We have been having Sunday “hate.” Eight-inch crumps are once more busting “up” the chateau. How they must detest this place. My tea and bully beef are covered with dust of the last shell. You have no idea how terrible the shell-fire is. [pg 134] First you hear the whistle and then a terrific burst which shakes the ground for a hundred yards around; when it clears away you find a hole ten feet across and six feet deep. At least fifteen have dropped around us in the last half hour.
This place isn't somewhere in France, it's somewhere in Hell! It has been the scene of a great many encounters; decayed French uniforms, old rifles, ammunition and leather equipment and bundles of mildewed tobacco leaves are strewn all over the place. I found the chin-strap of a German “Pickelhaube” in the grounds, the helmet of a French cuirassier, and the red pants of a Zouave, close together. When digging in the trenches or anywhere near the firing line you have to be careful: corpses, dead horses, and cattle are buried everywhere. I'm building a trench to my emplacement and we have a stinking cow in the direct line; this will have to be buried before we can cut through.
Everybody is cheerful and going strong. [pg 135] Yesterday some of my men went swimming in the moat of the chateau; a shell dropped in the water near them, and threw up a lot of fish on to the bank. That kind of discouraged the Tommies swimming, so they cooked the fish and decided that safety comes before cleanliness out here.
It's hot and sticky, and when you have to wear thick clothes and equipment it makes you very uncomfortable, but it's all in the game.
All through the night we fired single shots from a machine gun; my orders were to fire between half-past eight at night and four o'clock in the morning. We have a number of guns doing this. It harasses the enemy and keeps them from sleeping; anything that will wear a man down is practiced here.
I've constructed a fire emplacement amongst the ruins underground; to get to it you have to travel through a tunnel eighteen feet long; inside it's very damp. I was working with my corporal, crouched up; [pg 136] we were both wet and cold, and so to cheer things up every now and again we let off a few rounds and warmed our hands on the barrel. Outside it poured with rain, and mosquitoes sought refuge inside and mealed off me. The corporal was immune. I had a water bottle full of whiskey and water. We used it to keep out the cold, but it wasn't strong enough. In a case like that you need wood alcohol. I would like to have had some Prohibitionists with me here. We had no light except the flash of the gun and the enemy star shells.
At daybreak I came home dead beat. I got into my cellar, was so tired that I threw myself down on the bed and wrapped myself up in my blankets, boots, mud, lice and all. I hadn't been asleep long before the Huns started “hating” the chateau. They have put over twenty-five large calibre shells into my place, the grounds and the house. They are still at it. Every time a shell bursts it makes a hole big enough to bury five horses, and it shakes the foundations all round. The [pg 137] shells are bigger than usual. The smoke and earth are blown up fifty or sixty feet in the air. The effect is a moral disruption. Why can't they keep that cotton out of Germany?
I have divided my section up into two teams, one in the cellars and one in the gun-pits. I relieve them every twenty-four hours, and I practically have to be in both places at once, but I have got a telephone in between the two places. I have it by my bed so that I can constantly know how things are going. However, the wire is cut two or three times a day by bullets and shell splinters, my linesman has a constant job.
Fired all night; came back at six o'clock this morning, very tired. Had a telegram from the general to fire two thousand rounds in twenty-four hours; this is quite hard work. Actually we could fire the lot in five minutes, but it would attract too much attention. The enemy use whole batteries of artillery to blot out machine guns which attract attention, so we have to fire single shots.
We have for neighbors four dead cows and an unexploded six-inch shell, liable to go off any time, all in a radius of one hundred yards. We have smashed holes through five walls so that we can go through the ruins unobserved. In one place we pass over a dead cow, and in another we wade through several tons of rotten potatoes, and I believe we have a corpse handy; and part of our trench goes through another heap of rotten mangles. I'm an authority on smells. I can almost tell the nationality of a corpse now by the smell. It will soon be necessary to wear our smoke-helmets to go into the emplacement. I don't think that I have told you that I cross the Yser canal about six times a day. I'd been up a week before I knew what it was. Now it only has a few feet of water in it, the rest being held in the German locks. The part I cross over is full of bulrushes, and is the home of moor-hens, water rats, mosquitoes and frogs.