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I was in a front-line trench on the Western Front, and oh, how I wished I were back in Jersey City. I must have slept for two or three hours, not the refreshing kind that results from clean sheets and soft pillows, but the sleep that comes from cold, wet, and sheer exhaustion. Suddenly, the earth seemed to shake and a thunderclap burst in my ears.
Within four hours of their arrival they had had their first experience of being bombed. Their intention had been to open their hospital in a town still nearer to the front-line. The hospital was prepared and waiting for them. But in the last few days the military situation had changed.
At half-past eleven, Tam, having roved along the German front-line trenches and having amused himself by chasing a German spotter to earth, made what appeared to be a leisurely way back to that point of the Lille road where he had met with his adventures of the previous day. He was hoping to find the battery which he had worried at that time, and he was not disappointed.
A heavy bombardment was to precede a general advance. As the front-line trenches lay within a few yards of the Turks, they were now practically cleared of men in order to avoid casualties from our own gunfire. The scheme laid down for our Battalion required a north-east advance by C and B Companies out of the narrow defile known as Krithia nullah.
The Gyppy boys were excellent leaders, and to them and the donkeys the front-line fighting men in the hill country owe much. They were saved a good deal of exhausting labour in manhandling stores from the point where camels had to stop, and they could therefore concentrate their attention on the Turk.
To depart so flagrantly from the spirit of the rules as to wander round front-line trenches alone and in the falling shades of night is asking for trouble; and if the matter had ended there I have no doubt knowing the strict sense of justice which is one of the praiseworthy features of the house of Firebrace I have no doubt that he would have sent for Percy FitzPercy and apologised handsomely for the inconvenience he had so unwittingly caused.
"Don't know," responded Jerry, also somewhat dubiously, "but there's one consolation about it it's only a short trip." Never had the three boys from Brighton anticipated such co-ordinated efficiency in the workings of a war machine. They had expected long delays, frequent disappointments and protracted periods of training before they should reach the front-line trenches.
The gunners' only chance of protecting themselves from the deadly fumes was to wear their gas-helmets. All of a sudden, just as the gassing of our batteries was at its worst, all along our front-line S.O.S. rockets commenced to go up. Our infantry, if they weren't actually being attacked, were expecting a heavy Hun counter-attack, and were calling on us by the quickest means possible to help them.
Until a man is wounded he only sees the war from the point of view of the front-line and consequently, as I say, misses half its splendour, for he is ignorant of the greatness of the heart that beats behind him all along the lines of communication. Here in brief is how I found this out.
We avoided these dangerous spots by crossing through open fields. The destruction in the German lines was awful and I really felt sorry for them because I realized how they must be clicking it. From our front-line trench, every now and again, we could hear sharp whistle blasts in the German trenches.
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