The birds sing oblivious of war here, but sometimes you see pigeons trying to fly across. I say trying, because our men always endeavour and sometimes succeed in shooting them. Why? Because probably they are carrying spies' messages to the Huns which may mean death to us. We do not want the enemy to know how we are distributing our batteries in the rear, so we try to stop enemy aeroplanes or pigeons crossing either way.
As soon as daylight appears you will usually hear the droning of a swarm of great bees humming their way across No Man's Land. They are British aeroplanes, often flown by young men from eighteen years of age and upwards. They never refuse a fight, and the best proof of their efficiency is seen in the fact that fortunes are wasted by the Germans every day in anti-aeroplane fire, in the vain hope of stopping them. They often cross in ordered ranks, and go through wonderful evolutions on their way—circling over each other like catherine-wheels, and looping the loop as if in the joy of battle and contempt of the enemy.
Our airmen are the pride of the infantry. If you want to be cheered up, all you have to do is to look up, and watch these adventurers of the air. Many a stirring fight have we witnessed in the air over that unowned terrain called No Man's Land. One evening we watched a fearless observer making his regular circles amid such intense anti-aeroplane fire that we trembled for him. By-and-by he began to fall, and we watched his descent with our hearts in our mouths. When we saw that he was going to land just in our lines, we raced madly to the spot. Some of the officers, revolver in hand, thinking they might need to fend off the enemy, were so eager that they forgot their tin-hats which were really more necessary. To make sure of him the Boches simply plastered the spot where he had landed with shell-fire. Arriving, we saw him desperately dragging the engine, which was intact, under a parapet. Then he took refuge, and we congratulated him, saying he was 'very lucky.'
'Lucky, do you call it?' he responded. 'Why, they have ruined my machine.'
Why, so they had!
There was a legend with us in one sector not far from Armentières of an airman whom we called 'the mad major.' I don't know whether he was one, or two, or three. Like the gun we called 'Beechy Bill' at Gallipoli, perhaps there were several of him. All we knew was that we would see an airman flying gamely among the puffballs of the breaking anti-aeroplane shells of the enemy, and sometimes he seemed to get into trouble, and we used to cry out, 'They have got him!' He would fall like a stone, recover, fall again, and then when we looked for the awful end he would skim low over the German trenches plying his machine-gun like one o'clock. Good luck to the mad major! There was a method in his madness, although we never knew what he was going to do next. Nor did the Hun. In spite of danger and orders, we used to crouch behind the parapets watching our airmen, and it was a tonic to us.
Of course at any time, and for long periods all the time, shells, from spitting rifle batteries to 60-lb. projectiles from big guns in the rear, are screaming and hissing over No Man's Land; and wherever you are 'you never know your luck.' Moral: Do not despise your tin-hat. It may be uncomfortable, but it would be more uncomfortable to 'stop one' even if it were but a fragment.
New monsters called Tanks have taken to moving across the debateable territory called No Man's Land, spitting out flaming death as they go. In short, all the accumulating frightfulness which we are learning to use is being used to say to the Hun in tongues of fire and steel, 'This is not your land; begone, and take up once more your watch on the Rhine!'
But you wonder why we do not annex No Man's Land, and advance. The strategy of staying here till the right moment comes is wise and humane. There are fine towns and villages containing non-combatants on the other side of No Man's Land. It would be but to mock their hopes to advance unless we could sweep on everywhere. Nor do we wish to conquer in such a way that every village is left in ruins. Here and there at strategic points we may have to do that. It is not so much that we want to break through as that we want the whole line to break. Meanwhile it is a very hot and unhealthy place for Fritz.
Besides that, we are beating the enemy every day on this line. It suits us. We have organized it. Here we have trolley-lines, concrete bomb-proof stores, and many things that take time to build. Later, when the right time comes, we shall cross No Man's Land at many places, and it will become France again for ever. Until that time comes we cannot do more than present our claim to No Man's Land. We do this frequently and 'in person.' Our patrols and scouts enter it nightly, and it requires courage and craft to do this. Through secret sally-ports, over parapets, and where the line has been damaged by shell-fire, they steal out in the darkness, and the German sentries keep a succession of flares and star-shells going to detect them. What hairbreadth escapes they have, and what escapes the Hun sentries have; for sometimes they find themselves very near to one, and they have to get back with their information without raising an alarm if possible. Sometimes, however, through a mistake, in the fog or darkness they get into the German line, and they have to fight and escape amid following bullets. At such times our men at the parapets have carefully to cover their return with rifle-fire, and even help them over or under our defences back again to safety. Young intelligence officers take many risks as they crawl amid the hollows in No Man's Land, revolver in hand, in search of information.