Norman Ten Hundred Part 11

"There's whiskers on the pork We curl 'em with a fork--."

In unhappy contract to Christmas. New Year proved to be a day of short rations, bully beef and a rehearsal of an attack in the snow. The bread ration dwindled down to Winkleian proportions.

A move up the line was pending in the near future and rumours that of all h.e.l.lish sectors they were going up the Pa.s.schendaele-Ypres areas, were received with continuous outbursts of growling.

The young Staffords who had not the gruesome knowledge of Belgian desolation were satisfied with a front anywhere near the magic Ypres.

They wanted to see the place where, as one of them was perpertually saying. "A couple of Blighty regiments made a bloomin' 'ell of a mess of the whole blooming' Jerry army."

There was everywhere a mutual recognition of a possible, a probable, German attack on a scale to date unparalleled. Every battalion in the Brigade was thoroughly cognisant that at some time during the next few months they would be called upon to make another Cambrai stand. There was a general feeling that he would attempt to crush the British Army at a blow, seize the Channel ports, and thus isolate what armies had escaped the first onslaught.

XI

DECEMBER-JANUARY, 1918

LEULENE--BRANDHOEK--YPRES

January 3.--Snow had, after three weeks on the ground beneath the hardening influence of a temperature several degrees below zero, evolved into a surface upon which a constant steady balance demanded no little skill. Marching enc.u.mbered with a full pack, clumsy Army-shod feet, one arm only free for a much hampered swing, increased the difficulties of maintaining a secure foothold.

(Full pack: A conglomeration of articles intended in normal ages to be transported by two mules, but under the influence of advanced civilisation strapped on the back of one man, in addition to a rifle, half a dozen Mills' bombs, a Lewis-gun, spade or shovel, sheet of corrugated iron, or any other article that can be somewhere hung upon him).

Weariness, fed-upity, after many miles had been laboriously reeled off, was a factor in slackening vigilance on the semi-ice, many painful falls resulting--to fall with a pack produces a situation resembling a beetle on its back.

Stumpy pulled someone out of a snowdrift--then he fell into one himself, unnoticed. He caught the Battalion up at the halt.

"Oh, 'ell," he shouted indignantly, "I might a' died for all you bloomin' well cared."

"Why, wot's up?"

"Up? I fell into a bloomin' drift."

"Oh, an' wot the 'ell d'you do that for?"

"Do it for. Why, why...!" The crowd about him grinned.

"P'raps 'e saw 'is ole woman comin 'along the road."

"'E saw the bloomin' captain drop a 'skate' (f.a.g-end) down an' went after it."

"That's the way 'e 'as 'is weekly wash."

"He was playin' s...o...b..a.l.l.s with 'is bloomin' self."

The command to "fall in" dropped the curtain.

In the grey of dusk the shadowy column marched into Leulene.

The Ten Hundred, after an eleven days' "rest" in the icy grip of a winter's wind that clung to Leulene unabating throughout the period, marched away and entrained upon their first portion of journey front-linewards.

Cattle-trucks provide ample novelty, aroma and draughts. Refuse covering the floor is swept by the occupants into a corner heap, but someone has to sleep on it. An open s.p.a.ce between a sliding door can comfortably accommodate two with legs dangling over, but invariably has four or more hunched-up, jumbled khaki figures.

These trains never hurry: always twist and turn and double back half-a-dozen times in journeyings from one point to another. Jolting and jarring is unnoticed--you are past noticing anything after the first hour!

Officers have usually the luxury of railway carriages, but the private--

Privates: Individuals who form the large proportion of a Battalion.

Their salient duties embrace s.h.i.+ning b.u.t.tons, carrying up officers'

rations, dodging parades, scrubbing out sergeants' and officers' mess, squad drill, guards, and C.B., picking up paper near the billets, grousing and growing thin on short rations--during spare moments they are used for fighting.

Detraining at Brandhoek, the Ten Hundred marched to Brake Camp, a rambling collection of huts built in a wood near the main road running between Poperinghe and Ypres, within a short distance of Vlamertynghe.

It was "Pop!" Unchanged, grim and grey, visited day and night by bomb and sh.e.l.l with the ceaseless activity of that Belgian area. A battalion of Worcesters, whom the Normans were relieving, painted a merry picture of the sodden sector.

"Fritz ain't 'alf playin' 'ell wi' the front line. Washed out two blasted regiments in less than a week...."

"No bloomm' trenches up there. Only sh.e.l.l 'oles an' hundreds of bodies.

Ration parties can't get up wi' the grub...."

"Jerry sh.e.l.ls like 'ell orl night an' sends over gas in sh.e.l.ls and cloud orl day. Three 'undred casualties last week an' I 'eard that alf of 'em kicked the bucket...."

"Old Jerry 'as a million troops from Russia waitin' to come over next month for his offensive...."

"Yus, Sir Daggie 'Aig sez 'e must sacrifice 'is First Lines. An', wots more, yer up to the neck in water...."

The Normans slept that night haunted by nightmare visitations created by minds pervaded with strong "wind-upity." Stumpy succ.u.mbed to a. fit of depression from which nothing could rouse him. Evans (a Stafford) gave him a f.a.g.

"Cheer up," he said.

"Can't? Bloomin' water up to yer neck an' they don't issue lifebelts an'

I can't swim."

"Garn. That's only wot they SEZ."

"Gas an' sh.e.l.ls an' troops."

"Only bloomin' rumours."

"An' no ration parties can got up--oh gawd!"

"Wot about it?"

"No ration parties means no grub an' NO rum. Wot a pore Tommy 'as got ter put up with."

The following day marching through Ypres they moved further up the Line to a camp situated near St. Jean and from whence they would make their final preparations and march towards the duckboard (a series of boards resembling actual duck-boards and raised to a height above the ground varying in accordance to the depth of water) track winding up the wasted sh.e.l.l-torn soil to the communication trenches.