So in nineteen-eighteen we live perpetually upon the qui vive, and our methods have been elaborated and standardized to the common measure of our joint experience. Our artillery has the whole front registered. At a given signal it can let down a barrage—a Niagara of shrapnel and high-explosive—upon the strip of earth that separates the enemy’s front line from our own. This can be stationary, to annihilate an enemy attack, or “creeping,” to form a protective screen for an attack of our own. We have machine guns too, set, à la Boche, at fixed angles to maintain a continuous band of fire along each line of our trenches—more especially along the second line; for it is a waste of life and energy to-day to treat the front trench as anything more than a close chain of outposts, screening the real dispositions behind.
And the rifle and bayonet have come back to their own. Two years ago they were in danger of being discarded as obsolete. Every one was bomb mad. It was claimed that a rifle and bayonet are useless against an experienced opponent feeling his way along a zigzag trench in your direction. True; but a bomb is equally useless—or rather, equally dangerous—in the presence of an opponent rushing upon you in the open. So now we have adjusted our perspectives, and each device of war is put to its proper use.
So much for what the author of that little classic, “Dere Mable,” would describe as “Tecknickle stuff.”
Needless to say, we are burning to play with all these new toys simultaneously, like a small boy on Christmas morning. But we have had little opportunity so far. To vary the metaphor, we must eat up our bread and butter before we are allowed cake. We are busy at present learning trench routine. Taking over trenches from another unit, for instance. This is a complicated and exasperating pastime. It usually has to be performed in the dark; otherwise enemy aeroplanes might observe unusual activity behind our line, and advise their artillery to that effect. This involves much night-marching along roads pitted with shell-holes; and the trouble about a shell-hole three feet deep is that in wet weather it looks like a perfectly innocent puddle. Frequently, to avoid congested wheel traffic, we have to march across country in single file, under the leadership of a faltering guide. Not a light must be shown, not a word spoken. Each man, loaded with rifle, equipment, gas apparatus, and a few extra and unauthorized comforts, has to follow the ghostly form of the man immediately in front of him. It is discouraging work, for the simple reason that if you set one hundred men to march in single file in the dark, though the leader may be groping his way forward at the rate of one mile per hour, the last man in the queue is always running, and has to run if he is not to be left behind. No one knows why this should be so, but the uncanny fact remains.
Once you have descended into the communication trenches it is less easy to lose yourself—unless the guide sets the example—but your progress becomes slower than ever. Possibly—probably—you meet a procession going in the opposite direction—a ration-party, maybe, or stretcher-bearers with their patient, cheery freight. The fact that they have no right to be there at all—practically all communication-trenches here are supposed to be one-way thoroughfares—makes matters no easier, though it affords relief in the form of argumentative profanity as you struggle together in the constricted fairway like stout matrons loaded with market-produce in a street-car.
Arrived in the actual trenches, the congestion is even greater, for now there are just twice as many men in the trench as it was constructed to hold, and the outgoing party must never budge until the incoming party have arrived and “taken over.” Taking over is no mere formality either. Officers, machine-gunners, bombers, chemical experts, and other specialists must seek out their “opposite numbers” in the gross darkness and take receipt in due form of ammunition, observation-posts, gas-alarms, and situation reports, amid the crackling of rifle-fire and the sputtering of the illuminating flares.
At last the relief is complete. The word is passed along. The outgoing unit, after communicating sundry items of information as to the habits and customs—mostly unpleasant—of the local Boche, coupled with sundry warnings as to his favourite targets and own tender spots, fades away down the communication-trenches, with whispered expressions of good-will—and you are left alone, wondering what would happen if the enemy were to make a surprise attack now.
Trench life is never comfortable at any time, but the first night in a strange trench is the most uncomfortable of all. For one thing, the trench feels unnaturally crowded. Moreover, we are young troops—the youngest troops in the world to-day—and that means much. We have no Mulvaneys or Learoyds among us. If we had, we should be taught a number of things—how to boil a canteen over a couple of glowing chips; how to hollow out a bed in hard soil; where to find water in an apparently dry trench—trifles small in themselves, but making all the difference between misery and comfort.
But that by the way. With daylight comes a new spirit—or rather, the old spirit—of confidence. Eager persons peer over the parapet, to observe where the enemy is, and what he is like. They see little enough. Two hundred yards away an irregular ripple of sandbags—some white, some black—looking like a dirty wave-crest on a brown sea, marks the position of the German fire-trenches. This mixture of colours is thoughtful. If the sandbags were all of one tint, like our own, loopholes would be hard to conceal: under the German system, you never know at a distance whether you are looking at a loophole or merely a black sandbag. The intervening space is a wilderness of shell-holes, splintered tree-stumps, and rusty barbed wire. Further observation is cut short by a sniper’s bullet, which travels past enquiring heads with a vicious crack. We have learned our first lesson. In trench warfare, by daylight at least, curiosity must be satisfied through peepholes or periscopes.
In the trench itself there is plenty to occupy us. There are watches to be kept and manual work to be done. A trench system is eternally throwing out annexes and undergoing repairs, for the artillery on the other side is always busy. There are supplies to be brought up. There is cooking to be done: that occupies much time, for firing-trenches to-day are equipped, like the fashionable lady’s vanity-bag, with everything except the kitchen stove. And no bad thing either. Trench life has been described by competent authorities as “Weeks of Monotony tempered by Half-Hours of Hell.” Nothing dispels monotony like the necessity of practising the primitive domestic virtues. At home we hire expensive menials—or expect our wives—to light our fires and cook our dinners, because we are too busy or too civilized to do it ourselves. Over here we like doing it, because it is our actual instinct to do so, and also passes the time.