Fighting the Boche Underground

by H. D. Trounce

At the first officers' parade, at Rouen after I arrived in France, we were all informed by the camp adjutant that cameras were forbidden and that any man who had a camera in his possession after twenty-four hours would be court-martialled. I had one—a small vest-pocket-kodak—but after this order decided to send it back to a friend in England. Some six months later I was fortunate enough to secure a small kodak in one of the villages behind the lines and managed to get the few pictures which illustrate this account.

There are, necessarily, a large number of military-base and training camps established by the British in France, and the camps at Rouen seem to have been used mainly for reinforcement troops and returned casualties. I met one officer of infantry here who was returning to his regiment in a few days and who had just been reported "fit for duty" again after his third wound! Even early in 1916 this was not uncommon.

In the light of subsequent experience, I am more inclined to condole with the poor fellows who have borne the brunt of the struggle and escaped for long periods without being wounded.

Even the poor chaps who are fatally wounded seldom realize the fact at first, and are only conscious of sudden relief in the thought that they will be away from the trenches for a while. I have seen this instanced many times. In May, 1916, I was sharing a dugout with another officer in the trenches near the Vimy Ridge. R.'s orderly, W., was returning with a message, and as he nearly reached the dugout he was caught by a heavy trench mortar and one of his legs blown off. He was also hit in several other places. We sent for "stretcher-bearers at the double," the usual call when casualties happen in the trenches, and R. promptly fixed him up as best he could with one of the field-bandages we always carried in our blouses. Poor W., one of the finest lads I have ever known, not realizing fully the fatal nature of his wounds, remarked cheerfully: "Blime, I ain't 'alf-crocked now for the rest of my days." We agreed with him, but pretended to envy his certainty of a "blighty." He was carried off to the nearest regimental aid-post, about a quarter of a mile down the nearest communication-trench, but the poor chap never left it, dying within a couple of hours.

At Rouen we received the usual training given to all combatant officers and men reporting there. This included daily lectures and practice in the following subjects: Bomb-throwing, machine-guns and their operation, infantry close and extended order drill, trench mortars and their use, gas lectures, etc., interspersed with long-route marches, sham fights and manœuvres, trench reliefs day and night, and practice and lectures on all the varied forms of frightfulness then indulged in by the opposing armies. The bomb-throwing was most fascinating. At that time the British were using eight or ten varieties of bombs, from the old handle-bombs with streamers attached, to the cricket-ball bomb, which one had to light from a brassard on the arm. I had never even seen a bomb before, and always associated them with the playful humor of the now back-number anarchist. Without any preliminary practice, we were detailed to throw these "live" bombs. My heart was in my mouth as we approached the bombing-trenches, but I very carefully watched the operations of the other fellows, and listened attentively to the very matter-of-fact and callous British corporal instructors. My nerves, however, were in fair shape, and I threw every type without any disastrous consequences, though my heart was certainly working overtime.

While writing of bombs, I want to sound a note of warning to those of our boys who will have this form of amusement in store for them. In these days the throwing of "dummy" bombs always precedes the training with live ones, and this is wise and natural, careful habits being formed in this way which eliminate largely the fatal accidents which have happened so often in the early training of British and French units. The one essential is calmness. Nearly all troops who are highly disciplined have this calmness bred into them, and very useful and necessary it is for almost any operation in modern warfare. A "jumpy" soldier, or one whose nerves are not in the best of shape, very frequently knocks his arm against the parados whilst throwing a bomb, drops it in the trench, fails to throw it clear of the parapet ahead, and in other ways not only seriously endangers his own life but those of his comrades practising with him.

The training at these base camps is made as realistic as possible, one feature being the passage through "gassed" galleries or chambers of all officers and men who report at the camps. The chambers are filled with the strongest and deadliest of gases, chlorine, phosgene, bromine, and other gases being used in more concentrated form than one encounters in the regular attacks. All this and other training gives men the confidence necessary to face bravely the fighting ahead of them.

After six days at Rouen I was posted to my company, and ordered to "go up the line."

Our billet, it developed, was in the village of Sailly-sur-la-Lys, two miles from the front-line trenches opposite Fromelles, and a little south of Armentières, incidentally the scene of very heavy fighting in 1914 and recent operations.

I was fortunate enough to get for a billet a small room off the kitchen of a Flemish farm-house in the village. Our mess, a rough wooden hut, was just across the street, and after proceeding there to meet my company officers, we had a very excellent dinner of a couple of chickens obtained in some mysterious way by our mess corporal. During dinner I was more or less entertained with stories of that day's events as related by the other men, one man describing how a German sniper had put a bullet through his cap during the afternoon in the trenches. (It was not until six months after this that we were supplied with steel helmets.) Another man told how an aerial bomb dropped from an enemy plane had landed within a few yards of him on a road several miles back. I thought the object was to string newcomers like R. and myself, but found out later that it was all part of the usual days' programme.