Part 11 (1/2)
”There's whiskers on the pork We curl 'em with a fork--.”
In unhappy contract to Christmas. New Year proved to be a day of short rations, bully beef and a rehearsal of an attack in the snow. The bread ration dwindled down to Winkleian proportions.
A move up the line was pending in the near future and rumours that of all h.e.l.lish sectors they were going up the Pa.s.schendaele-Ypres areas, were received with continuous outbursts of growling.
The young Staffords who had not the gruesome knowledge of Belgian desolation were satisfied with a front anywhere near the magic Ypres.
They wanted to see the place where, as one of them was perpertually saying. ”A couple of Blighty regiments made a bloomin' 'ell of a mess of the whole blooming' Jerry army.”
There was everywhere a mutual recognition of a possible, a probable, German attack on a scale to date unparalleled. Every battalion in the Brigade was thoroughly cognisant that at some time during the next few months they would be called upon to make another Cambrai stand. There was a general feeling that he would attempt to crush the British Army at a blow, seize the Channel ports, and thus isolate what armies had escaped the first onslaught.
XI
DECEMBER-JANUARY, 1918
LEULENE--BRANDHOEK--YPRES
January 3.--Snow had, after three weeks on the ground beneath the hardening influence of a temperature several degrees below zero, evolved into a surface upon which a constant steady balance demanded no little skill. Marching enc.u.mbered with a full pack, clumsy Army-shod feet, one arm only free for a much hampered swing, increased the difficulties of maintaining a secure foothold.
(Full pack: A conglomeration of articles intended in normal ages to be transported by two mules, but under the influence of advanced civilisation strapped on the back of one man, in addition to a rifle, half a dozen Mills' bombs, a Lewis-gun, spade or shovel, sheet of corrugated iron, or any other article that can be somewhere hung upon him).
Weariness, fed-upity, after many miles had been laboriously reeled off, was a factor in slackening vigilance on the semi-ice, many painful falls resulting--to fall with a pack produces a situation resembling a beetle on its back.
Stumpy pulled someone out of a snowdrift--then he fell into one himself, unnoticed. He caught the Battalion up at the halt.
”Oh, 'ell,” he shouted indignantly, ”I might a' died for all you bloomin' well cared.”
”Why, wot's up?”
”Up? I fell into a bloomin' drift.”
”Oh, an' wot the 'ell d'you do that for?”
”Do it for. Why, why...!” The crowd about him grinned.
”P'raps 'e saw 'is ole woman comin 'along the road.”
”'E saw the bloomin' captain drop a 'skate' (f.a.g-end) down an' went after it.”
”That's the way 'e 'as 'is weekly wash.”
”He was playin' s...o...b..a.l.l.s with 'is bloomin' self.”
The command to ”fall in” dropped the curtain.
In the grey of dusk the shadowy column marched into Leulene.
The Ten Hundred, after an eleven days' ”rest” in the icy grip of a winter's wind that clung to Leulene unabating throughout the period, marched away and entrained upon their first portion of journey front-linewards.
Cattle-trucks provide ample novelty, aroma and draughts. Refuse covering the floor is swept by the occupants into a corner heap, but someone has to sleep on it. An open s.p.a.ce between a sliding door can comfortably accommodate two with legs dangling over, but invariably has four or more hunched-up, jumbled khaki figures.