to anyone who has served any time at the front the above word will bring back recollections of various kinds, for dugouts are of varying types. the term is employed to denote any shelter in the neighborhood of the firing line, from the funk hole which is only a recess cut into the side of a trench with little or no shelter above it and none at the entrance, to the cavity dug down into the ground a distance varying from ten feet to seventy, and strengthened by supports of wood, steel, or concrete. it is also loosely used to denote cellars, caves, and shellholes which may be employed as means of protection from rifle bullet, shrapnel, or high explosive shell.
it is probably true in dugouts, as in many of the other necessities of war, that we learned much from the german, for he was probably the first to recognize the protection rendered by a well-built—or, rather, well-dug—re?nforced hole in the ground. at various times when we have taken portions of the german lines we have found well-made homes underground, with two or more long entrances, one at either end, so that if one is hit by a shell, the other affords a means of exit to the inhabitants.
those we took at vimy seemed almost free of rats, which statement could not truthfully be made of our own dugouts. i don't know whether the german has some method of getting rid of rats, but i do know from practical and irritating experience that the german either has no method of freeing his dugouts of lice, or else thoroughly enjoys the company of vermin. none of us who occupied his underground dwellings, even if only for a few days, came back free from these annoying and disgusting companions. so tenacious and clinging were they that it took repeated baths and changes to free us of them. one might conclude that they had been treated in a brotherly way by the hun.
of course, as kelly said, scratching is common in the best circles out there. the man who has to reach over his shoulder in an attempt to remove an irritation from that almost unattainable spot between the shoulder blades is not shunned or looked at askance, but serves only as a source of amusement to his companions. underwear searching is a common, very common, form of pastime. though you may have been a very dignified and sensitive soul, your sensitiveness gradually dulls until you care not a "hoot" who may see you sitting in a brilliant sunshine anxiously scanning your clothes; or rising at midnight from a much-troubled sleep and by dim candle light beginning the often well-rewarded inspection.
so far as the ordinary tommy is concerned, he ignores not only his acquaintances but the world in general. there he sits in his bare pelt and performs a massacre which in numbers dwarfs almost to infinity the killings of the armenians by the turks. in the town of vimy i one time passed a jocular, though profitable, hour at this occupation while i sat on the floor of the cellar of an old brewery with a scotch padre on one side of me, and a nova scotia major on the other, all absorbed in the same intense search, while above our heads the shells every little while hit the fallen walls of our shelter. and through the thin-walled partition that separated us from our soldier-servants we heard propounded a most momentous question which showed us that they too were employing their time to advantage. the question was:—
"say, kelly, what the h—— will all the lice do for a living after the war?" and for once kelly was floored.
often dugouts are but shelters dug into the wall of a trench, a thin sheet-iron roof put on top, and two or three layers of sandbags on top of that. this gives protection against bullets, shrapnel, or bits of shell, but a straight hit from a medium-sized shell would go right through. and yet it is strange how seldom these are hit direct, considering their large numbers. this may in part account for one's feeling of relative security while in them, but this feeling is no doubt also partly due to our resemblance to the ostrich which hides its head to avoid danger. be this as it may, many a good night's sleep have i passed in shelters such as this, with shells bursting within one hundred yards at frequent intervals during the night. during the month previous to the battle of arras my orderlies and i lived in an abode of this nature most of the time, only 500 yards from our front line trenches. shells continually fell well within the hundred yard radius of it—as a matter of fact, shortly afterwards this dugout was completely blown in—yet no one worried in the least about it. this is not told as a strange experience, for all officers who have served at the front have often lived in the same surroundings. this experience is related only to illustrate one type of protective shelter.
deep dugouts vary in depth anywhere from ten to forty or fifty feet in cases where the soldier has had to do all the digging, but in some cases where limestone quarrying has been extensively carried on there have often been found, ready to hand, caves, sixty to one hundred feet in depth, such as the famous zivy cave, opposite mt. st. eloy. there are many of them about this region, some of which, as the one mentioned, are large enough to give shelter to 1000 men. usually there is a circular airshaft in the center. this shaft in zivy cave was the target for months for german gunners, as they had occupied this region, and knew it well. in fact the story is told that in this cave, or one of the others near about, 800 germans were gassed and killed by the french when they retook this ground. how much truth is in the story it is difficult to say. but at any rate, all through the hard, cold winter of 1916-17 the canadians who were holding this front found good protection and some warmth in this cave for many of their men, though at all times the air in it had a grayish tinge, as the ventilation was hardly up-to-date.
on one occasion at 11 p.m. colonel j—— and the writer found zivy cave as welcome a sight as ever struck the eye of man. coming into the trenches, we stumbled into a heavy hun artillery barrage. after a number of close shaves, in two of which we were buried in mud from the exploding shell, we were heavily dragging our feet through the thick mud of guillermot trench when a shell struck full in the trench twenty feet in front of us, nearly bursting our ear drums. we pressed closely against the wall of the trench, awaiting the next. it came almost immediately, landing thirty feet behind us,—bracketing us.
"the next will get us, sir," i said.
"not on your life, doctor," cheerfully replied colonel j——. and he was right, for a few moments later we were stumbling into the entrance of zivy cave, and that slimy, dark, four-foot opening was more welcome to us than would be today the spacious rotunda of the savoy. i always admired the colonel's cheerful confidence, but, as kelly well said, "confidence is a foine thing, but it raly has very little affict in stoppin' a hun shell that's comin' yer way." this, the colonel unfortunately found out in the battle of arras.
from one of these deep caves on the vimy front previous to the battle of easter monday, tunnels miles in length, electric lighted, were built, leading to different headquarters, aid posts, ambulance depots, and to various points in no man's land. they were of inestimable service when the day of battle arrived. no doubt they will be among the show-places of france to encourage tourist traffic after the war.
the entrance to deep dugouts is usually only high enough to go through in a stooped position; and in this case the easiest way to enter them is to back down. after some practice one gets accustomed to this manner of progression, and it becomes easy—as if our bodies had reverted to the days of our cave-dwelling ancestry to accompany the turning back of civilization's clock. the two entrances preferably point away from the enemy lines, but in case of advance the enemy dugouts may be taken over in spite of the fact that their entrances seem to invite a shell to enter. and, rather strangely, shells rarely seem to make a straight hit on an entrance.
cellars are quite often utilized as shelters where a little village has become incorporated in the lines. they often make comparatively luxurious places of residence for officers and men, as luxury goes in these parts. the fallen brick walls, in addition to the cellar roof, give fair protection, though a straight hit by a shell would mean a good chance of death to those within. as breweries are usually the most palatial buildings in french towns, they are often chosen as headquarters, or as dressing stations either for field ambulances or regimental aid posts. a brewery at aix noulette which, not excepting the church, was the only building not destroyed by shell fire, for many months served as a most complete advanced dressing station. the rats were plentiful, as they are in most dugouts, and often their little beady eyes would stare in a startled manner at one's flashlight, and their bodies remain in a sort of hypnotized immobility. but this brewery gave shelter to thirty or forty patients, and was exceedingly useful, till one day a selfish artillery officer came along and placed a battery of heavies just behind it to draw german fire on the brewery. this is a disagreeable habit of the artillery, to choose hitherto safe locations and to turn them into uninhabitable ones, to the disgust of those about.
one cellar dugout in calonne is worthy of description. it was in the cellar of what had been a large residence. we used it as a regimental aid post, and it was by far the most luxurious that i have had the pleasure of seeing. in the room of the cellar occupied by the m.o. the walls had been papered, a fireplace installed, and it contained two comfortable beds, arm chairs, two carved oak-framed mirrors, and a well-tuned piano with a stool. this was only four hundred yards from the front line. often as the shells dropped all about us a group of officers sat there in the warm glow of a coal fire—the coal probably filched by our batmen from the fosse nearby—while someone of a musical turn played the piano, and the others sang such classical ditties as, annie laurie, when irish eyes are smiling, and another little drink wouldn't do us any harm.
one morning, after a night of jollity such as this during which the shelling had been fairly heavy, one of the orderlies found a "dud" in the next cellar which, had it exploded, would have jolted the piano a bit! an engineering officer mentioned to me that he had been passing the previous night, and could not believe his ears when he heard the singing and the piano accompaniment. could he be blamed?
i hasten to add that this was the only dugout in which such luxury as this existed, or anything approaching to it. this cellar had one other advantage. it still had enough of the walls and roof standing to allow us in spare moments to look through the holes made by shells and see what was happening in no man's land. and on one occasion the writer stood up there and watched every detail of one of the most successful raids ever put on by a battalion on the british front.
it was a cold winter's day, and the ground had a complete covering of snow. just at daybreak a box barrage was put on a part of the german line on our front. our men climbed out of the trenches, and apparently at their leisure went across to the german lines. one of the men carried a telephone with wire coiled about it which he unrolled as he went, and major r——, m.c., telephoned back to h.q. in our lines that all was proceeding well. they returned with one hundred prisoners, at that time a record number for a raid. the boy, aged twenty, who had carried the telephone coolly rewound his wire, and brought phone and wire back with him, getting a bullet in the thigh, but finishing his work, and later receiving a military medal for his conduct. i was called down from this interesting sight to dress him and some others of our wounded, as well as many german wounded who were brought in prisoners.
for those who are unacquainted with barrages, it may be explained that a box barrage is a heavy shelling put on the enemy lines in the form of a box, taking in the front line and some of the supports in such a manner that those within it cannot get back and reinforcements are unable to come up from the rear. the enemy are then dependent upon shell, and machine-gun, and trench mortar fire in retaliating.
we obtain the identification of the troops opposite by the prisoners taken, as well as getting from them in different ways information useful to us and detrimental to the enemy. of course the enemy employs like methods, but during the winter of 1916-17 on our different fronts we positively owned no man's land.
