Fighting the Boche Underground

by H. D. Trounce

Madam B. would immediately order her young son, aged about twelve, and her daughter, about eighteen, to light a lamp and go down to the cellar while the shelling continued. Her husband was serving with the French army at Verdun and returned on a week's "permission" (leave) during the time we were in this village. It amused the Tommies very much to think that any soldier would care to spend his leave in a village so close to the line. We were constantly advising the civilians to move back to a safer area, particularly the women, but the poor people had not much choice. The British army authorities I understand offered to move them all, together with their portable belongings, but they were evidently afraid of having their houses destroyed and their little farms or gardens torn up. Their love of home was stronger than their fear of death, or else they couldn't understand. At any rate, very few of them left, even when the shelling became more active. Many of these civilians were later killed and gassed. We also came in for our share of shelling later at our billets here; the cellars were small and did not provide sufficient accommodation for all of us. Shortly before the beginning of the retreat of the enemy, which occurred on our front on March 18th, they gave us a last dose of heavy shelling. This day they landed at least 100 medium and heavy shells within a radius of 50 yards around us. I had more than my share of close calls during this bombardment. A shell had just burst in the road near our little ruin and I walked out to see what had happened and heard another one coming straight for me. I ran to the nearest wall and dropped alongside. The whizz-bang burst about 8 feet away from me on the same wall. I happened to be the nearest man to the shell, but was only hit with a brick in the middle of my back, knocking my wind out, but not doing any real damage. One poor fellow behind me was killed and two others wounded. Incidentally I got the full concussion along the brick wall, and my ears were ringing for an hour afterward.

I then hurried to one of my section billets to order the men to their cellars. That same morning the Boche had put one shell through the wall of the second story of this building, but as luck would have it we had no men billeted up-stairs. Just before I reached a barn occupied by eleven of my men in the yard of this billet, a 4.2-inch shell burst on top of the east brick wall. Poor Holloway had his head blown off by the bricks, another fine lad, McNulty, was mortally wounded with shrapnel in his lungs and stomach; and six others wounded less seriously. The remaining three were not touched, but were badly shaken up. After covering the bodies of the poor lads who were killed, we bandaged up the other fellows as well as we could and took them down to the aid-post in the village. Infantry quartered in the next house to us had over seventeen casualties from one shell the same day.

After getting all my men in the cellars, I hunted for a cellar myself. This was not easy as they were by this time pretty full. On my way I was caught in several buildings when they were hit. Twice I stood in the doorway between two rooms and watched the tiles falling all around as shells burst on the roofs over me. Presently, I found temporary shelter and stayed there for fifteen minutes until the worst was over. A house with two cellars next to one of our billets and on the same street was closed up securely. I obtained permission from the town major (the officer who has charge of all billeting accommodations in the French villages) to use this billet, providing I could get the consent of a French lady who was acting as a kind of watchdog for the absent owner. Madame —— was loth to give her consent. I'm afraid I was not very patient. We had already that day lost several fine lads through a shortage of cellar shelters, so we proceeded to take over the billets anyhow and moved to rooms above the stores of household treasures which had been placed in the cellars for safe-keeping.

Billets near ammunition-dumps or trucks filled with shells were not popular. Eleven large trucks with several hundred 9.2 shells in them were parked in the square of this village for several hours. A Boche shell hit one of them. All the houses surrounding the square were levelled by the resulting detonation and over 200 men killed and wounded. It was impossible afterward to find a piece of wood or steel from these trucks larger than a brick in size. During the retreat it was a very common occurrence for enemy shells to explode large artillery ammunition-dumps in this way on account of the fact that it was impossible to get them under adequate cover. Every night one could count dozens of fires caused by enemy shells hitting the cordite propellant of batteries.

We were billeted for some time in Arras, one of the best laid-out cities in France, which before the war had a population of about 40,000.

It had suffered severely from bombardment in 1914 and 1915. The trenches ran right through the town. The granite blocks of the pavé in the streets had been taken up in many places and formed into breastworks, with loopholes arranged for rifle and machine-gun fire. The Arras railway-station was quite interesting. It had been formerly a handsome and well-built structure of steel and glass. Now the glass was all broken, but the steel frame had remained intact. Along one platform a pavé breastworks, shoulder-high, had been built, while between the rails, many of which were broken, grass was growing. It was a melancholy sight.

We were fortunate enough to be billeted for a couple of weeks in the office of a sugar-refinery. Here we had leather armchairs, desks, stoves, and most of the appurtenances of civilization. Seventy-five per cent of the houses and buildings in Arras had been hit at some time or other; those undamaged or not so badly destroyed had their rooms and cupboards locked and paper seals placed, warning soldiers not to open them. Shells are no respecters of seals, however, so it happened that many houses had been more or less destroyed by enemy shell-fire, and all the furniture exposed to the weather. Although orders against looting were strictly enforced, it nevertheless happened that many dugouts in the trenches in this vicinity were furnished quite comfortably. One would see large mirrors and comfortable armchairs in them, and in some cases even pianos.

There was a doctor's house about four houses away from the one we occupied, and one evening while the Huns were shelling us they landed an "obus" right into the upper story of this house with the result that the two stories were merged into one. The next morning we examined the damage. The house had been very nicely furnished and a piano and some armchairs were untouched; but everything else was badly wrecked. So the work of destruction goes on—a shell breaks open a house and lays the furniture open to the weather, which soon spoils it.

The trenches here had been occupied by the French until the spring of 1916, and they had also evidently made themselves as comfortable as possible. Before the retreat and during the day all stores in Arras would be closed, and the city was apparently almost deserted, very few soldiers being seen on the streets; but at night things were very active, troops marching in and out at all hours, and all supplies going up. Such stores as remained to do business were open from six to eight in the evening. There was one street, the Rue St.-Quentin, which had been dubbed "piano row." When we reached Arras, this was a street of ruins, but an infantry officer whom I met here told me he had been billeted in Arras in the previous spring and that every house in this street then had a piano in it. Not even a chair was to be found then. A number of French gendarmes and British military police were protecting the property of former residents and enforcing army regulations in regard to looting. The troops sometimes used the furniture found in the houses, but took good care of it and handed it over to the parties succeeding them in these billets. To be sent to the Arras sector before the retreat was an "end devoutly to be wished for" by all British forces.

Previous to the German retreat one of our sections working with a New Zealand mining company, had opened out all the old sewers of the city and constructed tunnels in the chalk through to the front trenches, and in some places these tunnels were continued as far underground as the Boche support-line. During the battle of Arras thousands of troops would be marched up the main St.-Pol-Arras road, and then underground to come out on top again at the Boche second line.