14
THE YPRES TIMES
the other night, thought he would take his men back over the top, instead of
enduring the purgatory of Muddy Lane. His effort ended a few yards from his
starting point where he was so firmly bogged that it took an hour to get him out.
We are shelled sometimes, mostly with heavy stuff, and the result is the most
astounding cataracts of slush and constant alterations in the outline of our ditches.
There is nowhere to which to retire and no shelter other than that which the
ditch affords so we just stop where we are. The impossibility of a temporary
evacuation is a good thing- in some wayswhen things are particularly unpleasant and
the breeze is up it has a settling effect on the mind. Occasionally our own gunners
accumulate enough ammunition for a bit of a strafe. On these occasions we are
supposed to be warned because the guns are worn and the shooting, in consequence,
a bit erratic. What could we do if we were warned in time, it is hard to say,
there being no shelter or support trench within reach. But the message from
the gunners is a standing joke because it never reaches us till an hour or so after
the strafe is over. No telephone wires can be expected to function normally in
our sector. It is rather a fearsome business, this strafe of ours. The big shells
roar over so close to our heads that they sound like motor buses; most of them
explode in No Man's Land in volcanoes of mud.
Our meals are rather sketchy here. The transport of rations via Muddy
Lane is a terrific affair. The bread is usually sodden and strongly flavoured
with sandbag, a peculiar taste not easily forgotten. Water is liable to be short
and there is, of course, no meat for we could not cook it. A Maconochie, the
famous stew in a tin, is not bad stuff, however, and can be eaten cold, and bully
beef is, of course, always with us. We usually get a bit of charcoal so that tea
may be made and the rum, thank God, is nearly always forthcoming. Whatever
else must be abandoned the ration party will get the old jar along somehow.
Rum in milk out of a tin is a heartening concoction and is guaranteed to keep the
feet warm for many hours. 1 he consumption of food and drink presents certain
difficulties because our hands are always thickly coated with mudwe have to use
our hands to claw our way aboutbut we have found that if we rub our hands
together most of it will dry and peel off.
The relieving company is an hour or so late as usual, but knowing the con
dition of Muddy Lane we are not surprised. Handing over is a brief business;
there are no trench stores except a few spades, there is no S.A.A. because ammuni
tion boxes would soon be engulfed, there are no diaries because there is no
dugout sufficiently dry or permanent in which to keep one. So we start off
promptly on the long trek down Muddy Lane. Two hours or so will bring us to
the cellar in Ypres, desperately smoky, but at any rate dry. But we may be going
out to rest and, if so, we have a tough job before us. As a preliminary we
must get our gum boots off and our ammunition boots on. After two days of
gum boots our feet are soft and swollen and tremendous efforts have to be made
before the exchange is effected. Now we are out of the ghostly town on the broken
slimy pavé of the familiar Vlamertinghe-Poperinghe road. Trench life does not
fit one for marching and it is a very weary crowd which staggers, as the dawn is
breaking, into the muddy tented field at Ouderdom or the huts of La Clytte.
THE SALIENT.
The aspect of a salient upon a map is familiar to most of us. It is a piece
of ground projecting into the enemy lines and offering, therefore, peculiar dis
advantages and dangers to the defenders. The Hun can shoot right across it:
how many remember Sanctuary Wood, in the days when it was still a wood and
not a collection of tortured tree stumps, with the path ploughed through it by the
