Robert James Manion was a Canadian doctor who volunteered in the Canadian medical corps during World War I. This book is his memoir of the war. After the war he entered politics and served in several Canadian governments. The listener may note a lack of mention of the United States soldier; this is because the memoir was written before the entry of that country into the war.
By : Robert James Manion (1881 - 1943)
|
Life "out there" is so strange, so unique, so full of hardship and danger, and yet so intensely interesting that it seems like another world. It is a different life from any other that is to be found in our world today. In it the most extraordinary occurrences take place and are accepted as a matter of course.
I am sitting in a dugout near Fresnoy. Heavy shelling by the enemy is taking place outside, making life in the pitch-dark trenches rather precarious. A number of soldiers of different battalions on this front are going to and fro in the trenches outside. The shelling gets a bit worse, so some of them crawl down into the entrance of my dugout to take a few minutes' rest in its semi-protection. They cannot see each other in the blackness, but with that spirit of camaraderie so common out there two of the men sitting next each other begin to chat. After exchanging the numbers of their battalions, which happen to be both Canadian and in the same brigade, one says,—
"But you're not a Johnny Canuck; you talk like a Englishman."
"That may be; I was born in England. But I am a Canadian. I've been out there for seventeen years," the other returned a little proudly.
"Hindeed! I was in Canada only three years. W'ere'd you come from in old England?"
"Faversham, Kent."
"Faversham! Well, I'm blowed! That's my 'ome! What the 'ell's yer name?"
"Reggie Roberts."
"W'y, blime me, I'm your brother Bill!" Affectionate greeting followed, then explanations: The elder brother had gone out to Alberta seventeen years before while the younger was still at school. Correspondence had stopped, as it so often does with men. Fourteen years later the other boy went out to Ontario. When the war broke out, they both enlisted, but in different regiments, and they meet after seventeen years' separation in the dark entrance to my dugout.
On the front of our division, an order came through telling us that information was reaching the enemy that should not reach him. For this reason all units were ordered to keep a sharp lookout for spies since we feared that some English-speaking Germans were visiting our lines.
In our battalion at that time was a very good and careful officer, Lieutenant Weston. Rather strangely, one of the men of his platoon was a Corporal Easton. Shortly after the above order had come forth, Lieutenant Weston was sent out on a reconnoitering expedition by night into No Man's Land. He took as his companion, Corporal Easton. Over the parapet they crept between flares, and proceeded to crawl cautiously about among the barbed wire entanglements, shellholes, and ghosts of bygone sins and German enemies. At each flare sent up by us or the enemy, splitting the thick darkness like a flash of lightning, they pushed their faces into the mud and lay perfectly still, in order to avoid becoming the target of a German sniper, or even possibly of some over-nervous Tommy. If there is any place in this war where Napoleon's dictum that "a soldier travels on his stomach" is lived up to in a literal and superlative degree, it is in No Man's Land by night.
Their reconnaissance had lasted some two hours when they started to return to what they thought was their own battalion front. But, as sometimes happens, they had lost their bearings. While they were correct as to the direction toward the Canadian lines in general, they were really crawling to the firing line of one of the brigades to our right. Suddenly Weston, who was leading, found his chest pressing against the sharp point of a bayonet. He heard a voice hissing:
"Who goes there?"
"Two Canadians," he whispered in reply.
"All right; crawl in here, and no funny tricks or we'll fill ye full o' lead." At the point of the bayonet he and his corporal crawled over the parapet. They found themselves in the enlarged end of a sap that was being used as a listening post. In the darkness they could dimly see that they were surrounded by soldiers with fixed bayonets.
"What's yer name?" hissed the voice, for out there no one is anxious to attract a hand grenade from the enemy on the other side of the line.
"Lieutenant Weston."
"An' yours?" to the corporal.
"Corporal Easton."
"Weston—Easton; that's too damn thin. Now you fellows march ahead of us to Headquarters, an' if ye so much as turn yer head we'll put so many holes through ye, ye'll look like a sieve. Quick march!" And they plowed through the deep mud of the trenches till they were well back, then they came out and proceeded overland to H.Q.—headquarters. Here, after a few sharp questions, a little telephoning, and some hearty laughter, they were given a runner to show them the shortest route back to their own battalion.
Trench warfare as it has been carried on during this great war is different from the warfare of the past. Here we had—and have at the time of writing—on the western front alone, a fighting line five hundred miles long, with millions of the soldiers of the Allies occupying trenches, dugouts, huts, tents, and billets, on one side of the line, and the millions of the enemy in the same position on the other. For months at a time there is no move in either direction.
Trenches are merely long, irregular ditches, usually, though not always, deep enough to hide a man from the enemy. Occasionally they are so shallow that the soldier must travel on his stomach, during which time any part of his anatomy which has too prominent a curve may be exposed to the fire of the enemy. Of course this all depends on the architectural configuration of the traveler. Except trenches far in the rear, they are always zigzag, being no more than ten to twenty feet in a straight line, to prevent any shell's doing too much damage. The front trench is called the firing line; the next one, fifty yards or so behind, but running parallel, is a support trench; and other support trenches exist back to about 1000 yards.
Communicating trenches run from front to rear, crossing the support trenches. Here and there a communicating trench runs right back out of the danger zone, and these long trenches are at times divided into "in" trenches, and "out" trenches. Shorter communicating trenches run from support to firing lines. These different trenches give the ground, from above, the appearance of an irregular checker board.
The front wall of the trench is called the parapet, and the rear wall, the parados. Above the trenches, on the intervening ground, is overland. In the bottom of the trenches, when the water has not washed them away, are trench mats, or small, rough board walks. Sometimes the mud or sand walls of the trench are supported by revetments of wire or wood.
No Man's Land is the area between the firing lines of the opponents. It is a barren area of shellholes, barbed wire, and desolation, and may be from forty yards to 300 or more yards wide. Commonly, on standing fronts its width is about one hundred yards. Saps are trenches extending out into No Man's Land, and used for observation purposes or for listening posts. They may end in craters, or large cavities in the ground, made by the explosion of mines.
Dugouts are cavities off from the trenches, connecting with them by narrow passages. The dugout proper is a cavity, small or large, used for living in and for protection from shell fire. They may be superficial, having only two or three feet of sandbags—more properly, bags of sand—for a roof; or they may have a roof ten to forty feet in thickness. But the term is often used carelessly for any kind of shelter at the front.
At dusk and dawn the men usually "stand to," that is they stand, rifle in hand, in the trenches ready to repel any attack of the enemy. During the dark hours the men take part in working parties, or fatigues, to bring in water, clean the mud from the trenches, carry rations or ammunition, and dig holes or dumps in which munitions, flares, or equipment are stored. Fatigues are rather disliked by the men, for they are laborious and just as dangerous as other work in the lines.
In speaking to each other, and often in official communications, abbreviations are much employed among officers and men. For example: O.C., or C.O., is used to signify the officer commanding any unit, whether it be the Lieutenant Colonel in charge of a battalion, or the Major, Captain, or Lieutenant in command of a company; the M.O., or the Doc., is commonly the shortened form for the Medical Officer; and H.Q. signifies headquarters, and may apply to company, battalion, brigade, divisional, corps, or army headquarters, any of which would, generally speaking, be specified, unless the conversation or communication made it plain which was meant.
After big advances there are varying periods during which trench life is more or less abandoned for open warfare. After an advance the consolidation of the land taken consists of again digging trenches and dugouts, preparing machine-gun emplacements, bringing up the artillery, and establishing communications. During this transitory period the losses are often heavy, because of the poor protection afforded the men and the fact that the enemy is well acquainted with the ground which he has abandoned, willingly or unwillingly.
Comments
Post a Comment