Bullets & Billets

By Bruce Bairnsfather

1916

TO MY OLD PALS,
"BILL," "BERT," AND "ALF,"
WHO HAVE SAT IN THE MUD WITH ME

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"Bruce Bairnsfather: a photograph"

"The Birth of "Fragments": Scribbles on the farmhouse walls"

That Astronomical Annoyance, the Star Shell, Which Momentarily Enables You to Scrutinize the Kind of Mud You Are In

An Impression of the Famous Bois de Ploegsteet

"A Hopeless Dawn: Rain, Mud, Damp Coke, and Dug-Out Off Down Stream"

"The usual line in Billeting Farms: A Three-Sided Red-Tiled Building, With a Rectangular Smell in the Middle"

"Chuck us the biscuits, Bill. The fire wants mendin'"

"Shut that blinkin' door. There's a 'ell of a draught in 'ere"

"A Memory of Christmas, 1914: 'Look at this bloke's buttons, 'Arry. I should reckon 'e 'as a maid to dress 'im."

What He Doesn't Know About Fire Buckets and the Time the Rum Comes Up Isn't Worth Knowing

A Messines Memory: "'Ow about shiftin' a bit further down the road, Fred?"

"Old soldiers never die"

Photograph of the Author. St. Yvon, Christmas Day, 1914
Officers, 2nd Lieutenant: 1
Bairnsfathers, Bruce: 1
Holes, Shell: 1

Off "in" again

"Poor old Maggie! She seems to be 'avin' it dreadful wet at 'ome!"

The Tin-opener

Subterranean Voice, Commenting on the Abnormal Activity of the Mortar Across the Way: "They're devils to snipe, ain't they, Bill?"

First Discovered in the Alluvial Deposits of Southern Flanders.
Feeds Almost Exclusively on Jam and Water Biscuits.
Hobby: Filling Sandbags, on Dark and Rainy Nights

FOREWORD

Down South, in the Valley of the Somme, far from the spots recorded in this book, I began to write this story.

In billets it was. I strolled across the old farmyard and into the wood beyond. Sitting by a gurgling little stream, I began, with the aid of a notebook and a pencil, to record the joys and sorrows of my first six months in France.

I do not claim any unique quality for these experiences. Many thousands have had the same. I have merely, by request, made a record of my times out there, in the way that they appeared to me.

CHAPTER I

LANDING AT HAVRE—TORTONI'S—FOLLOW
THE TRAM LINES—ORDERS FOR THE FRONT

Gliding up the Seine, on a transport crammed to the lid with troops, in the still, cold hours of a November morning, was my debut into the war. It was about 6 a.m. when our boat silently slipped along past the great wooden sheds, posts and complications of Havre Harbour. I had spent most of the twelve-hour trip down somewhere in the depths of the ship, dealing out rations to the hundred men that I had brought with me from Plymouth. This sounds a comparatively simple process, but not a bit of it. To begin with, the ship was filled with troops to bursting point, and the mere matter of proceeding from one deck to another was about as difficult as trying to get round to see a friend at the other side of the ground at a Crystal Palace Cup final.

I stood in a queue of Gordons, Seaforths, Worcesters, etc., slowly moving up one, until, finally arriving at the companion (nearly said staircase), I tobogganed down into the hold, and spent what was left of the night dealing out those rations. Having finished at last, I came to the surface again, and now, as the transport glided along through the dirty waters of the river, and as I gazed at the motley collection of Frenchmen on the various wharves, and saw a variety of soldiery, and a host of other warlike "props," I felt acutely that now I was in the war at last—the real thing! For some time I had been rehearsing in England; but that was over now, and here I was—in the common or garden vernacular—"in the soup."

At last we were alongside, and in due course I had collected that hundred men of mine, and found that the number was still a hundred, after which I landed with the rest, received instructions and a guide, then started off for the Base Camps.

These Camps were about three miles out of Havre, and thither the whole contents of the ship marched in one long column, accompanied on either side by a crowd of ragged little boys shouting for souvenirs and biscuits. I and my hundred men were near the rear of the procession, and in about an hour's time arrived at the Base Camps.

I don't know that it is possible to construct anything more atrociously hideous or uninteresting than a Base Camp. It consists, in military parlance, of nothing more than:—

In fact, a huge space, once a field, now a bog, on which are perched rows and rows of squalid tents.

I stumbled along over the mud with my troupe, and having found the Adjutant, after a considerable search, thought that my task was over, and that I could slink off into some odd tent or other and get a sleep and a rest. Oh no!—the Adjutant had only expected fifty men, and here was I with a hundred.

Consternation! Two hours' telephoning and intricate back-chat with the Adjutant eventually led to my being ordered to leave the expected fifty and take the others to another Base Camp hard by, and see if they would like to have them there.

The rival Base Camp expressed a willingness to have this other fifty, so at last I had finished, and having found an empty tent, lay down on the ground, with my greatcoat for a pillow and went to sleep.

I awoke at about three in the afternoon, got hold of a bucket of water and proceeded to have a wash. Having shaved, washed, brushed my hair, and had a look at the general effect in the polished back of my cigarette case (all my kit was still at the docks), I emerged from my canvas cave and started off to have a look round.

I soon discovered a small café down the road, and found it was a place used by several of the officers who, like myself, were temporarily dumped at the Camps. I went in and got something to eat. Quite a good little place upstairs there was, where one could get breakfast each morning: just coffee, eggs, and bread sort of thing. By great luck I met a pal of mine here; he had come over in a boat previous to mine, and after we had had a bit of a refresher and a smoke we decided to go off down to Havre and see the sights.

A tram passed along in front of this café, and this we boarded. It took about half an hour getting down to Havre from Bléville where the Camps were, but it was worth it.

Tortoni's Café, a place that we looked upon as the last link with civilization: Tortoni's, with its blaze of light, looking-glass and gold paint—its popping corks and hurrying waiters—made a deep and pleasant indent on one's mind, for "to-morrow" meant "the Front" for most of those who sat there.

As we sat in the midst of that kaleidoscopic picture, formed of French, Belgian and English uniforms, intermingled with the varied and gaudy robes of the local nymphs; as we mused in the midst of dense clouds of tobacco smoke, we could not help reflecting that this might be the last time we should look on such scenes of revelry, and came to the conclusion that the only thing to do was to make the most of it while we had the chance. And, by Gad, we did....

A little after midnight I parted from my companion and started off to get back to that Base Camp of mine.

Standing in the main square of the town, I realized a few points which tended to take the edge off the success of the evening:

No. 1.—It was too late to get a tram.

No. 2.—All the taxis had disappeared.

No. 3.—It was pouring with rain.

No. 4.—I had three miles to go.

I started off to walk it—but had I known what that walk was going to be, I would have buttoned myself round a lamp-post and stayed where I was.

I made that fatal mistake of thinking that I knew the way.

Leaning at an angle of forty-five degrees against the driving rain, I staggered along the tram lines past the Casino, and feeling convinced that the tram lines must be correct, determined to follow them.

After about half an hour's walk, mostly uphill, I became rather suspicious as to the road being quite right.

Seeing a sentry-box outside a palatial edifice on the right, I tacked across the road and looked for the sentry.

A lurid thing in gendarmes advanced upon me, and I let off one of my curtailed French sentences at him:

"Pour Bléville, Monsieur?"

I can't give his answer in French, but being interpreted I think it meant that I was completely on the wrong road, and that he wasn't certain as to how I could ever get back on it without returning to Havre and starting again.

He produced an envelope, made an unintelligible sketch on the back of it, and started me off again down the way I had come.

I realized what my mistake had been. There was evidently a branch tram line, which I had followed, and this I thought could only have branched off near the Casino, so back I went to the Casino and started again.

I was right about the branch line, and started merrily off again, taking as I thought the main line to Bléville.

After another half-hour of this, with eyes feverishly searching for recognizable landmarks, I again began to have doubts as to the veracity of the tram lines. However, pretending that I placed their honesty beyond all doubt, I plodded on; but round a corner, found the outlook so unfamiliar that I determined to ask again. Not a soul about. Presently I discovered a small house, standing back off the road and showing a thin slit of light above the shutters of a downstairs window. I tapped on the glass. A sound as of someone hurriedly trying to hide a pile of coverless umbrellas in a cupboard was followed by the opening of the window, and a bristling head was silhouetted against the light.

I squeezed out the same old sentence:

"Pour Bléville, Monsieur?"

A fearful cataract of unintelligible words burst from the head, but left me almost as much in the dark as ever, though with a faint glimmering that I was "warmer." I felt that if I went back about a mile and turned to the left, all would be well.

I thanked the gollywog in the window, who, somehow or other, I think must have been a printer working late, and started off once more.

After another hour's route march I came to some scattered houses, and finally to a village. I was indignantly staring at a house when suddenly, joy!—I realized that what I was looking at was an unfamiliar view of the café where I had breakfasted earlier in the day.

Another ten minutes and I reached the Camp. Time now 2.30 a.m. I thought I would just take a look in at the Orderly Room tent to see if there were any orders in for me. It was lucky I did. Inside I found an orderly asleep in a blanket, and woke him.

"Anything in for me?" I asked. "Bairnsfather's my name."

"Yes, sir, there is," came through the blanket, and getting up he went to the table at the other end of the tent. He sleepily handed me the wire: "Lieutenant Bairnsfather to proceed to join his battalion as machine-gun officer...."

"What time do I have to push off?" I inquired.

"By the eight o'clock from Havre to-morrow, sir."

Time now 3 a.m. To-morrow—THE FRONT! And then I crept into my tent and tried to sleep.

CHAPTER II

TORTUOUS TRAVELLING—CLIPPERS AND
TABLETS—DUMPED AT A SIDING—I JOIN
MY BATTALION

Not much sleep that night, a sort of feverish coma instead: wild dreams in which I and the gendarme were attacking a German trench, the officer in charge of which we found to be the Base Camp Adjutant after all.

However, I got up early—packed my few belongings in my valise, which had mysteriously turned up from the docks, and went off on the tram down to Havre. That hundred men I had brought over had nothing to do with me now. I was entirely on my own, and was off to the Front to join my battalion. Down at Havre the officials at the station gave me a complicated yellow diagram, known as a travelling pass, and I got into a carriage in the train bound for Rouen.

I was not alone now; a whole forest of second lieutenants like myself were in the same train, and with them a solid, congealed mass of valises, packs, revolvers and haversacks. At last the train started, and after the usual hour spent in feeling that you have left all the most important things behind, I settled down on a mound of equipment and tried to do a bit of a sleep.

So what with sleeping, smoking and talking, we jolted along until we pulled up at Rouen. Here I had to leave the train, for some obscure reason, in order to go to the Palais de Justice to get another ticket. I padded off down over the bridge into Rouen, found the Palais, went in and was shown along to an office that dealt in tickets.

In this dark and dingy oak-panelled saloon, illuminated by electric light and the glittering reflections from gold braid, there lurked a general or two. I was here given another pass entitling me to be deposited at a certain siding in Flanders.

Back I went to the station, and in due course rattled off in the train again towards the North.

A fearfully long journey we had, up to the Front! The worst of it was that nobody knew—or, if they did, wouldn't tell you—which way you were going, or how long it would take to get to your destination. For instance, we didn't know we were going to Rouen till we got there; and we didn't know we were going from Rouen to Boulogne until, after a night spent in the train, the whole outfit jolted and jangled into the Gare de Something, down by the wharf at that salubrious seaport.

We spent a complete day and part of an evening at Boulogne, as our train did not leave until midnight.

I and another chap who was going to the next railhead to mine at the Front, went off together into the town and had lunch at a café in the High Street. We then strolled around the shops, buying a few things we needed. Not very attractive things either, but I'll mention them here to show how we thought and felt.

We first went to a "pharmacie" and got some boxes of morphia tablets, after which we went to an ironmonger's (don't know the French for it) and each bought a ponderous pair of barbed wire cutters. So what with wire clippers and morphia tablets, we were gay. About four o'clock we calmed down a bit, and went to the same restaurant where we had lunched.

Here we had tea with a couple of French girls, exceeding good to look upon, who had apparently escaped from Lille. We got on splendidly with them till a couple of French officers, one with the Legion of Honour, came along to the next table. That took all the shine out of us, so we determined to quit, and cleared off to the Hotel de Folkestone, where we had a bath to console us. Dinner followed, and then, feeling particularly hilarious, I made my will. Not the approved will of family lawyer style, but just a letter announcing, in bald and harsh terms that, in the event of my remaining permanently in Belgium, I wanted my total small worldly wealth to be disposed of in a certain way.

Felt better after this outburst, and, rejoining my pal, we went off into the town again and by easy stages reached the train.

At about one a.m. the train started, and we creaked and groaned our way out of Boulogne. We were now really off for the Front, and the situation, consequently, became more exciting. We were slowly getting nearer and nearer to the real thing. But what a train! It dribbled and rumbled along at about five miles an hour, and, I verily believe, stopped at every farmhouse within sight of the line. I could not help thinking that the engine driver was a German in disguise, who was trying to prevent our ever arriving at our destination. I tried to sleep, but each time the train pulled up, I woke with a start and thought that we'd got there. This went on for many hours, and as I knew we must be getting somewhere near, my dreams became worse and worse.

I somehow began to think that the engine driver was becoming cautious—(he was a Frenchman again)—thought that, perhaps, he had to get down occasionally and walk ahead a bit to see if it was safe to go on.

Nobody in the train had the least idea where the Front was, how far off, or what it was like. For all we knew, our train might be going right up into the rear of the front line trenches. Somewhere round 6 a.m. I reached my siding. All the others, except myself and one other, had got out at previous halts. I got down from the carriage on to the cinder track, and went along the line to the station. Nobody about except a few Frenchmen, so I went back to the carriage again, and sat looking out through the dimmed window at the rain-soaked flat country. The other fellow with me was doing the same. A sudden, profound depression came over me. Here was I and this other cove dumped down at this horrible siding; nothing to eat, and nobody to meet us. How rude and callous of someone, or something. I looked at my watch; it had stopped, and on trying to wind it I found it was broken.

I stared out of the window again; gave that up, and stared at the opposite seat. Suddenly my eye caught something shiny under the seat. I stooped and picked it up; it was a watch! I have always looked upon this episode as an omen of some sort; but of what sort I can't quite make out. Finding a watch means finding "Time"—perhaps it meant I would find time to write this book; on the other hand it may have meant that my time had come—who knows?

At about eight o'clock by my new watch I again made an attack on the station, and at last found the R.T.O., which, being interpreted, means the Railway Transport Officer. He told me where my battalion was to be found; but didn't know whether they were in the trenches or out. He also added that if he were me he wouldn't hurry about going there, as I could probably get a lift in an A.S.C. wagon later on. I took his advice, and having left all my tackle by his office, went into the nearest estaminet to get some breakfast. The owner, a genial but garrulous little Frenchman, spent quite a lot of time explaining to me how those hateful people, the Boches, had occupied his house not so long before, and had punched a hole in his kitchen wall to use a machine-gun through. After breakfast I went to the station and arranged for my baggage to be sent on by an A.S.C. wagon, and then started out to walk to Nieppe, which I learnt was the place where my battalion billeted. As I plodded along the muddy road in the pouring rain, I became aware of a sound with which I was afterwards to become horribly familiar.

"Boom!" That was all; but I knew it was the voice of the guns, and in that moment I realized that here was the war, and that I was in it.

I ploughed along for about four miles down uninteresting mud canals—known on maps as roads—until, finally, I entered Nieppe.

The battalion, I heard from a passing soldier, was having its last day in billets prior to going into the trenches again. They were billeted at a disused brewery at the other end of the town. I went on down the squalid street and finally found the place.

A crowd of dirty, war-worn looking soldiers were clustered about the entrance in groups. I went in through the large archway past them into the brewery yard. Soldiers everywhere, resting, talking and smoking. I inquired where the officers' quarters were, and was shown to the brewery head office. Here I found the battalion officers, many of whom I knew, and went into their improvised messroom, which, in previous days, had apparently been the Brewery Board room.

I found everything very dark, dingy and depressing. That night the battalion was going into the trenches again, and last evenings in billets are not generally very exhilarating. I sat and talked with those I knew, and presently the Colonel came in, and I heard what the orders were for the evening. I felt very strange and foreign to it all, as everyone except myself had had their baptism of trench life, and, consequently, at this time I did not possess that calm indifference, bred of painful experience, which is part of the essence of a true trench-dweller.

The evening drew on. We had our last meal in billets—sardines, bread, butter and cake sort of thing—slung on to the bare table by the soldier servants, who were more engrossed in packing up things they were taking to the trenches than in anything else.

And now the time came to start off. I found the machine-gun section in charge of a sergeant, a most excellent fellow, who had looked after the section since the officer (whose place I had come to fill) had been wounded. 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. The road was getting rougher, and the houses, dotted about in dark silhouettes against the sky-line, had a curiously deserted and worn appearance. Everything was looking dark, damp and drear.

On we went down the road through the wood, stumbling along in the darkness over the shell-pitted track. Weird noises occasionally floated through the trees; the faint "crack" of a rifle, or the rumble of limber wheels. A distant light flickered momentarily in the air, cutting out in bold relief the ruins of the shattered chateau on our left. On we went through this scene of dark and humid desolation, past the occasional mounds of former habitations, on into the trenches before Plugstreet Wood.

CHAPTER III

THOSE PLUGSTREET TRENCHES—MUD AND
RAIN—FLOODED OUT—A HOPELESS DAWN

An extraordinary sensation—the first time of going into trenches. The first idea that struck me about them was their haphazard design. There was, no doubt, some very excellent reason for someone or other making those trenches as they were; but they really did strike me as curious when I first saw them.

A trench will, perhaps, run diagonally across a field, will then go along a hedge at right angles, suddenly give it up and start again fifty yards to the left, in such a position that it is bound to cross the kitchen-garden of a shattered chateau, go through the greenhouse and out into the road. On getting there it henceforth rivals the ditch at the side in the amount of water it can run off into a row of dug-outs in the next field. There is, apparently, no necessity for a trench to be in any way parallel to the line of your enemy; as long as he can't shoot you from immediately behind, that's all you ask.

It was a long and weary night, that first one of mine in the trenches. Everything was strange, and wet and horrid. First of all I had to go and fix up my machine guns at various points, and find places for the gunners to sleep in. This was no easy matter, as many of the dug-outs had fallen in and floated off down stream.

In this, and subsequent descriptions of the trenches, I may lay myself open to the charge of exaggeration. But it must be remembered that I am describing trench life in the early days of 1914, and I feel sure that those who had experience of them will acquit me of any such charge.

To give a recipe for getting a rough idea, in case you want to, I recommend the following procedure. Select a flat ten-acre ploughed field, so sited that all the surface water of the surrounding country drains into it. Now cut a zig-zag slot about four feet deep and three feet wide diagonally across, dam off as much water as you can so as to leave about a hundred yards of squelchy mud; delve out a hole at one side of the slot, then endeavour to live there for a month on bully beef and damp biscuits, whilst a friend has instructions to fire at you with his Winchester every time you put your head above the surface.

Well, here I was, anyway, and the next thing was to make the best of it. As I have before said, these were the days of the earliest trenches in this war: days when we had none of those desirable "props," such as corrugated iron, floorboards, and sand bags ad lib.

When you made a dug-out in those days you made it out of anything you could find, and generally had to make it yourself. That first night I was "in" I discovered, after a humid hour or so, that our battalion wouldn't fit into the spaces left by the last one, and as regards dug-outs, the truth of that mathematical axiom, "Two's into one, won't go," suddenly dawned on me with painful clearness. I was faced with making a dug-out, and it was raining, of course. (Note.—Whenever I don't state the climatic conditions, read "raining.") After sloshing about in several primitive trenches in the vicinity of the spot where we had fixed our best machine-gun position, my sergeant and I discovered a sort of covered passage in a ditch in front of a communication trench. It was a sort of emergency exit back from a row of ramshackle, water-logged hovels in the ditch to the communication trench. We decided to make use of this passage, and arranged things in such a way that by scooping out the clay walls we made two caves, one behind the other. The front one was about five yards from the machine gun, and you reached the back cave by going through the outer one. It now being about 11 p.m., and having been for the last five hours perpetually on the scramble, through trenches of all sorts, I drew myself into the inner cave to go to sleep.

This little place was about 4 feet long, 3 feet high, and 3 feet wide. I got out my knife, took a scoop out of the clay wall, and fishing out a candle-end from my pocket, stuck it in the niche, lit it and a cigarette. I now lay down and tried to size up the situation and life in general.

Here I was, in this horrible clay cavity, somewhere in Belgium, miles and miles from home. Cold, wet through and covered with mud. This was the first day; and, so far as I could see, the future contained nothing but repetitions of the same thing, or worse.

Nothing was to be heard except the occasional crack of the sniper's shot, the dripping of the rain, and the low murmur of voices from the outer cave.

In the narrow space beside me lay my equipment; revolver, and a sodden packet of cigarettes. Everything damp, cold and dark; candle-end guttering. I think suddenly of something like the Empire or the Alhambra, or anything else that's reminiscent of brightness and life, and then—swish, bang—back to the reality that the damp clay wall is only eighteen inches in front of me; that here I am—that the Boche is just on the other side of the field; and that there doesn't seem the slightest chance of leaving except in an ambulance.

My machine-gun section for the gun near by lay in the front cave, a couple of feet from me; their spasmodic talking gradually died away as, one by one, they dropped off to sleep. One more indignant, hopeless glare at the flickering candle-end, then I pinched the wick, curled up, and went to sleep.

A sudden cold sort of peppermint sensation assailed me; I awoke and sat up. My head cannoned off the clay ceiling, so I partially had to lie down again.

I attempted to strike a match, but found the whole box was damp and sodden. I heard a muttering of voices and a curse or two in the outer cavern, and presently the sergeant entered my sanctum on all fours:

"We're bein' flooded out, sir; there's water a foot deep in this place of ours."

That explains it. I feel all round the back of my greatcoat and find I have been sleeping in a pool of water.

I crawled out of my inner chamber, and the whole lot of us dived through the rapidly rising water into the ditch outside. I scrambled up on to the top of the bank, and tried to focus the situation.

From inquiries and personal observation I found that the cause of the tide rising was the fact that the Engineers had been draining the trench, in the course of which process they had apparently struck a spring of water.

We accepted the cause of the disaster philosophically, and immediately discussed what was the best thing to be done. Action of some sort was urgently necessary, as at present we were all sitting on the top of the mud bank of the ditch in the silent, steady rain, the whole party being occasionally illuminated by a German star shell—more like a family sitting for a flashlight photograph than anything else.

We decided to make a dam. Having found an empty ration box and half a bag of coke, we started on the job of trying to fence off the water from our cave. After about an hour's struggle with the elements we at last succeeded, with the aid of the ration box, the sack of coke and a few tins of bully, in reducing the water level inside to six inches.

Here we were, now wetter than ever, cold as Polar bears, sitting in this hygroscopic catacomb at about 2 a.m. We longed for a fire; a fire was decided on. We had a fire bucket—it had started life as a biscuit tin—a few bits of damp wood, but no coke. "We had some coke, I'm sure! Why, of course—we built it into the dam!" Down came the dam, out came the coke, and in came the water. However, we preferred the water to the cold; so, finally, after many exasperating efforts, we got a fire going in the bucket. Five minutes' bliss followed by disaster. The fire bucket proceeded to emit such dense volumes of sulphurous smoke that in a few moments we couldn't see a lighted match.

We stuck it a short time longer, then one by one dived into the water and out into the air, shooting out of our mud hovel to the surface like snakes when you pour water down their holes.

Time now 3 a.m. No sleep; rain, water, plus smoke. A board meeting held immediately decides to give up sleep and dug-outs for that night. A motion to try and construct a chimney with an entrenching tool is defeated by five votes to one ... dawn is breaking—my first night in trenches comes to an end.

CHAPTER IV

MORE MUD—RAIN AND BULLETS—A BIT OF
CAKE—"WIND UP"—NIGHT ROUNDS