Canada in war-paint

by Ralph W. Bell

And if you let him he will continue in like vein for half an hour. Recollections of that bed have entered into his soul; it is one of the bright spots in a gloomy life.

Needless to say, the farther you go back from the line, the better the beds. They can be roughly classified as follows: Battle beds. Front line beds. Support beds. Reserve beds. Divisional rest beds. Corps reserve beds, and Army Reserve beds. Beyond this it is fifty-fifty you will get a good bed, provided there are not too many troops in the place you go to.

Battle beds, as such, are reserved for battalion commanders, seconds in command, and adjutants. Sometimes Os.C. units have a look-in, but the humble sub. has not, unless he is one of those Johnnies who can always make something out of nothing.

When there is a “show” on nobody expects to sleep more than two hours in twenty-four, and he’s lucky if he gets that. The C.O. takes his brief slumber on some bare boards raised above the floor-level in a dug-out. The Os.C. units use a stretcher, with a cape for a pillow, and the others sleep any old where—on a broken chair, in a corner on the ground, on the steps of a dug-out, on the fire-step of a parapet, or even leaning against the parapet. One of the best snoozes we ever had was of the last variety, while Fritz was plastering the communication trenches with a barrage a mouse could not creep through.

There is one thing about battle beds; one is far too weary to do anything but flop limply down, and go instantly to sleep. The nature of your couch is of secondary importance. Possibly the prize goes to the man who slept through an intense bombardment, curled up between two dead Germans, whom he thought were a couple of his pals, asleep, when he tumbled in to rest.

Front line beds vary according to sector. Usually they are simply a series of bunks, tucked in one above the other as in a steamer-cabin, and made of a stretch of green canvas nailed to a pair of two by fours. Sometimes an ingenious blighter introduces expanded metal or chicken wire into the general make-up, with the invariable result that it gets broken by some 200-pounder, and remains a menace to tender portions of the human frame until some one gets “real wild” and smashes up the whole concern.

In support, the “downy couch” does not improve very much. Sometimes it is worse, and it is always inhabited by a fauna of the largest and most voracious kind.

There is a large element of chance as to reserve beds. They are generally snares of disillusionment, but once in a while the connoisseur strikes oil. It will not have sheets—clean sheets, at all events—but it may possess the odd blanket, and the room may have been cleaned a couple of weeks ago. If Madame is clean the bed will be clean; if otherwise, otherwise also.

All the beds at the front are the same in some respects. They are all wooden, and they nearly all have on them huge piles of mattresses, four or five deep. It is wisest not to investigate too thoroughly the inner consciousnesses of the latter, or the awakening may be rude. In the old days, long, long ago, when the dove of Peace billed and cooed over the roof of the world, no self-respecting citizen would sleep in them, but now with what joy do we sink with a sigh of relief into the once abominated feather-bed of doubtful antecedents, which has been slept in for two years by one officer after another, and never, never, never been aired.

C’est la guerre!