“This yer War,” observes Joe McCarthy, bitterly, “will be finished when all the dirt in France has been shovelled into sandbags—by you an’ me! Then they’ll have to quit, or fall through!”
But the most thrilling experiences of trench warfare are trench raids. These are not necessarily elaborate affairs. Some of them are quite informal. Their objects are twofold—the first, to keep the enemy guessing, the second, to obtain information. The second is the most important. It is vitally necessary to know just where every one of your enemy’s Divisions is located. The simplest method of finding out is to send over armed deputations in the dead of night, with instructions to bring back a few assorted Germans. These, when they arrive, are interrogated, and their equipment and shoulder-straps are examined, for clues as to their identity. In this way it is usually possible to discover what Divisions are in station opposite, and how much front each holds. If a Division is spread out widely, you may be tolerably sure that the enemy has no serious designs upon your sector of the line. But if Divisions are “distributed in depth”—that is, with narrow fronts and long tails—the wise commander begins to accumulate ammunition and draft reserves into his back areas. Before the great German drive in March, against the attenuated British line at St. Quentin, Sir Douglas Haig was made aware, by this and other means, of the cheering intelligence that he had opposite to a comparatively short sector of his front sixty-four German Divisions—or six more Divisions than there were British Divisions in the whole of France and Belgium! That was a case in which nothing could be done except put up the best defence possible with the troops available, for equally overwhelming odds were being massed against the rest of the British line. But in normal cases, to be forewarned is to be forearmed.
Trench raids are intermittent affairs. Patrols, on the other hand, must be organized every night. These excursions are not necessarily belligerent. Their main object is to collect information, and to make sure that the enemy keeps to his own side of the street. If two patrols do meet, and feel constrained to “start something,” the one thing no one ever does is to pull a gun or throw a bomb. To do so would be to invite impartial participation in the game by the machine guns of both sides. It must be cold steel or nothing. As often as not, it is nothing. Two patrols may meet, and cut one another dead, like rival beauties on Fifth Avenue.
One night Boone Cruttenden found himself detailed for patrol duty, with a sergeant and four men. The party were to scale the parapet, pass through a gap in the wire, and make a tour of a certain section of No Man’s Land. The whole operation, which was by this time a familiar one, was expected to occupy about an hour. Orders were given to the trench garrison that there must be no firing during this period.
Just before midnight, in the soft September darkness, Boone led his followers over the sandbags. It was a quiet night—suspiciously quiet—and there was little to be heard save some impatient rips of machine-gun fire farther south, and the soft explosion of the Verey pistols on both sides. There are three impressions of nocturnal trench warfare which never fade from the memory of those who have served their apprenticeship therein—one, the endless vista of bursting star-shells sinking from the sky along that tortuous, dolorous way that calls itself No Man’s Land; two, the eternal plop-plop! of the Verey pistols; three, the mingled smell of fresh earth, decaying matter, and disinfectants.
Boone’s first objective was a deep shell-crater some fifteen yards outside the wire. He had discovered it two nights previously, and it had struck him as a useful location for an advanced patrolling base. He gathered his henchmen around him and addressed them in a low voice.
“Sergeant, you stay here with McCarthy. Gillette and Thompson, crawl along our own front in that direction”—he pointed south—“until you come to the row of willow stumps that runs across from our line to theirs. (It’s an old turnpike, really.) Examine our wire all the way along, and see if it has been monkeyed with. If you catch sight of an enemy patrol, Gillette will stay and watch while Thompson gets back here and reports to the sergeant. Gillette, you will not take any notice of them”—Eddie sighed brokenly—“unless they show signs of wanting to come too close to our trenches.” (Eddie’s spirits rose again.) “Then use your own judgment. Your best plan will probably be to get home by the shortest route and warn the officer in charge. But don’t start any trouble if you can help it, because I shall be over on the other side with Gogarty, and we want to get home too! In any case we must all be back in an hour, because the artillery have a date with the German back areas at two, and we don’t want to get mixed up in any retaliation that may be going. Gogarty, follow me up this dry ditch. It leads right to the German wire, and we may find a German sentry-post halfway across. So come quietly.”
The two little expeditions crept away, on routes at right angles to one another. We will follow Boone and Mr. James Gogarty, who has not hitherto been introduced to the reader.
Jimmy Gogarty was twenty years of age, of wizened appearance, and raucous voice. He looked and sounded exactly like what he was—a bell-hop. He had exchanged livery for uniform at the first breath of hostilities, and was now reckoned one of the smartest scouts in Boone’s Company. He was a New Yorker born and bred, and had fought his way steadily up the social ladder of Second Avenue by the exercise of five remarkably sharp wits and two unpleasantly hard fists. He was devoted to Boone Cruttenden.