CHAPTER VI THE BOIS FRAN?AIS TRENCHES

This is a chapter of maps, diagrams, and technicalities. There are people, I know, who do not want maps, to whom maps convey practically nothing. These people can skip this chapter, and (from their point of view) they will lose nothing. The main interest of life lies in what is done and thought, and it does not much matter exactly where these acts and thoughts take place. Maps are like anatomy: to some people it is of absorbing interest to know where our bones, muscles, arteries and all the rest of our interior lie; to others these things are of no account whatever. Yet all are alike interested in human people. And so, quite understanding (I think you are really very romantic in your dislike of maps: you associate them with the duller kind of history, and examination papers!), I bid you mapless ones farewell till page 117, promising you (again) that you shall lose nothing.

Now to work. We understand each other, we map-lovers. The other folk have gone on to the next chapter, so we can take our time. 97

To face page 97

MAP II.

TRENCH LINE —·—·—·—·—·—

Now look at Map II. The River Ancre runs down west of the Thiepval ridge, through Albert, and then in a south-westerly course through Méricourt-l’abbé down to Corbie, where it joins the Somme on its way to Amiens. On each side of the Ancre is high ground of about 100 metres. The high ground between the Ancre and the Somme forms a long tableland. There is no ridge, it is just high flat country, from three hundred and thirty to three hundred and forty feet, cultivated and hedgeless. Now look at Fricourt. It is a break in this high ground running on the left bank of the Ancre, and this break is caused by a nameless tributary of that river, that joins it just west of Méaulte. And now you will see that this little streamlet was for over a year and a half the cause of much thought and labour to very many men indeed: for this stream formed the valley in which Fricourt lies; and right across this valley, just south of that unimportant little village, ran for some twenty months or so the Franco-German and later the Anglo-German lines.

Now look at the dotted line (—·—·) which represents the trenches. From Thiepval down to Fricourt they run almost due north and south; then they run up out of the valley on to the high ground at Bois Fran?ais (a small copse, I suppose, once; I have never discovered any vestige of a tree-stump among the shell-holes), and then abruptly run due east. It is as though someone had appeared suddenly on 98 the corner of the shoulder at Bois Fran?ais, and pushed them off, compelling them to make a détour. After five miles they manage to regain their direction and run south again.

It is these trenches at Bois Fran?ais that we held for over four months. I may fairly claim to know every inch of them, I think! It is obvious that if you are at Bois Fran?ais, and look north, you have an uninterrupted view not only of both front lines running down into Fricourt valley, but of both lines running up on to the high ground north of Fricourt, and a very fine view indeed of Fricourt itself, and Fricourt wood. It is also quite clear that from their front lines north of Fricourt the Germans had a good view of our front lines and communications in the valley; but of Bois Fran?ais and our trenches east of it they had no enfilade view, as all our communications were on the reverse slope of this shoulder of high ground. So as regards observation we were best off. Moreover, whereas they could not possibly see our support lines and communications at Bois Fran?ais, we could get a certain amount of enfilade observation of their trenches opposite from point 87, where was a work called Boute Redoubt and an artillery observation post.

The position of the artillery immediately becomes clear, when the lie of the ground is once grasped. For field artillery enfilade fire is far most effective, as the trajectory is lower than that of heavy artillery. That is to say, a whizz-bang (the name given to an 99 18-lb. shell) more or less skims along the ground and comes at you; whereas howitzers fire up in the air, and the shell rushes down on top of you. To be explicit at the risk of boring:—

If a battery of eighteen-pounders can fire up a trench like this:— it has far more effect against the nine men in that trench than if it fires like this:

The same applies of course to howitzers, but as howitzers drop shells down almost perpendicularly, they can be used with great effect traversing along a trench, that is to say, getting the exact range of the trench in sketch (b), and dropping shells methodically from right to left, or left to right, so many to each fire-bay, and dodging about a bit, and going back on to a bit out of turn so that the enemy cannot tell where the next coal-box is coming. Oh! it is a great game this for the actors, but not for the unwilling audience.

So you can see now why a battery of field artillery 100 was stationed in the gully called Gibraltar, and another just west of Albert (at B): each of these batteries could bring excellent enfilade fire on to the German trenches. There was another battery that fired from the place I have marked C, and another at D. The howitzers lived in all sorts of secret places, as far back as Morlancourt some of them. One never worried about them. They knew their own business. Once, in June, on our way into the trenches we halted close by a battery at E, and I looked into one of the gun-pits and saw the terrible monster sitting with its long nose in the air. And I saw the great shells (it was a 9·6) waiting in rows. But I felt like an interloper, and fled at the approach of a gunner. All these howitzers you see firing on the Somme films, we never saw or thought about; only we loved to hear their shells whistling and “griding” (if there is no such word, I cannot help it: there is an “r” and a “d” in the sound anyway!) over our head, and falling “crump,” “crump,” “crump” along the German support trenches. There were a lot of batteries in the Bois des Tailles; the woods were full of them, and grew fuller and fuller. I do not know what they all were.

As one brigade contains four battalions, we almost invariably had two battalions in the line, and two “in billets.” So it was usually “six days in and six days out.” During these six days out we also invariably supplied four working-parties per company, 101 which lasted nine hours from the time of falling in outside company headquarters to dismissing after marching back. Still, it was “billets.” One slept uninterruptedly, and with equipment and boots off. Now we were undeniably lucky in being invariably (from February to June, 1916) billeted in Morlancourt, which, as you can see from the map, is situated in a regular cup with high ground all round it. I have put in the 50-metre contour line to show exactly how the roads all run down into it from every quarter. It was a cosy spot, and a very jolly thing after that long, long weary grind up from Méaulte at the end of a weary six days in, to look down on the snug little village waiting for you below. For once over the hill and “swinging” down into Morlancourt, one became, as it were, cut off from the war suddenly and completely. It was somewhat like shutting the door on a stormy night: everything outside was going on just the same, but with it was shut out also a wearing, straining tension of body and mind.

Yes, we were very lucky in being billeted at Morlancourt. It was just too far off to be worth shelling, whereas Bray was shelled regularly almost every day. So was Méaulte. And there were brigades billeted in both Bray and Méaulte. There were troops in tents in the Bois des Tailles, and this too was sometimes shelled.

Now just look, please, at the two thick lines, which represent alternative routes to the trenches. 102 We were always able to relieve by day, thanks to the rolling nature of the country. (Where the line is dotted, this represents a trench.) We always used to go by the route through Méaulte at one time, until they took to shelling the road at the point I have marked Z; whether they could see us from an observation post up la-Boiselle way, or whether they spotted us by observation balloon or aeroplane, one cannot say. But latterly we always used the route by the Bois des Tailles and Gibraltar. In both cases we had to cross the high ground S.W. of point 71 by trench, but on arrival at that point we were again in a valley and out of observation. All along this road were a series of dug-outs, and here were companies in reserve, R.E. headquarters, R.A.M.C. dressing-station, field kitchens, stores, etc. And here the transport brought up rations every evening via Bray. One could walk about here, completely secure from view; but latterly they took to shelling it, and it was not a healthy spot then. It was also enfiladed occasionally by long-range machine-gun fire. But on the whole it was a good spot, and one had a curious sensation being able to walk about on an open road within a thousand yards of the Germans. The dug-outs called “71 North” were the best. The bank sloped up very steeply from the road, thus protecting the dug-outs along it from anything but shell-fire of very high trajectory. And this the Germans never used. However, one did not want to walk 103 too far along the road, for it led round the corner into full view of Fricourt at X. There was a trench at the side of the road that ought to be hopped down into, but it could easily be missed, and there was no barrier across the road! I saw a motor-cyclist dash right along to the corner once, and return very speedily when he found himself gazing full view at Fricourt!

To face page 103

MAP III.

Map III is an enlargement of the area in Map II, and gives details of our trenches and the German trenches opposite. I wish I could convey the sense of intimacy with which I am filled when I look at this map. It is something like the feelings I should ascribe to a farmer looking at a map of his property, every inch of which he knows by heart; every field, every copse, every lane, every hollow and hill are intimate things to him. With every corner he has some association; every tree cut down, every fence repaired, every road made up, every few hundred yards of shaw grubbed up, every acre of orchard enclosed and planted—all these he can call back to memory at his will. So do I know every corner, every turning in these trenches; every traverse has its peculiar familiarity, very often its peculiar history. This traverse was built the night after P——’s death; this trench was dug because “75 Street” was so marked down by the enemy rifle-grenades; another was a terrible straight trench till we built those traverses in it; another 104 was a morass until we boarded it. How well I remember being half buried by a canister at the corner of “78 Street”; and the night the mine blew in all the trench between the Fort and the Loop; what an awful dug-out that was at Trafalgar Square; how we loathed the straightness of Watling Street. And so on, ad infinitum. We were in those trenches for over four months, and I know them as one knows the creakings of the doors at home, the subtle smell of the bath-room, the dusty atmosphere of the box-room, or the lowness of the cellar door. Particularly intimate are the recollections of dug-outs, with their good or bad conveniences in the way of beds and tables, their beams that smote you on the head as regularly as clockwork, or their peculiarly musty smell. One dug-out invariably smelt of high rodent; another of sand-bag, nothing but sand-bag.

From February, then, to June we kept on going into these trenches drawn on Map III, and then back to Morlancourt for rest and working-parties, all as regular as clockwork. Once or twice the actual front line held by our battalion was altered, so that I have been in the trenches all along from the Cemetery (down in the valley) to the end of the craters opposite Danube Trench. But every time except twice my company held part of the trench between 83 B (the end of the craters) and the Lewis gun position to the right of 76 Street. The usual distribution of the battalion was as follows:— 105
A     Company.     From 80 A to L. G. (Lewis gun) on right of 76.
B     ”     Maple Redoubt.
C     ”     71 North.
D     ”     L. G. on right of 76 to 73 Street.

    (After three days A and B, and C and D, relieved each other.)

Battalion Headquarters,
Headquarter Bombers,
M.O. and H.Q. Stretcher-bearers
R.S.M.     Maple Redoubt.

Maple Redoubt was what is known as a “strong point.” In case of an enemy attack piercing our front line, the company in Maple Redoubt held out at all costs to the last man, even if the enemy got right past and down the hill. There was a dug-out which was provisioned full up with bully-beef and water (in empty petrol cans) ready for this emergency. There was a certain amount of barbed-wire put out in front of the trenches to N., W., and E.; and there were two Lewis-gun positions at A and B. Really it was not a bad little place, although the “Defences of Maple Redoubt” were always looked on by us as rather more of a big joke than anything. No one ever really took seriously the thought of the enemy coming over and reaching Maple Redoubt. Raid the front line he was liable to do at any moment; but attack on such a big scale as to come right through, no, no one really 106 ever (beneath the rank of battalion commander, anyway) worried about that. Still, if he did, there was the redoubt anyway; and there was another called “Redoubt A” on the hill facing us, as one looked from Maple Redoubt across the smoke rising from dug-outs which could just not be seen under the bank at 71 North. Here was rumoured to be bully-beef and water also, and the Machine-gun Corps had some positions in it which they visited occasionally; but even a notice “No one allowed this way,” failed to tempt me to explore its interior. One saw it, traced out on the hill, from Maple Redoubt, and there I have no doubt it still is, with its bully-beef intact and its water a little stale!

So much for Maple Redoubt. In case of attack, as I have said, it was a strong point that must hold out at all costs, while the company at 71 North came up to Rue Albert, and would support either of the front companies as the C.O. directed. The front companies of course held the front line to the last man. Meanwhile, the two battalions in billets would be marching up from Morlancourt, to the high ground above Redoubt A (that is, just east of D on Map II). Up there were a series of entrenched “works,” known as the “intermediate line.” (The “second line” ran a little north of point 90, N.E. of Morlancourt. But no one took that seriously, anyway.) The battalions marching up from billets might have to hold these positions, or, what was 107 more likely, be ordered to counter-attack immediately. Such was the defence scheme.

“Six days in billets: three days in support. Not particularly hard, that sounds,” I can hear someone say. I tried to disillusion people in an earlier chapter about the easiness of the “rest” in billets, owing to the incessant working-parties. These were even more incessant during these four months. Let me say a few words then, also, about life in support trenches. I admit that for officers it was not always an over-strenuous time; but look at Tommy’s ordinary programme:—

This would be a typical day, say, in April.

    4 a.m. Stand to, until it got light enough to clean your rifle; then clean it.

    About 5 a.m. Get your rifle inspected, and turn in again.

    6.30 a.m. Turn out to carry breakfast up to company in front line. (Old Kent Road very muddy after rain. A heavy dixie to be carried from top of Weymouth Avenue, up via Trafalgar Square, and 76 Street to the platoon holding the trench at the Loop.)

    7.45 a.m. Get your own breakfast.

    9 a.m. Turn out for working-party; spend morning filling sandbags for building traverses in Maple Redoubt.

    11.30 a.m. Carry dinner up to front company. Same as 6.30 a.m.

    1 p.m. Get your own dinner. 108

    1 to 4 p.m. (With luck) rest.

    4 p.m. Carry tea up to front company.

    5 p.m. Get your own tea.

    5.15 to 7.15 p.m. (With luck) rest.

    7.15 p.m. Clean rifle.

    7.30 p.m. Stand to. Rifle inspected.

        Jones puts his big ugly boot out suddenly, just after you have finished cleaning rifle, and upsets it. Result—mud all over barrel and nose-cap.

    8.30 p.m. Stand down. Have to clean rifle again and show platoon sergeant.

    9 p.m. Turn out for working-party till 12 midnight in front line.

    12 midnight. Hot soup.

    12.15 a.m. Dug-out at last till

    4 a.m. Stand to.

And so on for three days and nights. This is really quite a moderate programme: it is one that you would aim at for your men. But there are disturbing elements that sometimes compel you to dock a man’s afternoon rest, for instance. A couple of canisters block Watling Street; you must send a party of ten men and an N.C.O. to clear it at once: or you suddenly have to supply a party to carry “footballs” up to Rue Albert for the trench-mortar man. The Adjutant is sorry; he could not let you know before; but they have just come up to the Citadel, and must be unloaded at once. So 109 you have to find the men for this on the spur of the moment. And so it goes on night and day. Oh, it’s not all rum and sleep, is life in Maple Redoubt.

Three days and nights in support, and then comes the three days in the front line.

Now we will take it that “B” Company is holding from 80 A to the Lewis-gun position to the right of 76 Street. You will notice at once that almost the whole of No Man’s Land in front of this sector of trenches is a chain of mine craters. No one can have much idea of a crater until he actually sees one. I can best describe it as a hollow like a quarry or chalk hole about fifty yards in diameter and some forty or fifty feet deep. (They vary in size, of course, but that is about the average.) The sides, which are steepish, and vary in angle between thirty and sixty degrees, are composed of a very fine thin soil, which is, in point of fact, a thick sediment of powdered soil that has returned to earth after a tempestuous ascent into the sky. A large mine always causes a “lip” above the ground level, which appears in section somewhat like this:—

There is usually water in the bottom of the deeper craters. When a series of craters is formed, 110 running into one another, you get a very uneven floor that appears in lengthwise section thus:—

The dotted line is the ground level: the uneven line is the course that would be taken by a man walking along the bottom of the chain of craters, and keeping in the centre. Actually, of course, (on patrol) one would not keep in the centre where the crater contained water, but would skirt the water by going to one side of it. The “bridges” are important, as they are naturally the easiest way across the craters; a bombing patrol, for instance, could crawl over a bridge, without having to go right down to the bottom level, and (which is more important) will not have a steep climb up over very soft and spongy soil. These bridges are the “lips” of the larger craters where they join the smaller; looking at a crater-chain in plan X is a “bridge,” whereas Y and Z are “lips” rising above ground level.

111

This crater-chain being understood, the system of sentries is easily grasped. Originally, before mining commenced, our front line ran (roughly) from left to right along Rue Albert up 80 A Street and along to the top of 76 Street in a straight line. Then began the great game of mining under the enemy parapet and blowing him up; and its corollary countermining, or blowing up the enemy’s mine galleries before he reached your parapet. Such is the game as played underground by the tunnelling companies, R.E. To the infantry belongs the work (if not blown up) of consolidating the crater, whether made by your or an enemy mine, that is to say, of seizing your side of the crater and guarding it by bombing-posts in such a way as to prevent the enemy from doing anything except hold his side of the crater.

For instance, take a single crater, caused by us blowing up the German gallery before it reaches our parapet. If we do nothing, the enemy digs a trench into the crater at A, and can get into the crater any time he likes and bomb our front line, 112 and return to his trench unseen. This, of course, never happens, as we dig a sap into the crater from our side, and the result is stale-mate; each side can see into the crater, so neither can go into it.

That is all. 83 B, 81 A, the Matterhorn sap, the Loop, the Fort—they are all saps up to crater-edges, in some cases joined up along the edge (as between 83 B and 83 A, or at the Loop and the Fort.) And these saps are held by bombing-posts. Where there are no craters in front (as, for instance, between the Fort and the Loop), there the trench is held by sentry groups in the ordinary way. The most important bombing-posts are at the “bridges,” which are the points that most want guarding.

Each platoon has so many posts to “find” men for. No. 5 Platoon has three posts between the Lewis-gun position and the top of 76 Street; No. 6 finds two in the Fort and one between the Fort and the Loop; there is another post before you reach the Loop, found by No. 7, who also finds two in the Loop itself; while No. 8 finds the Matterhorn post and the top of 80 A. All these posts are composed of one bomber, who has a box of bombs with him and his rifle without bayonet fixed, and one bayonet man. There is no special structure about a “post”: it is just the spot in the trench where the sentries are placed. Sometimes one or two posts could be dispensed with by day, if one post could with a periscope watch the ground in front of both. The sentry groups are 113 relieved every two hours by the platoon N.C.O. on trench duty. There is always an N.C.O. on trench duty, going the rounds of his sentry groups, in every platoon; and one officer going round the groups in the company. Thus is secured the endless chain of unwinking eyes that stretches from Dunkirk to Switzerland.

There were two Lewis guns to every company. One had a position at the Fort, covering the ground between the Fort and the Loop; the other was just to the right of 80 A, where it had a good position sweeping the craters. The Lewis-gun teams found their sentries independently of the platoons, and had their dug-outs. A nice compact little affair was a Lewis-gun team; always very snug and self-contained.

Company Headquarters were at Trafalgar Square, though later we changed to a dug-out half-way up 76 Street. Each platoon had a dug-out about fifty yards behind the front line, and as far as possible one arranged to get the men a few hours’ sleep in them every day; but only a certain percentage at a time. There were four stretcher-bearers and two signallers also at Trafalgar Square. Also a permanent wiring-party had its quarters here, a corporal and five men; they made up “concertina” or “gooseberry” wire by day, and were out three or four hours every night putting it out. They were, of course, exempt from other platoon duties. Each platoon had a pioneer to attend to sanitary arrangements, 114 and other odd jobs such as fetching up soup; and each platoon had an orderly ready to take messages. At Company Headquarters, besides the officers’ servants, were the company orderly, and company officers’ cook. An officer on trench duty was accompanied by his servant as orderly.

This was the distribution of the company in the front line. Every morning from 9 to 12 all men not on sentry worked at repairing and improving the trenches; and the same for four hours during the night. Work done to strengthen the parapet can only be done by night. Every night wire was put out. Every night a patrol went out. Every day one “stood to” arms for an hour before dawn, and an hour after dusk. And day and night there was an intermittent stinging and buzzing of black-winged instruments between the opposing trenches. Of shells I have already spoken; next in deadliness were rifle-grenades, which are bombs with a rod attachment that is put down the barrel of an ordinary rifle. Four of these rifles are stood in a rack fixed to the ground, and fired by a string from a few yards away, at a very high trajectory. They are a very deadly weapon, as you cannot see them dropping on to you. Then there is a multiform genus called “trench-mortar,” being projectiles of all kinds and shapes lobbed over from close range. The canister was the most loathed. It was simply a tin oil-can, the size of a lady’s muff (large); one heard a thud, and watched the beast rising, rising, 115 then stationary, it seemed, in mid-air, and then come toppling down, down, down on top of one with a crash—three seconds’ silence—and then a most colossal explosion, blowing everything in its vicinity to atoms. These canisters were loathed by the men with a most personal and intense aversion. Yet they were really not nearly so dangerous as rifle-grenades, as one had time to dodge them very often, unless enfiladed in a communication trench. They were, moreover, very local in their effects. A shell has splinters that spread far and wide; a trench-mortar is a clumsy monster with a thin skin, no splinters, and an abominable, noisy, vulgar way of making the most of itself. “Sausages” were another but milder form of the vulgar trench-mortar; aerial torpedoes were daintier people with wings, who looked so cherubic as they came sailing over, that one almost forgot their deadly stinging powers; they, too, were a species of trench-mortar.

It is natural to write lightly of these things; yet they were no light matters. They were the instruments of death that took their daily toll of lives. In this chapter describing the system and routine of ordinary trench warfare, I have tried to prepare the canvas for several pictures I have drawn in bold bare lines; now I am putting in a wash of colour, the atmosphere of Death.

Sometimes we forgot it in the interest of the present activity; sometimes we saw it face to face, without a qualm; but always it was there with 116 its relentless overhanging presence, dulling our spirits, wearing out our lives. The papers are always full of Tommy smiling: Bairnsfather has immortalised his indomitable humour. Yes, it is true. We laugh, we smile. But for an hour of laughter, there are how many hours of weariness, strain, and grim agony! It is great that Tommy’s laughter has been immortalised; but do not forget that its greatness lies in this, that it was uttered beneath the canopy of ever-impending Death.