Bullets & Billets

CHAPTER XVI

NEW TRENCH­ES--THE NIGHT IN­SPEC­TION-- LET­TER FROM THE “BY­STANDER”

Next day we dis­cov­ered the mys­tery of our sud­den re­moval. The bat­tle of Neuve Chapelle was claim­ing con­sid­er­able at­ten­tion, and that was where we were go­ing. We were full of in­ter­est and cu­rios­ity, and were all for get­ting there as soon as pos­si­ble. But it was not to be. Mys­te­ri­ous moves were be­ing made be­hind the scenes which I, and oth­ers like me, will nev­er know any­thing about; but, any­way, we now sud­den­ly got an­oth­er be­wil­der­ing or­der. Af­ter a day spent in Ar­men­tières we were told to stand by for go­ing back to­wards Neuve Eglise again, just the di­rec­tion from which we had come. We all knew too much about the war to be sur­prised at any­thing, so we mute­ly pre­pared for an­oth­er ex­it. It was a day­light march this time, and a nice, still, warm day. Quite a cheery, in­ter­est­ing march we had, too, along the road from Ar­men­tières to Neuve Eglise. We were told that we were to march past Gen­er­al Sir Ho­race Smith Dor­rien, whom we should find wait­ing for us near the Pont de Nieppe--a place we had to pass _en route_. Ev­ery one braced up at this, and keen­ly looked for­ward to reach­ing Nieppe. I don't know why, but I had an idea he would be in his car on the right of the road. To make no mis­take I mut­tered “Eyes right” to my­self for about a quar­ter of a mile, so as to make a good thing of the salute. We came up­on the Pont de Nieppe sud­den­ly, round the cor­ner, and there was the Gen­er­al--on the left! All my re­hears­ing use­less. An­noy­ing, but I sup­pose one can't ex­pect Gen­er­als to tell you where they are go­ing to stand.

We reached Neuve Eglise in time, and went in­to our old bil­lets. We all thought our fate was “back in­to those ---- old Plugstreet trench­es again,” but _mirabile dic­tu_--it was not to be so. The sec­ond day in bil­lets I re­ceived a mes­sage from the Colonel to pro­ceed to his head­quar­ter farm. I went, and heard the news. We were to take over a new line of trench­es away to the left of Plugstreet, and that night I was to ac­com­pa­ny him along with all the com­pa­ny com­man­ders on a round of in­spec­tion.

A lit­tle be­fore dusk we start­ed off and pro­ceed­ed along var­ious roads to­wards the new line. All the coun­try was now brand new to me, and full of in­ter­est. Af­ter we had gone about a mile and a half the char­ac­ter of the land changed. We had left all the Plugstreet wood ef­fect be­hind, and now emerged on to far more open and flat­ter ground. By dusk we were go­ing down a long straight road with poplar trees on ei­ther side. At the end of this stood a farm on the right. We walked in­to the court­yard and across it in­to the farm. This was the place the bat­tal­ion we were go­ing to re­lieve had made its head­quar­ters. Not a bad farm. The roof was still on, I no­ticed, and con­clud­ed from that that life there was ev­ident­ly pass­able. We had to wait here some time, as we were told that the en­emy could see for a great dis­tance around there, and would pep­per up the farm as sure as fate if they saw any­one about. Our easy-​go­ing en­try in­to the court­yard had not been re­ceived with great favour, as it ap­peared we were do­ing just the very thing to get the roof re­moved. How­ev­er, the dusk had saved us, I fan­cy.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: Comin' on down to the Es­taminet tonight, Ar­ry?]

As soon as it was re­al­ly dark we all sal­lied forth, ac­com­pa­nied by guides this time, who were to show us the trench­es. I crept along be­hind our Colonel, with my eyes peeled for pos­si­ble gun po­si­tions, and drink­ing in as many de­tails of the en­tire sit­ua­tion as I could.

We walked about ten miles that night, I should think, across un­fa­mil­iar swamps and over un­sus­pect­ed an­tique aban­doned trench­es, past dead cows and pigs. We groped about the wretched shell-​pit­ted fields, ex­am­in­ing the trench­es we were about to take over. You would be sur­prised to find how dif­fi­cult a sim­ple line of trench­es can seem at night if you have nev­er seen them be­fore.

You don't seem able to get the an­gles, some­how, nor to grasp how the whole sit­ua­tion faces, or how you get from one part to an­oth­er, and all that sort of thing. I know that by the time I had been along the whole lot, round sev­er­al hun­dred tra­vers­es, and up dozens of com­mu­ni­ca­tion trench­es and saps, all my mariner-​like abil­ity for find­ing my way back to Neuve Eglise had de­sert­ed me. Those guides were ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary in or­der to get us back to the head­quar­ter farm. One wants a com­pass, the pole star, and plen­ty of hope ev­er to get across those enor­mous prairies--known as fields out there--and reach the place at the oth­er side one wants to get to. It is a long study be­fore you re­al­ly learn the sim­plest and best way up to your own bit of trench; but when it comes to learn­ing ev­ery­body else's way up as well (as a ma­chine gun­ner has to), it needs a long and painful course of in­struc­tion--high­er branch­es of this art con­sist­ing of not on­ly know­ing the way up, but the _safest_ way up.

The night we car­ried out this tour of in­spec­tion we were all left in a fog as to how we had gone to and re­turned from the trench­es. Af­ter we had got in we knew, by long ex­am­ina­tion of the maps, how ev­ery­thing lay, but it was some time be­fore we had got the re­al prac­ti­cal hang of it all.

Our re­turn jour­ney from the in­spec­tion was a pret­ty silent af­fair. We all knew these were a nasty set of trench­es. Not half so pleas­ant as the Plugstreet ones. The con­ver­sa­tions we had with the present own­ers made it quite clear that warm times were the vogue round there. Al­to­geth­er we could see we were in for a “bit of a time.”

We cleared off back to Neuve Eglise that night, and next day took those trench­es over. This was the be­gin­ning of my life at Wul­verghem. When we got in, late that night, we found that the post had ar­rived some time be­fore. Think­ing there might be some­thing for me, I went in­to the back room where they sort­ed the let­ters, to get any there might be be­fore go­ing off to my own bil­lets. “There's on­ly one for you, sir, to-​night,” said the cor­po­ral who looked af­ter the let­ters. He hand­ed me an en­ve­lope. I opened it. In­side, a short note and a cheque.

“We shall be very glad to ac­cept your sketch, 'Where did that one go to?' From the _By­stander_”--the foun­da­tion-​stone of _Frag­ments from France_.