CHAPTER VI
BITS OF BATTLE
On the way over to the barn, where the shell hit the 48th, a piece of a tree limb smashed into the ground at my feet, following the familiar whiz just overhead of a large gun missive, with its accompanying wind gust, and at the same moment something struck with a thud the tree from which the splinter had come. Glancing up, I noticed a shell lodged in a fork of the two main branches, that had stuck there without exploding. For a shell to explode, it is necessary that the nose of the fuse, containing the detonator, shall come in contact with a solid substance, in order to make ignition and cause the explosion. This had not been done; owing to the intervention of kind nature in the shape of the crotch in that tree catching and holding the shell fast in a firm embrace, we were saved from that additional disaster and death.
A dried-up creek that was being used by us for a trench on the Ypres sector was crossed by a wooden bridge about thirty feet long. This bridge was used as a means of transport at night and by Red Cross men in the daytime, and was very useful; it was most important that it be kept in constant repair. I was detailed in charge of the repair party. One day during the great Ypres battle, about ten o'clock in the morning, the bridge was smashed and I took my party up and made the necessary repairs. We had hardly returned to cover when the bridge was smashed again, and again we rushed out and fixed it up. As we ran, three men forged ahead of me and got to the middle of the thirty-foot structure; I was about twenty feet behind them, the rest of the party immediately behind me. I was shouting an order to them, when a shell exploded in the middle of the bridge, killing all three. I was saved by twenty feet.
In the late afternoon one day of the battle, I was resting in a hole I had burrowed under a sand-bank; about 200 men were burrowed in the same bank in the same way. A monster shell struck the bank immediately above me, upheaving the ground and completely burying me and half a dozen others. I was dug out in a half smothered condition, but soon was able to assist in the work of resurrecting the rest. The only casualty that occurred in that incident was innocently caused by myself; as I was digging, my shovel struck the leg of an officer, inflicting such a gash that when resuscitated he had to go to hospital.
A cunning device of the Germans to misuse the Red Cross came to light during the next few days. It was in the vicinity of the woods where the Imperial Batteries had lost their guns. In a counter attack to retake these guns our men went over, accompanied by the engineers, to destroy the guns, as it was thought it would be impossible to bring them back. This turned out to be true, as the enemy advanced in such strong mass formation that our fellows had their hands full fighting them off until the engineers made good their work, which they did by smashing the hydraulic buffers with picks, destroying the sights, blowing the guns up, and taking the breech-blocks back with them.
In going over the ground that our barrage had covered a few minutes before, we found lying there German soldiers who had acted as stretcher bearers, wearing the red cross of Geneva on their arms, for the purpose of running wires from trench to trench, from battery to battery, and to headquarters, and the way they did the trick was to take a roll of wire on a stretcher covered with a blanket, to represent a wounded comrade, start the roll unwinding and running the wire between their legs as they walked. The blankets on the stretchers were used to deceive our observers and make them believe they were doing honest hospital work in the field. This was only one of their many unprincipled practices, for the Germans ignored all usages of war as practiced by civilization.
During the busiest days of May, 1915, between the second and third battle of Ypres, I was on guard duty at field headquarters in the trenches. The Staff was located in an old two-story building that was much the worse for wear from German calling cards. My "go" was from eight to ten P.M. Promptly at ten o'clock a rap came to the door and, blowing out the light, I inquired who it was. It was my relief, Dave Evans, one of the best pals whom it has ever been my lot to soldier with. Dave was a heavy-set man, strong as an ox; I think he could have almost felled a bull with his fist, so powerful was he. I re-lit the candle after closing the door. This was Dave's first "go" at this particular spot, and I cautioned him to be careful not to show himself in the open doorway with the light behind him, as the building was under observation and the splinters that were being continually chipped from it demonstrated how keenly active and alert they were, and made it necessary for a man to be on the lookout every second of the time. He said he would take no chances. Dave had just obtained an Enfield rifle, for which he had been very glad to exchange his Ross, as the Enfield is better suited for trench purposes, and, not being thoroughly familiar with its workings, he asked me to explain it to him, which I did. Then I blew out the light, opened the door, whispered "good-night," and started down the path. About a hundred feet away I heard Dave calling me back; I turned; he was standing in the doorway, with the candle light gleaming behind him. He called out, "Grant, I don't quite get this safety catch and bolt; would you mind showing it to me again?"
"Blow out the light, you damn fool," I called.
"All right," and he did so and I started back. As he answered me I heard simultaneously the report of a rifle and the whiz of a bullet passing me. When I got to the door I stumbled over the body of my friend Dave; he had received the summons through the head.
While standing guard at the open door, before Dave came, with the light out, however, I suddenly got a start that frightened me more than anything else that has happened me in France: In the gleam of a distant flare, the white faces of two women peered around the corner of the building, looking at me through the open door. There was something so damnably uncanny in their appearance, and so startling, that a cold sweat broke out over me, and I snapped my rifle to the present. Had they not been women they would not have lived; a loiterer around headquarters takes his life in his hands.