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Updated: May 10, 2025
"I'm not sure, but I think they speak oftenest of how I never used to like anybody to take my hand and help me along, even when I was barely able to walk. They say I always insisted on trudging along by myself." Burlingham nodded, slapped his knee. "I can believe it," he cried. "I always ask everybody that question to see whether I've sited 'em up right.
They took up their lines when they were strong and our side weak, and in no place in all the old Somme position is our line better sited than theirs, though in one or two places the sites are nearly equal. Almost in every part of this old front our men had to go up hill to attack. If the description of this old line be dull to read, it should be remembered that it was dull to hold.
All the company thought it good to inhabite that countrie, because it was in a temperat climate: And that if it were inhabited, al the shippes of New Spaine, of Peru, Santa Martha, and Tierra firme in their returne for Spaine, might well touch there: because it was in their way; and because it was a good countrie, and sited fit to raise commoditie.
To these, high-explosives are a welcome relief. The trenches themselves are no garden city, like those at Armentières. They were sited and dug in the dark, not many weeks ago, to secure two hundred yards of French territory recovered from the Bosche by bomb and bayonet. The parapet in many places is too low.
This little fort was very strongly sited, protected by extra strong wire entanglements and has long been a source of trouble.
"Yes, sir; they fired well, a hundred rounds, I should think. They scattered all the Germans, sir: they ran like mad." We had given up hope of ever hearing again of the two sniping guns sited just behind the original front line, C's 18-pdr. and D's 4·5 how. They were at least 2000 yards in front of the ill-fated A Battery, and must have been captured.
As we drove, the Garibaldino pointed out to us some of the positions where Napoleon III.'s Generals had sited their Batteries. We were the first British officers seen here during the war, and had an enthusiastic reception. I was surprised to find that none of our Regulars had come over from Sirmione, as a matter of professional interest and duty, to study the tactics of 1859 upon the ground.
"D" Company for that night were housed in a deep dug-out in the main support line, with their headquarters in a concrete faced shelter in the back wall of the trench, excellently sited if we had been fighting the other way, but well-known to the enemy, and getting hit by about three out of every five shells aimed at it, as did all the other dug-outs and shelters in the line.
From the crest in front of this road there is a view to the westward, so wonderful that those who see it realize at once that the enemy position on the Ridge, which, at a first glance, seems badly sited for observation, is, really, well placed. From this crest, the Ridge-top, all our old front line, and nearly all the No Man's Land upon it, is exposed, and plainly to be seen.
But it must be remembered that I am describing trench life in the early days of 1914, and I feel sure that those who had experience of them will acquit me of any such charge. To give a recipe for getting a rough idea, in case you want to, I recommend the following procedure. Select a flat ten-acre ploughed field, so sited that all the surface water of the surrounding country drains into it.
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