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"What do you think I am? A blooming traffic policeman?" growled the cook to two soldiers who had found themselves in a blind alley in the maze of streets back of the firing-trench. "My word! Is His Majesty's army becoming illiterate? Strafe that sign at the corner! What do you think we put it up for? To show what a beautiful hand we had at printing?"
After about an hour of this the first party of men, eight in number, went down to the firing-trench, which had to be 200 yards clear of any troops. There were two sandbag walls, breastworks, about five feet high the one in front with a small traverse wall. At the front wall stood the recruit, the sergeant-instructor, and the Brigade Bombing Officer.
Next moment gongs were clanging up and down the trench, and men were tearing open the satchels which contained their anti-gas helmets. Major Wagstaffe, who had been sent up from Battalion Headquarters to take general charge of affairs in the firing-trench, buttoned the bottom edge of his helmet well inside his collar and clambered up on the firing-step to take stock of the position.
The only difference is that if your line is situated on the forward slope of a hill the support trench drains into the firing-trench; if they are on the reverse slope, the firing-trench drains into the support trench.
During this instructional tour "D" Company sweltered in its reserve trench under a blazing sun, vainly seeking shade and refuge from the flies. Evening brought the report of the Battalion's first "killed in action" Pte. Wallace of "A" Company, who had been shot through the head while on look-out in the firing-trench. If possible the heat became more scorching.
Having arrived at our allotted area, we get to work. The firing-trench proper is outlined on the turf a hundred yards or so down the reverse slope of a low hill. When it is finished it will be a mere crack in the ground, with no front cover to speak of; for that would make it conspicuous. Number One Platoon gets to work on this.
Very accurate when, before an infantry attack, with bursts of shrapnel bullets they cut to bits the barbed-wire entanglements in front of a trench! The power of chaos that they seem to possess when the firing-trench and the dug- outs and all the human warrens which protect the defenders are beaten as flour is kneaded!
Then every man in the forward firing-trench had a certain number of rounds to fire each night, even although he had no definite target to fire at. Magnesium flares and pistol lights were kept going almost without ceasing, while the artillery made a regular practice of loosing off a stated number of rounds per night.
The firing-trench is our place of business our office in the city, so to speak. The firing-trench, like most business premises, is severe in design and destitute of ornament. But the suburban trench lends itself to more imaginative treatment. Gas laid on But only once, in a field near Aldershot, where Private Mucklewame first laid bare, and then perforated, the town main with his pick.
I suppose I used that sap two hundred times, always with misgivings, for I have seen more than a score of men punctured along its length. All these parts were unhealthy. The Rue de Bois, the street that ran parallel to the firing-trench, about a thousand yards behind the front line, was always under indirect machine-gun fire, yet was, nevertheless, used regularly every night by our transports.
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