A Soldiers Sketches Under Fire | Page 9

from machine guns on the ricketty sides of the old cart added to the programme of the night's entertainment, and there were frequent intervals, not for refreshments, but for getting flat and waiting.
GATHERING IN OUR FIREWOOD.
Chopping up firewood was regarded not so much as work as it was regarded as one of our recreations in the trenches--of which I shall have a little to say presently. But it often happened that there was no recreation, but only the excitement of danger in the night-time job of bringing in the firewood for day-time chopping. It would happen that a man had spotted in some shelled house or fallen farm-building a beam, plank, door, or something else wooden and burnable, that he couldn't carry without assistance, or that he couldn't stop to bring away at the time. It must be fetched, for fire we must have. It might be only a few score yards away measured by distance, but an hour measured by time--"thou art so near and yet so far" sort of thing. Fetchers might get hit at any moment, and had to creep and wriggle very cautiously over open ground all the way. By some strange twist of mental association, whenever I was a fetcher in these circumstances I found myself mentally quoting Longfellow's line in "Hiawatha"--"He is gathering in his firewood"!
[Illustration: THE WOODCUTTER'S HUT.]
Our champion at the game was a Private Hyatt--quite a youngster, but of fine physique and fearless daring. His dug-out was called "The Woodcutter's Hut." He made a regular hobby of wood-getting. He was an expert, a specialist. On certain occasions he even went out after wood in the daylight, slithering along on all fours towards his objective, and would be fired at until recalled by one of his own officers. On one occasion when he had crawled out and into a building to collect wood, as he crawled back through the doorway we saw little clouds of dust rising from the brick-work surrounding him, which showed that the enemy's snipers had spotted him, and we shouted to him from the trench to "keep down." He took refuge behind the wall of the doorway, and lay there three-quarters of an hour, and then returned, bringing with him the much prized plank of which he had gone in search, and which, when chopped up, supplied our section with sufficient firewood for a whole day and night. In the sketch it will be observed he is reading a letter. This he had received just after the above incident, and sat down on his valise quite unaware that I was sketching him. Later on I gave him a copy of the sketch, and he enclosed it in his affectionate reply to his folk at home.
"STAND TO."
The most anxious time a soldier can know is the time, be it long or short, that follows the command to stand to. Many a time we had to stand to the whole night--the entire battalion, from evening twilight till the full dawn of day--as an attack was expected. Everyone was at his firing position, with bayonet fixed and his rifle loaded--and in tip-top working condition, the daily rifle inspection having taken place at dusk. Sometimes our artillery would presently open fire for the enemy's first line, perhaps for five or six minutes--it might be more, it might be less. Then a wait of six or seven minutes, when the enemy returned the fire, and we all got well down. It was as well to keep as hard up against the parapet as possible, and to keep out of all dug-outs, for into them the forward impetus of bursting shrapnel was likely to throw a lot of splinters. Again silence, comrades and pals passing a few remarks in anticipation of what everybody knew was coming. The officers with us were one with us, and at their words, "Well, come on, lads," there was never a laggard in getting "over the tops" (in our own phraseology). As soon as we put our hands on the sandbags to clamber over the top of the parapet a hailstorm of bullets pelted us. It is impossible--at all events for me--to describe a charge. Speaking for myself, always my brain seemed to snap. It was simply a rush in a mad line--or as much of a line as could be kept--towards the enemy's barbed wire entanglements, which our guns had blown to smithereens in preparation for the assault. We scrambled on to their parapet, each getting at the first man he could touch. When we had taken their position (we didn't always) we might have to wait some time till our artillery had shelled the second line, but there was a lot of work to be done at once. The parapet had to be reversed.
After an attack there was