"Bill, Bill!" we muttered hoarsely.
"Well, blimey, that's a go," he said coughing and spitting. "What 'ave I done, splunk on a dead 'un I flopped, a stinking corpse. 'E was 'uggin' me, kissin' me. Oh! nark the game, ole stiff 'un," said Bill, addressing the ground where I could perceive a bundle of dark clothes, striped with red and deep in the grass. "Talk about rotten eggs burstin' on your jor; they're not in it."
The light of the star-shell waned and died away; the Corporal spoke to Bill.
"Next time a light goes up you be flat; you're giving the whole damned show away," the Corporal said. "If you're spotted it's all up with us."
We fixed swords clamping them into the bayonet standards and lay flat on the ground in the midst of dead bodies of French soldiers. Months before the French endeavoured to take the German trenches and got about half way across the field. There they stopped, mown down by rifle and machine gun fire and they lie there still, little bundles of wasting flesh in the midst of the poppies. When the star-shells went up I could see a face near me, a young face clean-shaven and very pale under a wealth of curly hair. It was the face of a mere boy, the eyes were closed as if the youth were only asleep. It looked as if the effacing finger of decay had forborne from working its will on the helpless thing. His hand still gripped the rifle, and the long bayonet on the standard shone when the light played upon it. It seemed as if he fell quietly to the ground, dead. Others, I could see, had died a death of agony; they lay there in distorted postures, some with faces battered out of recognition, others with their hands full of grass and clay as if they had torn up the earth in their mad, final frenzy. Not a nice bed to lie in during a night out on listening patrol.[4]
The Engineers were now at work just behind us, I could see their dark forms flitting amongst the posts, straightening the old ones, driving in fresh supports and pulling the wires taut. They worked as quietly as possible, but to our ears, tensely strained, the noise of labour came like the rumble of artillery. The enemy must surely hear the sound. Doubtless he did, but probably his own working parties were busy just as ours were. In front when one of our star-shells went across I fancied that I could see dark forms standing motionless by the German trench. Perhaps my eyes played me false, the objects might be tree-trunks trimmed down by shell fire....
The message came out from our trench and the Corporal passed it along his party. "On the right a party of the —th London are working." This was to prevent us mistaking them for Germans. All night long operations are carried on between the lines, if daylight suddenly shot out about one in the morning what a scene would unfold itself in No Man's Land; listening patrols marching along, Engineers busy with the wires, sanitary squads burying the dead and covering parties keeping watch over all the workers.
"Halt! who goes there?"
The order loud and distinct came from the vicinity of the German trench, then followed a mumbled reply and afterwards a scuffle, a sound as of steel clashing in steel, and then subdued laughter. What had happened? Next day we heard that a sergeant and three men of the —th were out on patrol and went too near the enemy's lines. Suddenly they were confronted by several dark forms with fixed bayonets and the usual sentry's challenge was yelled out in English. Believing that he had fallen across one of his own outposts, the unsuspecting sergeant gave the password for the night, approached those who challenged him and was immediately made prisoner. Two others met with the same fate, but one who had been lagging at the rear got away and managed to get back to his own lines. Many strange things happen between the lines at night; working parties have no love for the place and hundreds get killed there.
The slightest tinge of dawn was in the sky when our party slipped back over the parapet and stood to arms on the banquette and yawned out the conventional hour when soldiers await the attacks which so often begin at dawn.