Part 5 (2/2)

These high trees were at once a protection and a danger. Sh.e.l.ls that struck them were usually destructive. When we came in the foliage was still very thin. Along the road, which was constantly sh.e.l.led ”on spec”

by the Germans, one saw all the sights of war: wounded men limping or carried, ambulances, trains of supply, troops, army mules, and tragedies. I saw one bicycle orderly: a sh.e.l.l exploded and he seemed to pedal on for eight or ten revolutions and then collapsed in a heap--dead. Straggling soldiers would be killed or wounded, horses also, until it got to be a nightmare. I used to shudder every time I saw wagons or troops on that road. My dugout looked out on it. I got a square hole, 8 by 8, dug in the side of the hill (west), roofed over with remnants to keep out the rain, and a little sandbag parapet on the back to prevent pieces of ”back-kick sh.e.l.ls” from coming in, or prematures from our own or the French guns for that matter. Some straw on the floor completed it. The ground was treacherous and a slip the first night nearly buried----. So we had to be content with walls straight up and down, and trust to the height of the bank for safety.

All places along the bank were more or less alike, all squirrel holes.

This morning we supported a heavy French attack at 4.30; there had been three German attacks in the night, and everyone was tired. We got heavily sh.e.l.led. In all eight or ten of our trees were cut by sh.e.l.ls--cut right off, the upper part of the tree subsiding heavily and straight down, as a usual thing. One would think a piece a foot long was just instantly cut out; and these trees were about 18 inches in diameter. The gas fumes came very heavily: some blew down from the infantry trenches, some came from the sh.e.l.ls: one's eyes smarted, and breathing was very laboured. Up to noon to-day we fired 2500 rounds.

Last night Col. Morrison and I slept at a French Colonel's headquarters near by, and in the night our room was filled up with wounded. I woke up and shared my bed with a chap with ”a wounded leg and a chill”. Probably thirty wounded were brought into the one little room.

Col.----, R.A., kept us in communication with the French General in whose command we were. I bunked down in the trench on the top of the ridge: the sky was red with the glare of the city still burning, and we could hear the almost constant procession of large sh.e.l.ls sailing over from our left front into the city: the crashes of their explosion shook the ground where we were. After a terribly hard day, professionally and otherwise, I slept well, but it rained and the trench was awfully muddy and wet.

Sunday, April 25th, 1915.

The weather brightened up, and we got at it again. This day we had several heavy attacks, prefaced by heavy artillery fire; these bursts of fire would result in our getting 100 to 150 rounds right on us or nearby: the heavier our fire (which was on the trenches entirely) the heavier theirs.

Our food supply came up at dusk in wagons, and the water was any we could get, but of course treated with chloride of lime. The ammunition had to be brought down the roads at the gallop, and the more firing the more wagons. The men would quickly carry the rounds to the guns, as the wagons had to halt behind our hill. The good old horses would swing around at the gallop, pull up in an instant, and stand puffing and blowing, but with their heads up, as if to say, ”Wasn't that well done?”

It makes you want to kiss their dear old noses, and a.s.sure them of a peaceful pasture once more. To-day we got our dressing station dugout complete, and slept there at night.

Three farms in succession burned on our front--colour in the otherwise dark. The flashes of sh.e.l.ls over the front and rear in all directions.

The city still burning and the procession still going on. I dressed a number of French wounded; one Turco prayed to Allah and Mohammed all the time I was dressing his wound. On the front field one can see the dead lying here and there, and in places where an a.s.sault has been they lie very thick on the front slopes of the German trenches. Our telephone wagon team hit by a sh.e.l.l; two horses killed and another wounded. I did what I could for the wounded one, and he subsequently got well. This night, beginning after dark, we got a terrible sh.e.l.ling, which kept up till 2 or 3 in the morning. Finally I got to sleep, though it was still going on. We must have got a couple of hundred rounds, in single or pairs. Every one burst over us, would light up the dugout, and every hit in front would shake the ground and bring down small bits of earth on us, or else the earth thrown into the air by the explosion would come spattering down on our roof, and into the front of the dugout. Col.

Morrison tried the mess house, but the sh.e.l.ling was too heavy, and he and the adjutant joined Cosgrave and me, and we four spent an anxious night there in the dark. One officer was on watch ”on the bridge” (as we called the trench at the top of the ridge) with the telephones.

Monday, April 26th, 1915.

Another day of heavy actions, but last night much French and British artillery has come in, and the place is thick with Germans. There are many prematures (with so much firing) but the pieces are usually spread before they get to us. It is disquieting, however, I must say. And all the time the birds sing in the trees over our heads. Yesterday up to noon we fired 3000 rounds for the twenty-four hours; to-day we have fired much less, but we have registered fresh fronts, and burned some farms behind the German trenches. About six the fire died down, and we had a peaceful evening and night, and Cosgrave and I in the dugout made good use of it. The Colonel has an individual dugout, and Dodds sleeps ”topside” in the trench. To all this, put in a background of anxiety lest the line break, for we are just where it broke before.

Tuesday, April 27th, 1915.

This morning again registering batteries on new points. At 1.30 a heavy attack was prepared by the French and ourselves. The fire was very heavy for half an hour and the enemy got busy too. I had to cross over to the batteries during it, an unpleasant journey. More gas attacks in the afternoon. The French did not appear to press the attack hard, but in the light of subsequent events it probably was only a feint. It seems likely that about this time our people began to thin out the artillery again for use elsewhere; but this did not at once become apparent. At night usually the heavies farther back take up the story, and there is a duel. The Germans fire on our roads after dark to catch reliefs and transport. I suppose ours do the same.

Wednesday, April 28th, 1915.

I have to confess to an excellent sleep last night. At times anxiety says, ”I don't want a meal,” but experience says ”you need your food,”

so I attend regularly to that. The billet is not too safe either. Much German air reconnaissance over us, and heavy firing from both sides during the day. At 6.45 we again prepared a heavy artillery attack, but the infantry made little attempt to go on. We are perhaps the ”chopping block”, and our ”preparations” may be chiefly designed to prevent detachments of troops being sent from our front elsewhere.

I have said nothing of what goes on on our right and left; but it is equally part and parcel of the whole game; this eight mile front is constantly heavily engaged. At intervals, too, they bombard Ypres. Our back lines, too, have to be constantly s.h.i.+fted on account of sh.e.l.l fire, and we have desultory but constant losses there. In the evening rifle fire gets more frequent, and bullets are constantly singing over us.

Some of them are probably ricochets, for we are 1800 yards, or nearly, from the nearest German trench.

Thursday, April 29th, 1915.

This morning our billet was. .h.i.t. We fire less these days, but still a good deal. There was a heavy French attack on our left. The ”gas”

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