"The main entrance is on the other or northern side. It is reached by a drawbridge over the moat. The house on that (north) side is not so much damaged. It has long windows with shutters that give it a continental air. I can't sketch it, so I have given you a rough elevation from the south. I am sitting to the south-west, just across the moat.
"The place is in an awful mess. In some parts it is difficult to tell how the original building went. One can see into several of the rooms; the outer wall has fallen away, exposing about three rooms and an attic. In one room the floor has dropped at one corner to some 8 feet below its proper level, and a bed is just above poised on the edge of the room, almost falling out where the room is sectioned.
"There is no glass in any of the green-houses—it is all on the floor. The palm-house is full of green tubs with plants in them, mostly overturned.
"In the garden the trees are blossoming, some of the fruit trees are covered with white blossom; but many, even of these, are lying flat and blossoming in the moat. The drive runs down to the road on the south side in an absolutely straight line, flanked by tall trees. But many of these are down too. I was lying on one just now. The garden is in good order, though getting a little out of hand. There is a small plantation of gooseberry bushes that looks very healthy. Shell holes are all about, however.
"The house, although it is not on an eminence, commands a good view to the southward and has a fine view of the German lines, which are slightly raised just here. The enemy evidently suspected this château was used as an observation post, as indeed it may have been.
"We came out of the trenches on Wednesday night into Reserve Billets, and I was placed with No. 9 platoon (instead of my own) in a little house not far from this château. We are not allowed to leave it by day, or rather we are not allowed to show ourselves on the south side of it, as it might draw shell-fire on to it. But I managed to sneak away to the north under cover of a hedge without any risk of being seen.
"After being relieved in the trenches on Wednesday, and marching back and having a meal with the other officers of C Company in the Reserve Billets (a brewery), it was one o'clock before I got to bed in our little house. And we had to 'stand to arms' in the morning for an hour while dawn was breaking (we always do, and at dusk too). So after this I went to sleep till 2 p.m. I sleep in an outhouse with no door, on straw laid on a brick floor. My ground-sheet on the straw, my coat over me, my feet in a sack and an air-cushion under my head, and I can sleep as peacefully as at home. The place is swarming with rats and mice, you can hear them directly you lie still. They go 'plop, plop, plop,' on the straw overhead, as if they were obliged to take long strides owing to their feet sinking into the straw. Immediately over my head, I should judge, there is a family of young rats by the noise. Occasionally they have a stampede and a lot of dust comes down on my face.
"But one gets used to this, and muttering 'Nom d'un chien!' one turns the other cheek. By the way, they say these rats 'stand to' at dawn, just as we do.
"I am terrified of a rat running over my face, but my servant sleeps with me, so I console myself that the chances are just even that they won't choose me. I wish he wouldn't snore though—he's lowering the odds.
"Last night we had to turn out for fatigue parties. I took a party down to one of the fire trenches with 'knife rests.' These are sections of barbed wire entanglement. They are made by fixing cross-pieces on the ends of a long pole. The tips of these cross-pieces are joined together with barbed wire laid parallel to the centre pole. Then the whole is wound with more barbed wire laid on spirally, thus:
These are slung out in front of the trenches and fixed together. They are now fixed also to the trench, because the Germans used to harpoon them and draw them over to their own side!
"Well, we set off about 11 p.m. and took twenty-two of these down. We didn't exactly bless the full moon—although it showed us the holes and obstructions in the way. Still, we had no casualties and made good time. We got back about midnight. So I only slept till 12.30 this morning! Of course I had to get up for an hour at dawn. I used the time to brew myself some cocoa. I am getting an expert cook, and can make that 'Bivouac' cocoa taste like the very finest chocolate....
"Just before going into the trenches I received another of those splendid parcels of cabbage and apples. The apples are simply splendid. The cabbage is good, but I never cared very much for it—it is medicinal in this case. However, it is great to have such a fine supply of green stuff instead of none at all. The Mess does appreciate it.
"I have been supplying our Mess (C Company) with butter. And the supply sent up to now has just effected this with none to spare. But I don't know whether you want to do this, and that is why I suggested cutting down the supply. I don't want you to think any of it has been wasted though—it hasn't, and is splendid stuff....
"In the trenches one is not always doing nothing. These last three days in I have been up all night. I had a working party in two shifts working all night and all three nights, digging communication trenches. I used to go to bed about 4.20 a.m. and sleep till lunch-time, and perhaps lie down again for a bit in the afternoon. That is why my letters have not been so frequent.
"It is extraordinary that what is wanted at the moment is not so much a soldier as a civil engineer. There are trenches to be laid out and dug, and the drainage of them to be thought out and carried through. Often the sides have to be 'riveted' or staked, and a flooring of boards put in, supported on small piles.
"Then there is the water-supply, where one exists. I have had great fun arranging a 'source' in my trench (the support trench that I have been in these last three days and that I have been in often before). A little stream, quite clear and drinkable after boiling, runs out at one place (at about 1 pint a minute!) and makes a muddy mess of the trenches near. By damming it up and putting a water-bottle with the bottom knocked in on top of the dam, the water runs in a little stream from the mouth of the bottle. It falls into a hole large enough to receive a stone water-jar, and then runs away down a deep trough cut beside the trench. Farther down it is again dammed up to form a small basin which the men use for washing; and it finally escapes into a kind of marshy pond in rear of the trenches.
"I quite enjoyed this job, and there are many like it; plank bridges to be put up, seats and steps to be cut, etc. One officer put half a dozen of his men on to making a folding bed! But it was not for himself, but for his Captain, who has meningitis and can't sleep. The men enjoy these jobs too; it is much better than doing nothing.
"I will creep back to my quarters now and make myself some tea on my 'Primus' (no fires are allowed).
"A cuckoo has been singing on a tree near me—in full view. (It left hurriedly when one of our guns went off close behind the château.) The first time I have ever seen one, I think. It is amazing how tame the animals get. They have so much ground to themselves in the daytime—the rats especially; they flourish freely in the space between the trenches.
"Things are fairly quiet and easy here just now."
[In one of his letters to me [(22 April 1915)], he said he had plenty of time now to watch the stars, and would like a set of star maps or something in order to increase his knowledge of them. Accordingly, I sent him a planisphere which I happened to have—an ingenious cardboard arrangement which can be turned so as to show, in a rough way, the stars visible in these latitudes at any time of day and any period of the year.—O. J. L.]
"May Day 1915, 3.20 p.m.
"Thank you very much for the planisphere and for your letter. I have often seen the planisphere before, but never appreciated it until now.
"As to the 'Very' pistol, I quite agree that the 'barrel' is too short. If it were longer the light would be thrown farther, which would be much better. As it is, it falls between us and the Germans.
"The German lights, which I now learn are fired from a kind of mortar and not by a rocket as I thought, are much better than ours; they give a better and steadier, fatter light, and they are thrown well behind our trenches. However, ours are much better, and theirs are worse than they used to be....
"They have not turned the gas on to us here, though on some days I have smelled distinct traces coming down wind from the north. I should say it was chlorine rather than SO2 that I smelled. I don't know whether the ammonia preventive would be better than the soda one. In any case, the great thing is that one is provided. The soda method is the one in use, I believe, in the chlorine works at Widnes and elsewhere."
"Tuesday, 3 May 1915, 12.40 p.m.
"For the first three days we are out here in new billets—officers in a comfortable little house. Last three days of our 'rest' (!) we are going into a wood quite close to our 'Reserve Billets.' We are in 'support' in case of a sudden attack. Roads are so much knocked about by shells that traffic is limited and restricted. So we might not be able to support quick enough unless we were close.
"Everything is still very much upset, due to the penetration of our (French) line. They have been shelling our village from the rear (!) and most of the companies have had to quit. We (C Company) are well back now....
"Two of our platoons went digging last night. Mine was one. We left here about eight o'clock, and I got back at 1 a.m., and then I sat up with another subaltern (Fletcher) after I had had some supper until the other man (Thomas) had come in and eaten. We went to bed at 3 a.m. Breakfast at nine this morning, and we are resting. However, I am going to have an absolutely slack day to-day. A bath too, if I can manage it....
"Last night the moon got up very late and was quite useless. They fire more when there is no light, they get scared—at least uneasy; they fire off 'Very' lights constantly, and let off volleys. We lie absolutely flat while this goes on. It is a funny sight; the men look like a row of starfish!"
"Tuesday, 11 May 1915, 9.15 a.m.
(really Wednesday the 12th. I had got wrong)"We are within view of a well-known place [no doubt Ypres.—O. J. L.], and the place has been on fire in three or four places for about two days, and is still going strong. A magnificent spectacle at night. The place is, I believe, a city of ruins and dead, and there is probably no one to put a fire out. Probably, too, a fire is rather a good thing than otherwise; the place must be terribly in need of purifying.
"I was awfully interested in father's dream.[3] Your letter is dated the 8th, and you say that the other night he dreamt that I was in the thick of the fighting, but that they were taking care of me from the other side.
"Well, I don't know about 'the thick of the fighting,' but I have been through what I can only describe as a hell of a shelling with shrapnel. My diary tells me it was on the 7th, at about 10.15 a.m. Our Company were ordered forward from one set of dug-outs to others nearer the firing line, and the formation adopted was platoons in single file, with intervals between. That is, four columns of about fifty men each, in single file, with about 20 to 50 yards between each column. I was the third platoon, though I was not with my own but with No. 9. Fletcher brought up the last one, thus:—