One Young Man | Page 9

shared their bread, etc., with us."
I shall not attempt to picture Sydney Baxter's daily life in the terrible
salient of Ypres in any detail, but that I may prove my words that he
was a typical soldier let me quote just one letter received at this time.
"MY OWN DEAR MOTHER,
"I have not been able to write before as we have just come out of the
trenches after being there since Monday. Thanks very much for sweets
and letters. They are very acceptable indeed. Thanks for P.O. We have
now been paid, and so shall be all right. Chocolates, handkerchiefs, etc.,
are fine. Neither George nor I felt anything peculiar when coming
under fire as I expected we should. We were all right in the trenches,
which are very good indeed. They are a bit different to what I expected,
but of course they vary. It seems to me safer to be in the trenches than
out; however, it is bad luck if you are hit. No one was killed in our
company all the time we were in, and only three wounded, so you will
see there is not much to worry about; and with some pay and parcels
which I have received, and about twelve letters, I feel much better."
Sydney Baxter often mentions his chum in this record and I think the
following extract from George's letter about this time may well be
inserted here. The two boys were inseparable until the last and absolute
bodily separation between the living and the dead.
"Everything is going on all right with us. We have finished our first
taste of trench life, and on the whole it was rather enjoyable. We went
in last Monday and came out late on Saturday. The first two or three
days were wet, so our opportunities for sleep were few, especially as at

our part of the trench there were no dug-outs and our sleep had to be
obtained in the open air. In fact, until the fourth day I only had one
hour's sleep, and on the last day I managed about five hours. The chief
trouble was trying to boil water, but we managed by cutting a candle
into small pieces and putting this, with a piece of rag, into a tin, using
the rag as a wick.
"Our five days and nights were on the whole fairly quiet; in fact, during
the day hardly any shots were exchanged, most of the firing being done
at night. During the day it was impossible to look over the trench, as we
were only fifty yards from the Germans, so we considered it advisable
not to exhibit too much curiosity in case our health suffered thereby. At
night time the Germans use star-shells to illuminate the proceedings,
and they always seem nervy and think we are going to attack their
trench. If we start firing a little more than usual they think it is the
signal for an attack, and they blaze away like fury. We had a good
example of this on our last night in the trenches.
"Someone started firing, someone else took it up and in no time the
noise was like the final end-up of fireworks at the White City. From
that it got much worse, and I suppose they really thought we were
going for them, so their artillery sent us a few shells; but they did no
damage. Eventually they seemed satisfied that we were quite safe, so
they wound up the proceedings.
"There is one lot here who, whenever they go into the trenches, shove
their hats on their rifles, wave them about, and then shout across to the
Germans to come out in the open and have a proper fight. Whenever
this happens the Germans lie low and hardly fire a shot.
"One advantage of being so close to the Germans is that they cannot
shell us without damaging their own trench as much as ours, so that,
although we heard plenty going along overhead, we had none very near
us."

One Young Man at Hill 60

CHAPTER V
ONE YOUNG MAN AT HILL 60
Many have described in vivid, and none in too vivid, language the
fighting in the spring of 1915. This one young man went through it all,
through the thickest of it all. He can tell a tale which, if written up and
around, would be as thrilling as any yet recorded of those heroic days.
But I prefer, and I know he, a soldier, would prefer, to chronicle the
events of his day after day just as they occurred, without colour, and
without comment.
I print, then, Sydney Baxter's account of the fighting as he wrote it. I
promised that this should be an altogether true chronicle, and it