Over the Front in an Aeroplane, and Scenes Inside the French and Flemish Trenches

by Ralph Pulitzer

It may not be a particularly pretty subject, but I think it well worth stating that that mass of soldiers, packed into the small inclosed space, left the air as pure and untainted at the end of those ten minutes as it had been before they jammed their way in. I had noticed the same thing the day before during the two hours that I had spent by the howitzer with the nine men of the crew. There is no doubt about it that even the English—who of course originally invented and patented personal cleanliness in this world—will have to scrub exceedingly hard to keep up with the Belgians.

The rain having stopped, we slipped and slithered on foot along the byroad till we came to a prairie-dog village of bomb-proofs with soldiers' heads popping out of the little openings and then popping in again. Here we met a young First Lieutenant, who very kindly offered to show us the quickest way to the communicating trench, and off we marched.

At this point we were just about half-way between the two opposing bodies of artillery. High in air, right above our heads, the shells of the two armies, hurtling along in opposite directions, met and passed each other on their way. These big projectiles in passing over us sounded exactly as if they were running along aerial rails. You could hear them rattling along these rails, bumping over the rail joints, banging over switches. It was a perfect illusion. By closing your eyes you could have sworn that you were standing under Brooklyn Bridge hearing the procession of street-cars, with silenced gongs, roll by at express speed overhead. First there would be a distant report, then silence as the shell rose, and then suddenly it would get on the rails, rattle up to the top of its grade, coast down the grade the other side and leave the tracks a second or two before the final explosion.

Some ten minutes later we were walking along a broad road, with the noise of exploding shells getting louder and louder ahead. Then suddenly a perfect swarm of bullets came chirping past us.

"Just this little bit of the road is visible from the German lines," remarked the Lieutenant. "They are about 500 metres away from us here."

It must have been comical to see the way in which the Commandant, his orderly and I did an Indian war-dance down that road, all three bent double. The Lieutenant must have caught the contagion from us, for, as more bullets came by, zeup! zeup! zeup! he doubled up himself. In a few seconds, however, he said we were out of sight again, and so we straightened up and walked forward proudly erect, although every little while when some bullets went by just over our heads we showed distinct tendencies to collapse anew.

Now we came to the communication trench and climbed down into it one after the other. It was very different from the French "boyaux," or communicating trenches. Those were dug a good seven feet deep almost everywhere, and never less than six feet. So that one could walk about in them at one's ease without paying any attention to the bullets that cracked up above. Only a shell plunging directly into one of these three feet wide, seven feet deep ditches could be dangerous.

But the Belgians could not dig down more than about two and one-half feet at the most without striking water. That, with an earth and sod rampart about two feet high, gave a protection never more than five feet at its highest and often under four feet in height. Now, it probably sounds very easy to keep sheltered while walking along behind four feet of ditch and parapet, but if any one tries it for more than five minutes at a time he will know what a real backache feels like.

This trench, which ran forward in very short abrupt zigzags, was floored with pieces of wicker-work to prevent sinking into the mud. The half-hour's rain had filled long stretches of it ankle-deep with water.