''Over There'' with the Australians - R. Hugh Knyvett (read more books .TXT) 📗

The support-trenches seemed to be getting more shells, even than the front line, and it looked as if I was walking out of the frying-pan into the fire.

Tea was the last thing I was wanting, but, as others were eating, I had to put up a bluff, though I felt it would be a sinful waste if I were to be killed immediately afterward.

That first day, however, took away most of my fears, and thereafter I got to fancy I possessed a charmed life and the bullet or shell was not made that would harm me.

The most surprising thing of the life over there is the narrow escapes one has. There are scores of men who have been in almost every battle from the beginning, and are still there, and that day it seemed truly as if I walked in a zone of safety, as shells would fall in front of me and behind, and even pushed in the parapet against which I was leaning, and I did not even get shell-shock.

I sat with my "dixie" of stew and lid of tea in the open doorway of a dugout, and the whiz-bangs passed within twenty yards of me and pelted me with pieces of dirt, but nothing hard enough to break the skin struck me. We did not learn much about those trenches on this visit, and were a sad little party that went back to our companions with the news of what had befallen our comrades and the perils awaiting them. The two remaining days spent in that little village were full of foreboding. Those who had "gone west" were well loved, and but yesterday so full of the joy of life.

Nearly every one wrote home those nights, as it might be for the last time.

Under fire men are affected in different ways, but as for myself, I must admit that after that first day I felt I was not to die on the battlefield, and this gave me a confidence that many of my comrades thought was due to lack of fear. Strange to say, this feeling of security left me only on the night I was wounded, many months later. But of that in its proper place.

When we left Morbecque, the whole of the inhabitants turned out to bid us farewell. Many of the women wept, and though we had only been there a week, we felt we were leaving old friends.

We knew something of what these French people had already paid in defending that in which we were as much concerned. There was not a young man in the whole neighborhood, and it was the old grandfathers and grandmothers that worked the farms.

Our hearts had warmed to France, before we knew the lovable French people themselves, because she had borne the brunt in the first years of the war, and her soil had been ravaged, and her women so unspeakably maltreated. And it seemed that the French people took especial interest in us Australians who had come twelve thousand miles to join in this fight in defense of the world's liberty.

This war has done more to make known to each other the people of the world than any other event in history. Many of the French people had hardly heard of Australia, but hereafter they will never forget the name of the land whence came those stalwart boys who marched singing through their country; who went to war with laughter, and when out of the trenches were ever ready to give a hand with the crops.

To their poverty it seemed as if we Australians were all millionaires, and our ready cash was a godsend wherever we went. Although we did not receive on the field our full six shillings a day, we always had more money to spend than the "Tommies." In fact, frequently within a few hours after our arrival in a village we would buy out all of its stores. The temptation must have been great, yet I never knew a French farmer or storekeeper attempt to overcharge us. All we had, we spent, and though we grumbled enough that we were not able to draw our full pay, the French people thought that we were simply rolling in money.

The brigade did not go by train any of the distance, but marched the whole way to the trenches, taking two days. This part of the country was just on the edge of the Hun advance and, being only visited by some scouting-parties of Uhlans, had escaped most of war's ravages. We marched through beautiful woods, passed peaceful villages, and over sleepy canals that we saw not again in France in many long months—most of us, alas, never.

I do not know whether they wanted to show what Australians could do, but we did a forced march that day of eighteen miles with full packs up—eight of them without a "breather." This may not sound much, but our boys were as nearly physically perfect as it was possible for men to be, and yet when we arrived at camp we left a third of them on the road.

We went into billets at Sailly, within five miles of the firing-line, where we found the civilian population going about their avocations as though war were a thousand miles away. There were plenty of ruins and even great holes in the streets that showed the Hun had not only the power, but the will, to send these death-dealing missiles among the women and children still living there. I thought the boys were too tired from their march to want to look 'round the town, but after "hot tea" had been served out, they were like new men, and went out to explore the place, as though they merely had had a morning stroll. Hot tea is to the Australian what whiskey is to the Scotchman, his best "pick me up."

CHAPTER XIX THE BATTLE OF FLEURBAIX…

Next morning it was "going in" with a vengeance. We did not enter the same trenches where I had been a few days previously, but about a mile farther south. These trenches were our "home" for over three months, so let me try and describe how they were built and looked to us on that day of entry. In this part of the line, near the borders of Belgium, you cannot dig down, the soil is so marshy, so the trenches are what is known as breastwork. They are built up about six feet from the level of the ground, a solid wall of sand-bags, ten to twenty feet thick. This will stand the hit of all but the heaviest shells, but is an unmistakable target if the enemy artillery have observation at all. The support and front line trenches were divided every two hundred yards, by communication-trenches, built in the same way, except that the communication-trench had two sides. These communication-trenches were distinguished by such names as "Pinney's Ave.," "V. C. Ave.," which latter was supposed to be built on the spot where Michael O'Leary won the first Victoria Cross of the war. Others were called "Bond Street," "Brompton Ave.," and "Mine Ave."

Later on my brigade held the length of trench that included all these, from Mine Ave. to Bond Street, over one thousand yards; but for the battle and the first ten days we only held about three hundred yards, using the three communication-trenches—Pinney's, Brompton, and V. C.

I had a good deal of apprehension as the brigade marched in, remembering the reception our reconnoitring party had received. If "Fritz" had spotted a score of us he could not well avoid noticing a thousand, though we were broken into little parties of six, that moved along the gutter in single file. But he must have been asleep this day, for the "change over" was completed with little attention from him in the way of shells.

Leading up to "Pinney's Ave.," there was a short length of communication-trench very appropriately called "Impertinence Sap," for it was merely a ditch, three feet deep, floored with "duck boards." I could never get the reason why this trench was built. It only afforded protection for one's legs, which is the part of the body one would rather be hit in if one must be hit at all. The goose-flesh always crept around my head when I walked along this sap, for, strange to say, my head seemed to be the most valuable part of me, and at night the machine-gun bullets used to whistle through the low hedge that ran alongside it and frequently struck sparks from the flints on the old road just a yard or two away. I suppose I used that sap two hundred times, always with misgivings, for I have seen more than a score of men punctured along its length.