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"We shall be very glad to accept your sketch, 'Where did that one go to? From the Bystander" the foundation-stone of Fragments from France. We got out of the frying-pan into the fire when we went to Wulverghem a much more exciting and precarious locality than Plugstreet. During all my war experiences I have grown to regard Plugstreet as the unit of tranquillity.
Dense columns of smoke were coming out of the straw roof, and soon the whole place was a blazing ruin. Nobody in the least perturbed; we all turned away from the window and wondered how soon they'd "have our farm." They seemed to me long, dark, dismal days, those days spent in the Douve trenches; longer, darker and more dismal than the Plugstreet ones.
Hallebast Corner was changed by the soldier to "Hell-blast" Corner, just as Ypres became "Wipers" and Ploegstert was translated into "Plugstreet." "Shrapnel Corners" and "Suicide Corners" were numerous and had merely a local significance. The names are self-explanatory.
After we had gone about a mile and a half the character of the land changed. We had left all the Plugstreet wood effect behind, and now emerged on to far more open and flatter ground. By dusk we were going down a long straight road with poplar trees on either side. At the end of this stood a farm on the right. We walked into the courtyard and across it into the farm.
It was full of old trenches, filled with water, relies of the period when we turned the Germans out of it. Shattered trees and old barbed wire in a solution of mud was the chief effect produced by the parts nearest the trenches, but further back "Plugstreet Wood" was quite a pretty place to walk about in. Birds singing all around, and rabbits darting about the tangled undergrowth.
I took over from him, and, as the battalion moved off along the road, fell in behind with my latest acquisition a machine-gun section, with machine guns to match. It was quite dusk now, and as we neared the great Bois de Ploegstert, known all over the world as "Plugstreet Wood," it was nearly night.
'Wipers' is a veteran by this time: 'Plugstreet, 'Booloo, and 'Armintears' are old friends. "What were your prisoners like?" "'Alf clemmed," said the man from Manchester. "No rations for three days," explained a Northumberland Fusilier close by. One of his arms was strapped to his side, but the other still clasped to his bosom a German helmet.
I went, and heard the news. We were to take over a new line of trenches away to the left of Plugstreet, and that night I was to accompany him along with all the company commanders on a round of inspection. A little before dusk we started off and proceeded along various roads towards the new line. All the country was now brand new to me, and full of interest.
I have never had the fortune to return there since those times mentioned in previous chapters. When you leave Plugstreet you take away a pleasing memory of slime and reasonable shelling, which is more than you can say for the other places. If you went to Plugstreet after, say, the Ypres Salient, it would be more or less like going to a convalescent home after a painful operation.
After we had got in we knew, by long examination of the maps, how everything lay, but it was some time before we had got the real practical hang of it all. Our return journey from the inspection was a pretty silent affair. We all knew these were a nasty set of trenches. Not half so pleasant as the Plugstreet ones.
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