The Ypres Times.
157
repair and up-keep of the forward roads under dire conditions. Even yet the mention of
such places as Ypres, Hell Fire Corner and the Jabber Track gives one a strange thrill.
The day was begun usually with a 3.30 a.m. reveille. The camp orderly quietly, so that
his voice would not be heard by enemy aircraft, came round the tents rousing the men
from such slumber.as they were enjoying. Half-an-hour later we marched off silently in
the darkness and in single file to the particular section of the road that was receiving
our attentionIn darkness and with dangers compassed round." How true, yet there
was an impressiveness in the experience which no words can describe. Somewhere in the
rear our guns were blazing away and overhead we could hear the whirring sound of many
shells in their flight towards the enemy over the way, while German shells were continuing
to burst too uncomfortably near. From the trenches ahead Yéry lights were rising and
falling in mystic signals.
MAKING A ROAD UNDER SHELL FIRE.
Imperial War Museum photograph. Crown copyright.
Dawn was usually breaking when we began our work. Shell holes, wide and deep,
needed filling up, roads broken by constant traffic had to be repaired. Here and there the
way was blocked by derelict G.S. wagons and these we pushed into the adjoining field.
It was usual to fill up a shell holé with sacks of earth, old ammunition boxes, bits of brick
from shell-shattered buildings, in fact any of the debris of war that was at hand. Finally,
it would be covered over with earth and, although it was a rough and ready job, it kept the
roadway comparatively easy for traffic to pass along. Work, of course, was being con
tinually interrupted by enemy shelling. Some mornings Fritz would be as quiet
as a field-mouse, but only for a time. Then on our alert ears would break the unmis
takable coming of a shell. Simultaneously, the men, spread out along the roadway, would
crouch or throw themselves prone, as with a terrifying crash the shell would burst and,
before you could say Jack Robinson or To hell with the Kaiser," we were on our
feet again and scuttling to cover like so man}' rats with the terriers let loose on them.
Not many mornings passed that we did not leave casualties behind us. But with the
following morning we had once more to face those terrible forward roads.
c
