Humor is probably the largest component part of the spirit of the British soldier, a paradoxical, phlegmatic sense of humor that comes out strongest when the danger is the most threatening. A Jack Johnson bursts close beside a British soldier who is lighting his pipe with one of those odious French sulphur matches. The shell blows a foul whiff of chemicals right across the man's face. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" he exclaimed with a perfectly genuine sigh, "these 'ere French matches will be the death o' me!"
A reply which is equally characteristic of the state of mind of the British soldier who goes forth to war is that given by the irate driver of a staff car to a sentry in the early days of the war. The sentry in the dead of night had levelled his rifle at the chauffeur because the car had not stopped instantly on challenge. The driver backed his car toward where the sentry was standing. "I'll 'ave a word with you, young feller," he said. "Allow me to inform you that this car can't be stopped in less than twenty yards. If you go shoving that rifle of yours in people's faces some one will get shot before this war's over!"
There is a great strain of tenderness in the British soldier, a great readiness to serve. Hear him on a wet night in the trenches, begrimed, red-eyed with fatigue, chilled to the bone, just about to lie down for a rest, offer to make his officer, tired as he is, "a drop of 'ot tea!" Watch him with German prisoners! His attitude is paternal, patronizing, rather that of a friendly London policeman guiding homeward the errant footsteps of a drunkard.
III—DEEP IN A SOLDIER'S HEART
Under influence of nameless German atrocities of all descriptions, the attitude of the British soldier in the fighting line is becoming fierce and embittered. Nothing will induce him, however, to vent his spite on prisoners, though few Germans understand anything else but force as the expression of power. They look upon our men as miserable mercenaries whose friendliness is simply an attempt to curry favor with the noble German krieger; our men regard them as misguided individuals who don't know any better....
The German phrase, "Stellungskrieg," is a very accurate description of the great stalemate on the western front which we, more vaguely, term "trench warfare." It is, indeed, a constant manoeuvering for positions, a kind of great game of chess, in which the Germans, generally speaking, are seeking to gain the advantage for the purposes of their defensive, whilst the Allies' aim is to obtain the best positions for an offensive when the moment for this is ripe.
The ground is under ceaseless survey. A move by the enemy calls for a counter-move on our part. A new trench dug by him may be found to enfilade our trenches from a certain angle, and while by the construction of new traverses or the heightening of parapet and parados the trench may be rendered immune from sniping, a fresh trench will be dug at a new angle or a machine gun brought up to make life sour for the occupants of the new German position, and force them in their turn to counter-measures.
Any one who saw the trenches at Mons or even, much later, the trenches on the Aisne, would scarcely recognize them in the deep, elaborate earthworks of Flanders, with the construction of which our army is now so familiar.
High explosive shells in unlimited quantities are necessary to keep the hammer pounding away at one given spot. To break a path for our infantry through the weakly held German trenches around Neuve Chapelle we had many scores of guns pouring in a concentrated fire on a front of 1,400 yards for a period of thirty-five minutes. In the operations around Arras the French are said to have fired nearly 800,000 shells in one day.