THE YPRES TIMES
173
By G. B. Smith.
And look you, on the holydays I'd tell
To all the wandering boors and gaping children,
Strange tales of what the regiment did in Flanders,
And thou should'st say Amen, and be my warrant,
That I speak truth to them."
Scott.
IF you, gentle reader, have never been on a wiring party in France, you have
missed one of the experiences of your life.
Early in 1918 I was detailed to take a party of sixteen men, under an officer,
up to the first-line trenches near Oppy, and there put up a certain length of barbed
wire. The night in question was a particularly dark one, and, although this was
fortunate in that it might hide us from the Huns, it also was by no means an
unmitigated blessing. Fortunately we did not have to take any material up to the
trenches with us, as all that we would require was to be had at the G.H.Q., whose
length of front we were wiring.
My men were mostly fresh arrivals in the land of mud, and had previously only
done the artistic style of wire entanglements which one could, until after the
signing of the Armistice, see upon our East Coast. The officer with me wag also a
novice so far as this particular form of sport went, and knew more about
casting a column of figures in a bank ledger than casting barbed-wire entangle
ments into No Man's Land.
Do you know Tomnjy's Alley," leading to the front line in the Oppy Sector?
If not, you are lucky. I believe it was the longest communication trench in France,
and so I need comment no more upon its length. It was lined with duckboards,'
which were probably meant, originally, to keep the traveller out of the mud, but at
the time of which I write these same boards were much disturbed by shell fire.
Conjure up, if you can, visions of a very hard frost, and imagine these boards
frozen hard into all manner of angles and withal as slippery as a ball-room floor,
and then perhaps you will be able to guess what a nice time we had going a-wiring.
We skidded all ways, and had an exciting time dodging the rifle or the steel helmet
of the fellow in front as he backslided, or perhaps we would find ourselves clinging
with a fond embrace round the neck of the man in front as we fell forward.
However, we at last arrived at the trench proper, plus a few lumps, an odd black
eye or so, and minus sundry pieces of our faces and hands.
The company commander whose front we were going to wire was a gentleman
of the real dare-devil Dick type. He met our officer with his finger pressed to
his lips as a sign for us to keep silence, and held a revolver tightly gripped in his
other hand. He walked on tiptoe and with a crouching attitude like a tiger about
to spring. His escort, a diminutive Cockney, imitated his master's attitude, and
held his rifle with fixed bayonet firmly, with a look as if he meant to sell his life
dearly. After repeating the words Keep quiet!" three times in an impressive
voice, the worthy skipper informed us that a Bosche patrol was near the wire
which we were going to repair. This cheered us immensely, and we felt inclined
to send an invitation to the Bosche commander to keep his patrol there all night