when one battalion goes out of the line it is relieved by another, and no section or company of a battalion may go from its point of duty until a corresponding section or company has relieved it. reliefs, except on very quiet parts of the line, are usually carried out by night to keep the enemy from being aware that they are going on. a severe shelling during a relief is always more likely to cause many casualties than at other times. battalion h.q. goes out last. as each company or section is relieved it notifies h.q., and when all are relieved, h.q. takes its departure, having handed over all necessary documents and information to the incoming battalion.
because the human nervous system can stand only a certain amount of abuse battalions can be kept in the line only a certain length of time, which depends upon the activity upon that front, upon the exposure of the lines to the enemy, and so the extra nervous strain, or sometimes upon the urgency of advance or retreat. a relief may be very welcome, or very unwelcome, depending upon the same things, but also to a certain extent upon the quality of the dugouts in the lines, and the kind of accommodation outside. for, strange to say, the dugouts in the lines may be preferable, even with their added danger, because, on arriving at your rest station, your battalion may find, instead of the good billets they hoped for, a few forlorn-looking one-inch board huts, with only one-half the required accommodation, the temperature below freezing, and no stoves; or you may find only tents; or you may find virgin forest in which you are to build your own camp, while the rain comes down with monotonous persistence.
it is midnight in the late winter, and the adjutant, major p——, and i are just leaving h.q. dugout on our way to reserve billets. the trenches are very dark, the light from the stars overhead not reaching to their depths. we throw down a glare from a flashlight, and a tommy's voice angrily cries:
"'ave a 'eart there, myte; d'ye think ye're the only man in the army? douse the glim." so we douse it, and decide that the best way to keep peace in the army is to pick our way along. gradually our eyes become accustomed to the dark, and instinctively our feet keep on the trench mats as we twist and turn along the trenches. an occasional flare or star shell from the front lines aids us for a moment, but plunges us into deeper darkness afterwards. our feet slip on the semi-frozen mud of the mats, over our heads in both directions shells sing at intervals, and we hear the pounding of the guns and bursting shells before and behind us. in the quieter moments we can hear a quarter of a mile away the rattle of transport wagons on the hard road as they bring their nightly loads of ammunition and food to the dump where we are going and where we expect to find our horses.
we arrive at the dump, and here one might think he was in the midst of a large city market just before the dawn. limbers, general service wagons, pack mules and men make a jumble of hurrying, scurrying workers. no lights dare be shown for fear of drawing the shells of the germans, who have the range of this dump and have been shelling it during the day. someone tells us our horses are just around a bend in the road, and we make our way there, and find the grooms holding the animals, which have become cold and restive with waiting.
mounting, we start on a five mile ride along a hard stone road, dodging and picking our way among transport wagons and foot soldiers all along it. the road is bordered with trees which look like phantoms in the sighing night breeze. the stars are twinkling brightly and peacefully; to our left the big guns flash and roar and their shells sing overhead, and on the other side flares are being thrown up by the battalions in the line. the north star is well up to our right, so we are riding due west.
we approach a corner where we turn a little northward. flashing from the window of a small house on the corner is a light that should not be there. the adjutant who is a strict disciplinarian draws up his horse opposite the sentry and proceeds to "strafe" him for negligence. (how many new words during the next few years will be the result of the war!) we take the road to the right and a couple of miles in advance we see the dim shadows of those ancient and architecturally beautiful towers on the hill of mont st. eloy. the huns have for some days been trying to complete their ruin, recently destroying a corner.
at 2 a.m. we arrive at wooden huts just behind the towers. our colonel, who had preceded us, with that fine thoughtfulness that characterized him, had arranged that a battalion in some adjoining huts supply us with tea and toast—a banquet after our cold night ride. by 3 a.m. we are sleeping fast on the floor in our wolseley kits, as we are to rise at 6 a.m., for by 7 a.m. the battalion is to be on the march to a wood four miles back. as the camp we are in was shelled yesterday by the germans, causing thirty casualties, we had better get out of range while we can.
at the appointed hour we are all up, our kits are rolled and piled on a transport by our batmen, and a hurried breakfast of bacon, bread and tea partaken of. i see a few sick and send a couple to the field ambulance, the battalion marches away, the camp is inspected to see that all is spick and span,—for each battalion must always leave a clean camp behind it—and we are on the road to map location w 17 c 4 9, the only description we have of our new home.
as we start we pass the bodies of five dead mules, victims of yesterday's shelling. the roads are crowded with soldiers, horses, and motor transports of all sorts. it is a bright cool day—sunday by the way—and a picturesque scene meets the eye. in addition to the busy, hurrying roadway traffic, the fields show life of varying forms and pictures of interest to a seeing eye. on one side in a field stands a battalion forming three sides of a square. the fourth side is filled by the regimental band playing, "lead, kindly light," the padre standing beside them. it is an open air church service. as far as the eye can see are military huts, tents, drilling soldiers, and piles of ammunition, but in the distance, overtopping all, is the spire of a church, dumbly supplicating us to send our thoughts upward to the prince of peace, as everything on earth seems to tell us to give our minds to the gods of war. and sailing high above the church steeple are two military aeroplanes, like guardian angels ready to protect their loved ones. beyond them in the dim distance hangs the lazy, sausage-shaped form of an observation balloon. above the earth, on the earth, and under the earth, one sees war, war, war!
here and there one passes white limestone farmhouses of france with red tiled roofs, the buildings forming a square about the court. the latter is filled to overflowing with its ever-present pile of manure, at one side of which always stands the well, raised, it is true, a little above the manure dump, but built of brick and mortar through which in many cases permeate the fluids from this cesspool in the center. a medical friend of mine once told me that the peasant farmer objects to chloride of lime being put on the manure, as it gives a disagreeable taste to the water!
then as far as the eye can see the fields that are not employed for military purposes are tilled and cultivated. how it is done is something very difficult to understand, for one never sees anybody working in them except an aged man and woman, or a young child. those in the prime of youthful manhood are all fighting for their adored country, la belle france. on the corner of one of these cultivated areas stands one of those small, stone shrines so common in france. this one was erected, so it said in carved letters, in 1816, "to the honor of his beloved child, eugenie de lattre, by her father."
the date unconsciously carries one back to the great napoleon. if he could rise from his magnificent tomb in the invalides and look about him in the midst of a war which dwarfs his famous battles into insignificance, what would his thoughts be? no longer would he see his famous guard on prancing steeds and with flowing plumes charging bristling british squares, as they did in his last great fight at waterloo. he would find them in somber, semi-invisible garb, standing shoulder to shoulder with their one-time hated enemies, the latter clad in plain khaki, both facing the same foe, the prussian, whom he had once humbled by marching into berlin, but who had later helped the british defeat him at waterloo. and many he would see groveling in the earth in trenches, dugouts, and tunnels, like so many earthworms. some few he would discover who, with the french love of the spectacular, are sailing thousands of feet in the air, or leagues under the surface of the sea.
we pass through a village, camblain l'abbé, where we go into the town major's to inquire about water supplies for our men. the town major, a canadian of fifty, reminds one of us of an old friend of the same name in chicago, one of the many canadians who has made good—very good—in the united states. it is a brother!
so, it is being continually shown that this war has made the world an even smaller place than it was before. our information obtained, we move on to our new camp, a virgin forest one-half mile above camblain l'abbé, where there is no sign of tent, hut, or dwelling of any kind. but the men are already lolling happily on the bare ground, ignoring the pounding of our guns a few miles north and inhaling with anticipatory pleasure the fragrant odors of stew, steaming in the battalion field cookers just below the brow of the hill.
the busy work of turning an open forest into a camp to be occupied by one thousand men for a week or more is already in progress. the tents have not arrived, but brigade has promised to get them along shortly. plans are being made as to where each company is to be, where orderly room will be most convenient, what is the best position for the h.q. and the other officers, where the cook houses, cookers, water carts, latrines, refuse dumps, canteen, batmen's quarters, medical inspection tent, shoemaker, tailor, transport department, and the hundred and one other departments and sections are to be located.
you see, it is not as easy as it sounds to take a thousand men and encamp them in a proper manner. gradually the chaos is subdued, and as tents and half-built huts come they are quickly placed in their proper positions. while it is all in progress one is likely to stumble over the colonel who has stolen half an hour from his busy work to sit on the ground and eat some bully beef, biscuits and chocolate, and who insists on everyone else doing the same; or to bump into the corpulent form of the r.s.m.—regimental sergeant major—who is everywhere, directing everything, in the way that only a r.s.m. can do, though his crossest word is usually grumbled through a smiling ruddy face, for his heart is proportionate to his large size.
the day advances, night is coming on, and the tents have arrived only in sufficient numbers to cover one-third of the officers and men. fortunately the sun still shines, though the march air is getting colder. a sleep in the open air promises to require extra blankets which do not exist in the camp. however, everyone smiles, and there is at least a gradually, though slowly, increasing amount of cover for the men of the battalion. some of the men, wiser perhaps through previous like predicaments, are choosing the sheltered side of a small hill, and are digging shelters for themselves over which they are putting coverings of boughs. as it turns out they are wise, for in the end only sufficient coverings come for two-thirds of the battalion, and consequently, a few officers and quite a few men sleep in the open with only a blanket and their overcoats for covering. and nature, the deceitful jade, who had smiled kindly upon us all day and promised us a dry, though cold, night, about midnight and for two days succeeding poured torrents of rain down upon us.
the sick parade grew larger and the ground became lakes of mud. the cook-houses—so-called—which were only fires built in hollows, had their fires so drowned that we all ate primitive diet as well as lived most closely to nature. everyone, as usual, had his consolation in laughing at the discomforts of the others, till order came out of chaos in the days that followed.
