Bullets & Billets

CHAPTER IX

SOU­VENIRS--A RIDE TO NIEPPE--TEA AT H.Q.--TRENCH­ES ONCE MORE

A cou­ple of days af­ter Christ­mas we left for bil­lets. These two days were of a very peace­ful na­ture, but not quite so en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly friend­ly as the day it­self. The Ger­mans could be seen mov­ing about in their trench­es, and one felt quite at ease sit­ting on the top of our para­pet or strolling about the fields be­hind our lines.

It was dur­ing these two days that I man­aged to get a Ger­man ri­fle that I had had my eye on for a month. It lay out in the open, near one or two corpses be­tween our trench­es and theirs, and un­til this Christ­mas truce ar­rived, the lo­cal­ity was not a par­tic­ular­ly at­trac­tive one to vis­it. Had I fixed an ear­li­er date for my ex­ploit the end of it would most prob­ably have been--a bat­tered sec­ond-​lieu­tenant's cap and a rusty re­volver hang­ing up in the in­gle-​nook at Herr Some­one-​or-​oth­er's coun­try home in East Prus­sia. As it was, I was able to walk out and re­turn with the ri­fle un­mo­lest­ed.

When we left the trench­es to “go out” this time I took the ri­fle along with me. Af­ter my usu­al per­ilous eques­tri­an act I got back to the Trans­port Farm, and hav­ing per­formed the usu­al rou­tine of wash­ing, shav­ing, eat­ing and drink­ing, blos­somed forth in­to our four days' rest again.

The weath­er was splen­did. I went out for walks in the fields, re­hearsed the ma­chine-​gun sec­tion in their drill, and con­duct­ed cheery sort of “Squire-​of-​the-​vil­lage” con­ver­sa­tions with the farmer who owned our farm.

At this pe­ri­od, most of my pals in the reg­iment used to go in­to Ar­men­tières or Bailleul, and get a breath of civ­ilized life. I of­ten wished I felt as they did, but I had just the op­po­site de­sire. I felt that, to ad­equate­ly stick out what we were go­ing through, it was nec­es­sary for me to keep well in the at­mo­sphere, and not to let any ex­te­ri­or in­flu­ence up­set it.

I was an­noyed at hav­ing to take up this line, but some­how or oth­er I had a feel­ing that I could not run the war busi­ness with a spot of civ­iliza­tion in it. Per­son­al­ly, I felt that, rather than leave the trench­es for our pe­ri­od­ic rests, I would soon­er have stayed there all the time con­sec­utive­ly, un­til I could stick it out no longer.

Dur­ing this af­ter-​Christ­mas rest, how­ev­er, I so far re­lapsed from these views as to de­cide to go in­to Nieppe to get some mon­ey from the Field Cashier. That was my first fall, but my sec­ond was even more strange. In a tru­cu­lent tone I said I would ride!

“Smith, go and tell Park­er to get my horse ready!” It just shows how reck­less war­fare makes one.

A beau­ti­ful, fine, still af­ter­noon. I start­ed off. Enor­mous suc­cess. I walked and trot­ted along, past all sorts of wag­ons, lor­ries, guns and despatch rid­ers. Near­ly de­cid­ed to take up hunt­ing, when the time came for me to set­tle in Eng­land once more. How­ev­er, as I neared the out­skirts of Nieppe, and saw the flood of in­ter­lac­ing traf­fic, I de­cid­ed to leave well alone--to tie this quadruped of mine up at some out­ly­ing hostel­ry and walk the short re­main­ing dis­tance in­to the town where the cashier had his of­fice. I found a suit­able place and, let­ting my­self down to the ground, strode off with a stiff bandy-​legged ac­tion to the of­fice. Hav­ing got my 100 francs all right I made the best of my short time on earth by walk­ing about and hav­ing a good look at the town. A squalid, un­in­ter­est­ing place, Nieppe; a dirty red-​brick town with a good sprin­kling of fac­to­ry chim­neys and or­ange peel; rather the same tone as one of the Pot­ter­ies towns in Eng­land. Com­plet­ing my tour I re­turned to the horse, and fi­nal­ly, stiff but hap­py, I glid­ed to the ground in the yard of the Trans­port Farm.

En­cour­aged by my suc­cess I rode over to din­ner one night with one of the Com­pa­nies in the Bat­tal­ion which was in bil­lets about a mile and a half away. Rid­ing home along the flat, wind­ing, wa­ter-​logged lane by the light of the stars I near­ly start­ed off on the po­et­ry lines again, but I got home just in time.

Dur­ing these rests from the trench­es I was some­times sum­moned to Brigade Head­quar­ters, where the arch ma­chine gun­ner dwelt. He was a cap­tain of much en­gi­neer­ing skill, who su­per­vised the en­tire ma­chine-​gun out­fit of the Brigade. New men were be­ing per­pet­ual­ly trained by him, and I was sent for on oc­ca­sion to dis­cuss the state and strength of my sec­tion, or any new scheme that might be on hand.

This go­ing to Brigade Head­quar­ters meant putting on a clean bib, as it were; for it was here that the Brigadier him­self lived, and af­ter a ma­chine-​gun séance it was gen­er­al­ly nec­es­sary to have tea in the farm with the Brigade staff.

I am lit­tle or no use on these so­cial oc­ca­sions. The red and gold mailed fist of a Gen­er­al Staff re­duces me to a sort of pul­ver­ized state of meek­ness, which ends in my smil­ing at ev­ery­one and de­clin­ing any­thing to eat.

As ma­chine-​gun of­fi­cer to our Bat­tal­ion I had to go through it, and as ev­ery­one was very nice to me, it all went off sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly.

On this time out we were won­der­ing how we should find the Boches on our re­turn, and pleas­ant rec­ol­lec­tions of the time be­fore filled us with a cu­ri­ous keen­ness to get back and see. A wish like this is eas­ily grat­ified at the front, and soon, of course, the day came to go in­to trench­es again, and in we went.