It is not easy to say what stands out most clearly in my mind of those early operations, because what I chiefly remember is Loos; but I know that we were terribly troubled in the trenches and round about them by rats. These horrible things swarmed—they breed like rabbits, or worse—and they went for anything that was going. They were huge, fierce brutes, and I know of more than one case of a sentry on a lonely post who in the night-time got a bad scare because he thought the Germans were on him, when as a matter of fact it was nothing worse than an enormous rat which was out foraging and made a jump at his face.
More than six months passed between the battle of Neuve Chapelle and the battle of Loos. Of course an ordinary soldier doesn’t know much of what is happening, and he doesn’t pretend to—he has his own business to mind; but we knew for several days ahead that something was coming off, judging by the amount of stuff that went up. What do I mean by stuff? Well, the shells, principally. They were preparing the way, and were smashing up the whole of the countryside. It was really terrible to see what havoc was done by the German shells at Vermelles—streets were blown to bits, churches and houses were just made into rubbish heaps, and as for men, especially Germans, they didn’t count. It isn’t easy to make anybody understand what happened; but perhaps the easiest way is to imagine your own house and street and the country near it turned from a smiling, prosperous place into a heap of dreary and desolate ruins.
In that battle of Loos we were thrown up against all the latest and most devilish tricks of German warfare, including gas. There was poison-gas and smoke-gas, terrible artillery, awful rifle-fire, and of course the rifle and bayonet. You seemed to be up against every sort of devilry, including the Germans. I suppose you can’t expect anything else from them, being what they are.
We were in reserve trenches on September 24th, and on the night of that same day we went up to the firing-line.
It was a miserable night, with drizzling rain all the time. We started at ten o’clock, creeping and crawling through a long communication trench. We did not finish this advance job till two o’clock next morning, and then we sat in the trench and waited for the dawn to break. It was a solemn business, squatting there in the cold drizzle, talking in low tones, and wondering which of us would go down.
It was a lovely morn that broke, and glad we were to see it. Then, at about a quarter past five, the band began to play. And what a time it was, to be sure! It was a terrible bombardment, with the whole countryside shaking and shivering with the crashing of the guns, and your head felt like bursting with the din.
We had to stand this horrible racket for some time. I don’t know how long, but it seemed a fair stretch; then the word came to mount the parapet of the trench. It was a high parapet, and ladders were needed to get over it. There were plenty of ladders to each parapet, and as the order was one man to a ladder, no time was lost in getting out of the trench and on to the open ground over which the advance was made to the German trenches.
As soon as the men who were making the attack got over the parapet, the stretcher-bearers went after them with the stretchers. My chum with my stretcher was Private Pymm.
The men of our battalion had their smoke-helmets on, and they looked like devils. And that was a proper thing to look, for they went straight into a hellish fire—no other word will describe the storm of shells and bullets that met them. It seemed impossible for any one to live in it, yet our men went forward, and being a stretcher-bearer I had a wonderful view of them.
As soon as we got over the parapet the men began to fall, and we began to bandage them up. What we had to deal with were mostly “blighty” wounds, as we called them—just one through the thigh, or a flesh wound. We did the best we could for them; and we had soon tackled a few. Then we went on and tackled a few more. We had dropped our stretcher and were hurrying about, each of us doing the best he could.