I never did know why there was no communication trench unless it was because the ground was so full of moisture. But whatever the reason, there was none, and we were right out in the open on the duck walk. The order for no talk seemed silly as we clattered along the boards, making a noise like a four-horse team on a covered bridge.
I immediately wondered whether we were near enough for the Boches to hear. I wasn’t in doubt long, for they began to send over the “Berthas” in flocks. The “Bertha” is an uncommonly ugly breed of nine-inch shell loaded with H.E. It comes sailing over with a querulous squeeeeeee, and explodes with an earsplitting crash and a burst of murky, dull-red flame.
If it hits you fair, you disappear. At a little distance you are ripped to fragments, and a little farther off you get a case of shell-shock. Just at the edge of the destructive area the wind of the explosion whistles by your ears, and then sucks back more slowly.
The Boches had the range of that duck walk, and we began to run. Every now and then they would drop one near the walk, and from four to ten casualties would go down. There was no stopping for the wounded. They lay where they fell. We kept on the run, sometimes on the duck walk, sometimes in the mud, for three miles. I had reached the limit of my endurance when we came to a halt and rested for a little while at the foot of a slight incline. This was the “Pimple,” so called on account of its rounded crest.
The Pimple forms a part of the well-known Vimy Ridge—is a semidetached extension of it—and lies between it and the Souchez sector. After a rest here we got into the trenches skirting the Pimple and soon came out on the Quarries. This was a bowl-like depression formed by an old quarry. The place gave a natural protection and all around the edge were dugouts which had been built by the French, running back into the hill, some of them more than a hundred feet.
In the darkness we could see braziers glowing softly red at the mouth of each burrow. There was a cheerful, mouth-watering smell of cookery on the air, a garlicky smell, with now and then a whiff of spicy wood smoke.
We were hungry and thirsty, as well as tired, and shed our packs at the dugouts assigned us and went at the grub and the char offered us by the men we were relieving, the Northumberland Fusiliers.
The dugouts here in the Quarries were the worst I saw in France. They were reasonably dry and roomy, but they had no ventilation except the tunnel entrance, and going back so far the air inside became simply stifling in a very short time.
I took one inhale of the interior atmosphere and decided right there that I would bivouac in the open. It was just getting down to “kip” when a sentry came up and said I would have to get inside. It seemed that Fritz had the range of the Quarries to an inch and was in the habit of sending over “minnies” at intervals just to let us know he wasn’t asleep.
I had got settled down comfortably and was dozing off when there came a call for C company. I got the men from my platoon out as quickly as possible, and in half an hour we were in the trenches.
Number 10 platoon was assigned to the center sector, Number 11 to the left sector, and Number 12 to the right sector. Number 9 remained behind in supports in the Quarries.
Now when I speak of these various sectors, I mean that at this point there was no continuous line of front trenches, only isolated stretches of trench separated by intervals of from two hundred to three hundred yards of open ground. There were no dugouts. It was impossible to leave these trenches except under cover of darkness—or to get to them or to get up rations. They were awful holes. Any raid by the Germans in large numbers at this time would have wiped us out, as there was no means of retreating or getting up reinforcements.
The Tommies called the trenches Grouse Spots. It was a good name. We got into them in the dense darkness of just before dawn. The division we relieved gave us hardly any instruction, but beat it on the hot foot, glad to get away and anxious to go before sunup. As we settled down in our cozy danger spots I heard Rolfie, the frog-voiced baritone, humming one of his favorite coster songs:
Oh, why did I leave my little back room in old Bloomsbury?
Where I could live for a pound a week in luxury.
I wanted to live higher
So I married Marier,
Out of the frying pan into the bloomin’ fire.
And he meant every word of it.
In our new positions in the Grouse Spots the orders were to patrol the open ground between at least four times a night. That first night there was one more patrol necessary before daylight. Tired as I was, I volunteered for it. I had had one patrol before, opposite Bully-Grenay, and thought I liked the game.
I went over with one man, a fellow named Bellinger. We got out and started to crawl. All we knew was that the left sector was two hundred yards away. Machine-gun bullets were squealing and snapping overhead pretty continuously, and we had to hug the dirt. It is surprising to see how flat a man can keep and still get along at a good rate of speed. We kept straight away to the left and presently got into wire. And then we heard German voices. Ow! I went cold all over.
Then some “Very” lights went up and I saw the Boche parapet not twenty feet away. Worst of all
