“But all the time you want to know about the Germans. They are a quarter of a mile away at this part, or nearly a quarter of a mile. When you snatch a peep at them it is like a low parti-coloured stone wall—only the stones are sandbags. The Germans have them black and white, so that you cannot tell which are loopholes and which are black bags. Our people haven’t been so clever—and the War Office love of uniformity has given us only white bags. No doubt it looks neater. But it makes our loopholes plain. For a time black sandbags were refused. The Germans sniped at us, but not very much. Only one of our lot was hit, by a chance shot that came through the sandbag at the top of the parapet. He just had a cut in the neck which didn’t prevent his walking back. They shelled the trenches half a mile to the left of us though, and it looked pretty hot. The sandbags flew about. But the men lie low, and it looks worse than it is. The weather was fine and pleasant, as General French always says. And after three days and nights of cramped existence and petty chores, one in the foremost trench and two a little way back, and then two days in support, we came back—and here we are again waiting for our second Go.
“The night time is perhaps a little more nervy than the day. You get your head up and look about, and see the flat dim country with its ruined houses and its lumps of stuff that are dead bodies and its long vague lines of sandbags, and the searchlights going like white windmill arms and an occasional flare or star shell. And you have a nasty feeling of people creeping and creeping all night between the trenches. …
“Some of us went out to strengthen a place in the parapet that was only one sandbag thick, where a man had been hit during the day. We made it four bags thick right up to the top. All the while you were doing it, you dreaded to find yourself in the white glare of a searchlight, and you had a feeling that something would hit you suddenly from behind. I had to make up my mind not to look round, or I should have kept on looking round. … Also our chaps kept shooting over us, within a foot of one’s head. Just to persuade the Germans that we were not out of the trench. …
“Nothing happened to us. We got back all right. It was silly to have left that parapet only one bag thick. There’s the truth, and all of my first time in the trenches.
“And the Germans?
“I tell you there was no actual fighting at all. I never saw the head of one.
“But now see what a good bruddykins I am. I have seen a fight, a real exciting fight, and I have kept it to the last to tell you about. … It was a fight in the air. And the British won. It began with a German machine appearing, very minute and high, sailing towards our lines a long way to the left. We could tell it was a German because of the black cross; they decorate every aeroplane with a black Iron Cross on its wings and tail; that our officer could see with his glasses. (He let me look.) Suddenly whack, whack, whack, came a line of little puffs of smoke behind it, and then one in front of it, which meant that our antiaircraft guns were having a go at it. Then, as suddenly, Archibald stopped, and we could see the British machine buzzing across the path of the German. It was just like two birds circling in the air. Or wasps. They buzzed like wasps. There was a little crackling—like brushing your hair in frosty weather. They were shooting at each other. Then our lieutenant called out, ‘Hit, by Jove!’ and handed the glasses to Park and instantly wanted them back. He says he saw bits of the machine flying off.
“When he said that you could fancy you saw it too, up there in the blue.
“Anyhow the little machine cocked itself up on end. Rather slowly. … Then down it came like dropping a knife. …
“It made you say ‘Ooooo!’ to see that dive. It came down, seemed to get a little bit under control, and then dive down again. You could hear the engine roar louder and louder as it came down. I never saw anything fall so fast. We saw it hit the ground among a lot of smashed-up buildings on the crest behind us. It went right over and flew to pieces, all to smithereens. …
“It hurt your nose to see it hit the ground. …
“Somehow—I was sort of overcome by the thought of the men in that dive. I was trying to imagine how they felt it. From the moment when they realised they were going.
“What on earth must it have seemed like at last?
“They fell seven thousand feet, the men say; some say nine thousand feet. A mile and a half!
“But all the chaps were cheering. … And there was our machine hanging in the sky. You wanted to reach up and pat it on the back. It went up higher and away towards the German lines, as though it was looking for another German. It seemed to go now quite slowly. It was an English machine, though for a time we weren’t sure; our machines are done in tricolour just as though they were French. But everybody says it was English. It was one of our crack fighting machines, and from first to last it has put down seven Germans. … And that’s really all the fighting there was. There has been fighting here; a month ago. There are perhaps a
