Bullets Billets | Page 9

day. Having seen a gun in
another trench, one looks up the nearest platoon commander. You look
into so-and-so's dug-out and find it empty. You ask a sergeant where
the occupant is.
"He's down the trench, sir." You push your way down the trench,
dodging pools of water and stepping over fire buckets, mess tins,
brushing past men standing, leaning or sitting--right on down the trench,
where, round a corner, you find the platoon commander. "Well, if we
can't get any sandbags," he is probably saying to a sergeant, "we will

just have to bank it up with earth, and put those men on the other side
of the traverse," or something like that. He turns to me and says, "Come
along back to my dug-out and have a bit of cake. Someone or other has
sent one out from home."
We start back along the trench. Suddenly a low murmuring, rattling
sound can be heard in the distance. We stop to listen, the sound gets
louder; everyone stops to listen--the sound approaches, and is now
distinguishable as rifle-fire. The firing becomes faster and faster; then
suddenly swells into a roar and now comes the phenomenon of trench
warfare: "wind up"--the prairie fire of the trenches.
Everyone stands to the parapet, and away on the left a tornado of
crackling sound can be heard, getting louder and louder. In a few
seconds it has swept on down the line, and now a deafening rattle of
rifle-fire is going on immediately in front. Bullets are flicking the tops
of the sandbags on the parapet in hundreds, whilst white streaks are
shooting up with a swish into the sky and burst into bright radiating
blobs of light--the star shell at its best.
A curious thing, this "wind up." We never knew when it would come
on. It is caused entirely by nerves. Perhaps an inquisitive Boche,
somewhere a mile or two on the left, had thought he saw someone
approaching his barbed wire; a few shots are exchanged--a shout or two,
followed by more shots--panic--more shots--panic spreading--then
suddenly the whole line of trenches on a front of a couple of miles
succumbs to that well-known malady, "wind up."
In reality it is highly probable that there was no one in front near the
wire, and no one has had the least intention of being there.
Presently there comes a deep "boom" from somewhere in the distance
behind, and a large shell sails over our heads and explodes somewhere
amongst the Boches; another and another, and then all becomes quiet
again. The rifle fire diminishes and soon ceases. Total result of one of
these firework displays: several thousand rounds of ammunition
squibbed off, hundreds of star shells wasted, and no casualties.

It put the "wind up" me at first, but I soon got to know these affairs,
and learnt to take them calmly.
I went along with the platoon commander back to his lair. An excellent
fellow he was. No one in this war could have hated it all more than he
did, and no one could have more conscientiously done his very best at
it. Poor fellow, he was afterwards killed near Ypres.
"Well, how are things going with you?" I said.
"Oh, all right. They knocked down that same bit of parapet again to-day.
I think they must imagine we've got a machine gun there, or something.
That's twice we've had to build it up this week. Have a bit of cake?"
So I had a bit of cake and left him; he going back to that old parapet
again, whilst I struck off into the dark, wet field towards another gun
position, falling into an unfamiliar "Johnson 'ole" on the way.
No one gets a better idea of the general lie of the position than a
machine-gun officer. In those early, primitive days, when we had so
few of each thing, we, of course, had few machine guns, and these had
to be sprinkled about a position to the best possible advantage. The
consequence was that people like myself had to cover a considerable
amount of ground before our rambles in the dark each night were done.
One machine gun might be, say, in "Dead Man Farm"; another at the
"Barrier" near the cross roads; whilst another couple were just at some
effective spot in a trench, or in a commanding position in a shattered
farm or cottage behind the front line trenches.
I would leave my dug-out as soon as it was dark and do the round of all
the guns every night. Just as a sample, I will carry on from where I left
the platoon commander.
I slosh across the ploughed field at what I feel to be a correct angle to
bring me out on the cross roads,