"After a short outburst of fire lasting perhaps for only three or four minutes the hostile trenches are obscured by a pall of smoke, in the midst of which can be seen the flashes of the shrapnel bursts and the miniature volcanoes of earth where the high explosive common shells burst in the soft clay soil. Then, if an infantry attack is to be launched, the cannonade suddenly ceases. There is a moment of suspense, and a swarm of khaki figures springs from our trenches and rushes across the fire-swept zone, possibly 100 yards in breadth. Instantly there breaks out the rattle of machine guns and musketry. There is some hesitation as the stormers reach the entanglements, and then, if the assault succeeds, they disappear into the enemy's trenches, leaving a few or many scattered bodies lying in the track of their advance. Save at such moments as these there is often no movement whatever in the battle zone, for not a man, horse, or gun is to be seen, and there are periods of absolute stillness when, except for the sight of the deserted and ruined hamlets, the scene is one of peace and agricultural prosperity."
Yes, it is very quiet in the trenches. Not a head must appear over the top or death is the result. Quiet, yes; up to the knees, or sometimes up to the waist, in water, eating there, sleeping there, often dying there. We read of some trenches where the water was so deep that the wounded men were drowned. There was no place to put them, and they just fell into the water, and there they died.
Quiet, until the artillery has done its preparatory work, and then charge, charge, charge!
I do not wonder that a wounded soldier said to the Rev. T.J. Thorpe: "My mates used to tell me in barracks that they were infidels—they did not believe in God—but after their experiences in the trenches they have lost their infidelity. They pray now. There are no infidels in the trenches."
Said another soldier, "We leapt from our trenches singing a rowdy song, but in a minute I was praying as I never prayed before. My mates were praying. We were all praying, and I have been praying ever since."
I do not wonder that "there are no infidels in the trenches."
The Rev. Cuthbert J. Maclean (Church of England chaplain), writing from France on November 3, 1914, tells us that he had been in the trenches continually under fire for three weeks, and had not even had a rough wash or taken off his boots. He has had several wonderful escapes from death, even being hit in the neck without, however, sustaining any injury.
"Four days ago," he says, "I spent some hours sitting in my 'funk-hole' in a trench, and then I left for a little exercise. About twenty minutes after I had moved out, a huge shell burst in the exact spot where I had been sitting for hours, and blew up the trench for some twenty yards."
It will be seen from this that the trenches are not always waist-deep or even knee-deep in water. It depends upon the weather. At first elaborate precautions were taken to make the trenches as comfortable as possible. They were deep and comparatively wide. All sorts of necessaries and, occasionally, luxuries were kept there. They were drawing-room and dining-room and kitchen.
But when the long continued rains came they were almost uninhabitable. Men stood in liquid mud, sometimes covered with frost. They stood day after day and suffered sorely. Many of them had to be invalided to the rear with rheumatism, and will never recover from the effect of those terrible days.