We on our part have been prompt to reply to the enemy's fire. Our gunners are already busy; mortars and bomb-throwers discharge a stream of projectiles into the opposite trenches without intermission. And soon, far away on the plain, the batteries also lift up their voices. The long-drawn-out, deep growls of the heavy guns mingle with the sharp barks of the "soixante-quinze." Everything round about the bombarded trench seems to be engulfed in the terrific uproar.
The struggle continues obstinately, with periodic bursts of excessive violence, until the enemy's fire is mastered and dies away into silence. When quiet returns, the officer of the guard, in his half-demolished post, pens his terse report by the flickering light of a candle:—
"To-day, from 4 to 8 p.m., the trench occupied by my company was heavily bombarded. Shells and bombs have damaged our works very seriously for about 50 yards. Two shelters were entirely destroyed. The men behaved splendidly in spite of heavy losses: 10 killed, 27 wounded—a dozen severely. Stretcher-bearers just arrived. The company has got to work again. Moral excellent."
* * * * * *
Some may imagine that the Belgian troops must have had their readiness to attack blunted, and their desire to leap over the entanglements and hurl themselves on the enemy weakened, by their long immobility in the same trenches, by the never-ending construction of defensive works, by the interminable residence in the same monotonous environment.
But they are wrong. Their sadly mistaken conclusions would soon be corrected could they but see how eagerly our soldiers contend for the honour of taking part in those adventurous patrols in No Man's Land and in the risky reconnaissances towards the German lines. If 10 volunteers be called for, a hundred offer themselves. Hardly a night passes without some expeditions of this kind being set on foot. Then are fought in the darkness weird and deadly combats, wherein our men display magnificent courage and wonderful dash.
Neither bad weather nor suffering can quench their desire to conquer and their hot eagerness to fling themselves upon the enemy and hunt him out of the country which he has remorselessly despoiled. As the soldiers of justice and right, they wish to be—and will be—the soldiers also of deliverance and liberty. They know that their hour is coming and that they cannot choose it; but they are ready to throw themselves heart and soul into the thick of the fray when they get the impatiently awaited signal.
Meanwhile they are content simply to do their hard duty in what remains of a free country—a tiny corner of Belgium where the eye sees nothing but a vast battlefield with its ruins; its camps, bubbling with active life; its hospitals, homes of suffering; its cemeteries, too, where rest those who died for their fatherland.
Printed in Great Britain by Alabaster, Passmore & Sons, Ltd., London and Maidstone.