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Updated: May 19, 2025
The flags swung sharply into motion for a few moments more; then the Prussian officer pocketed his notebook; the signaller furled his flags; and, as they turned and strode westward along the border of the forest, the girl rose to her knees on her bed of leaves and peered after them. What to do she scarcely knew.
Without orders our signaller was getting his flags ready. If he hopped out of the trench onto the parapet, he didn't stand a fifty-fifty chance. The Hun was familiar with our observation station and strafed it with persistent regularity. The signaller turned to the senior officer present, "What will I send them, sir?" "Tell them their messages have been received and that help is coming."
The Boche was clearly coming on once more. Cycle orderlies sped away with the notes, and I was sending a signaller on a cycle to tell the sentry posted at Grandru to rejoin us, when I discovered that the brigade clerk had not yet turned up. I told the signaller to send him along as well.
At Durban the first thing we saw was a girl in white semaphoring like mad from the rocks. As we spelled out that she was trying to tell us that she was an Australian, we gave her three times three. Our difficulty in reading her message was not through her bad signalling but because of her speed. Doubt if we had a signaller on board so quick!
The presumed officer strode on ahead, a high-shouldered frame of iron in his hunter's garb; the signaller with furled flags tucked under his arm clumped stolidly at his heels with the peculiar peasant gait which comes from following uneven furrows in the wake of a plow.
On September 10, from dawn till 4 p.m., A and D Companies lay cramped in shell holes on the slopes of Hill 35. In my own hole, so close that our knees touched, sat Sergeant Palmer, Rowbotham, my signalling lance-corporal, Baxter, another signaller, Davies, my runner, and myself. With us we had a telephone and a basket of carrier pigeons.
We'd three wounded an' lucky to get off so light. 'Lively time's the right word for my performance, said the Signaller. 'Nothin' of the "all quiet" touch in my little lot to-day. It started when we was goin' up at daybreak me an' the other telephonist wi' the Forward Officer. You know that open stretch of road that takes you up to the openin' o' the communication trenches?
Then get off the line, and stay there! THE JOVIAL VOICE. Yes, sir. THE EAGER VOICE. I am O.C. Beer Company. They are shelling my front parapet, at L8, with pretty heavy stuff. I want retaliation, please. THE JOVIAL VOICE. Very good, sir. Whish! Whish! Whish! SECOND CHATTY SIGNALLER. Did ye hear that, Jimmy? Mphm! That'll sorrt them! THE F.O.O. Is that C Battery? THE JOVIAL VOICE. Yes.
For some time the lantern it was evidently that and not a torch was waved to and fro, parallel to the horizon, and again up and down. It was so evidently a signal, or a series of them, that the boys no longer questioned this theory. But who the signaller was, and to whom he was flashing his message in the dark night those were other questions. And they were questions that needed answering.
An hour later, on returning, the signaller warned me it was time for the "situation" report. I scrawled out the usual formula, "Situation unchanged; enemy quiet; wind northerly," and handed him the form. It was ten minutes late, and though the adjutant would not read it till morning I knew I was in for a wigging. Wet and disgusted I turned to my dug-out.
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