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Updated: June 8, 2025
A man may be slipping in a shell-hole, or in the mud, or in some wire often he gets up again and runs on. It is only afterwards that you realise.... Across the mud space there were suddenly noticed a few grey helmets watching a long, long distance away.
We had done about a quarter of the ground between Bayencourt and Sailly-au-Bois when a messenger hurried up to tell me to halt, as several of the platoons of the L S had to pass us. We sat down by a large shell-hole, and the men lit up their pipes and cigarettes and shouted jokes to the men of the other regiment as they passed by.
In the old days the word German had meant to Jimmie fellows like Meissner and Forster and Schneider; but now it meant a huge grey form looming over the edge of a shell-hole, its face distorted with hate, its bayonet poised to plunge. Perhaps the most vivid impression of Jimmie's whole life was the relief he had felt when he realized that some doughboy had shot a bullet into that looming figure.
But this was only possible on a quiet front where there was no actual offensive taking place, and not many shells falling in No Man's Land. I even placed buttons in the German wire so as to be sure that our patrols did not just go outside our own trench and lie in a shell-hole until it was time to return, for they had to signal by pressing these buttons at intervals.
There was a groan from Wilde. "I left the battery about half an hour ago because some one was shouting outside in the dark," went on Stenson. "I found a major sitting in a shell-hole; he had lost his way trying to get back to the railway. I managed to put him right now I can't find the battery." Another voice came from the far side of the trench, and we peered at the newcomer.
Whilst thus engaged, several shells fell within thirty feet of me. Two failed to explode; another exploded and sent a lump of mud full in my face. With great spluttering, and I must admit a little swearing, I quickly cleaned it off. Then I filmed a large shell-hole filled with water, caused by the explosion of a German "Jack Johnson."
It was no use sticking here for ever, and we would be wanted further on; so we might as well try and dash through it. 'Come along advance! I shouted, and leapt forward. I felt a sharp sting through my leg. I was hit by a bullet. So I dashed to the nearest shell-hole which, fortunately, was a very large one, and got my first field dressing on. Some one helped me with it.
Jimmie's companion jumped up and ran again, and Jimmie followed, and a hundred yards or so back they came to a shell-hole with half a dozen poilus in it. Jimmy tumbled in, and the men chattered at him, and gave him more cartridges, so that when the Germans appeared again he did his part.
The Chicksands' household believed it for twenty-four hours. Then he was discovered gassed and stunned in a shell-hole, and there had been a long illness and convalescence. During the twenty-four hours when he was believed to be dead, Pamela had spent the April daylight in the depths of the Mannering woods, in tangled hiding-places that only she knew. It was in the Easter holidays.
Many of his flares are prearranged signals, meaning that his artillery is shooting short or calling for an S.O.S. The combination of lights which mean these things are changed with great frequency, lest we should guess. The on-looker, with a long night of observing before him, becomes imaginative and weaves out for the dancing lights a kind of Shell-Hole Nights' Entertainment.
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