All In It K(1) Carries On by John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
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John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay) >> All In It K(1) Carries On
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14 ALL IN IT
"K (1)" Carries On
BY
IAN HAY
1917
TO ALL SECOND LIEUTENANTS
AND IN PARTICULAR TO THE MEMORY OF
ONE SECOND LIEUTENANT
ALL IN IT
"K (1)" Carries On
By Jan Hay
ALL IN IT: K 1 CARRIES ON.
PIP: A ROMANCE OF YOUTH
GETTING TOGETHER
THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND.
SCALLY: THE STORY OF A PERFECT GENTLEMAN. With Frontispiece.
A KNIGHT ON WHEELS.
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. Illustrated by Charles E. Brock.
A SAFETY MATCH. With frontispiece.
A MAN'S MAN. With frontispiece.
THE RIGHT STUFF. With frontispiece.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
_The First Hundred Thousand_ closed with the Battle of Loos. The
present narrative follows certain friends of ours from the scene of
that costly but valuable experience, through a winter campaign in the
neighbourhood of Ypres and Ploegsteert, to profitable participation in
the Battle of the Somme.
Much has happened since then. The initiative has passed once and for
all into our hands; so has the command of the air. Russia has been
reborn, and, like most healthy infants, is passing through an
uproarious period of teething trouble; but now America has stepped
in, and promises to do more than redress the balance. All along the
Western Front we have begun to move forward, without haste or flurry,
but in such wise that during the past twelve months no position, once
fairly captured and consolidated, has ever been regained by the enemy.
To-day you can stand upon certain recently won eminences--Wytchaete
Ridge, Messines Ridge, Vimy Ridge, and Monchy--looking down into the
enemy's lines, and looking forward to the territory which yet remains
to be restored to France.
You can also look back--not merely from these ridges, but from certain
moral ridges as well--over the ground which has been successfully
traversed, and you can marvel for the hundredth time, not that the
thing was well or badly done, but that it was ever done at all.
But while this narrative was being written, none of these things had
happened. We were still struggling uphill, with inadequate resources.
So, since the incidents of the story were set down, in the main, as
they occurred and when they occurred, the reader will find very little
perspective, a great deal of the mood of the moment, and none at all
of that profound wisdom which comes after the event. For the latter he
must look home--to the lower walks of journalism and the back benches
of the House of Commons.
It is not proposed to carry this story to a third volume. The First
Hundred Thousand, as such, are no more. Like the "Old Contemptibles,"
they are now merged in a greater and more victorious army--in an armed
nation, in fact. And, as Sergeant Mucklewame once observed to
me, "There's no that mony of us left now, onyways." So with all
reverence--remembering how, when they were needed most, these men did
not pause to reason why or count the cost, but came at once--we bid
them good-bye.
CONTENTS
I. WINTER QUARTERS
II. SHELL OUT!
III. WINTER SPORTS: VARIOUS
IV. THE PUSH THAT FAILED
V. UNBENDING THE BOW
VI. YE MERRIE BUZZERS
VII. PASTURES NEW
VIII. "THE NON-COMBATANT"
IX. TUNING UP
X. FULL CHORUS
XI. THE LAST SOLO
XII. RECESSIONAL
XIII. "TWO OLD SOLDIERS, BROKEN IN THE WARS"
ALL IN IT
"K (1)" Carries On
I
WINTER QUARTERS
I
We are getting into our stride again. Two months ago we trudged
into Bethune, gaunt, dirty, soaked to the skin, and reduced to a
comparative handful. None of us had had his clothes off for a week.
Our ankle-puttees had long dropped to pieces, and our hose-tops,
having worked under the soles of our boots, had been cut away and
discarded. The result was a bare and mud-splashed expanse of leg from
boot to kilt, except in the case of the enterprising few who had
devised artistic spat-puttees out of an old sandbag. Our headgear
consisted in a few cases of the regulation Balmoral bonnet, usually
minus "toorie" and badge; in a few more, of the battered remains of a
gas helmet; and in the great majority, of a woollen cap-comforter. We
were bearded like that incomparable fighter, the _poilu_, and we were
separated by an abyss of years, so our stomachs told us, from our last
square meal.
But we were wonderfully placid about it all. Our regimental pipers,
who had come out to play us in, were making what the Psalmist calls
"a joyful noise" in front; and behind us lay the recollection of a
battle, still raging, in which we had struck the first blow, and borne
our full share for three days and nights. Moreover, our particular
blow had bitten deeper into the enemy's line than any other blow in
the neighbourhood. And, most blessed thought of all, everything was
over, and we were going back to rest. For the moment, the memory of
the sights we had seen, and the tax we had levied upon our bodies and
souls, together with the picture of the countless sturdy lads whom
we had left lying beneath the sinister shade of Fosse Eight, were
beneficently obscured by the prospect of food, sleep, and comparative
cleanliness.
After restoring ourselves to our personal comforts, we should
doubtless go somewhere to refit. Drafts were already waiting at the
Base to fill up the great gaps in our ranks. Our companies having been
brought up to strength, a spate of promotions would follow. We had no
Colonel, and only our Company Commander. Subalterns--what was left
of them--would come by their own. N.C.O.'s, again, would have to be
created by the dozen. While all this was going on, and the old names
were being weeded out of the muster-roll to make way for the new, the
Quartermaster would be drawing fresh equipment--packs, mess-tins,
water-bottles, and the hundred oddments which always go astray in
times of stress. There would be a good deal of dialogue of this
sort:--
"Private M'Sumph, I see you are down for a new pack. Where is your old
one?"
"Blawn off ma back, sirr!"
"Where are your puttees?"
"Blawn off ma feet, sirr!"
"Where is your iron ration?"
"Blawn oot o' ma pooch, sirr!"
"Where is your head?"
"Blawn--I beg your pardon, sirr!"--followed by generous reissues all
round.
After a month or so our beloved regiment, once more at full strength,
with traditions and morale annealed by the fires of experience, would
take its rightful place in the forefront of "K (1)."
Such was the immediate future, as it presented itself to the wearied
but optimistic brain of Lieutenant Bobby Little. He communicated his
theories to Captain Wagstaffe.
"I wonder!" replied that experienced officer.
II
The chief penalty of doing a job of work well is that you are promptly
put on to another. This is supposed to be a compliment.
The authorities allowed us exactly two days' rest, and then packed us
off by train, with the new draft, to a particularly hot sector of the
trench-line in Belgium--there to carry on with the operation known in
nautical circles as "executing repairs while under steam."
Well, we have been in Belgium for two months now, and, as already
stated, are getting into our stride again.
There are new faces everywhere, and some of the old faces are not
quite the same. They are finer-drawn; one is conscious of less
chubbiness all round. War is a great maturing agent. There is,
moreover, an air of seasoned authority abroad. Many who were second
lieutenants or lance corporals three months ago are now commanding
companies and platoons. Bobby Little is in command of "A" Company: if
he can cling to this precarious eminence for thirty days--that is,
if no one is sent out to supersede him--he becomes an "automatic"
captain, aged twenty! Major Kemp commands the battalion; Wagstaffe is
his senior major. Ayling has departed from our midst, and rumour
says that he is leading a sort of Pooh Bah existence at Brigade
Headquarters.
There are sad gaps among our old friends of the rank and file. Ogg
and Hogg, M'Slattery and M'Ostrich, have gone to the happy
hunting-grounds. Private Dunshie, the General Specialist (who, you
may remember, found his true vocation, after many days, as battalion
chiropodist), is reported "missing." But his comrades are positive
that no harm has befallen him. Long experience has convinced them that
in the art of landing on his feet their departed friend has no equal.
"I doot he'll be a prisoner," suggests the faithful Mucklewame to the
Transport Sergeant.
"Aye," assents the Transport Sergeant bitterly; "he'll be a prisoner.
No doot he'll try to pass himself off as an officer, for to get better
quarters!"
(The Transport Sergeant, in whose memory certain enormities of Dunshie
had rankled ever since that versatile individual had abandoned the
veterinary profession, owing to the most excusable intervention of
a pack-mule's off hind leg, was not far out in his surmise, as
subsequent history may some day reveal. But the telling of that story
is still a long way off.)
Company Sergeant-Major Pumpherston is now Sergeant-Major of the
Battalion. Mucklewame is a corporal in his old company. Private Tosh
was "offered a stripe," too, but declined, because the invitation
did not include Private Cosh, who, owing to a regrettable lapse not
unconnected with the rum ration, had been omitted from the Honours'
List. Consequently these two grim veterans remain undecorated, but
they are objects of great veneration among the recently joined for all
that.
So you see us once more in harness, falling into the collar with
energy, if not fervour. We no longer regard War with the least
enthusiasm: we have seen It, face to face. Our sole purpose now is to
screw our sturdy followers up to the requisite pitch of efficiency,
and keep them remorselessly at that standard until the dawn of
triumphant and abiding peace.
We have one thing upon our side--youth.
"Most of our regular senior officers are gone, sir," remarked Colonel
Kemp one day to the Brigadier--"dead, or wounded, or promoted to other
commands; and I have something like twenty new subalterns. When you
subtract a centenarian like myself, the average age of our Battalion
Mess, including Company Commanders, works out at something under
twenty-three. But I am not exchanging any of them, thanks!"
III
Trench-life in Belgium is an entirely different proposition from
trench-life in France. The undulating country in which we now find
ourselves offers an infinite choice of unpleasant surroundings.
Down south, Vermelles way, the trenches stretch in a comparatively
straight line for miles, facing one another squarely, and giving
little opportunity for tactical enterprise. The infantry blaze and
sputter at one another in front; the guns roar behind; and that is all
there is to be said about it. But here, the line follows the curve of
each little hill. At one place you are in a salient, in a trench which
runs round the face of a bulging "knowe"--a tempting target for shells
of every kind. A few hundred yards farther north, or south, the ground
is much lower, and the trench-line runs back into a re-entrant,
seeking for a position which shall not be commanded from higher ground
in front.
The line is pierced at intervals by railway-cuttings, which have to be
barricaded, and canals, which require special defences. Almost every
spot in either line is overlooked by some adjacent ridge, or enfiladed
from some adjacent trench. It is disconcerting for a methodical young
officer, after cautiously scrutinising the trench upon his front
through a periscope, to find that the entire performance has been
visible (and his entire person exposed) to the view of a Boche trench
situated on a hill-slope upon his immediate left.
And our trench-line, with its infinity of salients and re-entrants,
is itself only part of the great salient of "Wipers." You may imagine
with what methodical solemnity the Boche "crumps" the interior of that
constricted area. Looking round at night, when the star-shells float
up over the skyline, one could almost imagine one's self inside a
complete circle, instead of a horseshoe.
The machine-gunners of both sides are extremely busy. In the plains of
France the pursuit of their nefarious trade was practically limited to
front-line work. When they did venture to indulge in what they called
"overhead" fire, their friends in the forefront used to summon them
after the performance, and reproachfully point out sundry ominous
rents and abrasions in the back of the front-line parapet. But here
they can withdraw behind a convenient ridge, and _strafe_ Boches a
mile and a half away, without causing any complaints. Needless to say,
Brother Boche is not backward in returning the compliment. He has one
gun in particular which never tires in its efforts to rouse us from
_ennui_. It must be a long way off, for we can only just hear the
report. Moreover, its contribution to our liveliness, when it does
arrive, falls at an extremely steep angle--so steep, indeed, that it
only just clears the embankment under which we live, and falls upon
the very doorsteps of the dug-outs with which that sanctuary is
honeycombed.
This invigorating shower is turned on regularly for ten minutes, at
three, six, nine, and twelve o'clock daily. Its area of activity
includes our tiny but, alas! steadily growing cemetery. One evening a
regiment which had recently "taken over" selected 6 P.M. as a suitable
hour for a funeral. The result was a grimly humorous spectacle--the
mourners, including the Commanding Officer and officiating clergy,
taking hasty cover in a truly novel trench; while the central figure
of the obsequies, sublimely indifferent to the Hun and all his
frightfulness, lay on the grass outside, calm and impassive amid the
whispering hail of bullets.
As for the trenches themselves--well, as the immortal costermonger
observed, "there ain't no word in the blooming language" for them.
In the first place, there is no settled trench-line at all. The
Salient has been a battlefield for twelve months past. No one has ever
had the time, or opportunity, to construct anything in the shape of
permanent defences. A shallow trench, trimmed with an untidy parapet
of sandbags, and there is your stronghold! For rest and meditation,
a hole in the ground, half-full of water and roofed with a sheet
of galvanised iron; or possibly a glorified rabbit-burrow in a
canal-bank. These things, as a modern poet has observed, are all right
in the summer-time. But winter here is a disintegrating season. It
rains heavily for, say, three days. Two days of sharp frost succeed,
and the rain-soaked earth is reduced to the necessary degree of
friability. Another day's rain, and trenches and dug-outs come sliding
down like melted butter. Even if you revet the trenches, it is not
easy to drain them. The only difference is that if your line is
situated on the forward slope of a hill the support trench drains into
the firing-trench; if they are on the reverse slope, the firing-trench
drains into the support trench. Our indefatigable friends Box and Cox,
of the Royal Engineers, assisted by sturdy Pioneer Battalions, labour
like heroes; but the utmost they can achieve, in a low-lying country
like this, is to divert as much water as possible into some other
Brigade's area. Which they do, right cunningly.
In addition to the Boche, we wage continuous warfare with the
elements, and the various departments of Olympus render us
characteristic assistance. The Round Game Department has issued a set
of rules for the correct method of massaging and greasing the feet.
(Major Wagstaff e refers to this as, "Sole-slapping; or What to do in
the Children's Hour; complete in Twelve Fortnightly Parts.") The Fairy
Godmother Department presents us with what the Quartermaster describes
as "Boots, gum, thigh"; and there has also been an issue of so-called
fur jackets, in which the Practical Joke Department has plainly taken
a hand. Most of these garments appear to have been contributed by
animals unknown to zoology, or more probably by a syndicate thereof.
Corporal Mucklewame's costume gives him the appearance of a St.
Bernard dog with Astrakhan fore legs. Sergeant Carfrae is attired
in what looks like the skin of Nana, the dog-nurse in "Peter Pan."
Private Nigg, an undersized youth of bashful disposition, creeps
forlornly about his duties disguised as an imitation leopard. As he
passes by, facetious persons pull what is left of his tail. Private
Tosh, on being confronted with his winter _trousseau_, observed
bitterly--
"I jined the Airmy for tae be a sojer; but I doot they must have pit
me doon as a mountain goat!"
Still, though our variegated pelts cause us to resemble an
unsuccessful compromise between Esau and an Eskimo, they keep our
bodies warm. We wish we could say the same for our feet. On good days
we stand ankle-deep; on bad, we are occasionally over the knees.
Thrice blessed then are our Boots, Gum, Thigh, though even these
cannot altogether ward off frost-bite and chilblains.
Over the way, Brother Boche is having a bad time of it: his trenches
are in a worse state than ours. Last night a plaintive voice cried
out--
"Are you dere, Jock? Haf you whiskey? We haf plenty water!"
Not bad for a Boche, the platoon decided.
There is no doubt that whatever the German General Staff may think
about the war and the future, the German Infantry soldier is "fed-up."
His satiety takes the form of a craving for social intercourse with
the foe. In the small hours, when the vigilance of the German N.C.O.'s
is relaxed, and the officers are probably in their dug-outs, he makes
rather pathetic overtures. We are frequently invited to come out
and shake hands. "Dis war will be ober the nineteen of nex' month!"
(Evidently the Kaiser has had another revelation.) The other morning a
German soldier, with a wisp of something white in his hand, actually
clambered out of the firing-trench and advanced towards our lines. The
distance was barely seventy yards. No shot was fired, but you may be
sure that safety-catches were hastily released. Suddenly, in the tense
silence, the ambassador's nerve failed him. He bolted back, followed
by a few desultory bullets. The reason for his sudden panic was never
rightly ascertained, but the weight of public opinion inclined to the
view that Mucklewame, who had momentarily exposed himself above the
parapet, was responsible.
"I doot he thocht ye were a lion escapit from the Scottish Zoo!"
explained a brother corporal, referring to his indignant colleague's
new winter coat.
Here is another incident, with a different ending. At one point our
line approaches to within fifteen yards of the Boche trenches. One wet
and dismal dawn, as the battalion stood to arms in the neighbourhood
of this delectable spot, there came a sudden shout from the enemy, and
an outburst of rapid rifle fire. Almost simultaneously two breathless
and unkempt figures tumbled over our parapet into the firing-trench.
The fusillade died away.
To the extreme discomfort and shame of a respectable citizen of
Bannockburn, one Private Buncle, the more hairy of the two visitors,
upon recovering his feet, promptly flung his arms around his neck and
kissed him on both cheeks. The outrage was repeated, by his companion,
upon Private Nigg. At the same time both visitors broke into a joyous
chant of "Russky! Russky!" They were escaped Russian prisoners.
When taken to Headquarters they explained that they had been brought
up to perform fatigue work near the German trenches, and had seized
upon a quiet moment to slip into some convenient undergrowth. Later,
under cover of night, they had made their way in the direction of the
firing-line, arriving just in time to make a dash before daylight
discovered them. You may imagine their triumphal departure from our
trenches--loaded with cigarettes, chocolate, bully beef, and other
imperishable souvenirs.
We have had other visitors. One bright day a Boche aeroplane made
a reconnaissance of our lines. It was a beautiful thing, white and
birdlike. But as its occupants were probably taking photographs of our
most secret fastnesses, artistic appreciation was dimmed by righteous
wrath--wrath which turned to profound gratification when a philistine
British plane appeared in the blue and engaged the glittering stranger
in battle. There was some very pretty aerial manoeuvring, right over
our heads, as the combatants swooped and circled for position. We
could hear their machine-guns pattering away; and the volume of sound
was increased by the distant contributions of "Coughing Clara"--our
latest anti-aircraft gun, which appears to suffer from chronic
irritation of the mucous membrane.
Suddenly the German aeroplane gave a lurch; then righted herself; then
began to circle down, making desperate efforts to cross the neutral
line. But the British airman headed her off. Next moment she lurched
again, and then took a "nosedive" straight into the British trenches.
She fell on open ground, a few hundred yards behind our second line.
The place had been a wilderness a moment before; but the crowd which
instantaneously sprang up round the wreck could not have been less
than two hundred strong. (One observes the same uncanny phenomenon in
London, when a cab-horse falls down in a deserted street.) However,
it melted away at the rebuke of the first officer who hurried to the
spot, the process of dissolution being accelerated by several bursts
of German shrapnel.
Both pilot and observer were dead. They had made a gallant fight, and
were buried the same evening, with all honour, in the little cemetery,
alongside many who had once been their foes, but were now peacefully
neutral.
IV
The housing question in Belgium confronts us with several novel
problems. It is not so easy to billet troops here, especially in the
Salient, as in France. Some of us live in huts, others in tents,
others in dug-outs. Others, more fortunate, are loaded on to a fleet
of motor-buses and whisked off to more civilised dwellings many miles
away. These buses once plied for hire upon the streets of London. Each
bus is in charge of the identical pair of cross-talk comedians who
controlled its destinies in more peaceful days. Strangely attired in
khaki and sheepskin, they salute officers with cheerful _bonhomie_,
and bellow to one another throughout the journey the simple and
primitive jests of their previous incarnation, to the huge delight of
their fares.
The destination-boards and advertisements are no more, for the buses
are painted a neutral green all over; but the conductor is always
ready and willing to tell you what his previous route was.
"That Daimler behind you, sir," he informs you, "is one of the Number
Nineteens. Set you down at the top of Sloane Street many a time, I'll
be bound. Ernie"--this to the driver, along the side of the bus--"you
oughter have slowed down when thet copper waved his little flag: he
wasn't pleased with yer, ole son!" (The "copper" is a military mounted
policeman, controlling the traffic of a little town which lies on our
way to the trenches.) "This is a Number Eight, sir. No, that dent in
the staircase wasn't done by no shell. The ole girl got that through
a skid up against a lamp-post, one wet Saturday night in the Vauxhall
Bridge Road. Dangerous place, London!"
We rattle through a brave little town, which is "carrying on" in the
face of paralysed trade and periodical shelling. Soldiers abound. All
are muddy, but some are muddier than others. The latter are going up
to the trenches, the former are coming back. Upon the walls, here and
there, we notice a gay poster advertising an entertainment organised
by certain Divisional troops, which is to be given nightly throughout
the week. At the foot of the bill is printed in large capitals, A
HOOGE SUCCESS! We should like to send a copy of that plucky document
to Brother Boche. He would not understand it, but it would annoy him
greatly.
Now we leave the town behind, and quicken up along the open road--an
interminable ribbon of _pave_, absolutely straight, and bordered upon
either side by what was once macadam, but is now a quagmire a foot
deep. Occasionally there is a warning cry of "Wire!" and the outside
fares hurriedly bow from the waist, in order to avoid having their
throats cut by a telephone wire--"Gunners for a dollar!" surmises
a strangled voice--tightly stretched across the road between two
poplars. Occasionally, too, that indefatigable humorist, Ernie,
directs his course beneath some low-spreading branches, through which
the upper part of the bus crashes remorselessly, while the passengers,
lying sardine-wise upon the roof uplift their voices in profane and
bloodthirsty chorus.
"Nothing like a bit o' fun on the way to the trenches, boys! It may be
the last you'll get!" is the only apology which Ernie offers.
* * * * *
Presently our vehicle bumps across a nubbly bridge, and enters what
was once a fair city. It is a walled city, like Chester, and is
separated from the surrounding country by a moat as wide as the upper
Thames. In days gone by those ramparts and that moat could have held
an army at bay--and probably did, more than once. They have done so
yet again; but at what a cost!
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