A YAN ICE IN THE TR.ENCHE5 R.DERBY HOLMES A YANKEE IN THE TRENCHES •f^SSSL-: CORPORAL HOLMES IN THE UNIFORM OF THE 22nD LONDON BATTALION, QUEEN's ROYAL WEST SURREY REGIMENT, H. M. IMPERIAL ARMY. Frontispiece. ^A YANKEE IN THE TRENCHES BY R. DERBY HOLMES corporal or the 22d london battalion of the queen's royal west surrey regiment ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS n on-refer T SWVAD-a3S BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1918 ^ x\>^ Copyright, 1918, By Little, Brown, and Compant. All rights reserved Published, January, 1918 Reprinted, January, 1918 (four times) NoTtoootj ^Tcss Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Gushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 30e&icatCciu To Marion A. Puttee, Southall, Middle- sex, England, I Dedicate This Book as a Token of Appreciation for All the Loving Thoughts and Deeds Bestowed upon Me WHEN I Was a Stranger in a Strange Land FOREWORD T HAVE tried as an American in writing this book to give the public a complete view of the trenches and life on the Western Front as it appeared to me, and also my im- pression of conditions and men as I found them. It has been a pleasure to write it, and now that I have finished I am genuinely sorry that I cannot go further. On the lec- ture tour I find that people ask me questions, and I have tried in this book to give in detail many things about the quieter side of war that to an audience would seem too tame. I feel that the public want to know how the soldiers live when not in the trenches, for all the time out there is not spent in killing and carnage. As in the case of all men in the trenches, I heard things and stories that es- pecially impressed me, so I have written them as hearsay, not taking to myself credit as their originator. I trust that the reader will find as much joy in the cockney character as I did viii FOREWORD and which I have tried to show the public; let me say now that no finer body of men than those Bermondsey boys of my battalion could be found. I think it fair to say that in compiling the trench terms at the end of this book I have not copied any war book, but I have given in each case my own version of the words, though I will confess that the idea and neces- sity of having such a list sprang from reading Sergeant Empey's "Over the Top." It would be impossible to write a book that the people would understand without the aid of such a glossary. It is my sincere wish that after reading this book the reader may have a clearer conception of what this great world war means and what our soldiers are contending with, and that it may awaken the American people to the danger of Prussianism so that when in the future there is a call for funds for Liberty Loans, Red Cross work, or Y. M. C. A., there will be no slacking, for they form the real triangular sign to a successful termination of this terrible conflict. R. Derby Holmes. CONTENTS CHAPTER Foreword I Joining the British Aemy II Going In III A Trench Raid IV A Few Days' Rest in Billets V Feeding the Toivimies VI Hiking to Vimy Ridge VII Fascination of Patrol Work . VIII On the Go .... IX First Sight of the Tanks X Following the Tanks into Battle XI Prisoners XII I Become a Bomber . XIII Back on the Somme Again XIV The Last Time Over the Top XV Bits of Blighty XVI Suggestions for " Sammy " Glossary of Ae]my Slang PAGE vii 1 16 28 38 51 65 77 95 114 127 137 145 166 179 189 200 209 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Corporal Holmes in the Uniform of the 22nd London Battalion, Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment, H. M. Imperial Army .... Frontispiece Reduced Facsimile of Discharge Certificate of Char acter A Heavy Howitzer, Under Camouflage Over the Top on a Raid . Cooking Under Difficulties Head-on View of a British Tank 4 28 34 56 124 Corporal Holmes with Staff Nurse and Another Pa- tient, at Fulham Military Hospital, London, S.W. 190 Corporal Holmes with Company Office Force, at Winchester, England, a Week Prior to Discharge 194 A YANKEE IN THE TRENCHES CHAPTER I Joining the British Army /^NCE, on the Somme in the fall of 1916, ^-^ when I had been over the top and was being carried back somewhat disfigured but still in the ring, a cockney stretcher bearer shot this question at me : "Hi sye, Yank. Wot th' bloody 'ell are you in this bloomin' row for? Ayen't there no trouble t' 'ome?" And for the life of me I couldn't answer. After more than a year in the British service I could not, on the spur of the moment, say exactly why I was there. To be perfectly frank with myself and with the reader I had no very lofty motives when 2 JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY I took the King's shilling. When the great war broke out, I was mildly sympathetic with England, and mighty sorry in an indefinite way for France and Belgium; but my sym- pathies were not strong enough in any direc- tion to get me into uniform with a chance of being killed. Nor, at first, was I able to work up any compelling hate for Germany. The abstract idea of democracy did not figure in my calculations at all. However, as the war went on, it became ap- parent to me, as I suppose it must have to everybody, that the world was going through one of its epochal upheavals ; and I figured that with so much history in the making, any unattached young man would be missing it if he did not take a part in the big game. I had the fondness for adventure usual in young men. I liked to see the wheels go round. And so it happened that, when the war was about a year and a half old, I decided to get in before it was too late. On second thought I won't say that it was purely love for adventure that took me across. There may have been in the back of my head JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 3 a sneaking extra fondness for France, perhaps instinctive, for I was born in Paris, although my parents were American and I was brought to Boston as a baby and have Hved here since. Whatever my motives for joining the British army, they didn't have time to crystal- lize until I had been wounded and sent to Blighty, which is trench slang for England. While recuperating in one of the pleasant places of the English country-side, I had time to acquire a perspective and to discover that I had been fighting for democracy and the future safety of the world. I think that my experience in this respect i is like that of most of the young Americans who have volunteered for service under a foreign flag. I decided to get into the big war game early in 1916. My first thought was to go into the ambulance service, as I knew several men in that work. One of them described the driver's life about as follows. He said : "The blesses curse you because you jolt them. The doctors curse you because you don't get the blesses in fast enough. The Transport Service curse you because you get 4 JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY in the way. You eat standing up and don't sleep at all. You're as likely as anybody to get killed, and all the glory you get is the War Cross, if you're lucky, and you don't get a single chance to kill a Hun." That settled the ambulance for me. I hadn't wanted particularly to kill a Hun until it was suggested that I mightn't. Then I wanted to slaughter a whole division. So I decided on something where there would be fighting. And having decided, I thought I would "go the whole hog" and work my way across to England on a horse transport. One day in the first part of February I went, at what seemed an early hour, to an office on Commercial Street, Boston, where they were advertising for horse tenders for England. About three hundred men were earlier than I. It seemed as though every beach-comber and patriot in New England was trying to get across. I didn't get the job, but filed my ap- plication and was lucky enough to be signed on for a sailing on February 22 on the steam ship Cambrian, bound for London. ^^■^: 00 c5 5 I ^ __ o o O 3 "^ . - v:_ c w ■^ H "-1 -< H U £. "i •^ U) . H "" ^ « ^' ~ U ^i --. ,<^ H c '" K *"! i' ■< - Jj K H >. ^C'^ CO ^ r- •:> '^ 5 « ^, ^ ^ —V -" M — ' J ^ r-', m ■a '^ ■< c . Uh c: Q — w Cj rt 0, t) Vi Q ^ u K JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 5 We spent the morning of Washington's Birthday loading the horses. These govern- ment animals were selected stock and full of ginger. They seemed to know that they were going to France and resented it keenly. Those in my care seemed to regard my attentions as a personal affront. We had a strenuous forenoon getting the horses aboard, and sailed at noon. After we had herded in the livestock, some of the of- ficers herded up the herders. I drew a pink slip with two numbers on it, one showing the compartment where I was supposed to sleep, the other indicating my bunk. That compartment certainly was a glory- hole. Most of the men had been drunk the night before, and the place had the rich, balmy fragrance of a water-front saloon. In- cidentally there was a good deal of unauthor- ized and undomesticated livestock. I made a limited acquaintance with that pretty, playful little creature, the "cootie," who was to be- come so familiar in the trenches later on. He wasn't called a cootie aboard ship, but he was the same bird. 6 JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY Perhaps the less said about that trip across the better. It lasted twenty-one days. We fed the animals three times a day and cleaned the stalls once on the trip. I got chewed up some and stepped on a few times. Altogether the experience was good intensive training for the trench life to come; especially the bunks. Those sleeping quarters sure were close and crawly. We landed in London on Saturday night about nine-thirty. The immigration inspec- tors gave us a quick examination and we were turned back to the shipping people, who paid us off, — two pounds, equal to about ten dol- lars real change. After that we rode on the train half an hour and then marched through the streets, darkened to fool the Zeps. Around one o'clock we brought up at Thrawl Street, at the lodgings where we were supposed to stop until we were started for home. The place where we were quartered was a typical London doss house. There were forty beds in the room with mine, all of them occu- pied. All hands were snoring, and the fellow JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 7 in the next cot was going it with the cut-out wide open, breaking all records. Most of the beds sagged like a hammock. Mine humped up in the middle like a pile of bricks. I was up early and was directed to the place across the way where we were to eat. It was labeled "Mother Wolf's. The Universal Pro- vider." She provided just one meal of weak tea, moldy bread, and rancid bacon for me. After that I went to a hotel. I may remark in passing that horse tenders, going or coming or in between whiles, do not live on the fat of the land. I spent the day — it was Sunday — seeing the sights of Whitechapel, Middlesex Street or Petticoat Lane, and some of the slums. Next morning it was pretty clear to me that two pounds don't go far in the big town. I promptly boarded the first bus for Trafalgar Square. The recruiting office was just down the road in Whitehall at the old Scotland Yard oflSce. I had an idea when I entered thaT recruit- ing office that the sergeant would receive me with open arms. He didn't. Instead he looked 8 JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY me over with unqualified scorn and spat out, "Yank, ayen't ye?" And I in my innocence briefly answered, "Yep." "We ayen't tykin' no nootrals," he said, with a sneer. And then: "Better go back to Ha- merika and 'elp Wilson write 'is blinkin' notes." Well, I was mad enough to poke that ser- geant in the eye. But I didn't. I retired gracefully and with dignity. At the door another sergeant hailed me, whispering behind his hand, "Hi sye, my tie. Come around in the mornin'. Hi'll get ye in." And so it happened. Next day my man was waiting and marched me boldly up to the same chap who had refused me the day before. " 'Ere's a recroot for ye, Jim," says my friend. Jim never batted an eye. He began to "awsk" questions and to fill out a blank. When he got to the birthplace, my guide cut in and said, "Canada." The only place I knew in Canada was Campo- bello Island, a place where we camped one summer, and I gave that. I don't think that JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 9 anything but rabbits was ever born on Campo- bello, but it went. For that matter anything went. I discovered afterward that the ser- geant who had captured me on the street got five bob (shillings) for me. The physical examination upstairs was elab- orate. They told me to strip, weighed me, and said I was fit. After that I was taken in to an officer — a real officer this time — who made me put my hand on a Bible and say yes to an oath he rattled off. Then he told me I was a member of the Royal Fusiliers, gave me two shillings, sixpence and ordered me to report at the Horse Guards Parade next day. I was in the British army, — just like that ! I spent the balance of the day seeing the sights of London, and incidentally spending my coin. When I went around to the Horse Guards next morning, two hundred others, new rookies like myself, were waiting. An officer gave me another two shillings, sixpence. I began to think that if the money kept coming along at that rate the British army might turn out a good investment. It didn't. That morning I was sent out to Hounslow 10 JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY Barracks, and three days later was transferred to Dover with twenty others. I was at Dover a little more than two months and completed my training there. Our barracks at Dover was on the heights of the cliffs, and on clear days we could look across the Channel and see the dim outlines of France. It was a fascination for all of us to look away over there and to wonder what fortunes were to come to us on the battle fields of Europe. It was perhaps as well that none of us had imagination enough to visualize the things that were ahead. I found the rookies at Dover a jolly, compan- ionable lot, and I never found the routine irk- some. We were up at five-thirty, had cocoa and biscuits, and then an hour of physical drill or bayonet practice. At eight came break- fast of tea, bacon, and bread, and then we drilled until twelve. Dinner. Out again on the parade ground until three thirty. After that we were free. Nights we would go into Dover and sit around the "pubs" drinking ale, or "ayle" as the cockney says it. JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 11 After a few weeks, when we were hardened somewhat, they began to inflict us with the torture known as "night ops." That means going out at ten o'clock under full pack, hik- ing several miles, and then "manning" the trenches around the town and returning to barracks at three a.m. This wouldn't have been so bad if we had been excused parades the following day. But no. We had the same old drills except the early one, but were allowed to "kip" until seven. In the two months I completed the mus- ketry course, was a good bayonet man, and was well grounded in bombing practice. Be- sides that I was as hard as nails and had learned thoroughly the system of British dis- cipline. I had supposed that it took at least six months to make a soldier, — in fact had been told that one could not be turned out who would be ten per cent eflScient in less than that time. That old theory is all wrong. Modern warfare changes so fast that the only thing that can be taught a man is the basic prin- 12 JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY ciples of discipline, bombing, trench warfare, and musketry. Give him those things, a well- conditioned body, and a baptism of fire, and he will be right there with the veterans, doing his bit. Two months was all our crowd got at any rate, and they were as good as the best, if I do say it. My training ended abruptly with a furlough of five days for Embarkation Leave, that is, leave before going to France. This is a sort of good-by vacation. Most fellows realize fully that it may be their last look at Blighty, and they take it rather solemnly. To a stranger without friends in England I can imagine that this Embarkation Leave would be either a mighty lonesome, dismal affair, or a stretch of desperate, homesick dissipation. A chap does want to say good-by to some one before he goes away, perhaps to die. He wants to be loved and to have some one sorry that he is going. I was invited by one of my chums to spend the leave with him at his home in Southall, Middlesex. His father, mother and sister wel- comed me in a way that made me know it JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 13 was my home from tlie minute I entered the door. Thej^ took me into their hearts with a simple hospitahty and whole-souled kindness that I can never forget. I was a stranger in a strange land and they made me one of their own. I shall never be able to repay all the loving thoughts and deeds of that family and shall remember them while I live. My chum's mother I call Mother too. It is to her that I have dedicated this book. After my delightful few days of leave, things moved fast. I was back in Dover just two days when I, with two hundred other men, was sent to Winchester, Here we were notified that we were transferred to the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment. This news brought a wild howl from the men. They wanted to stop with the Fusiliers. It is part of the British system that every man is taught the traditions and history of his regiment and to know that his is absolutely the best in the whole army. In a surprisingly short time they get so they swear by their own regiment and by their officers, and they protest bitterly at a transfer. 14 JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY Personally I didn't care a rap. I had early made up my mind that I was a very small pebble on the beach and that it was up to me to obey orders and keep my mouth shut. On June 17, some eighteen hundred of us were moved down to Southampton and put aboard the transport for Havre. The next day we were in France, at Harfleur, the central training camp outside Havre. We were supposed to undergo an intensive training at Harfleur in the various forms of gas and protection from it, barbed wire and methods of construction of entanglements, musketry, bombing, and bayonet fighting. Harfleur was a miserable place. They re- fused to let us go in town after drill. Also I managed to let myself in for something that would have kept me in camp if town leave had been allowed. The first day there was a call for a volunteer for musketry instructor. I had qualified and jumped at it. When I reported, an old Scotch sergeant told me to go to the quartermaster for equipment. I said I already had full equipment. Whereupon the sergeant laughed JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 15 a rumbling Scotch laugh and told me I had to go into kilts, as I was assigned to a Highland contingent. I protested with violence and enthusiasm, but it didn't do any good. They gave me a dinky little pleated petticoat, and when I demanded breeks to wear underneath, I got the merry ha ha. Breeks on a Scotchman? Never ! Well, I got into the fool things, and I felt as though I was naked from ankle to wishbone. I couldn't get used to the outfit. I am naturally a modest man. Besides, my architecture was never intended for bare-leg effects. I have no dimples in my knees. So I began an immediate campaign for trans- fer back to the Surreys. I got it at the end of ten days, and with it came a hurry call from somewhere at the front for more troops. CHAPTER II Going In rp^HE excitement of getting away from camp and the knowledge that we were soon to get into the thick of the big game pleased most of us. We were glad to go. At least we thought so. Two hundred of us were loaded into side- door Pullmans, forty to the car. It was a kind of sardine or Boston Elevated effect, and by the time we reached Rouen, twenty- four hours later, we had kinks in our legs and corns on our elbows. Also we were hungry, having had nothing but bully beef and bis- cuits. We made "char", which is trench slang for tea, in the station, and after two hours moved up the line again, this time in real coaches. Next night we were billeted at Barlin — don't get that mixed up with Berlin, it's not the same — in an abandoned convent within GOING IN 17 range of the German guns. The roar of artillery was continuous and sounded pretty close. Now and again a shell would burst near by with a kind of hollow "spung", but for some reason we didn't seem to mind. I had ex- pected to get the shivers at the first sound of the guns and was surprised when I woke up in the morning after a solid night's sleep. A message came down from the front trenches at daybreak that we were wanted and wanted quick. We slung together a dixie of char and some bacon and bread for breakfast, and marched around to the " quarters ", where they issued "tin hats", extra "ammo", and a second gas helmet. A good many of the men had been out before, and they did the cus- tomary "grousing" over the added load. The British Tommy growls or grouses over anything and everything. He's never happy unless he's unhappy. He resents especially having anything officially added to his pack, and you can't blame him, for in full equip- ment he certainly is all dressed up like a pack horse. 18 GOING IN After the issue we were split up into four lots for the four companies of the battalion, and after some "wangling" I got into Com- pany C, where I stopped all the time I was in France. I was glad, because most of my chums were in that unit. We got into our packs and started up the line immediately. As we neared the lines we were extended into artillery formation, that is, spread out so that a shell bursting in the road would inflict fewer casualties. At Bully-Grenay, the point where we entered the communication trenches, guides met us and looked us over, commenting most frankly and freely on our appearance. They didn't seem to think we would amount to much, and said so. They agreed that the "bloomin' Yank" must be a "bloody fool" to come out there. There were times later when I agreed with them. It began to rain as we entered the communi- cation trench, and I had my first taste of mud. That is literal, for with mud knee-deep in a trench just wide enough for two men to pass you get smeared from head to foot. GOING IN 19 Incidentally, as we approached nearer the front, I got my first smell of the dead. It is something you never get away from in the trenches. So many dead have been buried so hastily and so lightly that they are con- stantly being uncovered by shell bursts. The acrid stench pervades everything, and is so thick you can fairly taste it. It makes nearly everybody deathly sick at first, but one be- comes used to it as to anything else. This communication trench was over two miles long, and it seemed like twenty. We finally landed in a support trench called "Me- chanics" (every trench has a name, like a street), and from there into the first-line trench. I have to admit a feeling of disappointment in that first trench. I don't know what I expected to see, but what I did see was just a long, crooked ditch with a low step running along one side, and with sandbags on top. Here and there was a muddy, bedraggled Tommy half asleep, nursing a dirty and muddy rifle on "sentry go." Everything was very quiet at the moment — no rifles popping, as 20 GOING IN I had expected, no bullets flying, and, as it happened, absolutely no shelling in the whole sector. I forgot to say that we had come up by daylight. Ordinarily troops are moved at night, but the communication trench from Bully-Grenay was very deep and was pro- tected at points by little hills, and it was possible to move men in the daytime. Arrived in the front trench, the sergeant- major appeared, crawling out of his dug-out — the usual place for a sergeant-major — and greeted us with, "Keep your nappers down, you rooks. Don't look over the top. It ayen't 'ealthy." It is the regular warning to new men. For some reason the first emotion of the rookie is an overpowering curiosity. He wants to take a peep into No Man's Land. It feels safe enough when things are quiet. But there's always a Fritzie over yonder with a telescope-sighted rifle, and it's about ten to one he'll get you if you stick the old "napper" up in daylight. The Germans, by the way, have had the GOING IN 21 "edge" on the Allies in the matter of sniping, as in almost all lines of artillery and musketry practice. The Boche sniper is nearly always armed with a periscope-telescope rifle. This is a specially built super-accurate rifle mounted on a periscope frame. It is thrust up over the parapet and the image of the opposing parapet is cast on a little ground-glass screen on which are two crossed lines. At one hun- dred fifty yards or less the image is brought up to touching distance seemingly. Fritz simply trains his piece on some low place or anywhere that a head may be expected. When one appears on the screen, he pulls the trigger, — and you "click it" if you happen to be on the other or receiving end. The shooter never shows himself. I remember the first time I looked through a periscope I had no sooner thrust the thing up than a bullet crashed into the upper mirror, splintering it. Many times I have stuck up a cap on a stick and had it pierced. The British sniper, on the other hand — at least in my time — had a plain telescope rifle and had to hide himself behind old masonry, 22 GOING IN tree trunks, or anything convenient, and camouflaged himself in all sorts of ways. At that he was constantly in danger. I was assigned to Platoon 10 and found they were a good live bunch. Corporal Wells was the best of the lot, and we became fast friends. He helped me learn a lot of my new duties and the trench "lingo", which is like a new language, especially to a Yank. Wells started right in to make me feel at home and took me along with two others of the new men down to our "apartments", a dug-out built for about four, and housing ten. My previous idea of a dug-out had been a fairly roomy sort of cave, somewhat damp, but comparatively comfortable. Well, this hole was about four and a half feet high — you had to get in doubled up on your hands and knees — about five by six feet on the sides, and there was no floor, just muck. There was some sodden, dirty straw and a lot of old moldy sandbags. Seven men and their equip- ment were packed in here, and we made ten. There was a charcoal brazier going in the middle with two or three mess tins of char GOING IN 23 boiling away. Everybody was smoking, and the place stunk to high heaven, or it would have if there hadn't been a bit of burlap over the door. I crowded up into a corner with my back against the mud wall and my knees under my chin. The men didn't seem overglad to see us, and groused a good deal about the extra crowding. They regarded me with extra dis- favor because I was a lance corporal, and they disapproved of any young whipper-snapper just out from Blighty with no trench experience pitchforked in with even a slight superior rank. I had thought up to then that a lance corporal was pretty near as important as a brigadier. "We'll soon tyke that stripe off ye, me bold lad," said one big cockney. They were a decent lot after all. Since we were just out from Blighty, they showered us with questions as to how things looked "f 'ome." And then somebody asked what was the latest song. Right here was where I made my hit and got in right. I sing a bit, and I piped up with the newest thing from 24 GOING IN the music halls, "Tyke Me Back to Blighty." Here it is : Tyke me back to dear old Blighty, Put me on the tryne for London town. Just tyke me over there And drop me anywhere, Manchester, Leeds, or Birmingham, I don't care. I want to go see me best gal ; Cuddlin' up soon we'll be, Hytey iddle de eyety. Tyke me back to Blighty, That's the plyce for me. It doesn't look like much and I'm afraid my rendition of cockney dialect into print isn't quite up to Kipling's. But the song had a pretty little lilting melody, and it went big. They made me sing it about a dozen times and were all joining in at the end. Then they got sentimental — and gloomy. "Gawd lumme!" says the big fellow who had threatened my beloved stripies. "Wot a life. Squattin' 'ere in the bloody mud like a blinkin' frog. Fightin' fer wot ? Wot, I arsks yer ? Gawd lumme ! I'd give me bloomin' napper to stroll down the Strand agyne wif GOING IN 25 me swagger stick an' drop in a private bar an' 'ave me go of 'Aig an' 'Aig." "Garn," cuts in another Tommy. "Yer blinkin' 'igh wif yer wants, ayen't ye? An' yer 'Aig an' 'Aig. Drop me down in Great Lime Street (Liverpool) an' it's me fer the Golden Sheaf, and a pint of bitter, an' me a 'oldin' 'Arriet's 'and over th' bar. I'm a courtin' 'er when," etc., etc. And then a fresh-faced lad chirps up: "T' 'ell wif yer Lonnon an' yer whuskey. Gimme a jug o' cider on the sunny side of a 'ay rick in old Surrey. Gimme a happle tart to go wif it. Gawd, I'm fed up on bully beef." And so it went. All about pubs and bar- maids and the things they'd eat and drink, and all of it Blighty. They were in the midst of a discussion of what part of the body was most desirable to part with for a permanent Blighty wound when a young officer pushed aside the burlap and wedged in. He was a lieutenant and was in command of our platoon. His name was Blofeld. Blofeld was most democratic. He shook 26 GOING IN hands with the new men and said he hoped we'd be live wires, and then he told us what he wanted. There was to be a raid the next night and he was looking for volunteers. Nobody spoke for a long minute, and then I offered. I think I spoke more to break the embarrass- ing silence than anything else. I think, too, that I was led a little by a kind of youthful curiosity, and it may be that I wanted to appear brave in the eyes of these men who so evidently held me more or less in contempt as a newcomer. Blofeld accepted me, and one of the other new men offered. He was taken too. It turned out that all the older men were married and that they were not expected to volunteer. At least there was no disgrace attaching to a refusal. After Blofeld left, Sergeant Page told us we'd better get down to "kip" while we could. "Kip" in this case meant closing our eyes and dozing. I sat humped up in my original position through the night. There wasn't room to stretch out. GOING IN 27 Along toward morning I began to itch, and found I had made the acquaintance of that gay and festive Kttle soldier's enemy, the "cootie." The cootie, or the "chat" as he is called by the oflScers, is the common body louse. Common is right. I never got rid of mine until I left the service. Sometimes when I get to thinking about it, I believe I haven't yet. CHAPTER III A Trench Raid TN the morning the members of the raiding party were taken back a mile or so to the rear and were given instruction and rehearsal. This was the first raid that "Batt" had ever tried, and the staff was anxious to have it a success. There were fifty in the party, and Blofeld, who had organized the raid, beat our instructions into us until we knew them by heart. The object of a raid is to get into the enemy's trenches by stealth if possible, kill as many as possible, take prisoners if practicable, do a lot of damage, and get away with a whole hide. We got back to the front trenches just before dark. I noticed a lot of metal cylinders ar- ranged along the parapet. They were about as big as a stovepipe and four feet long, painted brown. They were the gas containers. They were arranged about four or five to a traverse, < o < « a a z « w 1S3 H o A TRENCH RAID 29 and were connected up by tubes and were covered with sandbags. This was the poison gas ready for release over the top through tubes. The time set for our stunt was eleven p.m. Eleven o'clock was "zero." The system on the Western Front, and, in fact, all fronts, is to indicate the time fixed for any event as zero. Anything before or after is spoken of as plus or minus zero. Around five o'clock we were taken back to Mechanics trench and fed — a regular meal with plenty of everything, and all good. It looked rather like giving a condemned man a hearty meal, but grub is always acceptable to a soldier. After that we blacked our faces. This is always done to prevent the whiteness of the skin from showing under the flare lights. Also to distinguish your own men when you get to the Boche trench. Then we wrote letters and gave up our identification discs and were served with per- suader sticks or knuckle knives, and with "Mills" bombs. 30 A TRENCH RAID The persuader is a short, heavy bludgeon with a nail-studded head. You thump Fritz on the head with it. Very handy at close quarters. The knuckle knife is a short dagger with a heavy brass hilt that covers the hand. Also very good for close work, as you can either strike or stab with it. We moved up to the front trenches at about half-past ten. At zero minus ten, that is, ten minutes of eleven, our artillery opened up. It was the first bombardment I had ever been under, and it seemed as though all the guns in the world were banging away. After- wards I found that it was comparatively light, but it didn't seem so then. The guns were hardly started when there was a sound like escaping steam. Jerry leaned over and shouted in my ear: "There goes the gas. May it finish the blighters." Blofeld came dashing up just then, very much excited because he found we had not put on our masks, through some slip-up in the orders. We got into them quick. But as it turned out there was no need. There was a fifteen-mile wind blowing, which carried A TRENCH RAID 31 the gas away from us very rapidly. In fact it blew it across the Boche trenches so fast that it didn't bother them either. The barrage fire kept up right up to zero, as per schedule. At thirty seconds of eleven I looked at my watch and the din was at its height. At exactly eleven it stopped short. Fritz was still sending some over, but com- paratively there was silence. After the ear- splitting racket it was almost still enough to hurt. And in that silence over the top we went. Lanes had been cut through our wire, and we got through them quickly. The trenches were about one hundred twenty yards apart and we still had nearly one hundred to go. We dropped and started to crawl. I skinned both my knees on something, prob- ably old wire, and both hands. I could feel the blood running into my puttees, and my rifle bothered me as I was afraid of jabbing Jerry, who was just ahead of me as first bayonet man. They say a drowning man or a man in great danger reviews his past. I didn't. I spent 32 A TRENCH RAID those few minutes wondering when the machine- gun fire would come. I had the same "gone" feeling in the pit cf the stomach that you have when you drop fast in an elevator. The skin on my face felt tight, and I remember that I wanted to pucker my nose and pull my upper lip down over my teeth. We got clean up to their wire before they spotted us. Their entanglements had been flattened by our barrage fire, but we had to get up to pick our way through, and they saw us. Instantly the "Very" lights began to go up in scores, and hell broke loose. They must have turned twenty machine guns on us, or at us, but their aim evidently was high, for they only "clicked" two out of our im- mediate party. We had started with ten men, the other fifty being divided into three more parties farther down the line. "^Tien the machine guns started, we charged. Jerry and I were ahead as bayonet men, with the rest of the party following with buckets of "Mills" bombs and "Stokeses." A TRENCH RAID 33 It was pretty light, there were so many flares going up from both sides. When I jumped on the parapet, there was a whahng big Boche looking up at me with his rifle resting on the sandbags. I was almost on the point of his bayonet. For an instant I stood with a kind of para- lyzed sensation, and there flashed through my mind the instructions of the manual for such a situation, only I didn't apply those instructions to this emergency. Instead I thought — if such a flash could be called thinking — how I, as an instructor, would have told a rookie to act, working on a dummy. I had a sort of detached feeling as though this was a silly dream. Probably this hesitation didn't last more than a second. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jerry lunge, and I lunged too. Why that Boche did not fire I don't know. Perhaps he did and missed. Anyhow I went down and in on him, and the bayonet went through his throat. Jerry had done his man in and all hands piled into the trench. 34 A TRENCH RAID Then we started to race along the traverses. We found a machine gun and put an eleven- pound high-explosive " Stokes " under it. Three or four Germans appeared, running down com- munication trenches, and the bombers sent a few Millses after them. Then we came to a dug-out door — in fact, several, as Fritz, like a woodchuck, always has more than one entrance to his burrow. We broke these in in jig time and looked down a thirty -foot hole on a dug-out full of graybacks. There must have been a lot of them. I could plainly see four or five faces looking up with surprised expressions. Blofeld chucked in two or three Millses and away we went. A little farther along we came to the en- trance of a mine shaft, a kind of incline running toward our lines. Blofeld went in it a little way and flashed his light. He thought it was about forty yards long. We put sev^eral of our remaining Stokeses in that and wrecked it. Turning the corner of the next traverse, I saw Jerry drop his rifle and unlimber his per- A TRENCH RAID 35 suader on a huge German who had just rounded the corner of the "bay." He made a good job of it, getting him in the face, and must have simply caved him in, but not before he had thrown a bomb. I had broken my bayonet prying the dug-out door off and had my gun up-ended — ckibbed. When I saw that bomb coming, I bunted at it Hke Ty Cobb trying to sacrifice. It was the only thing to do. I choked my bat and poked at the bomb instinctively, and by sheer good luck fouled the thing over the parapet. It exploded on the other side. "Blimme eyes," says Jerry, "that's cool work. You saved us the wooden cross that time." We had found two more machine guns and were planting Stokeses under them when we heard the Lewises giving the recall signal. A good gunner gets so he can play a tune on a Lewis, and the device is frequently used for signals. This time he thumped out the old one — "All policemen have big feet." Rat- a-tat-tat — tat, tat. It didn't come any too soon. 36 A TRENCH RAID As we scrambled over the parapet we saw a big party of Germans coming up from the second trenches. They were out of the com- munication trenches and were coming across lots. There must have been fifty of them, outnumbering us five or six to one. We were out of bombs, Jerry had lost his rifle, and mine had no "ammo." Blofeld fired the last shot from his revolver and, believe me, we hooked it for home. We had been in their trenches just three and a half minutes. Just as we were going through their wire a bomb exploded near and got Jerry in the head. We dragged him in and also the two men that had been clicked on the first fire. Jerry got Blighty on his wound, but was back in two months. The second time he wasn't so lucky. He lies now somewhere in France with a wooden cross over his head. Did that muddy old trench look good when we tumbled in ? Oh, Boy ! The staff was tickled to pieces and complimented us all. We were sent out of the lines that night and in billets got hot food, high-grade "fags", a A TRENCH RAID 37 real bath, a good stiff rum ration, and letters from home. Next morning we heard the results of the raid. One party of twelve never returned. Besides that we lost seven men killed. The German loss was estimated at about one hundred casualties, six machine guns and several dug-outs destroyed, and one mine shaft put out of business. We also brought back documents of value found by one party in an officer's dug-out. Blofeld got the military cross for the night's work, and several of the enlisted men got the D. C. M. Altogether it was a successful raid. The best part of it was getting back. CHAPTER IV A Few Days' Rest in Billets A FTER the strafing we had given Fritz on the raid, he behaved himself reasonably well for quite a while. It was the first raid that had been made on that sector for a long time, and we had no doubt caught the Ger- mans off their guard. Anyhow for quite a spell afterwards they were very "windy" and would send up the "Very" lights on the slightest provocation and start the "typewriters" a-rattling. Fritz was right on the job with his eye peeled all the time. In fact he was so keen that another raid that was attempted ten days later failed completely because of a rapidly concentrated and heavy machine-gun fire, and in another, a day or two later, our men never got beyond A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 39 our own wire and had thirty-eight casualties out of fifty men engaged. But so far as anything but defensive work was concerned, Fritz was very meek. He sent over very few "minnies" or rifle grenades, and there was hardly any shelling of the sector. Directly after the raid, we who were in the party had a couple of days *'on our own" at the little village of Bully-Grenay, less than three miles behind the lines. This is directly opposite Lens, the better known town which figures so often in the dispatches. Bully-Grenay had been a place of perhaps one thousand people. It had been fought over and through and around early in the war, and was pretty well battered up. There were a few houses left unhit and the town hall and several shops. The rest of the place was ruins, but about two hundred of the inhab- itants still stuck to their old homes. For some reason the Germans did not shell Bully- Grenay, that is, not often. Once in a while they would lob one in just to let the people know they were not forgotten. There was a suspicion that there were spies 40 A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS in the town and that that accounted for the Germans laying off, but whatever was the cause the place was safer than most villages so near the lines. Those two days in repose at Bully-Grenay were a good deal of a farce. We were entirely "on our own", it is true, no parade, no duty of any kind — but the quarters — oof ! We were billeted in the cellars of the battered- down houses. They weren't shell-proof. That didn't matter much, as there wasn't any shelling, but there might have been. The cellars were dangerous enough without, what with tottering walls and overhanging chunks of masonry. Moreover they were a long way from water- proof. Imagine trying to find a place to sleep in an old ruin half full of rainwater. The dry places were piled up with brick and mortar, but we managed to clean up some half-shel- tered spots for "kip" and we lived through it. The worst feature of these billets was the rats. They were the biggest I ever saw, great, filthy, evil-smelling, grayish-red fellows, as big as a good-sized cat. They would hop out A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 41 of the walls and scuttle across your face with their wet, cold feet, and it was enough to drive you insane. One chap in our party had a natural horror of rats, and he nearly went crazy. We had to "kip" with our greatcoats pulled up over our heads, and then the beggars would go down and nibble at our boots. The first day somebody found a fox terrier, evidently lost and probably the pet of some officer. We weren't allowed to carry mas- cots, although we had a kitten that we smug- gled along for a long time. This terrier was a well-bred little fellow, and we grabbed him. We spent a good part of both mornings digging out rats for him and staged some of the grand- est fights ever. Most of the day we spent at a little esta- minet across the way from our so-called billets. There was a pretty mademoiselle there who served the rotten French beer and vin blanc, and the Tommies tried their French on her. They might as well have talked Choctaw. I speak the language a little and tried to monopo- lize the lady, and did, which didn't increase my popularity any. 42 A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS "I say, Yank," some one would call, "don't be a blinkin' 'og. Give somebody else a chawnce." Whereupon I would pursue my conquest all the more ardently. I was making a large hit, as I thought, when in came an officer. After that I was ignored, to the huge delight of the Tommies, who joshed me unmercifully. They discovered that my middle name was Derby, and they christened me "Darby the Yank." Darby I remained as long as I was with them. Some of the questions the men asked about the States were certainly funny. One chap asked what language we spoke over here. I thought he was spoofing, but he actually meant it. He thought we spoke something like Ital- ian, he said. I couldn't resist the temptation, and filled him up with a line of ghost stories about wild Indians just outside Boston. I told him I left because of a raid in which the redskins scalped people on Boston Common. After that he used to pester the life out of me for Wild West yarns with the scenes laid in New England. A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 43 One chap was amazed and, I think, a httle incredulous because I didn't know a man named Fisk in Des Moines. We went back to the trenches again and were there five days. I was out one night on barbed wire work, which is dangerous at any time, and was especially so with Fritz in his condi- tion of jumpy nerves. You have to do most of the work lying on your back in the mud, and if you jingle the wire, Fritz traverses No Man's Land with his rapid-firers with a fair chance of bagging something. I also had one night on patrol, which later became my favorite game. I will tell more about it in another chapter. At the end of the five days the whole battal- ion was pulled out for rest. We marched a few miles to the rear and came to the village of Petite-Saens. This town had been fought through, but for some reason had suffered little. Few of the houses had been damaged, and we had real billets. My section, ten men besides myself, drew a big attic in a clean house. There was loads of room and the roof was tight and there were 44 A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS no rats. It was oriental luxury after Bully- Grenay and the trenches, and for a wonder nobody had a word of "grousing" over "kip- ping" on the bare floor. The house was occupied by a very old peas- ant woman and a very little girl, three years old, and as pretty as a picture. The old woman looked ill and sad and very lonesome. One night as we sat in her kitchen drinking black coffee and cognac, I persuaded her to tell her story. It was, on the whole, rather a cruel thing to ask, I am afraid. It is only one of many such that I heard over there. France has, indeed, suffered. I set down here, as nearly as I can translate, what the old woman said : "Monsieur, I am very, very old now, al- most eighty, but I am a patriot and I love my France. I do not complain that I have lost everything in this war. I do not care now, for I am old and it is for my country ; but there is much sadness for me to remember, and it is with great bitterness that I think of the pig Allemand — beast that he is. "Two years ago I lived in this house, happy A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 45 with my daughter and her husband and the little baby, and my husband, who worked in the mines. He was too old to fight, but when the great war came he tried to enlist, but they would not listen to him, and he returned to work, that the country should not be without coal. "The beau-fils (son-in-law), he enlisted and said good-by and went to the service. "By and by the Boche come and in a great battle not far from this very house the beau-fils is wounded very badly and is brought to the house by comrades to die. "The Boche come into the village, but the beau-fils is too weak to go. The Boche come into the house, seize my daughter, and there — they — oh, monsieur — the things one may not say — and we so helpless. "Her father tries to protect her, but he is knocked down. I try, but they hold my feet over the fire until the very flesh cooks. See for yourselves the burns on my feet still. "My husband dies from the blow he gets, for he is very old, over ninety. Just then mon beau-fils sees a revolver that hangs by the 46 A FEW DAYS' REST ES^ BILLETS side of the German officer, and putting all his strength together he leaps forward and grabs the revolver. And there he shoots the officer — and my poor little daughter — and then he says good-by and through the head sends a bullet. "'The Germans did not touch me but once after that, and then they knocked me to the floor when they came after the pig officer. Bv and bv come vou English, and all is well for dear France once more ; but I am very desolate now. I am alone but for the petite- fille vgranddaughter), but I love the EngHsh, for thev save mv home and mv dear countrv." I heard a good many stories of this kind off and on, but this particular one, I think, brought home, to me at least, the general beastliness of the Hun closer than ever before, We all loved our little kiddie verv much, and when we saw the e^'idence of the terrible cruelties the poor old woman had suffered we saw red. Most of us cried a Httle. I think that that one storv made each of us that heard it a mean, \'icious fighter tor the rest of our service. I know it did me. A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 47 One of the first things a British soldier learns is to keep himself clean. He can't do it, and he's as filthy as a pig all the time he is in the trenches, but he tries. He is always shaving, even under fire, and show him running water and he goes to it like a duck. More than once I have shaved in a periscope mirror pegged into the side of a trench, with the bullets snapping overhead, and rubbed my face with wet tea leaves afterward to freshen up. Back in billets the very first thing that comes off is the big clean-up. Uniforms are brushed up, and equipment put in order. Then comes the bath, the most thorough pos- sible under the conditions. After that comes the "cootie carnival", better known as the "shirt hunt." The cootie is the soldier's worst enemy. He's worse than the Hun. You can't get rid of him wherever you are, in the trenches or in billets, and he sticks closer than a brother. The cootie is a good deal of an acro- bat. His policy of attack is to hang on to the shirt and to nibble at the occupant. Pull off the shirt and he comes with it. Hence the 48 A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS shirt hunt. Tommy gets out in the open some- where so as not to shed his little companions indoors — there's always enough there any- how — and he peels. Then he systematically runs down each seam — the cootie's favorite hiding place — catches the game, and ends his career by cracking him between the thumb nails. For some obscure psychological reason. Tommy seems to like company on one of these hunts. Perhaps it is because misery loves com- pany, or it may be that he likes to compare notes on the catch. Anyhow, it is a commoi thing to see from a dozen to twenty soldiers with their shirts off, hunting cooties. "Hi sye, 'Arry," you'll hear some one sing out. "Look 'ere. Strike me bloomin' well pink but this one 'ere's got a black stripe along 'is back." Or, "If this don't look like the one I showed ye 'fore we went into the blinkin' line. 'Ow'd 'e git loose?" And then, as likely as not, a little farther away, behind the officers' quarters, you'll hear one say : A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 49 "I say, old chap, it's deucedly peculiar I should have so many of the beastly things after putting on the Harrisons mothaw sent in the lawst parcel." The cootie isn't at all fastidious^ He will bite the British aristocrat as soon as anybody else. He finds his way into all branches of the service, and I have even seen a dignified colonel wiggle his shoulders anxiously. Some of the cootie stories have become clas- sical, like this one which was told from the North Sea to the Swiss border. It might have happened at that. A soldier was going over the top when one of his cootie friends bit him on the calf. The soldier reached down and captured the biter. Just as he stooped, a shell whizzed over where his head would have been if he had not gone after the cootie. Holding the captive between thumb and finger, he said : "Old feller, I cawn't give yer the Victoria Cross — but I can put yer back." And he did. The worst thing about the cootie is that there 50 A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS is no remedy for him. The shirt hunt is the only effective way for the soldier to get rid of his bosom friends. The various dopes and patent preparations guaranteed as "good for cooties" are just that. They give 'em an appetite. CHAPTER V Feeding the Tommies TT^OOD is a burning issue in the lives of all of us. It is the main consideration with the soldier. His life is simplified to two prin- cipal motives, i.e., keeping alive himself and killing the other fellow. The question upper- most in his mind every time and all of the time, is, "When do we eat.^*" In the trenches the backbone of Tommy's diet is bully beef, " Maconochie's Ration ", cheese, bread or biscuit, jam, and tea. He may get some of this hot or he may eat it from the tin, all depending upon how badly Fritz is behaving. In billets the diet is more varied. Here he gets some fresh meat, lots of bacon, and the bully and the Maconochie's come along in the form of stew. Also there is fresh bread and some dried fruit and a certain amount of sweet stufiF. It was this matter of grub that made my life 52 FEEDING THE TOMMIES a burden in the billets at Petite-Saens. I had been rather proud of being lance corporal. It was, to me, the first step along the road to being field marshal. I found, however, that a cor- poral is high enough to take responsibility and to get bawled out for anything that goes wrong. He's not high enough to command any consid- eration from those higher up, and he is so close to the men that they take out their grievances on him as a matter of course. He is neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, and his life is a burden. I had the job of issuing the rations of our platoon, and it nearly drove me mad. Every morning I would detail a couple of men from our platoon to be standing mess orderlies for the day. They would fetch the char and bacon from the field kitchen in the morning and clean up the " dixies " after breakfast. The " dixie ", by the way, is an iron box or pot, oblong in shape, capacity about four or five gallons. It fits into the field kitchen and is used for roasts, stews, char, or anything else. The cover serves to cook bacon in. Field kitchens are drawn by horses and fol- low the battalion everywhere that it is safe to FEEDING THE TOMMIES 53 go, and to some places where it isn't. Two men are detailed from each company to cook, and there is usually another man who gets the ser- geants' mess, besides the officers' cook, who does not as a rule use the field kitchen, but pre- pares the food in the house taken as the officers' mess. As far as possible, the company cooks are men who were cooks in civil life, but not always. We drew a plumber and a navvy (road builder) — and the grub tasted of both trades. The way our company worked the kitchen problem was to have stew for two platoons one day and roast dinner for the others, and then reverse the order next day, so that we didn't have stew all the time. There were not enough " dixies " for us all to have stew the same day. Every afternoon I would take my mess or- derlies and go to the quartermaster's stores and get our allowance and carry it back to the bil- lets in waterproof sheets. Then the stuff that was to be cooked in the kitchen went there, and the bread and that sort of material was issued direct to the men. That was where my trouble started. 54 FEEDING THE TOMMIES The powers that were had an uncanny knack of issuing an odd number of articles to go among an even number of men, and vice versa. There would be eleven loaves of bread to go to a platoon of fifty men divided into four sec- tions. Some of the sections would have ten men and some twelve or thirteen. The British Tommy is a scrapper when it comes to his rations. He reminds me of an English sparrow. He's always right in there wangling for his own. He will bully and brow- beat if he can, and he will coax and cajole if he can't. It would be "Hi sye, corporal. They's ten men in Number 2 section and four- teen in ourn. An' bhmme if you hain't guv 'em four loaves, same as ourn. Is it right, larsksyer.f^ Is it?" Or, "Lookee ! Do yer call that a loaf o' bread? Looks like the A. S. C. (Army Service Corps) been using it fer a piller. Gimme another, will yer, corporal?" When it comes to splitting seven onions nine ways, I defy any one to keep peace in the family, and every doggoned Tommy would hold out for his onion whether he liked 'em or FEEDING THE TOMMIES 55 not. Same way with a bottle of pickles to go among eleven men or a handful of raisins or apricots. . Or jam or butter or anything, except bully beef or Maconochie. I never heard any one "argue the toss" on either of those commodities. Bully is high-grade corned beef in cans and is O. K. if you like it, but it does get tiresome. Maconochie ration is put up a pound to the can and bears a label v»hich assures the con- sumer that it is a scientifically prepared, well- balanced ration. Maybe so. It is my personal opinion that the inventor brought to his task an imperfect knovvledge of cookery and a per- verted imagination. Open a can of Macon- ochie and you find a gooey gob of grease, like rancid lard. Investigate and you find chunks of carrot and other unidentifiable material, and now and then a bit of mysterious meat. The first man who ate an oyster had courage, but the last man who ate Maconochie's unheated had more. Tommy regards it as a very inferior grade of garbage. The label notwithstanding, he's right. 56 FEEDING THE TOMMIES Many people have asked me what to send our soldiers in the line of food. I'd say stick to sweets. Cookies of any durable kind — I mean that will stand chance moisture — the sweeter the better, and if possible those con- taining raisins or dried fruit. Figs, dates, etc., are good. And, of course, chocolate. Personally, I never did have enough chocolate. Candy is acceptable, if it is of the sort to stand more or less rough usage which it may get before it reaches the soldier. Chewing gum is always received gladly. The army issue of sweets is limited pretty much to jam, which gets to taste all alike. It is pathetic to see some of the messes Tommy gets together to fill his craving for dessert. The favorite is a slum composed of biscuit, water, condensed milk, raisins, and chocolate. If some of you folks at home would get one look at that concoction, let alone tasting it, you would dash out and spend your last dollar for a package to send to some lad "over there." After the excitement of dodging shells and bullets in the front trenches, life in billets seems Q o o o FEEDING THE TOMMIES 57 dull. Tommy has too much time to get into mischief. It was at Petite-Saens that I first saw the Divisional Folies. This was a vaude- ville show by ten men who had been actors in civil life, and who were detailed to amuse the soldiers. They charged a small admission fee and the profit went to the Red Cross. There ought to be more recreation for the soldiers of all armies. The Y. M. C. A. is to take care of that with our boys. By the way, we had a Y. M. C. A. hut at Petite-Saens, and I cannot say enough for this great work. No one who has not been there can know what a blessing it is to be able to go into a clean, warm, dry place and sit down to reading or games and to hear good music. Per- sonally I am a little bit sorry that the secretaries are to be in khaki. They weren't when I left. And it sure did seem good to see a man in civil- ian's clothes. You get after a while so you hate the sight of a uniform. Another thing about the Y. M. C. A. I could wish that they would have more women in the huts. Not frilly, frivolous society girls, but women from thirty-five to fifty. A soldier 58 FEEDING THE TOMMIES likes kisses as well as the next. And he takes them when he finds them. And he finds too many. But what he really wants, though, is the chance to sit down and tell his troubles to some nice, sympathetic woman who is old enough to be level-headed. Nearly every soldier reverts more or less to a boyish point of view. He hankers for some- body to mother him. I should be glad to see many women of that type in the Y. M. C. A. work. It is one of the great needs of our army that the boys should be amused and kept clean mentally and morally. I don't believe there is any organization better qualified to do this than the Y. M. C. A. Most of our chaps spent their time "on their ov/n" either in the Y. M. C. A. hut or in the estaminets while we were in Petite-Saens. Our stop there was hardly typical of the rest in billets. Usually "rest" means that you are set to mending roads or some such fatigue duty. At Petite-Saens, however, we had it "cushy." The routine was about like this : Up at 6 : 30, we fell in for three-quarters of an hour physical FEEDING THE TOMMIES 59 drill or bayonet practice. Breakfast. Inspec- tion of ammo and gas masks. One hour drill. After that, "on our own", with nothing to do but smoke, read, and gamble. Tommy is a great smoker. He gets a fag issue from the government, if he is lucky, of two packets or twenty a week. This lasts him with care about two days. After that he goes smokeless unless he has friends at home to send him a supply. I had friends in London who sent me about five hundred fags a week, and I was consequently popular while they lasted. This took off some of the curse of being a lance corporal. Tommy has his favorite in "fags" like any- body else. He likes above all Wild Wood- bines. This cigarette is composed of glue, cheap paper, and a poor quality of hay. Next in his affection comes Goldflakes — pretty near as bad. People over here who have boys at the front mustn't forget the cigarette supply. Send them along early and often. There'll never be too many. Smoking is one of the soldier's few comforts. Two bits' worth of makin's a week 60 FEEDING THE TOMMIES will help one lad make life endurable. It's cheap at the price. Come through for the smoke fund whenever you get the chance. Cafe life among us at Petite-Saens was mostly drinking and gambling. That is not half as bad as it sounds. The drinking was mostly confined to the slushy French beer and vin blanc and citron. Whiskey and absinthe were barred. The gambling was on a small scale, neces- sarily, the British soldier not being at any time a bloated plutocrat. At the same time the games were continuous. "House" was the most popular. This is a game similar to the *' lotto" we used to play as children. The backers distribute cards having fifteen num- bers, forming what they call a school. Then numbered cardboard squares are drawn from a bag, the numbers being called out. When a number comes out which appears on your card, you cover it with a bit of match. If you get all your numbers covered, you call out "house", winning the pot. If there are ten people in at a franc a head, the banker holds out two francs, and the winner gets eight. FEEDING THE TOMMIES 61 It is really quite exciting, as you may get all but one number covered and be rooting for a certain number to come. Usually when you get as close as that and sweat over a number for ten minutes, somebody else gets his first. Corporal Wells described the game as one where the winner "'oilers 'ouse and the rest 'oilers 'ell!" Some of the nicknames for the different numbers remind one of the slang of the crap shooter. For instance, "Kelly's eye" means one. "Clickety click" is sixty-six. "Top of the house" is ninety. Other games are "crown and anchor", which is a dice game, and "pon- toon", which is a card game similar to "twenty- one" or "seven and a half." Most of these are mildly discouraged by the authorities, "house" being the exception. But in any estaminet in a billet town you'll find one or all of them in progress all the time. The winner usually spends his winnings for beer, so the money all goes the same way, game or no game. When there are no games on, there is usually a sing-song going. We had a merry young nuisance in our platoon named Rolfe, who had 62 FEEDING THE TOMMIES a voice like a frog and who used to insist upon singing on all occasions. Rolfie would climb on the table in the estaminet and sing numer- ous unprintable verses of his own, entitled "Oh, What a Merry Plyce is Hengland." The only redeeming feature of this song was the chorus, which everybody would roar out and which went like this : Cheer, ye beggars, cheer ! Britannia rules the wave ! 'Ard times, short times Never'll come agyne. Shoutin' out at th' top o' yer lungs : Damn the German army ! Oh, wot a lovely plyce is Hengland ! Our ten days en repos at Petite-Saens came to an end all too soon. On the last day we lined up for our official "bawth." Petite-Saens was a coal-mining town. The mines were still operated, but only at night — this to avoid shelling from the Boche long-dis- tance artillery, which are fully capable of send- ing shells and hitting the mark at eighteen miles. The water system of the town depended upon the pumping apparatus of the mines. FEEDING THE TOMMIES 63 Every morning early, before the pressure was off, all hands would turn out for a general ''sluicing" under the hydrants. We were as clean as could be and fairly free of "cooties" at the end of a week, but official red tape de- manded that we go through an authorized scouring. On the last day we lined up for this at dawn before an old warehouse which had been fitted with crude showers. We were turned in twenty in a batch and were given four minutes to soap ourselves all over and rinse off. I was in the last lot and had just lathered up good and plenty when the water went dead. If you want to reach the acme of stickiness, try this stunt. I felt like the inside of a mucilage bot- tle for a week. After the official purification we were given clean underwear. And then there was a howl. The fresh underthings had been boiled and sterilized, but the immortal cootie had come through unscathed and in all its vigor. Cor- poral Wells raised a pathetic wail : "Blimme eyes, mytie ! I got more'n two 'undred now an' this supposed to be a bloom- 64 FEEDING THE TOMMIES in' clean shirt ! Why, the bhnkin' thing's as lousy as a cookoo now, an me just a-gittin' rid o' the bloomin' chats on me old un. Strike me pink if it hain't a bleedin' crime ! Some one ought to write to John Bull abaht it ! " John Bull is the English paper of that name published by Horatio Bottomley, which makes a specialty of publishing complaints from sol- diers and generally criticising the conduct of army affairs. Well, we got through the bath and the next day were on our way. This time it was up the line dth a kind of clumsy majesty. When they hit the objective, the tanks crawled in and made short work of it. The infantry had hard work of it after the positions were taken, as there were numerous underground caverns and passages which had to be mopped out. This was done by drop- ping smoke bombs in the entrances and smok- ing the Boches out like bees. When we came up, we inherited these under- BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN 175 ground slielters, and they were mighty com- fortable after the kipping in the muck. There were a lot of souvenirs to be picked up, and almost everybody annexed helmets and other truck that had been left behind by the Ger- mans. Sometimes it was dangerous to go after souvenirs too greedily. The inventive Hun had a habit of fixing up a body with a bomb under it and a tempting wrist watch on the hand. If you started to take the watch, the bomb went off, and after that you didn't care what time it was. I accumulated a number of very fine razors, and one of the saw-tooth bayonets the Boche pioneers use. This is a perfectly hellish weapon that i&lips in easily and mangles terribly when it is withdrawn. I had thought that I would have a nice collection of souvenirs to take to Blighty if I ever got leave. I got the leave all right, and shortly, but the collection stayed behind. The dug-out that Number 10 drew was built of concrete and was big enough to accom- modate the entire platoon. We were well 176 BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN within the Boche range and early in the day had several casualties, one of them a chap named Stransfield, a young Yorkshireman who was a very good friend of mine. Stransie was sitting on the top step cleaning his rifle and was blown to pieces by a falling shell. After that we kept to cover all day and slept all the time. We needed it after the exhaust- ing work of the past eight days. It was along about dark when I was awak- ened by a runner from headquarters, which was in a dug-out a little way up the line, with word that the platoon commanders were wanted. I happened to be in command of the platoon, as Mr. Blofeld was acting second in command of the company. Sergeant Page was away in Havre as instructor for a month, and I was next senior. I thought that probably this was merely another detail for some fatigue, so I asked Wells if he would go. He did and in about half an hour came back with a face as long as my arm. I was sitting on the fire step clean- ing my rifle and Wellsie sank dejectedly down beside me. BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN 177 "Darby," he sighed hopelessly, "wot th* blinkin' 'ell do you think is up now ? " I hadn't the faintest idea and said so. I had, however, as the educated Bones used to say "a premonition of impending disaster." As a pre- monitor I was a success. Disaster was right. Wellsie sighed again and spilled the news. "We're goin' over th' bleedin' top at nine. We don't 'ave to carry no tools. We're in the first bloomin' wave." Going without tools was supposed to be a sort of consolation for being in the first wave. The other three waves carry either picks or shovels. They consolidate the trenches after they have been taken by the first wave. That is, they turn the trench around, facing the other way, to be ready for a counter attack. It is a miserable job. The tools are heavy and awk- ward, and the last waves get the cream of the artillery fire, as the Boche naturally does not want to take the chance of shelling the first wave for fear of getting his own men. How- ever, the first wave gets the machine-gun fire and gets it good. At that the first wave is the preference. I have heard hundreds of 178 BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN men say so. Probably the reason is that a bullet, unless it is explosive, makes a relatively clean wound, while a shell fragment may man- gle fearfully. Wells and I were talking over the infernal injustice of the situation when another runner arrived from the Sergeant Major's, ordering us up for the rum issue. I went up for the rum and left Wells to break the news about going over. I got an extra large supply, as the Sergeant Major was good humored. It was the last rum he ever served. I got enough for the full platoon and then some, which was a lot, as the platoon was well down in numbers owing to casualties. I went among the boys with a spoon and the rum in a mess tin and served out two tots instead of the customary one. After that all hands felt a little better, but not much. They were all fagged out after the week's hard work. I don't think I ever saw a more discouraged lot getting ready to go over. For myself I didn't seem to care much, I was in such rotten condition physically. I rather hoped it would be my last time. CHAPTER XIV The Last Time over the Top A GENERAL cleaning of rifles started, •*■ although it was dark. Mine was al- ready in good shape, and I leaned it against the side of the trench and went below for the rest of my equipment. While I was gone, a shell fragment undid all my work by smashing the breech. I had seen a new short German rifle in the dug-out with a bayonet and ammo, and de- cided to use that. I hid all my souvenirs, planning to get them when I came out if I ever came out. I hadn't much nerve left after the bashing I had taken a fortnight before and didn't hold much hope. Our instructions were of the briefest. It was the old story that there would probably be little resistance, if any. There would be a few machine guns to stop us, but nothing more. The situation we had to handle was this : A 180 THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP certain small sector had held on the attacks of the few previous days, and the line had bent back around it. All we had to do was to straighten the line. We had heard this old ghost story too often to believe a word of it. Our place had been designated where we were to get into extended formation, and our general direction was clear. We filed out of the trench at eight-thirty, and as we passed the other platoons, — we had been to the rear, — they tossed us the familiar farewell hail, "The best o' luck, mytie." We soon found ourselves in the old sunken road that ran in front of Eaucort Abbaye. At this point we were not under observation, as a rise in the ground would have protected us even though it had been daylight. The moon was shining brilliantly, and we knew that it would not be anything in the nature of a sur- prise attack. We got into extended formation and waited for the order to advance. I thought I should go crazy during that short wait. Shells had begun to burst over and around us, and I was sure the next would be mine. Presently one burst a little behind me, and THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP 181 down went Captain Green and the Sergeant Major with whom he had been talking. Cap- tain Green died a few days later at Rouen, and the Sergeant Major lost an arm. This was a hard blow right at the start, and it spelled disaster. Everything started to go wrong. Mr. Blofeld was in command, and another officer thought that he was in charge. We got conflicting orders, and there was one grand mix-up. Eventually we advanced and went straight up over the ridge. We walked slap-bang into perfectly directed fire. Tor- rents of machine-gun bullets crackled about us, and we went forward with our heads down, like men facing into a storm. It was a living marvel that any one could come through it. A lot of them didn't. Mr. Blofeld, who was near me, leaped in the air, letting go a hideous yell. I ran to him, disregarding the instruc- tion not to stop to help any one. He was struck in the abdomen with an explosive bullet and was done for. I felt terribly about Mr. Blofeld, as he had been a good friend to me. He was the finest type of officer of the new English army, the rare sort who can be 182 THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP democratic and yet command respect. He had talked with me often, and I knew of his family and home life. He was more like an elder brother to me than a superior officer. I left Mr. Blofeld and went on. The hail of bullets grew even worse. They whistled and cracked and squealed, and I began to wonder why on earth I didn't get mine. Men were falling on all sides and the shrieks of those hit were the worst I had heard. The darkness made it worse, and although I had been over the top before by daylight this was the last limit of hellishness. And nothing but plain, unmixed machine-gun fire. As yet there was no artillery action to amount to anything. Once again I put my hand inside my tunic and stroked Dinky and said to him, "For God's sake, Dink, see me through this time.'* I meant it too. I was actually praying, — to my mascot. I realize that this was plain, un- adulterated, heathenish fetish worship, but it shows what a man reverts to in the barbaric stress of war. By this time we were within about thirty yards of the Boche parapet and could see them THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP 183 standing shoulder to shoulder on the fire step, swarms of them, packed in, with the bayonets gleaming. Machine guns were emplaced and vomiting death at incredibly short intervals along the parapet. Flares were going up con- tinuously, and it was almost as light as day. , We were terribly outnumbered, and the casualties had already been so great that I saw we were in for the worst thing we had ever known. Moreover, the next waves hadn't appeared behind us. I was in command, as all the officers and non-coms so far as I could make out had snuffed. I signalled to halt and take cover, my idea being to wait for the other waves to catch up. The men needed no second invita- tion to lie low. They rolled into the shell holes and burrowed where there was no cover. I drew a pretty decent hole myself, and a man came pitching in on top of me, screaming horribly. It was Corporal Hoskins, a close friend of mine. He had it in the stomach and clicked in a minute or two. During the few minutes that I lay in that 184 THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP hole, I suffered the worst mental anguish I ever knew. Seeing so many of my closest chums go west so horribly had nearly broken me, shaky as I was when the attack started. I was dripping with sweat and frightfully nauseated. A sudden overpowering impulse seized me to get out in the open and have it over with. I was ready to die. i Sooner than I ought, for the second wave had not yet shown up, I shrilled the whistle and lifted them out. It was a hopeless charge, but I was done. I would have gone at them alone. Anything to close the act. To blazes with everything ! As I scrambled out of the shell hole, there was a blinding, ear-splitting explosion slightly to my left, and I went down. I did not lose consciousness entirely. A red-hot iron was through my right arm, and some one had hit me on the left shoulder with a sledge hammer. I felt crushed, — shattered. My impressions of the rest of that night are, for the most part, vague and indistinct; but in spots they stand out clear and vivid. The first thing I knew definitely was when THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP 185 Smith bent over me^ cutting the sleeve out of my tunic. "It's a Blighty one," says Smithy. That was some consolation. I was back in the shell hole, or in another, and there were five or six other fellows piled in there too. All of them were dead except Smith and a man named Collins, v/ho had his arm clean off, and myself. Smith dressed my wound and Col- lins', and said : "We'd better get out of here before Fritz rushes us. The attack was a ruddy failure, and they'll come over and bomb us out of here." Smith and I got out of the hole and started to crawl. It appeared that he had a bullet through the thigh, though he hadn't said any- thing about it before. We crawled a little way, and then the bullets were flying so thick that I got an insane desire to run and get away from them. I got to my feet and legged it. So did Smith, though how he did it with a wounded thigh I don't know. The next thing I remember I was on a stretcher. The beastly thing swayed and 186 THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP pitched, and I got seasick. Then came another crash directly over head, and out I went again. When I came to, my head was as clear as a bell. A shell had burst over us and had killed one stretcher bearer. The other had disappeared. Smith was there. He and I got to our feet and put our arms around each other and staggered on. The next I knew I was in the Cough Drop dress- ing station, so called from the peculiar for- mation of the place. We had tea and rum here and a couple of fags from a sergeant major of the R. A. M. C. After that there was a ride on a flat car on a light railway and another in an ambulance with an American driver. Snatches of con- versation about Broadway and a girl in Newark floated back, and I tried to work up ambition enough to sing out and ask where the chap came from. So far I hadn't had much pain. When we landed in a regular dressing station, the M. O. gave me another going over and said, "Blighty for you, son." I had a piece of shrapnel or something through the right upper THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP 187 arm, clearing the bone and making a hole about as big as a half dollar. My left shoulder was full of shrapnel fragments, and began to pain like fury. More tea. More rum. More fags. Another faint. When I woke up the next time, somebody was sticking a hypodermic needle into my chest with a shot of anti- lockjaw serum, and shortly after I was tucked away in a white enameled Red Cross train with a pretty nurse taking my temperature. I loved that nurse. She looked sort of cool and holy. I finally brought up in General Hospital Number 12 in Rouen. I was there four days and had a real bath, — a genuine boiling out. Also had some shrapnel picked out of my anatomy. I got in fairly good shape, though still in a good deal of dull pain. It was a glad day when they put a batch of us on a train for Havre, tagged for Blighty. We went direct from the train to the hospital ship, Carisbrook Castle. The quarters were good, — real bunks, clean sheets, good food, careful nurses. It was some different from the crowded transport that had taken me over to France. 188 THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP There were a lot of German prisoners aboard, wounded, and we swapped stories with them. It was really a lot of fun comparing notes, and they were pretty good chaps on the whole. They were as glad as we were to see land. Their troubles were over for the duration of the war. Never shall I forget that wonderful morning when I looked out and saw again the coast of England, hazy under the mists of dawn. It looked like the promised land. And it was. It meant freedom again from battle, murder, and sudden death, from trenches and stenches, rats, cooties, and all the rest that goes to make up the worst of man-made inventions, war. It was Friday the thirteenth. And don't let anybody dare say that date is unlucky. For it brought me back to the best thing that can gladden the eyes of a broken Tommy. Blighty ! Blighty ! ! Blighty ! ! ! CHAPTER XV Bits of Blighty O LIGHTY meant life, — life and happi- ness and physical comfort. What we had left behind over there was death and mutilation and bodily and mental suffering. Up from the depths of hell we came and reached out our hands with pathetic eagerness to the good things that Blighty had for us. I never saw a finer sight than the faces of those boys, glowing with love, as they strained their eyes for the first sight of the homeland. Those in the bunks below, unable to move, begged those on deck to come down at the first land raise and tell them how it all looked. A lump swelled in my throat, and I prayed that I might never go back to the trenches. And I prayed, too, that the brave boys still over there might soon be out of it. We steamed into the harbor of Southampton early in the afternoon. Within an hour all of 190 BITS OF BLIGHTY those that could walk had gone ashore. As we got into the waiting trains the civilian popu- lace cheered. I, like everybody else I sup- pose, had dreamed often of coming back some- time as a hero and being greeted as a hero. But the cheering, though it came straight from the hearts of a grateful people, seemed, after all, rather hollow. I wanted to get somewhere and rest. It seemed good to look out of the windows and see the signs printed in EngHsh. That made it all seem less like a dream. I was taken first to the Clearing Hospital at Eastleigh. As we got off the train there the people cheered again, and among the civilians were many wounded men who had just recently come back. They knew how we felt. The first thing at the hospital was a real honest-to-God bath. In a tub. With hot water ! Heavens, how I wallowed. The or- derly helped me and had to drag me out. I'd have stayed in that tub all night if he would have let me. Out of the tub I had clean things straight COHPORAL HOLMES WITH STAP^F NURSK AND ANOTHER PATIENT, AT FUUIAM MILITARY HOSPITAL, LONDON, S.W. BITS OF BLIGHTY 191 through, with a neat blue uniform, and for once was free of the cooties. The old uniform, blood-stained and ragged, went to the baking and disinfecting plant. That night all of us newly arrived men who could went to the Y. M. C. A. to a con- cert given in our honor. The chaplain came around and cheered us up and gave us good fags. Next morning I went around to the M. O. He looked my arm over and calmly said that it would have to come off as gangrene had set in. For a moment I wished that piece of shrapnel had gone through my head. I pic- tured myself going around with only one arm, and the prospect didn't look good. However, the doctor dressed the arm with the greatest care and told me I could go to a London hospital as I had asked, for I wanted to be near my people at Southall. These were the friends I had made before leaving Blighty and who had sent me weekly parcels and letters. I arrived in London on Tuesday and was taken in a big Red Cross motor loaned by Sir 152 BITS OF BLIGHTY Charles Dickerson to the Fulham Hospital in Hammersmith. I was overjoyed, as the hospital was very near Southall, and Mr. and Mrs. Puttee were both there to meet me. The Sister in charge of my ward, Miss Malin, is one of the finest women I have met. I owe it to her care and skill that I still have my good right arm. She has since married and the lucky man has one of the best of wives. Miss Malin advised me right at the beginning not to submit to an amputation. My next few weeks were pretty awful. I was in constant pain, and after the old arm began to come around under Miss Malin's treatment one of the doctors discovered that my left hand was queer. It had been some- what swollen, but not really bad. The doctor insisted upon an X-ray and found a bit of shrapnel imbedded. He was all for an opera- tion. Operations seemed to be the long suit of most of those doctors. I imagine they couldn't resist the temptation to get some practice with so much cheap material all about. I consented this time, and went down for the pictures on Lord Mayor's Day. Going BITS OF BLIGHTY 193 to the pictures is Tommy's expression for undergoing an anesthetic. I was undgr ether two hours and a half, and when I came out of it the left hand vv'as all to the bad and has been ever since. There followed weeks of agonizing massage treat- ments. Between treatments though, I had it cushy. My friends were very good to me, and several Americans entertained me a good deal. I Lad a permanent walking-out pass good from nine in the morning until nine at night. I saw almost every show in the city, and heard a special performance of the Messiah at West- minster Abbey. Also I enjoyed a good deal of restaurant life. London is good to the wounded men. There is entertainment for all of them. A good many of these slightly wounded complain be- cause they cannot get anything to drink, but undoubtedly it is the best thing for them. It is against the law to serve men in the blue uniform of the wounded. Men in khaki can buy all the liquor they want, the public houses being open from noon to two-thirty and from 194 BITS OF BLIGHTY six P.M. to nine-thirty. Treating is not al- lowed. Altogether it works out very well and there is little drunkenness among the soldiers. I eventually brought up in a Convalescent Hospital in Brentford, Middlesex, and was there for three weeks. At the end of that time I was placed in category C 3. The system of marking the men in England is by categories. A, B, and C. A 1, 2, and 3 are for active service. A 4 is for the under- aged. B categories are for base service, and C is for home service. C 3 was for clerical duty, and as I was not likely to become eflB- cient again as a soldier, it looked like some kind of bookkeeping for me for the duration of the war. Unless one is all shot to pieces, literally with something gone, it is hard to get a dis- charge from the British army. Back in the early days of 1915, a leg off was about the only thing that would produce a discharge. When I was put at clerical duty, I im- mediately began to furnish trouble for the British army, not intentionally, of course, but quite effectively. The first thing I did i-<--- -JUAl BITS OF BLIGHTY 195 was to drop a typewriter and smash it. My hands had spells when they absolutely refused to work. Usually it was when I had something breakable in them. After I had done about two hundred dollars' damage indoors they tried me out as bayonet instructor. I im- mediately dropped a rifle on a concrete walk and smashed it. They wanted me to pay for it, but the M. O. called attention to the fact that I shouldn't have been put at the work under my category. They then put me back at bookkeeping at Command Headquarters, Salisbury, but I couldn't figure English money and had a bad habit of fainting and falling off the high stool. To cap the cHmax, I finally fell one day and knocked down the stovepipe, and nearly set the office afire. The M. O. then ordered me back to the depot at Winchester and recommended me for discharge. I guess he thought it would be the cheapest in the long run. The adjutant at Winchester didn't seem any too pleased to see me. He said I looked as healthy as a wolf, which I did, and that 1945 BITS OF BLIGHTY they would never let me out of the army. He seemed to think that my quite normal ap- pearance would be looked upon as a personal insult by the medical board. I said that I was sorry I didn't have a leg or two gone, but it couldn't be helped. While waiting for the Board, I was sent to the German Prison Camp at Winnal Downs as corporal of the permanent guard. I began to fear that at last they had found something that I could do without damaging anything, and my visions of the U. S. A. went a-glimmer- ing. I was with the Fritzies for over a week, and they certainly have it soft and cushy. They have as good food as the Tommies. They are paid ninepence a day, and the work they do is a joke. They are well housed and kept clean and have their own canteens, where they can buy almost anj^thing in the way of delicacies. They are decently treated by the English soldiers, who even buy them fags out of their own money. The nearest thing I ever saw to humiliation of a German was a few good-natured jokes at their expense by some of the wits in the guard. The English BITS OF BLIGHTY 197 know how to play fair with an enemy when they have him down. I had about given up hope of ever getting out of the army when I was summoned to appear before the TravelHng Medical Board. You can wager I lost no time in appearing. The board looked me over with a discourag- ing and cynical suspicion. I certainly did look as rugged as a navvy. When they gave me a going over, they found that my heart was out of place and that my left hand might never limber up again. They voted for a discharge in jig time. I had all I could do to keep from howling with joy. f It was some weeks before the final formalities were closed up. The pension board passed on my case, and I was given the magnificent sum of sixteen shillings and sixpence a week, or $3.75. I spent the next few weeks in visiting my friends and, eventually, at the 22nd Head- quarters at Bermondsey, London, S. C, re- ceived the papers that once more made me a free man. The papers read in part, *'He is discharged in consequence of paragraph 392, Ejng's Rules 198 BITS OF BLIGHTY and Regulations. No longer fit for service." In another part of the book you will find a reproduction of the character discharge also given. The discharged man also receives a little silver badge bearing the inscription, " For King and Empire, Services Rendered." I think that I value this badge more than any- other possession. Once free, I lost no time in getting my passport into shape and engaged a passage on the St. Paul, to sail on the second of June. Since my discharge is dated the twenty-eighth of May, you can see that I didn't waste any time. My friends at Southall thought I was doing things in a good deal of a hurry. The fact is, I was fed up on war. I had had a plenty. And I was going to make my get- away before the British War Office changed its mind and got me back in uniform. Mrs. Puttee and her eldest son saw me off at Euston Station. Leaving them was the one wrench, as they had become very dear to me. But I had to go. If Blighty had looked good, the thought of the U. S. A. was better. My passage was uneventful. No submarines. BITS OF BLIGHTY 199 no bad weather, nothing disagreeable. On the eighth day I looked out through a welter of fog and rain to the place where the Statue of Liberty should have been waving a greeting across New York harbor. The lady wasn't visible, but I knew she was there. And even in a downpour equal to anything furnished by the choicest of Flanders rainstorms, little old New York looked better than anything I could imagine, except sober and staid old Boston. That I am at home, safe and free of the horrors of war, is to me a strange thing. I think it comes into the experience of most of the men who have been over there and who have been invalided out of the service. Look- ing back on the awfulness of the trenches and the agonies of mind and body, the sacrifice seems to fade into insignificance beside the satisfaction of having done a bit in the great and just cause. Now that our own men are going over, I find myself with a very deep regret that I cannot go too. I can only wish them the best of luck and rest in confidence that every man will do his uttermost. CHAPTER XVI Suggestions for "Sammy" T CANNOT end this book without saying something to those who have boys over there and, what is more to the point, to those boys who may go over there. First as to the things that should be sent in parcels ; and a great deal of consideration should be given to this. You must be very careful not to send things that will load your Sammy down, as every ounce counts in the pack when he is hiking, and he is likely to be hiking any time or all the time. In the line of eatables the soldier wants something sweet. Good hard cookies are all right. I wish more people in this country knew how to make the English plum pudding in bags, the kind that will keep forever and be good when it is boiled. Mainly, though, chocolate is the thing. The milk kind is weU SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAM^IY" 201 enough, but it is apt to cause overmucli thirst. Personally I would rather have the plain chocolate, — the water variety. Chewing gum is always in demand and is not bulky in the package. Send a lot of it. Lime and lemon tablets in the summertime are great for checking thirst on the march. A few of them won't do any harm in any parcel, summer or winter. Now about smoking materials. Unless the man to whom the parcel is to be sent is defi- nitely known to be prejudiced against ciga- rettes, don't send him pipe tobacco or a pipe. There are smokers who hate cigarettes just as there are some people who think that the little paper roll is an invention of the devil. If any one has a boy over there, he — or she — had better overcome any possible personal feeling against the use of cigarettes and send them in preference to anything else. From my own experience I know that ciga- rettes are the most important thing that can be sent to a soldier. When I went out there, I was a pipe smoker. After I had been in the trenches a week I quit the pipe and threw it 202 SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY" away. It is seldom enough that one has the opportunity to enjoy a full pipe. It is very hard to get lighted when the matches are wet in bad weather, which is nearly always. Be- sides which, say what you will, a pipe does not soothe the nerves as a fag does. Now when sending the cigarettes out, don't try to think of the special brand that Harold or Percival used when he was home. Likely enough his name has changed, and instead of being Percy or Harold he is now Pigeye or Sour-belly; and his taste in the weed has changed too. He won't be so keen on his own particular brand of Turkish, Just send him the common or garden Virginia sort at five cents the package. That is the kind that gives most comfort to the outworn Tommy or Sammy. Don't think that you can send too many. I have had five hundred sent to me in a week many times and have none left at the end. There are always men who do not get any parcels, and they have to be looked out for. Out there all things are common property, and the soldier shares his last with his less for- SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY" 203 tunate comrade. Subscribe when you get the chance to any and all smoke funds. Don't listen to the pestilential fuddy-duds who do not approve of tobacco, particularly the fussy-old-maids. Personally, when I hear any of these conscientious objectors to My Lady Nicotine air their opinions, I wish that they could be placed in the trenches for a while. They would soon change their minds about rum issues and tobacco, and I'll wager they would be first in the line when the issues came around. One thing that many people forget to put in the soldier's parcel, or don't see the point of, is talcum powder. Razors get dull very quickly, and the face gets sore. The powder is almost a necessity when one is shaving in luke-warm tea and laundry soap, with a safety razor blade that wasn't sharp in the first place. In the summer on the march men sweat and accumulate all the dirt there is in the world. There are forty hitherto unsuspected places on the body that chafe under the weight of equipment. Talc helps. In the matter of sore feet, it is a life saver. 204 SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY" Soap, — don't forget that. Always some good, pure, plain white soap, like Ivory or Castile ; and a small bath towel now and then. There is so little chance to wash towels that they soon get unusable. In the way of wearing apparel, socks are always good. But, girlie, make 'em right. That last pair sent me nearly cost me a court martial by my getting my feet into trench-foot condition. If you can't leave out the seams, wear them yourself for a while, and see how you like it. Sleeveless sweaters are good and easy to make, I am told. They don't last long at the best, so should not be elaborate. Any garment worn close to the body gets cooty in a few weeks and has to be ditched. How- ever, keep right on with the knitting, with the exception of the socks. If you're not an expert on those, better buy them. You may in that way retain the affection of your sweetheart over there. Knitted helmets are a great comfort. I had one that was fine not only to wear under the tin hat but to sleep in. I am not keen SUGGESTIONS FOR "Sx\MMY" 205 on wristlets or gloves. Better buy the gloves you send in the shops. So that's the knitted stuff, — helmets, sweaters, and mufflers and, for the expert, socks. Be very moderate in the matter of reading matter. I mean by that, don't send a lot at a time or any very bulky stuff at all. If it is possible to get a louse pomade called Harrison's in this country, send it, as it is a cooty killer. So far as I know, it is the only thing sold that will do the cooty in. There's a fortune waiting for the one who compounds a louse eradicator that will kill the cooty and not irritate or nearly kill the one who uses it. I shall expect a royalty from the successful chemist who produces the much needed com- pound. For the wealthier people, I would suggest that good things to send are silk shirts and drawers. It is possible to get the cooties out of these garments much easier than out of the thick woollies. There are many other things that may be sent, but I have mentioned the most important. The main thing to re- member is not to run to bulk. And don't 206 SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY" forget that it takes a long time for stuff to get across. Don't overlook the letters, — this especially if you are a mother, wife, or sweetheart. It is an easy thing to forget. You mustn't. Out there life is chiefly squalor, filth, and stench. The boy gets disgusted and lonesome and homesick, even though he may write to the contrary. Write to him at least three times a week. Always write cheerfully, even al- though something may have happened that has plunged you into the depths of despair. If it is necessary to cover up something that would cause a soldier worry, cover it up. Even lie to him. It will be justified. Keep in mind the now famous war song, "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile." Keep your own packed up and don't send any over there for some soldier to worry over. Just a few words to the men themselves who may go. Don't take elaborate shaving tackle, just brush, razor, soap, and a small mirror. Most of the time you won't need the mirror. You'll use the periscope mirror in the trenches. SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY" 207 Don't load up on books and unnecessary cloth- ing. Impress it upon your relatives that your stuff, tobacco and sweets, is to come along in small parcels and often and regularly. Let all your friends and relatives know your ad- dress and ask them to write often. Don't hesitate to tell them all that a parcel now and again will be acceptable. Have more than one source of supply if possible. When you get out there, hunt up the Y. M. C. A. huts. You will find good cheer, warmth, music, and above all a place to do your writing. Write home often. Your people are concerned about you all the time. Write at least once a week to the one nearest and dearest to you. I used to average ten letters a week to friends in Blighty and back here, and that was a lot more than I was allowed. I found a way. Most of you won't be able to go over your allowance. But do go the limit. Over there you will find a lot of attractive girls and women. Most any girl is attractive when you are just out of the misery of the trenches. Be careful of them. Remember the country has been full of soldiers for three 208 SUGGESTIONS FOR ''SAMMY" years. Don't make love too easily. One of the singers in the Divisional Follies recently revived the once popular music-hall song, "If You Can't Be Good Be Careful." It should appeal to the soldier as much as "Smile, smile, smile", and is equally good advice. For the sake of those at home and for the sake of your own peace of mind come back from overseas clean. After all it is possible to no more than give hints to the boys who are going. All of you will have to learn by experience. My parting word to you all is just, "The best of luck." GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG All around traverse — A machine gun placed on a swivel to turn in any direction. Ammo — Ammunition. Usually for rifles, though occa- sionally used to indicate that for artillery. Argue the toss — Argue the point. Back of the line — Anywhere to the rear and out of the danger zone. Barbed wire — Ordinary barbed wire used for entangle- ments. A thicker and heavier military wire is some- times used. Barrage — Shells dropped simultaneously and in a row so as to form a curtain of fire. Literal translation " a barrier." Bashed — Smashed. Big boys — Big guns or the shells they send over. Big push — The battles of the Somme. Billets — The quarters of the soldier when back of the line. Any place from a pigpen to a palace. Bleeder or Blighter — Cockney slang for fellow. Roughly corresponding to American " guy." Blighty — England. East Indian derivation. The para- dise looked forward to by all good soldiers, — and all bad ones too. Blighty one — A wound that will take the soldier to Blighty. 210 GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG Bloody — The universal Cockney adjective. It is vaguely supposed to be highly obscene, though just why nobody seems to know. Blooming — A meaningless and greatly used adjective. Applied to anything and everything. Bomb — A hand grenade. Bully beef — Corned beef, high grade and good of the kind, if you like the kind. It sets hard on the chest. Carry on — To go ahead with the matter in hand. Char — Tea. East Indian derivation. Chat — Officers' term for cootie ; supposed to be more delicate. Click — Variously used. To die. To be killed. To kill. To draw some disagreeable job, as : I clicked a burial fatigue. Communication trench — A trench leading up to the front trench. Consolidate — To turn around and prepare for occupa- tion a captured trench. Cootie — The common, — the too common, — body louse. Everybody has 'em. Crater — A round pit made by an underground explosion or by a shell. Cushy — Easy. Soft. Dixie — An oblong iron pot or box fitting into a field kitchen. Used for cooking anything and every- thing. Nobody seems to know why it is so called. Doggo — Still. Quiet. East Indian derivation. Doing in — Killing. Doss — Sleep. GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG 211 Duck walk — A slatted wooden walk in soft ground. Dud — An unexploded shell. A dangerous thing to fool with. Dug-out — A hole more or less deep in the side of a trench where soldiers are supposed to rest. Dump — A place where supplies are left for distribution. Entrenching tool — A sort of small shovel for quick dig- ging. Carried as part of equipment. Estaminet — A French saloon or cafe. Fag — A cigarette. Fatigue — Any kind of work except manning the trenches. Fed up — Tommy's way of saying " too much is enough." Firing step — A narrow ledge running along the parapet on which a soldier stands to look over the top. Flare — A star light sent up from a pistol to light up out in front. Fritz — An affectionate term for our friend the enemy. Funk hole — A dug-out. Gas — Any poisonous gas sent across when the wind is right. Used by both sides. Invented by the Germans. Goggles — A piece of equipment similar to that used by motorists, supposed to keep off tear gas. The rims are backed with strips of sponge which Tommy tears off and throws the goggle frame away. Go west — To die. Grouse — Complain. Growl. Kick. Hun — A German. Identification disc — A fiber tablet bearing the soldier's name, regiment, and rank. Worn around the neck on a string. 212 GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG Iron rations — About two pounds of nonperishable rations to be used in an emergency. Knuckle knife — A short dagger with a studded hilt. Invented by the Germans. Lance Corporal — The lowest grade of non-commissioned officer. Lewis gun - - A very light machine gun invented by one Lewis, an officer in the American army. Light railway — A very narrow-gauge railway on which are pushed little hand cars. Listening post — One or more men go out in front, at night, of course, and listen for movements by the enemy. Maconochie — A scientifically compounded and well-bal- ancer^ ration, so the authorities say. It looks, smells, and t stes like rancid lard. M. O. — Medical Officer. A foxy cove who can't be fooled with faked symptoms. Mess tin — A combination teapot, fry pan, and plate. Military cross — An officer's decoration for bravery. Military medal — A decoration for bravery given to enlisted men. Mills — The most commonly used hand grenade. Minnies — German trench mortar projectiles. Napper — The head. Night 'ops — A much hated practice manoeuvre done at night. No Man's Land — The area between the trenches. On your own — At liberty. Your time is your own. Out or over there — Somewhere in France. Parados — The back wall of a trench. GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG 213 Parapet — The front wall of a trench. Patrol — One or more men who go out in front and prowl in the dark, seeking information of the enemy. Periscope — A boxlike arrangement with two mirrors for looking over the top without exposing the napper. Persuader — A short club with a nail-studdeH head. Pip squeak — A German shell which makei that kind of noise when it comes over. Push up the daisies — To be killed and buried. Ration party — A party of men which goes to the rear and brings up rations for the front line. Rest — Relief from trench service. Mostly one works constantly when " resting." Ruddy — Same as bloody, but not quite so bad. Sandbag — A bag which is filled with mud and used for building the parapet. Sentry go — Time on guard in the front trench, or at rest at headquarters. Shell hole — A pit made by the explosion of a shell. Souvenir — Any kind of junk picked up for keepsakes. Also used as a begging word by the French children. Stand to — Order for all men to stand ready in the trench in event of a surprise attack, usually at sun- down and sunrise. Stand down — Countermanding " stand to." Stokes — A bomb weighing about eleven pounds usually thrown from a mortar, but sometimes used by hand. Strafing — One of the few words Tommy has borrowed from Fritz. To punish. Suicide club — The battalion bombers. Tin hat — Steel helmet. 214 GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG Wave — A line of men going over the top. Whacked — Exhausted. Played out. Whiz -bang — A German shell that makes that sort of noise. Wind up or windy — Nervous. Jumpy. Temporary in- voluntary fear. Wooden cross — The small wooden cross placed over a soldier's grave. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. Mi MJ ] ai9dd. n m wm !lttt|in' WB