support-line trenches, and it was common opinion that old galleries in the chalk ran under No Man's Land and across to the German lines.

The ruins of an old mill located just behind our firing-line was suspected of having a cave under it. Upon investigation we found that old tunnels formerly existed there but had caved in. However, the enemy had so many tunnels all around us that it kept us jumping sideways to keep informed as to all of them. This mill was a favorite target with the Hun, and therefore not a popular rendezvous for us. Some very stout-hearted gunner officers had adopted it as an O.P. (observation-post), and had reinforced it with a strong corrugated-iron elephant frame. No one disputed their claim to it. A few days after, the whole business, frame and all, went up in smoke as the result of a direct hit with a Boche eight-inch. It is a custom for engineer and artillery officers to "spy out" the land around the trenches by day and night, intent on their own fell designs, often alone, in distinct disregard of existing orders, which do not allow officers to make their rounds in the trenches unaccompanied by an orderly or N.C.O. Mining officers in particular were the worst sinners in this respect, and our men were often arrested and very nearly shot before they established their identity.

I met one of my own N.C.O.'s one day coming along the firing-line closely following an officer whom he had suspected of being a spy. The officer's hands were held high above his head, while B., usually a quite mild, inoffensive sort of chap, was threatening him fiercely with a jab from his bayonet if he opened his mouth or made any strange move. The situation was highly amusing. The young officer was protesting strongly against such treatment. It appeared that my man had caught him below in one of our mines asking foolish questions. We took him along to the nearest company headquarters' dugout and let him go after he had satisfied us that he was all right. I'm willing to bet that he didn't attempt any more mine explorations without proper credentials.

My only experience with a real spy was in these trenches. One day I met a very pleasant-spoken artillery officer, had a few words with him as he passed my dugout, and offered him a drink, which he refused politely. It may have been fortunate for me that I was called away hurriedly to attend to some work. Later in the day I heard that my acquaintance of the morning had turned out to be a German spy, and, I understand, was lined up against a wall a few days later. He had what I thought was one of the most natural British accents I have ever heard.

In taking over the troublesome galleries below ground from the French, they had neglected to provide us with any surveys of the mine system, so it was necessary for us to make some. Our usual method was to use a compass and a fifty-foot tape and make surveys between all mine-shafts and then carry them below. The work below was all right, but in the trenches above the necessity of keeping one eye on the compass and the other constantly on the lookout for trench-mortars was rather disconcerting, and many readings and measurements had to be repeated. It was a case of "let George do it" when surveys of any close-up trenches had to be made, and the newest joined officer usually found it included in addition to his other duties.

The charges we used in our deep mines in the chalk were tremendous, mine-chambers being loaded with anything from 1 up to 50 tons of a high explosive twice as strong as dynamite. Last year in the battle of Messines the British launched their first big attack by firing a large number of mines below the enemy trenches, using charges of from 15 to 50 tons in each mine and exploding them all at the same moment, the "zero" minute, or exact time at which the infantry go over the top. Very close to a million pounds of a remarkably high explosive were fired at the same instant by the engineers on this front. In starting an infantry attack the mining officers, in common with all the officers of the units engaged in the attack, synchronize their watches, and at the second planned, push home hard the handles of their blasting-machines. Earth-racking mines are detonated with terrific force. The craters formed from these explosions are often over 300 feet in diameter and from 50 to 150 feet deep. Whole companies of men are engulfed, all trenches within a large radius totally destroyed, and many additional men buried in their fall.

So intense was the fighting below ground in our operations on the Vimy Ridge that we would explode sometimes as many as 4 separate mines a night on our own small company front, only 500 yards in length of sector. In one of our clay galleries we reached the enemy trenches and, passing under them, ran into the timber of one of their mining-shafts. Carefully cutting a small hole through one of their timbers we listened there, relieving each other from time to time for nearly twenty-four hours. We would carefully crawl up to our listening-hole and sit tight in the dark, hardly daring to breathe. We had struck the bottom of the Boche shaft and could hear them talking and even see occasionally the enemy miners as they passed up to their own trenches. Our knowledge of German was unfortunately extremely limited, but no interpreters could be obtained or persuaded to join us at this spot. I can't blame them. We finally fired this mine and three others also under their front line at the same time, blowing their trenches and many Huns sky-high. A small party from the "Black Watch" followed over on a fast raid and reported on their return that very little trace of enemy trenches could be found for 200 yards, everything having been totally destroyed by our mines.

Another time we were tunnelling through with a four-foot-six-inch by two-foot-six-inch gallery in the clay, but right on top of the chalk formation. The floor of the gallery was only an inch or two above the chalk. The enemy workings must have been about ten feet below our gallery and in the chalk. We could hear them very plainly at work, so continued progress on our tunnel without a sound, and presently, as they came very close, could hear them talking. We then loaded a small charge, about a thousand pounds of high explosive, at the end of our gallery. Sitting tight and listening carefully, we waited until they had passed under and just beyond us. A few hours later the listeners reporting that they were at work again on the face of their gallery, we fired our camouflet with the blasting-machine from the trench above.