Buried Alive
Have you any idea what a trench is like? It is simply a long cutting such as the gasmen make when laying pipes—about 5 ft. deep and 2 ft. wide. You are packed in, standing room only. No chance of a wash, or proper rest. They are supposed to shelter you from rifle shots and bits of bursting shell. Every day two or three are killed or wounded. There is another danger, too. I had an experience of it yesterday. A big shell burst in our trench, and two men and I were completely buried by the sides of the trench being blown in. It was an awful feeling being buried alive and slowly suffocating. I wished the shell had hit me, while I was underneath. Our chaps dug us out just in time, thank God: Sergt. Saward, Royal West Kent Regiment.
Cut and Thrust
The German trenches are marvellous. They are dug right into the ground, and you might walk over them for hours without guessing that there were men hidden away in them. The wonder is how they manage to fire at all from them, but I dare say they are quite effective against shell fire, and, what’s more important still, they make it very hard for our aeroplanes to spot the Germans and form any estimate of their strength. We are not one whit behind them in making trenches, and you might say that the whole fight out here is simply a matter of digging trenches right up so close that the other fellow has to run. It’s dull work, but it’s enlivened now and then by little fights by day and night, when the Germans rush out to surprise us or our generals think it well to push the enemy a little further back: A Corporal, at the Aisne.
Robinson Crusoe
I lost a few good chums. My ’listing chum was almost blown to pieces. He belonged to Newcastle, and was always laughing. He had to be buried under shell fire. We had many a good starving for water, food, and tobacco. Talking about tobacco, we had to smoke our tea. I smoked two tea allowances, and we had a tin box of tea leaves, which we took out of a kettle, drying it on our trench tops. Now a little about the trenches. Robinson Crusoe wasn’t in it. Our regiment was in them eight days without a hot drink, without a wash, shave, or a decent bit of food. We could not get stuff up there, as there was too much shell fire from the German side, and our transport could not get stuff up as the bridge over the Aisne was broken: Pte. Gray, Northumberland Fusiliers.
Swarms of Them
We had dug trenches and were waiting for something to happen when a German aeroplane came high over our lines. Then came a rain of shells from a wood. The enemy were about a mile and half away, but they got the range to a nicety. People who say that the German artillery fire is no good simply don’t know what they are talking about. I can only figure it out as being something worse than the mouth of hell. The Germans treated us to shell cross-fire, and a piece of shell hit my rifle—smash! I pitched forward in the trench, the muzzle part of the rifle went into my groin, and I got a lovely bang with another bit of shell across the leg. The Germans came out of the wood in swarms—just as if a hive had been overturned and all the bees were let loose. I thought my number was up: Private J. Stiles.