It is the duty of a ration party to bring up the loads from where they have been left. On regaining the opening to the trench, they take the rations to the quartermaster-sergeant's hut or dug-out. The sergeants of each platoon come to this hut or dug-out, and to them the things are delivered in quantities proportionate with the number of men in the section each represents. The sergeants then send along two men to carry the whacks to the respective traverses in the trench. This goes on night after night. So on the occasion I am recalling we were very late—and the distance we had to go was as much as a mile and three-quarters.
This ration carrying, the final stage of ration transport, is an even more dangerous and risky job than the preceding stage, and, as usual, snipers got busy on us, hitting three men, though none was killed. The rattle of bullets from machine guns on the ricketty sides of the old cart added to the programme of the night's entertainment, and there were frequent intervals, not for refreshments, but for getting flat and waiting.
Gathering In our Firewood.
Chopping up firewood was regarded not so much as work as it was regarded as one of our recreations in the trenches—of which I shall have a little to say presently. But it often happened that there was no recreation, but only the excitement of danger in the night-time job of bringing in the firewood for day-time chopping. It would happen that a man had spotted in some shelled house or fallen farm-building a beam, plank, door, or something else wooden and burnable, that he couldn't carry without assistance, or that he couldn't stop to bring away at the time. It must be fetched, for fire we must have. It might be only a few score yards away measured by distance, but an hour measured by time—"thou art so near and yet so far" sort of thing. Fetchers might get hit at any moment, and had to creep and wriggle very cautiously over open ground all the way. By some strange twist of mental association, whenever I was a fetcher in these circumstances I found myself mentally quoting Longfellow's line in "Hiawatha"—"He is gathering in his firewood"!
The Woodcutter’s Hut.
Our champion at the game was a Private Hyatt—quite a youngster, but of fine physique and fearless daring. His dug-out was called "The Woodcutter's Hut." He made a regular hobby of wood-getting. He was an expert, a specialist. On certain occasions he even went out after wood in the daylight, slithering along on all fours towards his objective, and would be fired at until recalled by one of his own officers. On one occasion when he had crawled out and into a building to collect wood, as he crawled back through the doorway we saw little clouds of dust rising from the brick-work surrounding him, which showed that the enemy's snipers had spotted him, and we shouted to him from the trench to "keep down." He took refuge behind the wall of the doorway, and lay there three-quarters of an hour, and then returned, bringing with him the much prized plank of which he had gone in search, and which, when chopped up, supplied our section with sufficient firewood for a whole day and night. In the sketch it will be observed he is reading a letter. This he had received just after the above incident, and sat down on his valise quite unaware that I was sketching him. Later on I gave him a copy of the sketch, and he enclosed it in his affectionate reply to his folk at home.