Here lies a dog as dead as dead,
A Sniper's bullet through its head,
Untroubled now by shots and shells,
It rots and can do nothing else.
The village where I write this is shelled daily, yesterday three men, two women and two children, all civilians, were killed. The natives have become almost indifferent to shell-fire.
In the villages in the line of war between Souchez and Ypres strange things happen and wonderful sights can be seen.
CHAPTER XIX
Souvenir Hunters
I have a big French rifle, its stock is riddled clean,
And shrapnel smashed its barrel, likewise its magazine;
I've carried it from A to X and back to A again,
I've found it on the battlefield amidst the soldiers slain.
A souvenir for blighty away across the foam,
That's if the French authorities will let me take it home.
Most people are souvenir hunters, but the craze for souvenirs has never affected me until now; at present I have a decent collection of curios, consisting amongst other things of a French rifle, which I took from the hands of a dead soldier on the field near Souchez; a little nickel boot, which was taken from the pack of a Breton piou-piou who was found dead by a trench in Vermelles—one of our men who obtained this relic carried it about with him for many weeks until he was killed by a shell and then the boot fell into my hands. I have two percussion caps, one from a shell that came through the roof of a dug-out and killed two of our boys, the other was gotten beside a dead lieutenant in a deserted house in Festubert. In addition to these I have many shell splinters that fell into the trench and landed at my feet, rings made from aluminium timing-pieces of shells and several other odds and ends picked up from the field of battle. Once I found a splendid English revolver—but that is a story.
We were billeted in a model mining-village of red brick houses and terra cotta tiles, where every door is just like the one next to it and the whole place gives the impression of monotonous sameness relieved here and there by a shell-shattered roof, a symbol of sorrow and wanton destruction. In this place of an evening children may be seen out of doors listening for the coming of the German shells and counting the number that fall in the village. From our billets we went out to the trenches by Vermelles daily, and cut the grass from the trenches with reaping hooks. In the morning a white mist lay on the meadows and dry dung and dust rose from the roadway as we marched out to our labour.
We halted by the last house in the village, one that stood almost intact, although the adjoining buildings were well nigh levelled to the ground. My mate, Pryor, fixed his eyes on the villa.