Читать книгу In The Trenches 1914-1918 - Glenn Ph.D. Iriam - Страница 16

In the early part of April we were moved from this sector, heading north eventually arriving at Poperinge, about eight miles south-west of the City of Ypres. From here we were sent north again marching through Ypres when it was still full of civilians carrying on the life of a city. Men, women and children crowded out to cheer us on as we marched through. Some of the finer buildings were still standing including the Cloth Hall. Part of it had been shelled badly however, I can remember a large roofless room with elaborate frescoes or wall decorations.

Fritz had been dropping some heavy howitzer shells into the town in the neighborhood of the square. Here I saw a shell hole that included in its diameter the whole width of a main street and a row of houses. I was told that this hole was made by one of the big berthas or 17 inch skoda howitzers. While we were passing through he was shelling the city with 11 inch howitzers. These shells made a terrific roar during their high arc through the sky sounding like death itself made vocal when they started on their downward plunge toward you from out of the skies. Something like a heavy express train passing at speed through a tunnel. The ground literally rocked from the force of their bursting.

When we came next through this town it was a crumpled ruin, void of all civilian life, and a charnel house of riddled corpses, and heaped up brick and stone. We still tramped away to the north getting out in the dismal flat swampy country to the east of Passchendaele. Here we were to take over a section of line from the French. We began to meet the Frenchmen coming out long before we got near our objective. I had a trip into the front line sector on some message and immediately on returning I was nailed to act as guide to two companies back over the same ground. I must have been exhausted from all the hiking to and fro under full equipment, for that trip seems very hazy in my memory and more like a nightmare than a reality. I had not gathered much knowledge of the lay of the land the first trip up and was really hazy as to my location now, for the night had shut down as black as ink and there was a deadly monotony or sameness about all the crossroads with a total absence of anything in the way of landmarks. In addition to this I was being heckled by some upstart of a junior officer. You’re a scout aren’t you? Why don’t you know this and why don’t you know that, Blankety, Blank-Blank etc–and so on. It came to a clash of opinions at last. He wanting to go his way and I determined to go mine. Another officer by the name of Lieut. Durant struck his spoon into the soup and agreed to follow me. Eventually we got into country with no roads, and only slippery foot paths meandering over flat low grass land. I was staking all on a sort of Indian instinct of direction and location by this time for all other guidance was useless. As far as the map and compass were concerned I was going from no- place to no- where and had nothing to start from. I landed eventually among some dilapidated trenches filled with water. The earth thrown out of these formed a zigzag slippery ridge which we used in the pitch dark as a foot path. I eventually recognized a trench junction I had seen earlier in the evening and heaved a great sigh of relief for I had been right from the start. This French outfit was supposed to have guides posted to meet and guide us into our proper sections of the line. They did not furnish any and we had to locate ourselves as best we could, straightening things out the next morning.

This was a hard looking piece of front line when we were able to see around a bit in the morning. The trench was in a very filthy and unsanitary condition. There were no provisions what ever for sanitation and in addition to this the dead had been left all over the place. Their legs sticking through the parapet. Dead were in the bottom of the trench with only a very thin sprinkling of earth over them. Out in front you could see them lying all over the place, both French and German. Phil McDonald was put on sentry duty in the front trench as soon as we got in. All night at his post he smelled a powerful smell. Daylight showed that he was leaning against the soles of a big pair of German boots built into the parapet. The owner of the boots was built in too. Paddy Reill crawled into a small dugout shelter to snatch a bit of sleep during the night and woke up to find he was using a corpse for a bedmate and pillow.

Lieut. Durand, a fine big fellow, in command of one of our platoons had a little sawed-off batman of cockney vintage. Durand was big and strong but several times on the long and hard march up here he had hitched and shifted his pack finding it heavy. Lo! and behold the Wee Batman had stuffed it full of his own belongings, including some choice souvenirs such as shell noses etc. Durand had lugged it all the way.

These Frenchmen must have been a lazy lot for the breast’work along here was very low, only one bag thick and patched up in the most slipshod manner imaginable. A 22 caliber rifle could have put a ball through it any place. The ground was too wet to dig down lower, and at any rate it was so full of filth digging it would have been almost impossible. There were no support trenches in the rear and God knows what would have happened in case of an attack. This place was known as Death Valley, it appeared to be well-named judging by the number of dead lying in it. It was a big wide depression in the plain with higher ground all around gently sloping into the bottom.

Directly on our front and stretching away for a couple of miles to the west was a long bare treeless ridge with its highest point about two and one half miles away and half mile on the left quarter. We were to get a closer acquaintance with the bare ridge off to the left a couple of years later. It was the Hill of Passchendaele. Our front line was at the bottom and following the base of some slightly rising ground along the south side of the valley. The bottom of the valley was flat, quite low, and wet in places. Opposite our right flank and at the far side of the flat was a straggling wood lot or bush. The German front line showed along the front of this, but was not occupied in full strength on account of it being too low and wet. Their main line followed the base of the hill further back and somewhat behind the woods. There was a re-entrant in their line about opposite to our centre, and here the lines must have been upward of 600 yards apart for some distance.

There were flares shot up from the German trench at night where it passed along the front of the wood lot, but studying it through the day we were of the opinion that these flares were only a bluff to give the impression that it was held in strength. To make sure of this we made a patrol at night, went over to this trench traveling along it for about eight bays without encountering any Germans. It was evidently only occupied at night in spots by patrols that shot up the flares we had seen. In the course of this patrol we came upon what had been a French outpost of eight men placed out in front of our right flank and facing the woods. This patrol or outpost had gone to sleep on duty one night. A German patrol came along and heard them snoring, crept up and bayoneted the lot. We had heard a rumor of this from the French and sure enough there they were, just as they had been left. Further to the left and in an open piece of ground we came on three Frenchmen in three separate shallow holes that they had tried to scoop out. They were about 15 feet apart and all facing the German lines. They looked so life like when we came upon them that we were startled and thought for a moment that it was an enemy patrol playing possum. They had evidently been caught in the open and tried to dig in but were killed before they could accomplish this. The whole valley was like this, and the night winds whispered over the dead in gusts and sighs , plucking away at their sleeves and moaning away among the willows along the water courses.

There was a ruined farm well out in the valley about 150 yards from the German line and approximately 400 yards from our lines. There had been several buildings in that location now mostly in ruins. What had been the dwelling house was still partly standing. The gable end toward our lines was still intact, but the opposite one had been blown down with the slate and tile roof sagging down on the upstairs floor. You could get in below, climb the rickety stair, getting in between the sagged tile roof and the standing gable, have a clear view of the enemy lines over a wide front. You had no real protection from rifle or machine gun fire but had good concealment and could look out between the slats and tiles of the sagged roof. Our O. C. wanted us to make frequent patrols to this place for fear Fritz might occupy it or fortify it with earth works making a strong point of it or a machine gun post to be later connected with his front line trench by saps constructed at night.

I wanted to study the enemy lines here, doing a bit of sketching, also trying to locate his machine gun and trench mortar positions, and try to get compass bearings and intersections on them where possible. Another scout by the name of Closett went with me one morning before day break and we reconnoitered the place eventually getting up under the sagged roof staying there all day as the valley was exposed, so any movement during daytime was sure to draw enemy fire. We took a bit of lunch and a bottle of water each. There had been a lot of live stock killed here laying all over in the enclosure around the buildings. Cows, pigs, horses , even dogs and cats and they also were all swollen up like balloons. The early April sun came out very hot and sultry beating down in that valley like a July day. Occasionally there would come a slight puff or breeze bringing the smells that we had to survive that day.

It was strong point alright. Directly in front at about150 yards was the enemy front trench. They had evidently tried to take the farm from the French sometime earlier. There in the hay field out front lay about 40 dead, lying in even rows on their faces like nine pins that had been knocked down in a bowling alley. They had full packs on their backs and were dressed in all the glory of the Prussian Army of 1914. Field grey from the tips of their toes to the top of the spikes on their helmets. They had dug a sap out some distance from the main trench using this as a jumping off point for the attack on the farm. Evidently the French had a concealed machine gun at the farm. There was about a dozen dead French out there also but somewhat closer to the farm house. How they met their fate I could not figure out, but there they lay in their spotless horizon blue uniforms. In the course of the afternoon one of our co. commanders got an idea in his bonnet to make a patrol working his way out there by following ditches shrubbery etc. taking about six men with him. I heard footsteps below on the gravel and broken tiles, and for a minute I did not know who it was. Closett took a sort of panic attack wanting to rush down and out with a lot of clatter which may have betrayed our presence. I had a job to hold him quit. A moment later I heard voices and I knew it was some of our men. I sat tight and let them away for I was not pleased with their stunt of exposing themselves and drawing the German’s attention to the farm. They were spotted alright and Fritz opened up with a splatter of rifle fire on them. They made off the way they had come and back to our lines.

When they got in they reported us two scouts as missing, believed captured, or killed. A lad from Kenora went down to hospital that day with a wound in his hand and while there wrote home about me going missing etc. My obituary came out in the home paper. I met the man that wrote it some months later up at Bulford Camp on the Messines Front. It was Billy Mitchell or (Slim Mitchell) and he still thought I was among the Angels.

We got down out of the loft about an hour after that patrol went back as it was sort of a trap up there with only one way of exiting and I was expecting a visit from Fritz for sure, now that the over-ambitious Capt. had advertised the farm. We had arranged for Corp. Gray and six men to come out that night after dark and relieve us acting as a listening post at the farm. Ten o’clock came and no patrol yet. I was just going to send Closett into our lines to see why, when I heard a noise in the orchard enclosure in front toward the enemy line. We had taken up a position in the rubbish at the centre of the farm court or enclosure flanked on three sides by the ruins. The whole place was enclosed by a thorn hedge with an orchard on the German side. Straight behind us was a gateway in the hedge. I could hear quite a large number of men moving about. They were whispering among themselves and finally started to encircle the hedge. I could hear them crawling outside the hedge in front and on both sides of us. I thought we had stayed long enough so poked Closett in the ribs and said go! We ran for the open gate behind, which was probably 50 yards away. There were broken tiles, brick, glass, and other rubbish under foot. We made quit a clatter as we broke cover. Before we got through the gateway fritz shot up a flare light from the orchard. We heard the putt and hiss of the flare going up and flopped flat, laying still until it burned out, when we were up running again. From the gate we ran about 80 yards to the left where there was a sort of embankment or terrace under a thorn hedge. We flopped behind this and peering through the hedge listened for awhile.

Then I happened to think about Corp. Gray and his six men. They might walk, unsuspecting right into the big German patrol, which I knew, must be at least 20 or 30 strong. I sent Closett back on the run and he was in time to intercept them just as they were coming out to look for us. They came out quietly to where I distributed them along the low side of the terrace. Orders were to start nothing rough but to make sure that the enemy did not attempt to fortify the farm. I went back to the lines soon for I had been out for over 18 hours and was tired, hungry, thirsty etc. The enemy patrol prowled about examining the place quietly and then made off without disturbing anything. I had often thought that if our officers had hurried a big patrol out, there working in from a flank quickly, they might have captured the lot.

In addition to all the dead cattle and pigs in that valley there were two or three live hogs roving about. We saw a huge white one mooching along at the front of the enemy trench at the edge of the woods one morning. Fred Barker shot it. We had found evidence while we were out on patrol, that these hogs were living off the bodies of the dead.

One morning after being on night patrol and feeling the need of a sleep we crawled out a few feet back of the breast’works and lay in the sun for a nap on a smooth patch of the hard baked clay. I think it was Corp. Gray and myself along with a couple of others. This spot must have been visible to an observer on the higher ridge back of the German lines for we were rudely awakened by a couple of small shells bursting right alongside us. I could reach over and touch the edge of the nearest hole. The shells were too small and slow traveling to be whiz bangs, nor they did not seem like trench mortars.

The little Cockney Batman before mentioned developed a sort of ghoulish tendency while we were in this part of the front. He started to pry teeth from the skulls of the enemy dead and collect other beautiful trinkets which he kept for souvenirs. I suppose his officer had to carry them too when they marched.

Things remained quiet here during are stay in Death Valley, and there were no outstanding events that I can recall now. I don’t know what unit held this part of the line when the big German drive started for Calais a week later. They must have had an unpleasant time unless there were new trenches dug further back during the intervening week before the big smash. The warm spring weather was rapidly ripening things on that valley. From that place we were moved to the left marching up the line again through St. Jean and St. Julien, then finally on down a long gentle slope to the bottom of another valley. Here again the ground was too wet for trenches and breast’works had been built instead.