A Soldiers Sketches Under Fire | Page 8

10.30, after seven consecutive days in the trenches of our most advanced position, and were thinking that now we should get a few hours' quiet repose--subject, of course, to the disturbance of shelling--when a sudden order was given to fall in. We turned out, were numbered, "right turned," and marched off, singing and whistling merrily. After proceeding in this fashion for half a mile, word was passed down to form Indian file, seven paces apart. We moved thus for about a quarter of a mile, and then word was again passed down--"no smoking, whistling, or talking." The night was pitch dark, foggy, and a drizzle was beating in our faces.
We were now within range of the enemy's rifle fire and heard spent bullets as they pinged and spluttered into the mud. We crossed a railway line, and marched or crawled the best way we could along the ditch parallel with it--truth to tell, cursing and swearing. We passed an old signal station, now just a pile of bricks, with one side wall still erect and one glass window intact. We had come to know well that wall and that window and the strewn bricks around, for we had passed the spot so often in our little excursions from trench to billet and billet to trench. A little further along the whistle of the bullets grew louder and more continuous--their sound something like the sound of soft notes whistled by a boy. Machine guns--"motor bikes" in our nomenclature--rattled our left and right, our position being that of the far apex of a triangle, exposed to inflated fire all the way up.
Arriving within a few yards of the opening of the trench we were to occupy in relief of the North Staffords, the first section of whom were moving along the ditch, a star shell burst above as the searchlight was turned on, and every man stood stock still till all was dark again.
Between men of the incoming and outgoing battalions such casual greetings were exchanged as: "Wot's it like up here, matie?"; "'Ow are yer goin', son?"; "Yer want to keep your 'ead well down in this part--it's a bit 'ot"; "So long, sonnie." Sprawling, ducking and diving, we got in, and "safe" behind the sandbags. Just as my chum and I had entered the dug-out, and were preparing to make ourselves comfortable, as our turn for sentry-go would not be for two hours, the sergeant shoved his head in and shouted that we were wanted for a ration party.
RATION PARTIES.
A ration party consists of fourteen men--fewer sometimes, but fourteen if possible, as the proper full complement. The small carts in use are generally of rude and primitive construction. As everybody knows by now, rations comprise bully beef Spratt's biscuits--very large and rather hard--loaves of bread packed in sacks, bacon, jam, marmalade, Maconochies in tins, and, when possible, kegs of water. Let not the rum be forgotten. No soldier is more grateful for anything than for his tablespoonful of rum at half-past six in the evening and half-past four in the morning. His "tot" has saved many a man from a chill, and kept him going during long and dreary hours of wet and press. As to bread, by the bye, it is highly probable that one small loaf, about half the size of an ordinary loaf, will be divided between seven men. With the good things already enumerated, a plentiful supply of charcoal and coke is usually to be expected. The horse transports with these provisions never get nearer than, at the closest, say half-a-mile of the front trench itself, when the men in charge dump their loads down and get away back to their stores and billets as quickly as possible. There is a lot to risk, for as a rule the enemy have the road well set, and the shelling is often very severe.
It is the duty of a ration party to bring up the loads from where they have been left. On regaining the opening to the trench, they take the rations to the quartermaster-sergeant's hut or dug-out. The sergeants of each platoon come to this hut or dug-out, and to them the things are delivered in quantities proportionate with the number of men in the section each represents. The sergeants then send along two men to carry the whacks to the respective traverses in the trench. This goes on night after night. So on the occasion I am recalling we were very late--and the distance we had to go was as much as a mile and three-quarters.
This ration carrying, the final stage of ration transport, is an even more dangerous and risky job than the preceding stage, and, as usual, snipers got busy on us, hitting three men, though none was killed. The rattle of bullets