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He always took Mine Ave., Brompton Ave., and Pinney's Ave. alternately, and we later on saved a number of lives by having a sentry at the entrance to these communication-trenches to give warning to use the other trench while this one was being shelled.
To reach it we had to pass through Furnes, most charming of old Flemish towns, with a ravishing Grande Place, surrounded by beautiful brick houses, some of them of the XVth century, some of them dating from the time of the Spanish occupation, and some again, of the epoch of Louis XIV. As the Belgian lines are on a dead flat alluvial plain reclaimed from the sea, it had proved impossible to manage communication-trenches.
"And then, Monsieur le Lieutenant," began one of the poilus, a cheerful young fellow, who, indeed, was in civil times the chum of this young officer, "you've been far, mon Commandant, you have brought news to us? For did you not leave us a while back to pass along the communication-trenches? What, then, is the tale? And are there supports and reserves at hand to reinforce us?"
Thus I went for a very long walk, up such hills and down such dales as the country can show, tramping with a General through exhausting communication-trenches, in order to discover two soldiers, an officer and his man; and even they were not actual fighters. The officer lived in a dug-out with a very fine telescope for sole companion.
Others were called "Bond Street," "Brompton Ave.," and "Mine Ave." Later on my brigade held the length of trench that included all these, from Mine Ave. to Bond Street, over one thousand yards; but for the battle and the first ten days we only held about three hundred yards, using the three communication-trenches Pinney's, Brompton, and V. C.
After a residence there in billets, they crossed the river, and, mounting those heights, gained at length the communication-trenches which gave access to the French positions in the neighbourhood of Hautmont.
The support and front line trenches were divided every two hundred yards, by communication-trenches, built in the same way, except that the communication-trench had two sides. These communication-trenches were distinguished by such names as "Pinney's Ave.," "V. C. Ave.," which latter was supposed to be built on the spot where Michael O'Leary won the first Victoria Cross of the war.
Creeping along the battered trenches, crawling across masses of tumbled earth, where communication-trenches had once existed, and, by slow degrees, moving to a part where a fold in the ground gave some shelter, though little enough, from the shells which the German guns still sent, the depleted regiment to which Henri and Jules belonged was finally massed in the hollow, and, having been fed there and rested for a while, was marched to the east, towards the fort of Douaumont.
This was not as bad as round the camp, not being churned up by the tramping about of men and horses. We could not use the communication-trenches as they were rivers of liquid mud, but had to wait till dark and go over the top in relieving the front line. On this occasion we took over from the Grenadier Guards, which numbers among its officers many of the English nobility.
In readiness for this hero's arrival at the Front the communication-trenches are being specially widened. "That it were possible to get frying-pans that would stand LEVEL when one is cooking in them." Home Chat. It is so awkward to be tilted out of the frying-pan into the fire. Tommy. Tommy.
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