A Soldiers Sketches Under Fire | Page 9

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 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