A Soldiers Sketches Under Fire | Page 8

we made an advance and took the
trench here depicted just as it was left by the turned-out. So hurried was
their exit when faced by British bayonets that they left behind them in
the trench quite a number of articles most useful to us--such as saws,
sniper's rifles mounted on tripod stands, haversacks, and a quantity of
other equipment, also a very fine selection of cigars, which came as
quite a godsend to us. Personally, I clicked on a pair of German jack
boots, which, as the weather was wet and the ground soft and muddy,
as usual, came in very handy. I also came across a forage cap and a
pocket knife, and picked up a photograph--that of a typical Fraulein,
probably the sweetheart of Heinrich, Fritz or Karl.
A NIGHT RELIEF.

Duty in the trenches and rest and sleep in our billets in their rear
alternated with something like regularity, but it was a regularity always
liable to interruptions, such as were necessitated by not infrequent
exigencies.
For instance, we had just got back to the latter one night, at exactly
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