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Updated: June 24, 2025
A telephonist was with me who had been through a good deal of the Somme fighting, and had found the Italian Front, in times of lull, a little uneventful. But this morning he was full of appreciation. "This is something like it, isn't it, Sir?" he said.
Late in the afternoon I reported to the telephonist that a big fire was in progress somewhere on our left, as an immense smoke cloud was rising there and coming toward us. As shells had burst his wire, rendering it useless, he started out to deliver the message by word of mouth, running on top of the parapet as he started.
After the third battle of Ypres had cooled down, we were permitted to go to the rear as far as Poperinghe, for the purpose of giving ourselves a scouring, as we were filthy with dirt and lousy with lice. My particular chum on this journey was the little telephonist, Fox, who had been through every big battle up to that time, including the Sanctuary Woods carnage.
This provided the occasion for several reconnaissances. On January 15th the Major and I went up Monte Costahmga, a few miles to the west. It was a ziz-zag, scrambling track, and it was thawing enough to make everything rather unpleasant. But we gained some, useful new knowledge. On the 24th, Jeune, together with an Italian officer, a telephonist and myself made a long day of it.
Had we not sworn we would have wept, and, naturally, as men we preferred to do the other thing. Three-quarters of a mile north of Labazell we were in our gun pit one night and "Ammunition up!" was the order. This meant that everybody, including officers and down to cook, the telephonist on duty alone being excepted, had to get out and help unload the life-saving material.
The signaler made no answer. He was quite busy at the moment rearranging his disturbed papers and blowing the dust and grit off them. A telephonist at another table commenced to take and write down a message. It came from the forward trench on the left, and merely said briefly that the attack on the center was spreading to them and that they were holding it with some difficulty.
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?
Here the British soldier's fatalism was exemplified in the superbest manner! On that same night that the tanks went forward again, I was detailed to go to the trenches to assist the telephonist, who was hard pressed for help, and in the morning I was in the front-line trench assisting the Captain with his observation work. All the time on the Somme all hands were busy doing something.
The Artillery officer came hurrying and stumbling back along the trench, his telephonist labouring behind him. They stopped at the place where they had tapped in before and the telephonist busied himself connecting up his instrument. The Artillery officer flung himself down beside the Platoon commander. 'My confounded wire cut again, he panted, 'just when I want it too.
Through the din that followed, the telephonist fought to get his message through; he had to give up an attempt to speak it while a hatchet, a crowbar, and a pickaxe were noisily at work breaking out a fresh exit from the back of the cellar, and even after that work had been completed, it was difficult to make himself heard.
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