Had a good night's rest; came in about twelve o'clock and slept until eight-thirty this morning. One eye is completely closed up by a sting.
A German aeroplane has been hovering over our positions looking for my gun, so we have stopped firing and all movement. I know just how the chicken feels when the hawk hovers over it. Few people realize how much aeroplanes figure in this war, [pg 141] for war would be much different without them. They do the work of Cavalry only in the sky. Whenever they come over, the sentries blow three blasts on their whistles and everybody runs for cover or freezes; guns stop firing and are covered up with branches made on frames. If men are caught in the open they stand perfectly still and do not look up, for on the aeroplane photographs faces at certain heights show light; dugouts are covered over with trees, straw or grass. We use aeroplane photographs a great deal; they show trenches distinctly and look very like the canals on Mars.
The Huns have been “hating” the road one quarter of a mile away all the morning. That doesn't worry us a bit as long as they don't come any closer. I'm willing always to share up on the shelling.
This order has just been issued. It speaks for itself:—
I went over another farm to-day. It is one of the well-ventilated kind, punched full of holes. In the kitchen, stables and outhouses there was a most wonderful collection of junk: ammunition, British and French bandoliers, old sheepskin coats abandoned by the British troops from last winter, smashed rifles, bayonets, meat tins, parts of broken equipment, sandbags, stacks of rotten potatoes and three dead cows. The fruit trees are laden with fruit, and vines are growing up the houses with their bunches of green grapes.
In the garden several lonely graves are piled high with old boots, straw, American agricultural implements, rotting sacks and rubbish of every description, pieces of shells, barrels, and in one room the rusty remains of a perambulator and sewing machine; rats are the only inhabitants now. In the garret (the staircase leading up to it gone long ago) I found a British rifle, bayonet fixed, ten rounds in the magazine, and the bolt partly drawn out. Evidently the owner was in the [pg 143] act of reloading his chamber when something happened. The graves were dated second and third months of this year. The poor wooden crosses were made of pieces of ration cases and the names written with an indelible pencil. The wretchedness of this farm, which was flourishing only a short time ago, is very pathetic.
We have adopted an old Belgian mother cat with her family of three kittens in the dugout. Now we find that three more little wild kittens are living in the bricks which we have piled around the windows to protect us against shells. They are all encouraged to live with us in the cellars. I like cats, and they will help to keep the rats down. Although some of the rats are nearly the size of cats.
It has been raining again and the trenches are filling up with slush. We carry a big trench stick, a thick sapling about four feet long with a ferrule made from a cartridge of a “very-light” (star shell), to help ourselves in walking; our feet are beginning to get [pg 144] wet and cold as a regular thing now, and we are revetting our trenches firm and solid for the winter. Eleven p.m. A mine under the Boche line has just been exploded. The fighting has just started for the crater.
I took a German Uhlan helmet from a gentleman who had no further use for it. It was pretty badly knocked about; still, if I can get it home it's a trophy.
It's about eight o'clock Sunday evening. All day long shells have been coming over like locomotives. Every five seconds one goes over into the old town; every five seconds for the last two hours. The chateau has been shelled again with “crumps”; they are such rotten shots; if only they would put in two good ones in the center it would blow it to bits and then they might leave us alone. The whole of the ground is pitted because they can't hit it squarely.
My work lies behind the front line and in front of the support, firing over the heads of [pg 145] the men in the main trenches. The emplacement was shelled to-day; one shell hit the roof, burst and knocked over one of my men, cutting his head open. He is not very badly hurt, but has gone to the hospital. The shelling has been terrible to-day.
The Germans have been very quiet lately, and working parties are out all along their front lines at night—something's up. Dirty work can be expected at any time now. We have steel helmets to protect us from spent bullets and splinters. They look like the old Tudor steel helmets and they are fine to wash in.
You have no idea what a big part food plays in our life. Yesterday morning I went with the machine-gun officer of another outfit to crawl about looking for positions. We were in an orchard. I happened to look up and saw ripe plums! Terrified lest he should see them and forestall me, I said, “Let's beat it, this is too unhealthy,” so we crawled back. Last night in the light of a big moon such as coons always steal watermelons by, [pg 146] a section officer and his cook crawled to the plum tree. The section officer, being large, stood underneath while the cook climbed the tree and dropped them into a sandbag held open by the S.O. They got about ten pounds. They go well stewed, believe me. The fact that bullets whistled through the trees most of the time made them taste better to-day. Sat the rest of the night in a hedge firing at the Boches with a Lewis gun. I struck for bed just as dawn broke.
To-day the guns are again “hating” the chateau, and they have put sixty shells in the neighborhood. Still, “there's no cloud without a silver lining.” I've got a new way home. Instead of going right around the kennels, stables, and through the yards, I go “through” the greenhouse direct, thereby saving a lot of time. The Huns' calendar is wrong. They have always shelled me Sunday and Wednesday. To-day's Tuesday!
We use up the window frames and doorways [pg 147] for kindling, and consequently the doors have gone long ago. I have been smashing up mouldings this morning with an axe. We prefer the dry wood which is built into the walls; it burns better and doesn't cause smoke. As soon as smoke is seen rising, the enemy's range-finders get busy and then we suffer.
Another mine went up yesterday; nobody seems to know where. I think it came south from the French lines; it rocked the whole neighborhood for miles. The ground here is a kind of quicksand for a few feet down, and shock is easily transmitted, the whole ground being honeycombed with mines, old trenches, shafts, saps made by French, Belgians, Germans and our own people.
The use for timber of any description is manifold; every little bit is used up. Our chief source of supply of dry wood is from the smashed-up chateaux. Langhof, my home, has been punished almost every day, and after the bombardment lets up men from the neighborhood come to collect the wood torn [pg 148] up by the shelling. The men of the Tenth East Yorks came up this morning and climbed to the remains of the second story, ripping up the floor boards. The enemy evidently saw them, for the shelling soon started. We have been shelled often here before, but it was nothing compared to this. The shells were carefully placed and came over with disgusting regularity. The buildings rocked and the whole neighborhood shook. Fountains of bricks, mortar, and dirt were spewed up into the air. Trees were torn to shreds, a wall in front of me was hit—and disappeared, a lead statue of Apollo in the garden was hurled through the air and landed fifty yards away crumpled up against the balustrade of the moat.
We were in our cellars, and gradually the shelling crept up towards us. Slowly a solemn dread which soon moulded into a sordid fear took possession of my being. In a flash I began to devise a philosophy of death for my chances were fading with every crash. I took out my pocketbook, containing [pg 149] some letters from my mother and some personal things, and put them on one of the beams, so that, being in another part of the building, they might perhaps be found some day. The shelling continued and shells dropped completely round the cellars, demolishing nearly everything in sight. The enemy evidently wanted to obliterate the whole place. The smell of the smoke and the dirt from the debris was choking, and every minute we expected to be our last. Suddenly it stopped. Philosophy and fear disappeared simultaneously as I sputtered out a choking laugh of relief. Then Hawkins, my servant, in a scared voice started, and the others joined in, singing the old marching refrain of the Training Camps:—
When a man has lived night after night in a trench, he gradually finds it quite possible [pg 150] to snatch a good night's sleep. In other words, it is merely a case of becoming acclimated to rackets, smells and food. I had always been able to sleep, but on the night following the bombardment of the chateau I just could not doze off. I thrashed about continuously, and while in this restless state harbored the notion that trouble was brewing for me. Every one has had that feeling, the feeling that hangs in your bones and warns you to watch out. Well, that is how I felt.
At last the sun rose and with it came a beautiful morning, warm and sunny. I walked out amongst the ruins to see the extent of the damage caused by the shelling of the previous day. I was waiting for the stew which was cooking on a little fire near the side of the cellar. The “dixie” was resting on two old bayonets, and they in turn rested on bricks at either side. Towards noon a big shell came over and landed in the moat, covering everything around with a coat of evil-smelling, black mud. This shell was followed [pg 151] by another, arriving in the part of the ruins where once a cow-shed stood. I was talking to Hawkins, my batman, when I saw him dive across my front and fall flat on his face. At the same time I was in the center of an explosion, a great flame of light and then bricks, wood and cement flew in all directions. For a few seconds I thought I was dead, then I picked myself up and saw that blood was pouring down the front of my jacket. I followed up the stream and found that my right hand was smashed and hanging limp. My men rushed out and I told them it was nothing, but promptly fell in a heap. When I came to, my hand was wrapped up in an emergency bandage, and a stretcher was coming down from Bedford House, an advanced dressing-station, the next house back. To the delight of the men who were carrying it, I waved them away and told them I could walk. Assisted up to the dressing-station by one of my men, I made it. I then made a discovery. A soldier is a man until he's hit, then he's a case. I first had [pg 152] an injection of “anti-tetanus” in the side, and the fact was recorded on a label tied to my left-hand top pocket button. The doctor tied me up, then said: “You'll soon be all right. Will you have a bottle of English beer or a drop of whiskey?” I had the whiskey. I needed it. All the time I was there the wounded poured in. Seeing them I felt ashamed to be there with only a smashed hand. A corporal came in with both hands blown off and fifty-six other wounds. He had tried to save the men in his bay by throwing back a German bomb and it had gone off in his hands. Hawkins came up later on with my helmet and the fuse head of the shell which blew me up. We were all collected together and waited in the dugouts of the dressing station until dusk. Several shells came close to us. I tried to write to my mother with my left hand, so that when she received the War Office cable she would know I was able to write.
Dusk came, then night, and finally the Ford ambulance cars which were to take us [pg 153] out of Hell. It was a beautiful night. Belgium looked lovely. The merciful night had thrown a veil over the war scars on the land and a moon was shining. I was told to sit up in the seat with the driver. We traveled along one road, then the shelling became so bad that the drivers decided to go back and take another road which was running nearly parallel. Back over the line the planes of the Royal Flying Corps were bombing the Forest of Houltholst, and the bursting of the shrapnel from the German anti-aircraft guns pierced the velvet of the sky like stars as we went out of Belgium into France.
Several times shells burst on the road, and from the inside of the car came the stifled groans of the men as the Ford hit limbs of trees and shell-holes.
Our first stop was a ruined windmill, the walls of which were nearly six feet thick. Here the dangerous cases were taken off and attended to. The last I saw of the corporal was after they had cut off his coat at the [pg 154] seams and the doctors were taking a piece of wire out of his chest. While I was waiting a chaplain asked me if I would like a cup of coffee or some whiskey, realising that it would take some time to get the coffee made I had some more whiskey.
I was given two more tags, which this time were tied on buttons at the top of my jacket. I stayed here about two hours, then I was sent to a clearing hospital. It was here that I met the first nurses. They were two fine, splendid women who were wearing the scarlet hoods of the British Regular Army nurse. They were both strong and quite capable of handling a man, even if he became delirious. One of them quickly got me into bed. I apologized for my terribly dirty state, but I was told that it made no difference; they were used to it. To be between clean sheets again was wonderful. I felt I wanted to go to sleep forever. Suddenly a roar, and a terrible explosion. The hospital was being bombed; a bomb had dropped within a hundred yards of my tent. This was the [pg 155] German reprisal for our bombing Houltholst. They deliberately bombed a hospital. The doctor at this hospital next day looked at my hand and said in a nonchalant way, “Looks as though you will lose it.” At that time it didn't strike me as a great loss to lose a hand, even if it was my “painting hand.”
The hospital train of the next day was crowded and the nurse in charge of my coach was named Keene. We tried in the little spare time she had to see if we couldn't work out our genealogy and find out if we were even remotely connected, but before we did we came to the station of Étaples and then went to the Duchess of Westminster Hospital at Latouquet. Here I was operated on. A piece of Krupp's steel was taken out of my hand and a rubber drainage tube inserted instead. The Duchess used to come round a great deal and won everybody's affection. She used to sit on my bed and talk to me about pleasant things. So unlike many people who visit hospitals and ask the patients silly war questions, such as: “How [pg 156] does it feel to be wounded?” or “Which hurts more, a bayonet or a shell wound?” One exasperated Tommy, when asked if the shell hit him, said: “Naw, it crept up behind and bit me.”
FINIS