INTIMATE LETTERS FROM YPRES AND THE SOMME.

CAPTAIN PHILIP RUSSELL KEIGHTLEY,
R. G. A.

Most lovely is his resting place:
Upon a gentle hill he lies,
While at his feet twin rivers trace
Their pathway 'neath his Irish skies.
The rooks make curious melody,
And all the air is full of song;
The squirrel leaps from tree to tree,
For spring is here, and days are long.
Yet days for him have had their end,
And nights for him are dark no more,
Although the golden summer spend
The riches of her magic store.
With beauty round him for a shroud,
The tired soldier sleeps at ease,
Nor will he wake though long and loud
The wind roar through his sheltering trees
For him the storms of earth are still;
For him all wars have closed in peace.
He sleeps upon a holy hill,
Till storms and war alike shall cease.

THE writer of these pages had hoped among his
other dreams to tell at some future day the story of his
experiences in the Great War. The fragmentary transcripts of a short
yet crowded life contained in this book were not meant for
publication. They were intended only for one beloved and cherished
correspondent. Written at odd moments and under the most
unfavourable conditions?in the trenches?in midnight watches?in
hospital?in the mess-room they reflect the mind of the writer at the
moment. They are the instant picture of the scene painted in living
colours while the mighty drama was slowly evolving. In this consists
their charm and value. They are sincere, natural, spontaneous,
impressed everywhere with a sense of the actual. By a touch or two
the scene lives before us in its humour or its tragedy. They are a
chapter, however insignificant, in the history of the Great War
which the formal historian does not touch.
But this insignificant chapter is not without its
interest. It contains all that made the war glorious and heroic? the
spring and source of our victories and final triumph. The daily life
in the firing line? the patient endurance of our young men ; their
unconscious heroism, their instinctive devotion to duty, their
cheerful, indomitable gaiety, and always their splendid courage in
the shadow of suffering, disaster, and death? this seems to me almost
the most wonderful thing in the mighty epic of the war. On that life
of patient work, suffering, and endurance is built the story which
will go down to future generations? the grim stand at Ypres and the
victorious onrush at the Somme. It is a glimpse of that life which
is revealed in these pages.
The writer of these Letters would have been the
last person in the world to have claimed that there was anything
exceptional in his character or conduct. He would have laughed
scornfully at any such suggestion. In the life of the firing line,
courage was a commonplace ; it was taken for granted. Men went over
the top, or endured through days and weeks the iron rain of the
trenches, as part of the day's work, and had no conscious pride in
their heroism. Duty became the habit of their daily lives, and
self-sacrifice and suffering were its natural and inevitable
companions. There was nothing theatrical in their attitude of mind.
They did not pose as the saviours of the world, as indeed they were,
but they freely and ungrudgingly gave themselves and their young
lives because their country needed them, and they felt their country
was right. And the tragedy is that of all those who gave up their
lives for their country there was hardly one who did not hate war
with his whole heart, and the inevitable horrors it brought in its
train.
The declaration of war found Philip Keightley a
student of Trinity College, Dublin, with a shy love of literature,
an overflowing contempt for the learning of the schools, an
enthusiasm for all forms of athletic exercises, and a genius for
friendship. During his two years at the University he drank of the
cup of life with all the joyous gaiety of youth. He was not a lover
of the lecture room, he scorned examinations, but his friends were
legion. Nor was it wonderful that he should have many friends. His
mirth was always overflowing, his laughter was a thing good to hear.
He carried with him a sense of open air and space and sunshine. But
beneath this outward gaiety was a character which the atmosphere of
war afterwards rapidly broadened and deepened. He was full of a fine
considerateness for others, and was. a great lover of the lame dog.
Where he saw his duty clearly nothing could turn or move him.
Chivalrous and high-minded to a fault, he hated all shams and
pretentions and meannesses with an utter hatred.
With his tastes and habits it would have been
wonderful had he not been an enthusiastic member of the University
Officers' Training Corps, and he immediately applied for an infantry
commission on the outbreak of war. But more than a year elapsed
before his desire was gratified, and it was not till December, 1915,
that he was finally gazetted a second lieutenant in the Royal
Garrison Artillery. Here he at once found his true career. His early
letters written while engaged in coast defence in the South of
England, where he spent his first six months, are full of the
delights of his new life and his interest in his work.
The humours of his men were a continual feast to
him. There was a fresh romance in his daily duties. Every little
incident took shape and form as a great adventure.

The following extract will give the reader some
idea of the spirit in which the young soldier regarded his work and
the thoroughness with which he carried it out :-
" In spite of all my grumbling?that is one of my
privileges?I never notice the flight of time. The Army seems to
specialise in the word `do' preceded by the word `Sir.' The great
thing is to be able to follow with the still more magnificent word
done.' I find no difficulty in enjoying every moment of leisure, and
when at my work I am much too busy and too interested to think of
-anything else.
"A few days ago we had a draft of some fifty men
sent us from Ireland, and have now had another thirty-five added.
These have been- handed over to me entirely and I am hustling them
into shape. My opinion of the intelligence of the lower class
Englishman is not high when I compare him with the keen,
quick-witted Celt. But they are easy to handle, and they seem too
bovine and placid to mind my exhortations or the curses of my
sergeant, who is a Scotchman of fiery temper.
" I fired my first shot yesterday. A tramp
steamer sailed blissfully into the prohibited mine area. Our
look-out reported it to me, and I did my best to send a shot across
her bows as per instructions. It did not go within two hundred yards
of her, but in gunnery hundreds of yards do not count on an occasion
like this.
" Great excitement reigned all over the Eastern
Defences?as well as on the steamer, which never travelled faster in
its natural life. The commander of the aforesaid Defences came down
personally to see me about the matter. I think he would have liked
to tell me off, but as I was simply carrying out his own
instructions, which were perfectly clear, he could only mutter
something about ` overdoing the thing.'
" Now there is a long list of new instructions to
meet such an occasion. The crowning joke is that my Battery
Commander complimented me, and I have since bathed in the admiration
of my fellow subs, which I try to bear with all becoming humility."
In September 1916, he set out for France on the
Great Adventure, and it was his fortune to be sent with his battery
to the deadly salient of Ypres. Here he spent the winter of 1916,
and the greater part of 1917, and here he saw war in its most
revolting aspects. In his letters he touches lightly, and always
with a dash of humour, on his experiences during this time, but it
was only on his return home on leave after nine months' hardship
that his friends observed the change that had been wrought in his
character. In that terrible forcing house the growth was rapid.
Youth had put off its mercurial and careless gaiety ; manhood had
arrived with its earnest purpose and its resolute questioning of the
eternal problem of pain and suffering.
He had his own view of the influence of war upon
character. On one occasion he was asked whether that influence was
beneficent or injurious, and his reply was characteristic. " I don't
know. What Suits one man admirably will poison another. It probably
makes a good man better, and a bad man worse. If you have any
virtues?God knows some of us have few enough?it gives them soil and
room to grow, and if you have any vices, there is no better place in
the world for their cultivation. I thinks it depends on the
character of the man himself. I have seen good men grow into fair
imitations of saints and heroes, and bad men turned into arrant
swine rooting in the mud. But even in the worst there is some good,
and it is our business to find it."
He was probably right. That world of mud and
blood, with its dug-outs and cellars where men lived like animals,
that monotonous round of arduous duty, that daily spectacle of
sudden death, tried the soul of youth as in a furnace and discovered
the best and the worst. Its influence upon his own character was
unmistakable. He had become familiar with death and suffering. In
his lonely hours he had had much cime for quiet thought and life had
assumed a new aspect. But this year in the salient was always a
nightmare of which he did not care to speak, and his joy was great
when he was transferred to the Somme in the autumn of 1917. Here he
took part in our first victorious advance towards Cambrai, and later
had a full share in the peril and hardship of our retreat when the
Germans made their final despairing push towards Paris. His
description of the happenings of that memorable week in which the
3rd Army was doggedly falling back, always with its face to the foe,
seems to me a most admirable piece of descriptive writing?a series
of little vignettes as picturesque as they are real.
There is little more to be said. When the Armies
of the Allies resumed the defensive his battery was once more in the
firing line, and the declaration of the Armistice found him
somewhere near Le Cateau, greatly dissatisfied that the victors had
held their hand on the threshold of another Sedan.
He had already been gazetted to a commission in
the Regular Army, and he now obtained the promotion to which he had
been eagerly looking forward as a recognition of faithful work and
arduous service. He returned home in February, 1919, on leave, and
then, passed away after a few days' illness. But, indeed, there was
an added pathos in this tragic end. During the last few hours of his
life his mind was always back with his old comrades in the firing
line, heartening, strengthening, encouraging the men he loved, and
in the shadow of death he saw Death with an heroic and invincible
courage. And he went into silence with a smile of final victory on
his face. At twenty-four and a few weeks he had finished his
lifework.
A fellow-officer, who had been with him at Ypres
and on the Somme, writes of him after his death :" He was the kind
of soldier most to be admired, because, although lie hated the war
as much as any of us, he never shirked his duty but always did his
job. As a companion he was the merriest, most charms comrade, and we
all were devoted to him. With this character and his great ability
lie would have done great things if only he had lived. But apart
from the pain of parting there is nothing but love and pride and
confidence."
Something, perhaps, may be allowed for the
generous praises of a friend who loved him, but this estimate is
substantially accurate. His own ideals were of the highest, and none
was so ready as himself to confess his own shortcomings. Nor, when
well considered, had he lived in vain. To have done his day's work
with all his heart and strength, to have left a multitude of friends
who admired and loved him, to have lived a clean, manly, joyous, and
valourous life, to have left a memory of gracious, kindly deeds, and
never to have known the bitterness of failure or
disillusionment?such a life is not all vanity, and it is well to
have lived it.

IN THE DEADLY SALIENT.
IN THE FIRING LINE.
29th
September, 1916.
We are at last in the firing line. We were moved
up here three days ago to take our fighting position. On the train
journey I will not comment. It was too dreary and uncomfortable for
words. When we got to the railhead it was the middle of the clay,
and a wait of quite six hours was necessitated, as old Fritz is very
watchful, and keeps the road from the base under close observation.
However, at 8 p.m. we got on the move with the lorries and the guns.
The road on which we travelled was really a wonderful sight. Just
think of it! Motor lorries with ammunition and guns and food, horse
teams with the same, despatch riders mounted on horses and bicycles
of every description, ambulance waggons coming back and going up,
all the flotsam and jetsam of war, and mingled with it all--the
central strand in the varied thread--our splendid and unfortunate
infantry eternally moving up. The driver on my lorry was a typical
Bairnsfather, and was grimly intent on putting the wind up me. With
great solemnity he asserted that the Boche often swept the road with
shrapnel, and at every cross-roads he made a great show of preparing
to dodge a H.E., which, he informed me, was always to be expected
there. I think his efforts were not very successful, as I was really
on tender-hooks lest the wheel of my gun would come off, and I
should have to spend a long and weary night in retrieving it from a
ditch. At last we arrived without casualties at our journey's end,
and found our advance party had done nothing. There was nothing left
for us but to hide the guns, and seek refuge in a dug-out, where we
all spent a very cold and cheerless night, as our kit was delayed on
the way. It was, however, all in the day's work. Sursum corda,
as the old school's motto ran.
Next morning we started at 7 a.m. and finished at
so p.m. By that time we had almost everything about the guns ready
for action. This was really a labour of Hercules. I gave a mighty
sigh of relief when I saw our last platform in place. " Now," I said
to myself, " half an hour will see the guns in " ; but, alas ! I was
utterly wrong. My beloved gun refused to move from its comfortable
bed of mud, and I bathed in perspiration for two long, dark, and
profane hours.
To-day we have been getting to work on our own
dug-outs. I should have liked to superintend the building of my own,
but the Major has given me the job of fortifying the mess, which, I
think, is, or was, the vestry of a church, for Fritz has made it
difficult to distinguish with certainty any building here. It is
quite a cheery mess-room, and possesses a roof, a thing which cannot
be said about many mess-rooms hereabout. Just outside the door are
two huge " Jack Johnston " holes and the grave of an unknown
soldier, which is carefully tended every day. Indeed, all around us
is a city of the dead. Wherever we dig we prove the gruesome fact,
and what was really keeping my gun-wheel in was a dead Boche.
My dug-out will be quite a curio shop when it is
finished. I have paved it with some very pretty old Flemish tiles,
which, I understand, are quite valuable, while the walls, when
completed, are to be hung with tapestry which I dug out of an old
house. I have also some old church ornaments, which I discovered
under a pile of bricks in the cellar. The Hun is comparatively quiet
at present, but he gives the trenches and the town the usual morning
and evening hate.

THE DAY'S WORK.
22nd October, 1916.
After about three weeks among the ruins, our
senior subaltern was sent with one gull to a new position about
three miles away to take on some targets which the other guns could
not register. For some reason he was recalled, and I was appointed
in his place. For six splendid and solitary days I carried on alone.
I was then joined by the advance party of a new battery coming into
position. Five days after the main body arrived, and my gun and
detachment returned to the town. However, as I have now become
rather expert in observation posts and the usual office work
attached to the battery, the Colonel of our group thought the new
battery would find me useful. So here I stay, and hope to continue
to stay for some time.
My day runs something in this interesting and
useful fashion. My admirable servant shakes me gently every morning
at 6.30, and calls in silver tones,
" Shaving water ready, sir." Very reluctantly I
full out of bed, and after a bath am quite ready for breakfast. The
morning meal being finished, I help the Major with his daily
reports, and offer modest suggestions with regard to dug-outs and
the general improvement of the position. Then I await instructions
for an observation post, to which I guide one of their officers and
point out the target. If we are not shooting, I carry the Major to
the various observation posts and show him the country, or I go out
by myself and draw panoramas or visibility maps. Among my other
duties I am now signalling officer, this battery not having one, and
I am quite unable to calculate the number of miles of wire I have
laid out.
Last week I had a most unpleasant job. Some time
ago I went to an observation post, and found that I could not get a
good view of my target. Having a few minutes to wait, and seeing
another house, or rather the scattered fragments of a house, I set
out on a journey of exploration, and found the place most convenient
for observation. I reported this to the battery, and the Major got
permission to make an observation post out of it. Whether he thought
it an honour or no, he gave me the job, and I had to take a working
party down under cover of night?daylight is not healthy here?to
build a dug-out and lay a mine. It took me four days?or rather
nights?to complete it, working from 8 p.m. till 12 p.m., but I am
quite proud of it now, and the observation post is very popular.
In the ordinary course of events I seek my couch
about To p.m., and I am never troubled by insomnia.
I think you once asked me if I had ever
considered the difference between pleasure and happiness. It is
curious, but out here it is on topics like this that our
conversation often turns, and the point in question was discussed
last night in the mess. In England this is about the last subject
anyone would have thought of dwelling upon. I suppose it means some
kind of change. And I have been writing verses.
28th October, 1916.
I knew the family would want a description of my
dug-out. Here it is:?
It is not underground but on the ground floor of
a house. The house is, of course, without a roof, but the floor of
the first storey is almost intact, and acts as a fine first halt for
iron rain. The lower part of the walls is also fairly undamaged. Our
dug-out is built in what was evidently the kitchen, for the floor is
of red tiles. The shell of the dug-out is composed of baulks of
timber, once the main beams of a fair and stately house, and is
strengthened by iron pillars from the verandah of the Cafe du Prince
Royal. The beams of the roof are railway sleepers laid about six
inches apart and projecting two feet on either side. On the top of
these is a roof of corrugated iron, and above these three layers of
sandbags. Then comes a layer of elephants. But make no mistake. They
make no figure in zoology. These are concave sheets of toughened
steel made specially for the purpose. These elephants are banked up
with sandbags. Then there arc beams raised up about a foot, forming
what is called an " air space," to allow shells to burst there and
not inside. Above the " air space " is another layer of bags; above
that two feet of broken bricks and then another layer of bags. This
is what is called 5.9 proof. An excellent town house.
We are now quite settled down, the first
excitement of active service having worn off, and if it were not for
an occasional whizz-bang or " pip-squeak " one might imagine himself
back in the blissful days of peace. Still there is always plenty of
work to do, but so far our evenings have been undisturbed, and I
always find time to write home.

17th November,
1916.
I suppose I am a man of moods, but just at
present I cannot see the end of this business. To go down to an
observation post day after day and see the same sights?the same
trenches?the same shell-torn trees and tangled wire?the land
absolutely void of life?almost makes one hopeless. We still fire at
the Boche, and the Boche at us, and we still watch one another like
hawks, but so far as I can see we will continue to watch one another
for ever. War is the most futile, hopeless, Godless thing in the
world. However, a tramp home in the rain and mud, tired and footsore
but with a sense of duty done, the hope of a long letter from home,
and the. prospect of .a good fire and dinner, cheer one up more than
you can think.
I should like you to send me a pocket edition of
Longfellow, for whom, though you. may smile, I have a. warm-
admiration. There is something in his: homely thoughts and quiet
charm that just suits one here.
THE OBSERVATION POST.
22nd January,
1917.
You will see that I have quite finished my short
course at St. Omer, and have once again returned to the serious
business of war. The rest was like a draught of sweet water in the
desert. The town itself was by no means a bad place, but from your
point of view it is rather uninteresting. It contains no historical
remains or beauty of architecture, but to me it was a tremendous
relief after roofless houses and devastated streets. It contains two
or three quite decent hotels, and it was certainly a novelty to see
a cheerful-looking woman again, and feel that one could walk across
the inevitable " Grande Place " without imagining that a Hun S.9 was
about to rest in the small of your back.
Everyone was much the same when I got back except
C., who had the bad luck to stop a non-blighty one and is still in
rest, and I think they were all glad to see me.
On the day of my return I had an O.P. to do It
may seem curious, but I was quite excited going up to the old
familiar spot in the roof of the house I had discovered. I looked
eagerly over the same old front, picking up the well-known
landmarks, and looking to see if anything was changed. And there
were changes! One very soon comes to know every inch of the ground,
and detect every little alteration and movement. I have often
thought when up in my perch how interested you would be, and I
should like to show you the dozens of little points time and
patience bring to view. You can see them?new sandbags or timber,
freshly-turned earth, a mound, a corner of what looks like concrete
and means a machine-gun emplacement, slits in the parapet which
indicate a sniper, and further back the crash of a new battery
firing by day, and at night the noise and flash of guns and the
sound of moving transport. You may gather from this that it takes
close attention and keen eyesight to learn one's particular front,
and yet I have found time in the quiet watches between 1 a.m. and 7
a.m. to commit to memory some part of the Golden Treasury and my
much-despised Longfellow.
As Army correspondence has it, your remarks re
duty and sacrifice are duly noted. I don't think I ever considered
the question before, as duty is such a commonplace thing among us
that we never think of it. We do not pose as heroes; our feelings
take a lower range. For myself, when a very unhealthy job conies my
way I just say to myself, "I've got to do it?so here goes," and I
don't think that the idea of duty or sacrifice ever enters my head.
It will be time enough, after the war to remember what splendid
fellows we were.
At present the cold here is worse than the Hun,
and if you are having weather like this I can picture youthful
Lisburn disporting itself at Brookmount. It seems like yesterday
that we were all there together, with the mater patiently waiting in
the brougham to take us home. Snow is a double curse out here, for
it shows up tracks beautifully clear to Hun aeroplanes, who note
where they lead, and then?poor battery !

DRAWING A MAP.
15th April, 1917.
To-day the clouds have emptied countless gallons
of rain on our heads, but you almost get used to that. At 7.3o a.m.
I was detailed to a new observation post we have built with the
assistance of a sapper or two. I had to draw a panorama and
visibility map and make the place habitable for the unfortunate who
has to occupy it to-night. The last part of my task I have done in
my very best style, but as I could hardly see the Boche first line
my sketching was never started. I sincerely hope someone will get
the job now, for field sketching was never one of my strong points,
though I have made a mighty name for myself in this line. Perhaps
you would like to hear the story. Last November I had the job of
repairing a disused observation post, and as a panorama did not
exist I had to provide one. It was a tremendous business, for the
view was an extensive one. I took rather too much time over it, and
H.Q. began to rage because they had not seen my efforts. In disgust
I sketched in a most lifelike, amiable pig at the door of a farm
house in Hunland, and liberally dotted the heavens with flights of
ill-assorted birds. I handed my work of realistic art to the Major,
thereby thinking to win his sympathy ; but, to my dismay, with a nod
of approval, he sent it off to Group, who forwarded it to Heavy
Artillery H.Q., and I have now some name among the Greeks. I might
add this is still the only picture of the line from this particular
observation post.
12th April, 1917.
To-morrow we move to a new position in the
salient, and the other two subalterns being just out from home?we
have had some casualties lately?the work of getting ready the new
place falls to me. As our moving has all to be done at night I
foresee very little rest for some time. However, as I am not greatly
in love with our present position, I am almost delighted to lose my
sleep. I have not seen the new place, but as I hear there is a
concrete mess I am quite ready to face any conceivable horror. We
have not yet had a single mess that would stop a " pip squeak " or 7
m.m., to say nothing of the much more terrible 5.9, the equivalent
of my own particular arm. . . . I have just been frightened out of
my wits. The whole mess has been shaken to its very foundation, and
several of the few remaining tiles have been dislodged. What has
happened I do not know, but I suspect that a very big mine or a very
big dump has been fired on our very particular front. I think it is
probably a dump, as neither side can blow a mine without one, or the
other, or both, becoming exceedingly nasty.
You dislike the thought of observation post work.
If so, you will be glad to know we get little or none of that now.
It may seem strange, yet I almost regret the quiet, thoughtful hours
spent there either reading or covering reams of paper with my
indifferent English, or watching the few hundred yards of
shell-scarred waste with its background of uncultivated land we call
the Front. There- I have just been gently shaken again, and begin to
fear beastly things called " duds " in close proximity, so I shall
hurry like a wise man to the cellar and write in more security.
Last week I attended the first active service
funeral I have been to, and it has made an: impression on my mind
that will not easily be erased. The body was that of a friend I
loved very dearly. We supplied the firing party and trumpeter. Four
of us carried the stretcher, covered with the flag, to the
graveside, and I couldn't help thinking no man could have a finer
burial. Borne by his friends, followed by the men he had led, a
battery in rear-firing salvoes over his grave, and the solemn sound
of the Last Post " mingled with the roar of the guns?that was the
picture, and it will live in my mind till the end of time. I am sure
most of us were more affected than we would care to admit

27th July, 1917.
By this time you will have heard of my "soft"
job. But I do not think I shall ever again sneer at that
depreciatory phrase as I used to do in the days when I knew no
better. I am now back about eight or nine miles at advanced
railhead. Certainly, after the last three weeks in the line I envy
the A.S.C. I have a very comfortable billet in a wooden hut on the
side of a slight rise, the only one in the district. As I write I am
sitting on my bed, looking out to the west over the valley and up
the slope of the hill about seven miles away. Before me lie corn
fields and copses, grazing lands and hay fields with the hay all in
cocks, and the white stretches of roads and tracks dividing them
all. What I now know as " War " is hardly present to my eyes. A year
ago I should have had a very different feeling if I had viewed the
scene in England. Among the fields are scattered the rest camps, and
the strains of a Scotch regiment's pipes and a bugle sounding the
First Post break the silence. A cloud of dust on the road points out
a party returning to camp, and yonder goes a despatch rider on his
unknown errand. All this seems to have hardly anything to do with
war. But the distant rumbling I know so well now, reminds me of what
is going on in the blood-stained salient where men are fighting and
dying in the unending festival of King Death. One cannot help one's
thoughts. Again and again when I see these splendid, cheery,
unconquerable lads of ours enjoying their short rest, I think of
where some of them may be going in a clay or two, of how the mills
of war will grind them, and how many may never come back. But I am
growing morbid. It won't do.
To come back to my job. Batteries were
complaining about the quality and quantity of their rations, and
after many protests to the A.S.C. our Colonel decided that the only
thing to do was to send an officer down to look after the supplies,
and I was selected for the job. Why I know not. However, here I am,
and my sole and single duty is to overlook the distribution and
portioning of the rations of our group of batteries?about nine in
all?and to make myself as objectionable as I am able. I am looked
upon as an interloper, and I understand the outraged A.S.C. is very
angry about my presence here.
Already I am told there is a vast flight of
official correspondence on the wing. What I am afraid of is the
A.S.C. will go to the Corps H.Q. first, and as H.Q., quite rightly;
will not be worried about trivial matters at a time like this, I
shall be sent back at a moment's notice. But the job suits me down
to the ground; and I hope for the best.
As my work is merely to watch the drawing of
rations, and this is all over at 10 a.m., I have a good deal of
spare time, and in the last two days have made a start on my series
of short stories. I have almost finished one, and, frankly, am
disgusted with the result. I will tell you my trouble. I have no
difficulty in: finding a subject?these are plentiful as
blackberries?and no difficulty in expressing myself ; but, after
reading over the result, it is not the thing as I had seen and
realised in my mind. It is unnatural. It does not move with life. It
is stilted and unreal. The characters are not good, honest,
wholesome flesh and blood. My descriptions are long and wearisome,
or short and. unilluminating. Some day I may write something to
cheer and comfort a weary world, but the time has not yet come.
Therefore I buried my notebook fathoms deep in my kit, and comforted
myself with the cheerful hope that sonic day I may do better.
10th August,
1917.
This is my second serious attempt to write you
since the date of my last letter. I made an effort yesterday, but I
don't think even you could have wooed the Muse in such surroundings.
It was my day at our forward position. To call it a position is an
abuse of imaginative language, for it is nothing more than a
desolate mud heap, where the mud is not quite so deep as in the
surrounding heaps. Yesterday was the first dry day for a week, and "
things" around us have begun to smell. Our dug-out, in which it is
impossible to sit upright, was stuffy as an oven and steamed in the
heat, while the gentle Hun was all day paying delicate attentions to
a battery about a hundred yards away on our left front. You can
therefore understand my silence yesterday. Tonight I am doing the 3
a.m. till 9 a.m. watch under a bridge. Outside things are almost
ominously quiet, but inside, as I write, there are two most
distracting sounds?the buzz of mosquitoes and the snores of my two
gun crews. For the last half-hour I have been noting the dozen of
distinctly different tones, and it has occurred to me that they
might be used in the same way as finger prints.
What do you think of the newspapers now ? I
haven't seen one for ten days, but I know they are full of
flamboyant headlines?Great Allied Victory in Belgium?Intense
Artillery Bombardment in Flanders?Big British Push?and so forth, and
everyone is talking of the beginning of the end. Personally I am not
even beginning to think of it. These things look magnificent when
set out in the daily press, but they are far?far?far from reality.
A week ago I stood on a pinnacle of cheerfulness,
was congratulating myself that we personally had got the worst over,
and was proud as a king to see a few hundred prisoners?the fruit of
our labour?slouch past our position. Everyone?gunners, infantry,
cavalry?was looking cheerful. The walking wounded, with broken arms
and heads staggered along with always a joke and good news, and even
stretcher cases, poor souls, had a smile. Now everyone, from General
to private, is back again in the slough of despond, and curses the
rain; and I am looking forward with far from pleasant anticipations
to another artillery preparation. Still?such is the mind of man?I
derive great comfort from the thought that though it is pretty
rotten on this side of the line it is some odd hundred times worse
on the other.
I have grown very vindictive since the 30th, when
my dear old friend, J. S., the best and bravest and cheeriest of
comrades, met his fate by a German sniper. Still we can't get away
from the fact that the weather is the main cause of our ill-fortune.
Yesterday it looked like clearing, but to-day it is nearly as bad as
ever. Leather and waterproof won't stand the rain and mud for more
than a day, and I cannot think how often I have changed my clothes
from the skin out during the past week.

THE FIGHT FOR THE RIDGE.
23rd
November, 1917.
You know by now that I am safely posted as
Brigade Signal Officer. I shall give you as short as possible a
description of my duties. I am more or less my own C.O., and have
twenty-two men under my command, three horses, two motor bicycles,
and a motor lorry. I am responsible for the maintenance of all
communications to and from Group Headquarters, to Corps Heavy
Artillery, to all the batteries in the Group, to battery waggon
lines, to Group Observation Post, as well as to the alternative one,
and to the kite balloon section. These lines are called permanent
lines. They are " in buries" and on poles, so that they do not cause
a great deal of trouble. But I am also responsible for establishing
visual signalling between observation posts and batteries, batteries
and batteries, and groups as a stand-by in case the line should go.
This is essential between observation posts and batteries, for long
ago the impossibility has been realised of maintaining communication
between the battery and observation post when the line has to run
across ground covered by the Hun S.O.S. barrage. The visual has been
my greatest trial, for the country is so flat and the line so ragged
that it is difficult to set up a visual station where signalling can
be done without hostile observation.
However, I got it done, and, strange to say, on
the 20th, it worked splendidly and proved invaluable. In addition to
the aforesaid duties I am technical adviser to the battery signal
officer, and lay down the law as to where his lines have to go and
how and when. I also keep the batteries up to strength in signalling
stores, and overlook the working of their exchanges, and there ends
my work. It may sound an extensive programme, but it is really not
very arduous. The work keeps me on the move, and it is intensely
interesting, for one is always meeting new faults and facing new
problems which take any amount of hard thinking to get over.
Certainly there is this to be said about my new job?the society of
the mess is most congenial. The Colonel is a fine old fellow, a
typical Regular, who, like most of his tribe, has travelled the wide
world over. At times I am rather inclined to wish he had not
included India in his wanderings, as his liver sometimes worries him
-- and his officers. The Adjutant laid down the brush when he took
up the sword, and amuses himself and bewilders everyone else by
putting R.A., R.A., after his name. We have a most interesting M.O.,
late of Harley Street, who delights in gruesome tales of his two
years' infantry work at Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, the Somme, and Vimy.
In his more gentle moods he can talk well on all imaginable
subjects, and interests me more than a little. The O. O I knew when
he was with a battery--a curious, pleasant bird. He is an Oxford
man, was Attach?at the Embassy it Constantinople, and is, without
doubt, the most polished romancer, in a kindly fashion, I have ever
net. We have also a Padre, a dour North Country Nonconformist?such
are the ways of the War Office?who still talks about his flock, and
would, I think, in moments of excitement?if he could be excited?call
the Colonel his dear brother. Of course, like all human beings, we
have our loves and hates, worries and troubles, but on the whole we
are a very cheery crowd, and the war?the worst part of the war, for
I know what that means now?does not always come too close to us.
I expect -you will want to hear anything I can
tell you about the glorious 20th. I am afraid, however, I cannot add
much to what you have already read except the little story of my own
humble part in the mighty drama. At 5 a.m. on that memorable morning
I was perched under the few remaining tiles of what, I imagine, was
once a very fine schoolhouse. Here I had established one of my
visual stations for the purpose of reading messages signalled back
by lamp and telegraph. Naturally my position commanded a fine open
view of our Corps front, and I an afraid I was guilty of leaving my
two signallers to real the messages while I glued my eyes to the
telescope and tried to catch some glimpse through the flank and
smoke and early morning mist, of the terrible happenings away in
front. I confess I did not see much?the gloom was impenetrable
beyond the Hui barrage line, which falls where he thinks our
infantry will come up. But I was able to gather pretty well how
things were going, judging by the Very lights sent up by the
infantry and answered by our contact planes, which flew as low as
possible over them all the time. I spent the day at that station
checking messages and transmitting them to H.Q. In the intervals I
occupied my leisure in trying to count the batches of prisoners?a
very cheering pastime?and questioning any of the walking wounded of
our own brave fellows who felt inclined to talk. These were a
spectacle not quite so cheery, except for the good news they
brought, and the thought that most them were bound for the
much-desired haven of home.

28th
November, 1917.
I have been trying to finish this letter for the
last three days, but have really never had more than ten minutes'
rest. Everything on the communication side of the group has had to
be changed on account of H.Q. moving forward. After our latest
captures, batteries have had to be pushed on and observation posts
advanced. I thought I had already seen something of war, but from 4
o'clock a.m. on the 26th till yesterday at 6 p.m. I have seen all I
ever want to see again. I do not care to dwell on it, and I cannot
describe my experience. That would need the brutal realism of Zola.
It happened like this. On the 26th we?that is my
group?had to establish an advanced observation post at a late Hun
strong point, some four hundred yards behind the front line?perhaps
I should say the yawning series of shell-holes which constitute the
front line. Naturally we had to have a line laid out, and though it
was not my job to see to it personally, I thought it best to see it
laid down under my own eyes. At 4 a.m. I started off for our present
observation post, and walked up from Group H.Q., cadging a lift on a
transport carrying up rations for men and guns, till I reached a
point where I had to leave the road and strike across country. I
passed first through the area of heavy batteries?once our
observation post area, which I know so well?and then across last
year's No Man's Land and the old Hun line now occupied by the R.F.A.
This ground, too, was familiar to me from many a weary vigil. Then I
went on up the slope to the first ridge through the shell-holes,
remains of trenches, pill boxes, strong points, and smells?faint at
first, but more poignant as I got further forward. At last I reached
our observation post, but was too late to start work before dusk.
The observation post is an old Hun dug-out, and one can judge from
its massive strength and comfort that he intended to stay here, and
to stay indefinitely. It was too dark to see anything of what" was
going on in front, so I made myself comfortable in one of the bunks,
smoked a pipe, and wondered how many Hun officers had done exactly
the same a few weeks before ; and whether these officers were as
tired of the war as I was, or settled into that bunk with as many,,
wishes for a quiet night. As a matter of fact, I had a quiet night.
The Major who was manning the observation post was a very keen
fellow, and though I offered to relieve him he would not hear of it,
and declined my services. So I slept the sleep of the just with a
quiet conscience till 7 o'clock. Having breakfasted on tea (minus
milk) , bread (minus butter) , sardines and bully an excellent
meal?I started off to lay my line. Everything was quiet in the grey,
solemn light. The only moving thing I saw was a party or two of
stretcher-bearers, with their pitiful burden, trudging back along a
trench to a dressing station, a mile or so in the rear, and a few
more, led by a padre, carrying their stretchers and going forward on
their noble errand.
I carried my line across the shell-holes to this
track, and, as the going was easier, followed it on. How I wished I
had not ! I had gone about two hundred yards down the track when my
sense of smell warned me of what was coming. Here were a couple of
horses possibly three days dead, and then I stumbled on all that
remained of what was once a German?and another?and another?in awful
and rapid succession. I thought of leaving the road, but found the
going too heavy in the shell-holes?remember I had my wire to
carry?so I was forced to come back upon the track. I will not
continue to describe the sights I saw, but at one spot the road for
about a hundred and fifty yards was literally paved deep?I do not
exaggerate?with German dead, ghastly, mutilated, contorted. I
noticed a few khaki-clad figures here and there. I cannot tell you
how glad I was to reach my destination?an old farm house, concreted
and loop-holed?and find stimulus and refreshment in my flask.
On my way back I kept off that road, but found
the cross-country route nearly as bad. I passed Englishmen and
Germans side by side in eternal amity?some half-buried in the open,
some whose only distinguishing mark was an arm or a leg and a crowd
of flies. Heaps of equipment, rifles, ammunition, bombs, rations,
broken and blood-stained stretchers, were scattered everywhere. I
was inclined to shut my eyes and run, but by keeping my imagination
well in hand and thinking about nothing but the shortest and safest
way back I got to my quarters quite safely, perspiration streaming
off me, a very empty feeling in my stomach, and a very weak feeling
in my knees. Not at all a hero, I was once more guilty of breaking
the pledge with very weak rum and water. My adventures did not end
here. In the afternoon one of our batteries had to do a shoot on a
target which was rather close to our infantry line, so I set out for
Battalion H.Q. to warn them. By this time I had found the best way,
and my journey was not too unpleasant. As I was coming back,
however, the Hun thought fit to put down a barrage, and by good
fortune I got right into the middle of it. For fifteen minutes I saw
all my past life float before my eyes. I anathematised the size of
my tin helmet, wondering if it would stop a 5.9, and thought how
great the chances were of a shell dropping right into the hole in
which I was cowering. It was not a pleasant position. Yet, when it
was all over, I decided I would much rather face that ordeal a
second time than have to lay that wire down that road of death
again. Travelling over that ground where shell-hole touched
shell-hole, I could not help wondering how men had ever lived
through it as our glorious infantry had, and, watching the Hun
barrage, I thought what a hell it had been. Yet, coming back at
night, I met a wounded officer, who talked about it as " a lovely
scrap," and I think his enthusiasm was genuine?for the moment.
Now I do not want you to think this day's doings
arc the usual sort of thing I have to do. My job as a rule never
carries me now beyond the battery positions, and I spend a lot of
time with incensed battery commanders, who think it my special
business to repair their lines.

A CHANGE OF FRONT.
5th October,
1917.
You know, of course, of my welcome change of
front. To say that I am delighted is to put it mildly. I can hardly
realise it yet. Everything here is exactly opposite to what we had
in the deadly salient. The country is a series of rolling hills, for
we advanced here a little time ago, and the heavies find the edges
of the woods abound in targets with unpleasant result to the trees.
The ground is chalky, and lends itself admirably to tunnelling. Not
that we had much to do in that way, for the obliging Hun knows how
to dig himself in, and we now enjoy the fruit of his labours. Our
dug-outs are palaces, strong against both the enemy and the weather.
Coming from the land of eternal mud, I have never seen anything like
them before. Not, indeed, that we need dug-outs here, for peace on
earth and good-will to men seem to reign more or less in this new
world. Again, an almost unbelievable thing, coming from the land of
eternal shells?Group H.Q. is in a chalk pit, the sides of which have
been burrowed into by the Hun, and which was made a strong point by
him, as a good many of our poor fellows found early this year.
I have had a very busy time these last few days
getting round my lines, batteries, and observation posts. Here our
batteries do not lie in compact little clusters as they did a little
further north, but are spread out with a section here and there. So
I cover a good deal of ground in the course of the day and bless the
horse and motor cycle. But, indeed, it is glorious to wander about,
up hill and down dale, without the terrible shrinking sensation that
a bloodthirsty Hun is watching you, as we always felt in the
Salient, and that at his earliest convenience a 5.9 will arrive with
uncomfortable accuracy. Walking and moving far afield in the open is
no longer a trial and a tribulation, but a pleasant and healthful
exercise.
We have heard rumours of great successes in my
old, unregretted home in the Salient, but only rumours. If they are
well founded, winter will be a more cheerful time this year than
last in that part of the world. One thing I cannot help but
notice?one takes a great deal more interest in a push when one is
not one of the little wheels that keep it moving. My own feelings
confirm my observation.
Your desire that I should be back with a battery
has at last been gratified, as you no doubt have known for some
days, and certainly nothing could be duller and less dangerous than
my present occupation. I am still on the same front, and, except for
having a little less work to do, I might as well be at Group H.Q. I
was up at our observation post to-day?the O.P. plays a great part in
our lives. What a different walk it was to the last I had in the
nightmare north, with not a sound of shell, machine gun, or
aeroplane. The observation post itself is in a trench carefully
camouflaged. It has a very fine view?a perfect gunner's dream. It is
splendid to sit comfortably warm and safe, and look down on every
Hun movement for miles back, and to think that the Boche is now
experiencing that perfectly beastly feeling of always being spied
upon?a feeling I was never without until a month ago.
I had to register two of our guns, and was almost
surprised when I heard a shell roar over my head, and was quite
frightened at the noise it made. This is a very different world from
Ypres. It is one thing to say "Fire No. 1," and hear a dull solitary
boom. Then No. 1 comes whining along with a louder and louder
screech, and then, as the sound grows less and less, you finally see
a cloud of smoke and dust go up in Hunland and you know No. 1 has
done its bit. It was quite another thing to give the same order a
month ago, and hear a thousand booms and a thousand No. is whir over
your head, and sec a thousand No. is blow an acre of Hunland to
pieces. I was very proud of my shoot to-day, and got four O.K.'s on
one little trench of one hundred yards long and a foot or two broad.
We are busy on our winter quarters at present. As
usual here we are naturally not building, as the soil necessitated
in the north, for we sleep twenty feet under ground, and I think if
the war does not become a little more interesting I shall turn in
for the winter, like the mole or some other hibernating animal.

AN ADVANCE PARTY.
20th October,
1917.
I have never yet described the thousand and one
little incidents and adventures which befell me on my journey here,
and it will interest you to hear them. The news of our intended move
was not altogether fresh--and neither were our batteries?when the
order for an advance party came over the 'phone. It was, however,
rather a shock to find myself chosen to conduct it. I had just one
hour's notice, but after a little practice that time is sufficient.
My orders ran in this sequence : To my batman" Pack all my kit.
Leave out my torch. Fill my flask. Put some rations and my shaving
gear in my haversack." To my sergeant-major?" Detail me fourteen men
and a bombardier. Tell them to load the lorry with corrugated iron
and sandbags, four picks and spades, four shovels, a maul, a saw, an
axe, and a measuring tape. Detail two men to go to the Batt. Q.M.
Sergeant and draw two days' rations for all, and a jar of rum. All
kit and equipment to be carried. Report when ready."
We moved out ten minutes before the hour. I was
afraid we had started too well. Hardly had we lost sight of our late
never-to-be-regretted home when, all against my advice, the driver,
who declared he knew the country like the palm of his hand, insisted
on taking a most treacherous-looking road. In a few minutes down we
went over the axle. For an hour my fifteen sturdy heroes digged and
heaved and sweated over that wretched lorry. Finally it came most
reluctantly out of its bed of mud, and we got it back on the main
road. I had made many heated and unpleasant remarks to the driver in
our impassioned Irish way, which I am afraid hurt his feelings but
certainly inspired him now to make frantic efforts to beat Father
Time. I simply hung on in sheer despair and prayed for, at the most,
a broken leg. It was well for all concerned that the road was clear.
Then we came to a railway crossing, where a car bearing an army
commander's flag signalled loudly for us to give way. But my driver
was obdurate. He certainly pulled to the right side, and then
proceeded to race the fiery chariot of the army commander for the
first passage of the level crossing. We just won by a short head. I
fairly groaned when I heard the infuriated hooting and horrid
pounding in the rere. A moment or two later a large white car, its
front mud-guard badly bent, drew alongside, and a gilded
scarlet-tabbed-and-faced G.S.O.T. gave me the benefit of a
vocabulary which must have taken years of patient practice to
acquire. Most decidedly he astonished me.
For another eight or ten miles all went well.
Then it was I who tried a short cut. The road I took was good but
narrow, and I had hardly steered my now docile driver a quarter of a
mile when a traffic control fellow halted us and made short work of
my short cut. I was against the arrow. From the A.P.M. and Army
Control point of view to move against the arrow is au unpardonable
sin, and I was very much against it. First I tried the high hand,
then persuasion of the gentlest, then bribery and corruption, but
all was of no avail. I was up against the Incorruptible. " Very
sorry, sir ; but you will have to turn back." So back perforce I
went, and, I need hardly say, to turn a three-ton lorry in a narrow
lane is almost heart-breaking.
Once again we got under way, and yet again got
badly against the arrow. This time I spotted a track running
parallel to the main road, and still trying to break all speed
records, made a heroic attempt upon it. Here I just crowned my
misfortunes, for after about two hundred yards, with a sickening
lurch and crows of profanity from the driver, the old ship got
firmly stuck in a narrow drain beside the road. When I had more or
less recovered from the shock I climbed out, gazed on the
consequences, and was finally conquered. Nothing short of a
breakdown gang would get that lorry out, so I started on a two-mile
tramp to the nearest village to appeal for help and sympathy. Of
course it rained, and of course there was mud. Mud ! There was
always mud.
Never was a village more welcome, and never was
one more deserted. A town major and a couple of waiters at an
officers' club were the only inhabitants. At this point I almost
looked on myself and the lorry as lost for ever, so I made the best
of my unhappy plight and took what cheer the club afforded. Whether
it was the bottled beer or the seasonable warmth of an excellent
stove I do not know, but presently I took fresh heart, and was just
sailing off back along the road to conquer or die. The age of
miracles is always with us, but it was almost unmanning to find that
fatal lorry, " rigged with curses dark," awaiting my pleasure at the
door. How it got out of that bottomless pit I cannot to this day
discover. According to my worthy bombardier, " We sorter heaved and
she sorter came out." The picture leaves something to the
imagination.
This seemed to be the last of my troubles, and we
dashed up to Corps H.Q. like a General of Division. I invaded the
Staff Captain, told him who I was, what I was, where I had come
from, and mildly inquired what I had to do. He gazed at me blankly,
and murmured, "Ha! Hum ! I am sure I don't know !" This was indeed
the top stone with shoutings. However, after very mature
consideration, he appealed over the wire to someone called " Jimmy,"
and " Jimmy," whom I afterwards discovered was the admirable Brigade
Major, apparently told him to send me to my new Group. I got to
Group just between dusk and dark, and was greeted by the Colonel, a
friendly person with hospitable ways. He invited me to look on the
wine that is amber and the water which fizzes, and we chatted
amicably for an hour on many varied but irrelevant topics. Then he
suddenly remembered I must have come for something. He inquired, and
I answered politely. He consulted with his Adjutant, who in turn
consulted with the Brigade Orderly Officer. He was my last straw,
but an excellent one at that. I had a battery position to make,
material for which would be provided in due course. In the meantime
I was to billet in another battery with my men. Its billets were to
be found at X Corps Co-ordination. Cheered and comforted by my
friendly reception and the tantalising dream of a dinner and a bed,
the pilgrim--a little weary and travel-worn?again set forth. But the
co-ordinates were wrong, and I scoured the country in the dark for
what seemed unutterable ages. At last, at the unseasonable hour of
10.30, completely by mistake, I walked right into the mess. Never
call the English a reserved and unsociable race. I was welcomed with
open arms. In the rain and cold one of their officers turned out to
show me billets for my long-suffering men, and rooted out one of the
cooks to provide them with a hot meal. I issued rum?the delicate
spirit that brings content--and got back to mess a little after 11
o'clock, to find an excellent dinner and my bed awaiting me. I could
have fallen on their martial necks and saluted them all with a
chaste kiss, only it is not done in our Army. So ended my momentous
journey. But, after all, it was really a wonderful day.

29th October,
1917.
We plod on here from day to day, making work for
the sake of something to do. General officers inspect us twice or
thrice a week, each of these leaving us, as a sort of souvenir, one
or two of his little fads to work on. A shoot is now a Great Event,
and instead of the shrug and grumble which invariably greeted such
an announcement a month ago, now everyone is excited as a child with
a new toy, and the fellow who is lucky enough to be chosen to do it
is an object of jealous admiration. I am as bad as the rest, and I
thought only a short time ago that guns and gunnery would never
interest me again.
We live in daily dread of Generals. Guards are
mounted ; almost peace time parades are held. Buttons and boots are
polished, the guns shine, shells are oiled and arranged like
Guardsmen. We move about in belts and watch every puddle for fear of
a spot of mud on our splendid beauty. My business is to look after
the guards. I parade and mount the guard every morning and teach
rifle drill all day, trying almost in vain to break all the
traditions of the R.G.A. by instilling some smartness into a bunch
of unhappy and perfectly indifferent gunners.
As the General progresses from battery to battery
his particular fad precedes him. As thus: " General X. is at Y
Battery, and will probably be at your place in fifteen minutes. He
is dead nuts on gas drill." Promptly we parade all our fellows and
give them a rehearsal of gas drill. All our gas gongs are polished
and made to look as prominent as possible. The guard is told what to
say if the old gentleman asks them their duties in a gas attack.
Then our General appears, and we feel quite certain all is well with
the world. But, alas ! he forgets gas for the moment and marches
straight for the cook-house, which would grace a stable. Curtain !
Yesterday the " General " alarm reached us, and
for half an hour I paraded my guard, admonished them, warned them,
swore mildly at them, and kept them presenting arms till they did it
like one man. When the General hove in sight, all brass and gold,
and my carefully-trained sentry, in spite of all my training, lost
his head, fiddled with his rifle, tried to Speak, looked round like
a frightened rabbit, and bolted to the guard-room. I could have
wept, and the sentry nearly did the same when I had finished with
him.
My turn for observation duty is about round
again, and will be quite welcome just for something to do.
Observation posts here, with their concrete, their deep dug-outs,
covered approaches, thirty-feet periscopes, beds and fireplaces, are
a pleasant and wholesome change after a sheet of corrugated iron and
a sandbag or two as we had in the Salient.

13th January,
1918.
I write this letter from a little oasis in the
great desert of War. In other words, I write from the quiet pastures
and still waters of a hospital, where I am sent by the wise to
suffer from an attack of measles--an infantile disease quite
unbecoming a soldier. Before I left for these Elysian fields the
battery had changed its position. You may remember I hinted in a
former letter that I had a feeling in my bones there was going to be
a shift of some sort. The premonition was authentic. Our move was
not very far, but just far enough to add considerably to the usual
discomfort of any move. The battery is now split into three
sections?forward, centre, and rear. My old command was the rear
section, but our new Major (genus homo) has changed things a little,
and we all have to do our turn forward, an arrangement of which I
cordially approve. I only did two days up there, and not very
pleasant days. Two of us ran the show.
We lived in an old gun emplacement?Hun-made, and
therefore well made. But I have always found Hun-work more
utilitarian than comfortable. It was a most draughty place. All the
winds of heaven blew through it, and, sickening for this disease, my
cold grew worse and worse. We lived, slept, cooked, ate, and drank
all in the same place. There was a certain amount of shelling. I was
in command ; I wasn't feeling fit, and I had a new Major I did not
know. My fellow-sub. was quite new to all the ways of war. It was
consequently with a profound sense of relief and a sigh of
contentment that I mounted the waggon for No. X. Hospital, via
a field ambulance.
I shall be sorry to leave this abode of peace. I
have been made very comfortable and been looked after like a real
invalid. The Sisters are really splendid and kindness personified.
The other man in my ward is a Lincoln?a grizzled veteran of
twenty-two. He is a very interesting fellow, and has been to the
Dardanelles, Mesopotamia, and Ypres, so I have heard some
blood-curdling experiences and, I doubt not, some exceedingly tall
stories.
How calmly these delightful days go by ! Here is
the chronicle of to-day's memorable events :?I cut myself shaving.
We got two new records for our gramophone. We smoked many cigarettes. The
orderly spilt my dinner while bringing it in. Voil?tout?and yet I
am very happy.
I don't know whether we are going to spend the
rest of the winter and spring in quiet or not in our present battery
position. It looks rather like it, but this condition of stalemate
cannot continue for ever.

21st April,
1918.
I have given you only a very brief and inadequate
account of what befell me on that awful week commencing March 21st.
But as I am sure you would like to hear all the details I shall do
my best to set them down for you, as far as I am able. In what is
left of our battery we do not care much to talk of it yet, for
though some of us have memories of the Somme in 1916, Arras in 1917,
Messines and Ypres behind us, not one of us has ever experienced
such a perfectly hellish time.
The greatest of all our blows, however, was the
loss of our beloved Major. I have now had quite a number of
commanding officers, good, bad, and indifferent, but never has it
been my good fortune to serve under so excellent a soldier, so
courteous a gentleman, and so splendid a man?the beau ideal of the
very perfect knight. I think I can truly say that there was not an
officer in the mess, nor one man in the battery who would not have
followed him to certain death and made the great renunciation with
delight. He was always thoughtful, always appreciative, brave as a
lion, and tender-hearted as a woman. I loved de Neuville with all my
heart. It will be many years before his memory grows dim?a memory
that is itself an inspiration. The uncertainty of his loss adds to
the poignancy of our grief. One or two of us still cling to the vain
hope that he may yet be alive, if a prisoner, but for my part I am
altogether hopeless.
I do not quite know where to start my narrative,
but I think I may brave the Censor and tell you more or less how and
where we found ourselves on the morning of the unutterable 21st.

The besom of war has now swept those fields clean
enough. We were in front of Vaulx-Vraucourt, well up the famous
Noreuil valley, which is perhaps, better known as Death Valley.
Certainly it deserved its name on the 21st and 22nd. We had also a
detached section behind St. Leger, but I will finish with Vraucourt
first, as did the Hun. On the 20th I was O.O., which was not a
particularly enviable post, as work was heavy and the 20th was a
busy day. I had a number of shoots and concentrations to run, and a
long programme to keep an eye upon during the night. The Brigade
Adjutant was also very busy, for he kept me on the 'phone almost
continuously the whole night, with the result that instead of
snatching a few hours' sleep I was unable to lie down at all. At
4.30 a.m. I began to think I had at last finished my work, and had
just laid down my weary bones, and was dozing off, when the Boche
opened with drum fire. That had me out like a shot.
S.O.S. was only about five minutes in coming
through. I tried to get the forward observing officer, but, as he
told me afterwards, the line had gone as soon as the enemy barrage
had come down. So far as we were concerned, therefore, we knew
nothing of what was going on forward. We could only conjecture
terrible happenings. At 5.15 a.m. the right section reported that
they were being heavily shelled with 5.9's. The Major went off
immediately to see them, and some of us never saw him again. The
left section then reported they were getting it hotly too, but could
carry on. Just at this moment a message with a new target came
through from Brigade, so I worked it out, but found the line to the
gun had been cut. I had, therefore, to employ a runner. How that
runner got through I do not know, for round the gun there was a
lashing hail of bursting shells. But no man can speak too highly of
our splendid gunners. On that dreadful day our rate of fire never
was reduced, though the detachments were thinned by casualties ; I
estimate the shells were falling about three a minute, all round and
in the pits. I am told the Major was everywhere, confident,
cheerful, heartening everyone?just himself.
My post became very uncomfortable about 8 a.m.,
with the result that we had to make a hurried move, taking all the
maps and instruments with us. But our change was rather out of the
frying-pan into the fire. Close mathematical work is not very
exhilarating under a rain of shell-fire, still we got out all our
new targets in good time, which was the main consideration. One of
the section officers was hit, and the man who was to relieve me at 9
a.m. went to the gun to take his place. The skipper and I carried on
in the B.C. post under a bank, with target after target pouring in
on us. The Hun was now doing an area strafe, and we appeared to be
in the centre of the cyclone. In such a case you never can tell what
the enemy is trying for or where the next shell will burst.
The enemy stopped shelling the guns for a short
time, which enabled us to relieve what was left of the detachments,
though I am afraid it was not much relief. All this time we had no
idea of the situation, except from rumour, and this was wild and
vague. Brigade was much too busy to be troubled by our enquiry.
However, about 12.30 p.m. the guns reported that
machine-gun bullets were coming over, and at 1 p.m. my Lewis gunners
also reported that what they judged to be hand-to-hand scrapping was
going on some thousand yards away on the right front. Half an hour
later they were firing on a party of the enemy coming down the
valley. At the same time we received orders to fire on a point only
some twelve hundred yards in front, and the guns reported two
casualties from machine-gun fire. We mustered what few rifles we had
and stood by for emergencies. The Major went forward to reconnoitre,
and came back to give the fatal, heart-breaking order to scupper the
guns and retire. He could see none of our infantry in front, and the
enemy were pouring down the valley in vast numbers. I think it must
have broken his great heart to give that order. He himself stayed
till everybody had gone. According to the bombardier who was with
him, he visited every dugout and emplacement to make sure that all
had left before he joined us. Coming back he was hit in the head by
a bullet--machine guns were sweeping the road?and as he could see no
help at hand, the bombardier says he carried him to the ditch, and
then came on, having first made certain the Major was dead. An
officer of another battery reports having seen him walking back
wounded in the arm, but we can learn no more, and, as I say, I am
without hope. The last we saw of our position was a party of Huns
bombing the empty dug-outs.
We set out carrying away what we
could?instruments, maps, a little kit, and our wounded, and made for
our rear section. 1 do not think I shall ever forget that terrible
journey. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm. I was carrying my
trench coat, a pack, a rifle, and the observation post officer's
coat, as he, poor fellow, was in a state of collapse and could
hardly stagger along. The men were split up into small parties, and
it was a trying job to keep them from bunching or straggling?the
first being dangerous owing to Hun 'planes, which were flying low
and machine-gunning every target, provided they were not too busy
with our own machines, and the second fatal, because it meant
valuable minutes wasted collecting the men again. You can picture us
! What with jangling nerves, lack of food and sleep and weariness
beyond words, I was myself not too happy, nor, I think, did any of
us at that moment feel that life held much worth having. To reach
our rear section was a matter of six kilos across country, edging a
little back all the time. The roads were decidedly unpleasant on
account of long-range guns, while they were crowded with transport
either moving up or coming back, ambulances, walking wounded, and
folk in the same plight as ourselves. The dust and heat were
intolerable.

I stopped at a cross-roads to collect stragglers
and partially disabled men, and having collected some twenty of them
pushed on again. My party was a sorry-looking lot, composed as it
was of the least lit gunners in the battery. Some of them were
without coats; some were carrying rifles, some what little kit they
could snatch up. One or two of them had been continuously on the
guns since 6 a.m. on the 20th, and were dead beat, poor souls ! to
the world.
It was 5.3o p.m. before we reached our position,
having safely disposed of our wounded on the way. I think what
heartened me more than anything else was the sight of our two guns
blazing merrily away and a party of Royal Engineers from a dump
playing football in the midst of Armageddon. A cup of tea, a
biscuit, and some bully beef, my coat on the floor of a dug-out, and
for four glorious hours the war was forgotten in the sweetest and
soundest sleep I ever had in my life.
Unfortunately, about ten p.m., the Hun started
harassing fire on the road and some hutments near by, and we were
compelled to take to our trenches for two hours ; after that we were
all to cold to sleep again. All the time our two guns were blazing
away sturdily. It was a miracle we had no casualties, for it was
really hot at times, one shell falling only ten yards from a gun. At
5 a.m. we had a sort of stand-to. I went out with my Lewis gun and a
small party of rifles, but at 7 o'clock, the Boche showing no sign
of attacking, we came in to breakfast.
All day we kept up our full rate of fire, only
resting to change targets or let the guns cool. One officer went
forward to try and get some information, but after six hours came in
again, having obtained little definite news. Brigade, however
assured us that all was well, until 4 p.m., when they asked us if we
could give them any information. Naturally we were unable to do so,
but shortly afterwards I noticed a battery of equal size to our own
commence to pull out. We reported this to Brigade, but the reply was
to carry on.
About an hour later a field battery alongside
told us they were bringing up their teams, but had no orders about
pulling out and going back. This we also reported to Brigade. We
were then ordered to have our transports standing by, and were given
a rendezvous some miles back. Up to this time except for a few
shells we had been left more or less alone, but at 5 p.m. something
unpleasantly like a barrage was coming down immediately in front of
us. A thick ground mist was blotting out everything within a
half-mile radius, and it was not until a field battery thundered
back along the road that we had much suspicion that all was not
still well. Again we asked for information, but only to find that
our line to Brigade was blown to bits. The Captain waited half an
hour longer, but as the line was still silent, and rumours called
loud and shrill that the Hun had broken through our right, he gave
the orders to pull out. Away we went, and, as it turned out, rumour
spoke no more than the truth, for, so far as I can gather, a short
hour afterwards our late position was the seat of some bitter
fighting.
The guns reached the rendezvous about 10 p.m.,
and at 11 p.m. we were all hard at work digging in, though officers
and men alike were pretty well at their last gasp. The grey and
dreary dawn found us ready for action with about a hundred rounds.
We had nothing but a few firing stores, as we had no transport with
which to bring them away, but we had enough to fire these hundred
rounds, and another three hundred which came up during the day. More
came up that night, the 23rd, but unfortunately one gull went out of
action and could not be repaired, so during the night of the 23rd
and 24th we toiled heroically and tried to double our rate of fire
with the one remaining gun.
At 4 p.m. on the 24th Brigade wired through to us
to send an officer forward to get in touch, if possible, with our
infantry, or, at the worst, to obtain some reliable information.
This duty fell upon my shoulders, and having selected four orderlies
I set out upon my quest. The Hun was at this time doing some counter
battery work, which made my progress rather difficult?so difficult,
indeed, that finally I gave up all hope of dodging and decided to go
straight up and take my chances.
When I had passed the battery area matters were
rather quieter, but further ahead the Boche was shelling in quite a
workmanlike fashion. More by good luck than good guidance?the star
of my destiny was shining brightly?I struck the Infantry Brigade
H.Q. for which I had been ordered to look, and there I gathered all
the information this very worried H.Q. could give me. That
information was not at all reassuring, nor was it very definite, but
I sent it back by two of my runners, while I set out to find another
Brigade whose position had been roughly defined for me on the map.
On this occasion my star was in eclipse, and luck was all against
me. I ran into a barrage to start with, and one of my runners was
slightly wounded, which, of course, delayed my progress. I scoured
the country for this mythical Brigade but could find it nowhere.

The barrage had now stopped, but there was still
a good deal of shelling, and the darkness which had now set in did
not make things any easier or pleasanter. I tried to retrace my
steps but became hopelessly lost?a little bit of floating wreckage
in the great ocean of war. Eventually, however, I found an Artillery
H.Q. who made me very welcome. Here I evacuated my casualty and
learned the cheerful news that the enemy were attacking on our right
and had made considerable progress. Away went my remaining runner,
and it was when my Brigade got this message and our remaining gun
went out of action, that my battery pulled out once again.
An hour later, three fresh runners were sent up
to me. By this time the advancing Hun appeared to be held, and I
accordingly sent two of the runners back with this report. They had
hardly disappeared when I was told our right flank had been broken,
and the group was ordered to get their guns away behind a new line
of defence. I waited with them until they had got all their
batteries out and moved off themselves. Then I set out to see if I
could discover anything on my own account. After some wandering I
alighted upon a battalion of infantry digging themselves in, but
they were very indefinite about the position of their H.Q. and could
give me no information. Having stumbled about another half hour, I
began to make my way back, and eventually I reached a fresh Brigade
of R.F.A. who were only keeping in action till the Brigade I had
been with were once more in position. They could really tell me
nothing?they were hopelessly in the dark?so I carried on back. By
this time I could hardly walk, not having had my boots off for four
days and being on my feet most of the time. At last, however, I
managed to get back to our post to find it?empty, and not a soul to
be seen. I could have sat down and shed tears.
I rested a few minutes, but as my runner went to
sleep and I nearly followed his example, I thought it best to report
at once to Brigade. It took me an hour to acomplish the two miles,
and the chair and drink at the end of it just about saved my
flickering life.
At Brigade I met Wilmot, who had waited there for
me. He had discovered that some lorries were to pick us up at
Bucquoy, three miles away. So we set out once more, and it was only
the thought of those lorries that carried me on?to find that they
had not arrived, and nobody knew when they would. But it was all in
the grim fortune of war. We crawled under a hedge and slept from 2
o'clock till 5 p.m., and then the lorries arrived. I mounted one and
Wilmot the other, and having filled them with men, set off for the
rendezvous some ten miles back.
Of that journey I remember only a few
dream-villages where life appeared to be going on much as usual. The
rest of the time I slept a sleep as deep as the Atlantic. At 9
o'clock we reached our destination to find the rest of the battery
breakfasting and performing its ablutions. It did not require the
delicious smell of frizzling bacon to remind us we had tasted
nothing since the preceding afternoon, and a couple of minutes later
brought to light a comfortable little estaminet?blessed be that
smiling hostess!?and five minutes afterwards a huge omelette and
excellent coffee brought a little blush upon the face of life again.
All day we tinkered at our two guns, but they
were beyond our skill. This being reported, orders came to billet
for the night. Another officer and I shared a bed in a pretty little
farm, and, speaking for myself, from 8 p.m. till 8 a.m. I remembered
nothing.
The rest I think you know. Sleep and rest and
food were the three things that occupied all our thoughts for the
next three or four days, and then some of us began to remember what
we had come through.
We are going back in a few days when we are
refitted. The news from the North seems rather terrible, but here I
think the Hun is well held. At least I hope so.

BACK TO THE LINE.
26th July,
1918.
We are back again to the old, old round of
stationary warfare?observation posts, shoots, shells, and shelling.
Once more these have come to seem part of our everyday life, which
is now almost monotonous. There are now no heroic stunts or
strategic movements. We are once again a dull, lifeless crowd, but
with one burning topic?leave. Everyone has now got over the effects
of rest, and has arrived at that necessary condition of despondency
and boredom which is really the only satisfactory state of mind if
one is to preserve a quiet life. We have been quite fortunate in our
new position. We are in a sunken road with very excellent pits, and
we now have a certain number of waterproof shacks. We are also the
proud possessors of two saps some thirty feet deep. The one drawback
to the position is that it lacks natural cover of any description,
and artificial camouflaging is a fine art known to few.
Even for the artist it is hard to obtain
perfection with the materials provided by a thoughtful
administration. For example, all our guns are covered with
grass-green nets. This is very excellent cover for three of the pits
which are dug in clover fields, but the fourth pit is on the edge of
a cornfield already turning brown. The result is that in a
photograph from the air this cover will show up as a square black
patch which even the most uninitiated eye could detect and place as
something unusual.
Should a strategic retreat again be necessary we
will have at least a sporting chance of getting away?a desirable
thing that was impossible in our last position. Here we have three
roads leading back ; there we had only one which was like the neck
of a bottle, and that most beautifully registered by the Hun with
batteries of every calibre up to 8 inches. Here we are a good way
back?just that pleasing half-way house never much visited by
howitzers, and two close to be much troubled by long range guns. We
are not quite so hard worked in the matter of observation posts, nor
are the observation post so far forward. We man a battery
observation post seven hundred yards from the front line, and once
in five days a Brigade Observation Post five hundred yards back.
Both are quite comfortable, having entranced saps and a splinter
proof cover. Our day observation post unfortunately comes within the
Hun retaliation barrage lines and is often an unpleasant dwelling
place. Three of us have already had a decidedly hot time there,
myself being one of the number. However, I retired in fair order to
the dug-out, which is proof against the pernicious 5.9.
As regards the air now-a-days it is a perfect
gunner's paradise. Since we came up the line again I do not think I
have seen more than ten Huns cross our lines, and then only for a
few moments. I do not, of course, include heavy bombers, which fly
like evil spirits at night, and two of which, incidentally, I have
seen come down burning brightly.

5th June,
1918.
This is by no means yet a peaceful front. The Hun
has become much too fond of " area stunts," and two or three minute
concentrations which are perfectly beastly things to experience. He
will take, for example, a battery area and suddenly put down three
minutes' gun-fire, covering, perhaps, four hundred square yards with
four or five batteries. It is quite useless to run. The only thing
to do is to lie down flat and hope for the best with a fluttering
heart. This kind of thing does not knock out batteries, but it gives
you most unpleasant sensations when crossing the open or going
through a battery position.
Once more we are having rather too much
observation post work, and no amount of protest from battery
commanders and carefully camouflaged hints from junior officers,
have the slightest effect upon Brigade, who deal with these things
with a lordly hand. My last twenty-tour hours were spent in one that
I do not love. It is a sap out from our first line in the wire, and
is certainly a splendid observation post for day work, as one
commands Boche land from its first line to its battery area, and it
has not yet been spotted. But at night the thought of having only
one of our patrols in front in the event of a Boche attack, or even
of the rush of a raiding party, does not tend to make one happy. I
spent a rather uncomfortable night there in my gas helmet, but the
Boche did not trouble me. It was a lovely June night. The air was
full of stars. Above me Orion looked down?the mailed warrior of the
skies?and far away " the star of the unconquered will " flamed with
the steadfast light of new hope and resolution. It was all so ,vast
and wonderful and full of majesty, and here were we, little ants?the
creatures of a day, striving to slay and kill each other. What are
we and all our pigmy. empires and kingdoms and thrones and myriad
armies under that? . And yet?and yet?I felt that one little ant had
his duty to do, and his insignificant part to perform while these
rolling worlds swept through space, and the morning stars sang
together. This little ant . must do his bit in order that other
little ants may live out happy lives, and the ant has its plate in
the universe as well as those flaming constellations. I worried this
thought out through my midnight vigil, and it really gave me some
happiness. I see some things more clearly than I used to do, and
thoughts like these grow and flourish in the mud and slime of war.
7th October,
1918.
I think it has come at last. The day has dawned
when we shall make an end of this senseless, brutal, bestial war,
and return home bringing the sheaves of peace.
As you know we have been going forward?forward?but
almost too slowly for my taste. This is, I suppose, what we may call
open warfare. It is certainly very interesting and a great deal less
monotonous than the old trench life, while it is certainly less
unpleasant than the pushing of last year. Yesterday and to-day we
stand in one of those pauses which are perfectly inevitable, but I
am waiting impatiently to see the Hun hit hard again, for I am
certain it would be a fatal mistake to let him settle. I have been
out three times on forward observation duty. Here one is always more
or less one's own master, and can take the least unpleasant and
unexciting places. As before, I have always been surprised at the
lightness of our casualties?that is so far as I can see. It is only
when we have attacked or been caught by machine-gun fire that our
list of casualties is long and heavy. The Hun shell-fire has been
negligible. He does not appear to be making a determined stand
anywhere, and I cannot see where he is going to find a real line of
resistance before he reaches the Meuse. We are having a fairly light
time at present. Roads are our one difficulty. The Hun either pays
no attention to his roads or has been too busy to work upon them.
They are certainly in a deplorable condition and are almost
impossible for us, or rather for our ammunition supply.
I had quite a pleasant day yesterday?of sorts. I
received my orders at a moment's notice and had no time to get
anything to eat. I had no definite instructions but to go forward,
so I simply wandered round the country worrying people who looked as
though they ought to know something. I discovered a little about
matters?but nothing to eat. However, putting a terrible hunger on
one side, I had really a good day. I avoided shells and other
unpleasantness very successfully, and luckily was able to jump on a
lorry which brought me practically all the way home.
Apparently the difficulty is that after our show
of the day before yesterday there is considerable doubt as to where
the Hun has gone. We have an officer out looking for him now, but
judging by the reports which have come back, he has had little
success. Anyhow, to-morrow, I think, we are sure to move. That is as
I would like it. Forward! Forward Scanned from an old family
album.
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