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Updated: June 5, 2025
The men came up out of their little dug-outs without a word, and the whole company was soon perched upon the ledge. There was a silence among our men, as if each man felt uneasy or perhaps jealous of what was going on over there. Then, as if to order, along the line of the German trenches other hymns rang out, and one choir seemed to answer the other. The singing became general.
The Malay and Dyak canoes are made out of a hollowed tree, or, as they are termed in many ports of India, "dug-outs." They are long and narrow, and are capable of being propelled with great swiftness.
During the battle 200 of the 4th Lincolnshires occupied our support trenches, in case of any trouble on our front, and in the evening the rest of the Battalion arrived and took over the line, while we replaced them in Brigade Support Battalion Headquarters, "B" and "C" Companies in the "Lake" dug-outs, "A" and "D" Companies in the Barracks of Ypres.
If they did not, they ought to be court-martialled for needlessly risking the precious lives of trained men. They would make for the "funk-pits," as they call the dug-outs, just as the gunners of any other Power would. The chances are that the gun itself would not be hit bodily by a shell. Fragments might strike it without causing more than an abrasion; for big guns have pretty thick cuticles.
They like the rush and the scrap; they press on too far, they get outflanked and lost "in the blue"; they are not naturally clever at the excavating part of the work, and they are not as yet well trained in making dug-outs and shelter-pits rapidly and intelligently.
Shelters and "dug-outs" sprang into being everywhere; and the troubles of the inner man, in reality more poignant than ever before, were relegated for the moment to the limbo of forgotten tribulations.
In fetching them we passed a company of Devons, employed on similar work at Vermandovillers, who were fetching their tools from Chaulnes an episode fit for a war-pageant. On the same afternoon we marched to Marchélepot. German sign-posts, old gun positions and burnt dug-outs were objects of interest on the way. Though cold, the weather was fine. Freedom from shelling was a treat.
It hurled a whale of a shell; not less than one hundred and sixty pounds of pure T. N. T., and what it did to our trenches and dug-outs was a sin. And the worst of it was, they had it in a hole in a deep railroad cutting at the bottom of Hill 60, where our artillery could not reach it. At this time we had both the regular machine guns and also a lot of Lewis automatic rifles.
For three quarters of an hour it was impossible to enter the main Hindenburg support trench. We could only sit in our dug-outs and wonder what was happening.
It rains heavily for, say, three days. Two days of sharp frost succeed, and the rain-soaked earth is reduced to the necessary degree of friability. Another day's rain, and trenches and dug-outs come sliding down like melted butter. Even if you revet the trenches, it is not easy to drain them.
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