I have been telling about the determination I had to be revenged for my brother’s death. That was my great object, and I kept it in mind before anything else—and I think I carried it out. Apart from any motive, it is the British soldier’s duty to do everything he can to settle the enemy, especially the Germans, and I am glad that I did my bit in this respect.
Now listen to what has really happened. After all that fighting and suffering with the grand old “Die-Hards” I got my own turn, after many wonderful escapes. A shell burst near me and the fragments peppered me on the right hand here and about this side of the body, and bowled me out for the time being. I was sent home, and here I am in London again, getting well and expecting the call to come at any time to go back to the front. When it comes I shall be ready to obey.
Look at this postcard. It is written, as you see, by a British soldier who is a prisoner of war in Germany, and it tells the glad news that my brother, who, I was told, was killed months ago by a bursting shell, is not dead, but is alive and well, although he is a prisoner of war.
CHAPTER VIII
LIFE IN THE TRENCHES
[The winter of the war was marked by an abnormal rainfall and storms of uncommon severity: also by the extraordinary development of trench warfare. The rain and storms, the frost and snow, made it impossible to carry out the greater operations of campaigning, with the result that both sides dug themselves in and fought from rival trenches which in many cases were separated by only a few yards. This story deals with life in the trenches, at La Bassée, and it gives a wonderful understanding of the privations that have been uncomplainingly borne by British soldiers. The teller is Private G. Townsend, 2nd Battalion East Lancashire Regiment, who has had more than six years’ service with the colours. These long-service men have compelled the attention of even the Germans who despised the “contemptible little army,” for they have admitted that the seasoned British private soldier is the equal of a German non-commissioned officer.]
When the rebellion broke out in South Africa we—the old “Lily Whites”—were the only imperial regiment kept in that country. We were sitting still and stiff for twenty days, till General Botha got his own troops ready. During that time we were guarding Cape Town, and it took us all we knew to hold in, because the big war was on, and we were about seven thousand miles away from the seat of it. We had to wait till General Botha was ready, and that was not for more than a month after the British and the Germans met in Belgium.
We were eager to get away from South Africa, and at last we sailed—but what a slow voyage it was! Almost a record, I should think. We were thirty-two days getting to Southampton; but that was because we had halts on the way and were convoyed by some of the British warships which have worked such marvels in this war. We had with us a noble cruiser which on a later day, though we thought her slow, knocked more speed out of herself than the builders ever dreamed of, and that was when she helped to sink the German warships off the Falkland Islands.
By the time we reached the south of England some big things had happened, and we were keener than ever to get to the front. We had not long to wait. We landed, and in less than a week we left England and crossed over to France, where we went into billets for four days, to settle down. From the billets we marched nearly seven miles and went into trenches. For three full months, in the worst time of a very bad year, I ate and drank, and slept and fought, in trenches, with intervals in billets, sometimes up to the hips in water and often enough sleeping on a thick couch of mud. I cannot go into too much detail, but I can say that our officers always tried to go one better than the Germans, for the sake of the men—and for the most part they succeeded. We have picked up a lot from the Germans in this trench game. They have a main trench and about four trenches behind that, the first of the four being about twenty yards away; so that if you knock them out of one you knock them into another.
That march to the trenches was a thing that can never be forgotten. It was very dark and raining heavily, so that we were thoroughly soaked; but we had no time to think of that, for we were bound for the firing line, we were going to fight for the first time, and we wondered who amongst us would be absent when the next roll was called. The trench to which we were bound was in its little way famous. It had been the scene of some terrible fighting. The Indian troops were holding it, but they had been driven out by the Germans, who took possession and thought they were going to hold it; but the Connaught Rangers made a desperate charge, routed the Germans with the bayonet and retook the trenches. The Connaughts won, but at a very heavy cost, and about 150 of the brave fellows fell and were buried near the little bit of sodden, muddy ground on which they had fought. It was to relieve the Connaughts that we went into the trenches on La Bassée Road that stormy night.
It was not a very cheerful beginning, and as much unlike going into action as anything you can imagine. But we felt queer, this being our first taste of fighting, as we slipped into the trenches with our rifles loaded and prepared to fire in the wild night at an enemy we could not see. As soon as we went into the trenches we were ankle-deep in mud, and we were in mud, day and night, for seventy-two hours without a break. That was the beginning of three solid months of a sort of animal life in trenches and dug-outs, with occasional breaks for the change and rest in billets without which it would not be possible to live.