July 10. Usual sort of day. Had to walk all the way to line and back as it was impossible to get a bike through the mud. Wretched night, with pouring rain and howling wind—two poor devils killed.
July 11. Usual day—started clearing New Wood for digging to-morrow night. Whole area heavily shelled. Could sleep for ever and would dearly love to die.
July 12. Went up in the afternoon to take over two more jobs—making a new roof for left Brigade H.Q.’s and tunnelling an underground First-Aid Post for the Middlesex. Had tea with the Brigadier and then dinner with the C.O. front line battalion. It is really very amusing the way in which some of these old-time regulars endeavour to preserve their mess formalities. The dug-out couldn’t have been more than 12 feet square, and yet they managed to produce quite a respectable four-course dinner for seven officers. It was handed on to the table by a perspiring orderly, who crouched in the entrance to a tunnel which could not have exceeded 3 ft. by 4 ft. How the food was cooked I could never imagine, but the smells of cooking leaked out from behind the orderly, and somewhere in the depths of the blackness behind him there was a voice that swore, mightily and frequently. I judged that the Voice had produced the meal and also that it had been a hot job. Most of the soup got spilt before it left the end of the cavern, but the smell was excellent and gave us quite an appetite for the tinned salmon which followed. This had been brought up with ammunition and a bottle of execrable French vinegar from Division that very afternoon. The next course was excellent. Roast mutton, procured as the result of dark dealings with the A.S.C., fresh peas from heavens knows where, and lastly some sauce made from mint which they said had been growing last night in No Man’s Land. The sweet was a treacle pudding. We drank thin whiskies and sodas which were distinctly lukewarm in spite of all the doctor’s efforts to keep the stuff cool. All things considered, a very enjoyable meal and a great credit to the Voice.
Did a hard night’s work and got back, feeling as if I could sleep for ever, about 5 a.m.
July 13. Was up again about 10 a.m. and inspected explosives before lunch. Then up the line again to start another mining job—“B” Company, H.Q. Front Line Battalion. Have now got two big mining jobs in hand and the Colonel absolutely refuses to send me any timber. He says there is plenty to be salved. True, O king! but to call it firewood would be flattery. However, it doesn’t matter—if the whole damn shaft falls in and kills twenty men there are plenty more in England. Life is much cheaper than timber! Managed to get home for tea and dinner, but back out again all night. While talking to one of the working-party officers a piece of whizz-bang landed between us and another one smashed his respirator. I am sure some one is going to be killed in the mines—the earth runs like quicksand, and even with decent frames it would be a dangerous job. Without, it is sheer suicide, and a shell anywhere near us on the surface will cave the whole thing in. Fortunately, the men don’t realise these things, lucky beggars.
July 14. Informed that the Division on our right are doing a raid to-night, but working parties are to go out as usual! If I were sentimental I should have to write a last letter home every night—then I would certainly be killed.
Started work on a strong point in front of the hill, and shortly afterwards our barrage started in conjunction with the raid. It was very fierce, and the S.O.S. lights went up at once over the German lines. We were watching the pretty colours when their protective barrage came down, just like a sudden thunderstorm, and I realised to my horror that we were working dead on their barrage line. Before I saw exactly what had happened two men were knocked to pieces and the remainder were running all over the place looking for cover. There were the ruins of a farm on our left, and I was trying to get the men together into the holes around this. We got about fifteen into this and several wounded, and then they shortened range. A salvo came bang on top of us, there was a great lurid flash and a roar by my feet and I thought I was done for. I went clean off my feet and was blown several yards, but got up and found I was untouched but nearly blind and awfully dizzy. I heard some one calling, and found McDougall. He had been knocked over by the same shell and was quite blind. We crawled into a hole together and waited to get our breath. The shells were coming just round us in solid masses so close that we could feel the earth heaving, and once or twice we were half buried. I had lost my bearings completely, and McDougall was still blind and apparently dazed, for he wouldn’t answer when I shouted in his ear. Then I felt alone and I thought I would go mad—there were rats in the same hole with us, screaming with terror, and all the time those blasted shells, crash, crash, crash. I felt I must do something, so I looked over into the next shell-hole and saw that it was part of an old trench. I shoved McDougall over and together we flopped down into it and felt much safer, as it was deeper than the one we had left. Then I started to crawl along the trench, and to my great delight we found some of the men.
For three-quarters of an hour we lay in that ditch with the earth jumping and falling all round us—at times the whole trench seemed to move three or four feet. A ration party out on the mule track hadn’t got such good cover, and we could hear the poor devils moaning and screaming as some of the others tried to drag them back to the aid post. Some of the kids in our trench began to cry, and I felt like it myself. We were all choking, and the valley was so full of smoke and dust that I couldn’t even see the Verey lights which were less than 300 yards away—only the great red splashes of fire where the shells burst.
It seemed to last for hours; the steady crashing of the bursts, the whine of the flying pieces and all around the screaming of shattered men who had once been strong. And then the smell which, if a man has known it once, will haunt him to the end of time, the most sickly nauseating stench in the world—the combined smell of moist earth, high explosive, and warm human blood.
God, in Thy mercy, let me never again hear any one speak of the Glory of War!