A Rifleman Went to War

course, but I do not think that anyone became incapacitated. We all had our work to do and we knew it — and I guess we did it. But for two or three hours, we forgot the war. Songs were in order and how those old rafters did ring. They sang all the conventional Yule-tide songs and carols and then commenced on others. I happened to know a few distinctively American songs which I contributed to the best of my ability. Fortunately, everybody was feeling so good that almost any noise sounded like music, so I got away with it. They all took to “The Old Gray Mare” (sung without expurgations) and, for a long time thereafter, I heard that song, hummed or sung, by officers and men of many British regiments, all along the line.

But that was just a little respite. The next day — Christmas — by mutual consent, there was no firing whatever. It was so quiet as to be disturbing — unnatural it seemed. Men of both sides showed themselves with impunity, even going out into no-man’s-land to hunt for souvenirs but there was none of the close fraternizing such as we had heard was carried on the previous year.

Christmas day, 1914, it seems that the troops came right out of their lines and played around in no-man’s- land. I think it was in Ian Hay’s story of the First Hundred Thousand that I first read about that. At any rate, I often heard of it, by word of mouth, from others who were there. Why, in one place, the Germans even carried out a piano and held a regular concert.

On this next Christmas, however, although either by mutual consent or by some pre-arrangement through the underground channels, it was well known on both sides that there would be no actual firing; still we fought a bit shy of them. They had literally and actually murdered some of our unarmed stretcher-bearers on the afternoon of the previous day and I, for one, could not forget it; so, while the rest of the boys were wandering around out there in between the lines, with the Germans likewise prowling around in plain sight, I spent my time right behind the breech of a machine gun — fearing — or maybe it was hoping — that they would start something.

Now, I have and have always had, numerous close friends, either German born or of German parentage but I am willing to go on record as saying that I will never, so long as I live, ever trust to the honor or the humanity of any German war organization. It simply is not within the limits of their creed or code — or whatever you want to call it — to observe anything bordering upon humanity when they are at war.

A few days after Christmas the Germans opened up on that cafe at Dickebusch and got a major and two or three others who had been in our party. Of course we knew that some one of the habitues of the place had relayed the message over the lines but never found out which one it was. At any rate, none of the civilians were present when the shelling took place. That was one of the tough things about that war in Flanders. Too large a proportion of the natives were in favor of Germany and they had plenty of ways of getting information across.

So the winter dragged along. We had ample opportunities to observe and study the various kinds of shells and trench-mortar projectiles and rifle grenades. In the latter class, about this time the Germans brought out the “pineapple.” It was about as big as a man’s fist and shaped somewhat like the fruit which gave it its name, and to complete the resemblance it was scored, fore and aft and crosswise, with deep grooves, giving it a checkered appearance. Upon bursting, each of the small segments became a deadly missile, just like the Mills hand grenades — only these were somewhat larger. They were fired from the regular service rifle and with the ordinary ball cartridge, there being a hole through the center for the bullet, while the grenade, itself, was propelled by the gasses from the discharge. The rear end was equipped with three small vanes which acted as rudders to keep the thing head on, as they burst only on impact and, unless the nose struck directly against some solid object, they did not explode.

The Germans followed the practice, when they were about to launch these things, of firing several rifle shots, as a sort of mask and, right in the midst of these, to send over the grenade, but we quickly learned to notice the difference in the sound of the report when the grenade was fired — it was muffled in a peculiar way and was easily identified. So, when we heard that, we simply took shelter and watched to see where it would land. During just one afternoon, more than fifty of these jokers were dropped in the immediate vicinity of one of our machine guns, without doing a particle of damage. Several, which failed to explode, were picked up, so we had ample opportunity to examine them. A day or so later, however, they did get one man — “Paddy” Logan. He heard it coming and crowded up against the wall of the parapet but, unfortunately, the grenade struck fairly on the top of the parados immediately back of him and exploded, pieces striking him in the head, from the effect of which he died within a short time.

From that time on we seldom saw any of the older forms of rifle grenade — I mean the ramrod type. This newer kind could be and were fired from the service rifle, with the service cartridge while the others had to be fired with a blank cartridge and, in some instances, with a special rifle. Someone, about that time, had discovered the fact that the expanding gasses coming out of the muzzle of a rifle, were really and truly efficient propellants and that just this gas, itself, without the aid of any ramrod or other projection stuck down in the bore of the gun, would exert a force sufficient to throw one of the small grenades several hundred yards.

As to hand grenades: well, at first they were just exactly that. Made by hand and thrown by hand. If anyone cares to make one of the first type we used, I can easily tell him how to do it.

First, get a little jam tin. Well, being an American, you might not know exactly what I mean by that but, looking over at the kitchen cupboard, I see some little cans of Borden’s milk. That is it, exactly. Get yourself a can of that size and, in opening it, do not use a regular can-opener. If you have no bayonet handy, get a good big butcher-knife or a hatchet and cut it cross-wise on top and turn the comers back — just as you would open any can out in camp somewhere, where you had no regular can-opener. Then take a stick of either 40 or 60 per-cent dynamite and cut off about an inch. Next, take a detonator and about an inch of ordinary blasting fuse. Stick the fuse into the detonator and crimp it. (If you are really tough you will do this with your teeth.) Poke a hole in the dynamite and stick the detonator into it — pinching it in carefully, so it won’t slip out on you. Put the powder in the can and fill up all around it with any little, loose but hard things you can find. Gravel will do fine if there are no loose nuts and bolts handy. Then all you have to do is to press the corners of the opened can back in and she is ready for business. To make sure that it will light easily and quickly, you should slit the end of the fuse where it sticks out and smear in a pinch of dynamite. Some people are so conservative that they do not like to do this so they just break off the head of a match and stick it in the slitted fuse.

Well, there you are. All you got to do when you want to use it is to light ’er up and throw it. I have said an inch of fuse because I am afraid some enterprising youngster may take this thing seriously and I want to give him a break. As a matter of fact, many such grenades, lighted and thrown from one line, have been picked up and returned before exploding.

Many other types of grenades were developed during the war. The German potato-masher type was rather clumsy to look at but really very handy to use. They had a playful habit of fitting some of these things with instantaneous fuses and then leaving them lying around out in no-man’s-land where one of our men might pick them up. If the poor devil tried to use the thing, he was blown apart the minute he pulled the string.

In my opinion, the Mills grenade was the best developed during the war. It was compact and easily carried and reliable in action. There may be better ones by this time. I don’t know.

A great many people, including some who actually served in the armies, speak and write of fragments of shells or grenades as “shrapnel.” It always grates on my nerves when I hear or see in print that phrase, a piece of shrapnel. Any person who knows anything at all about it, knows that there are no such things as pieces of shrapnel — unless each separate bullet be called a piece. One may be hit by the fuse-cap, which I have known to happen, or he may be struck by the shrapnel case, as I have good reason to know from painful recollection. But the shrapnel, itself, the bullets which constitute the real, effective component of this particular class of shell, are entirely different from the fragments from the ordinary, high-explosive shell. Invented by a Colonel Shrapnel, of the British Army, toward the latter part of the Eighteenth Century, the shell which bears his name is nothing more nor less than a travelling shot-gun — a hollow shell case, filled with iron balls and with a bursting charge in the base. The fuse can be set to burst this charge at any desired range, whereupon the balls are discharged and sweep a considerable area of ground. Shrapnel is particularly effective out in the open but is of little or no use against entrenched positions. The High Explosive shell (H.E. for short) is the only thing that will penetrate or knock down a parapet.

Along about this time we also made the acquaintance of the new armor-piercing bullets which the Germans brought out. I was standing, one morning, with several others, in a bay where we had an emergency machine-gun emplacement. The loop-hole was protected with one of the ordinary steel plates which were commonly used at the peep-holes from whence we observed the ground out in front. I do not now remember the exact thickness of these