The Platoon by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781783031696
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2013-04-01T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Neuve Chapelle and Winter 1917

Early in January, the Company moved to the front line in the Neuve Chapelle area. The trenches were so waterlogged that duckboards floated uselessly. Each firebay was just a trench cut out of the earth, in which a pair of sentries would stand after dark to keep watch over No Man’s Land.

Barnet and Fenn took up their positions there one dark night while the rain poured a monotonous tune on their tin hats. It was bitterly cold. They stood together stamping their feet, and from time to time shaking their itching bodies tormented by lice. They gazed out upon a dreary stretch and heard the incessant cries of a night bird perched on a blasted bush. An enemy rifle flashed and cracked, a machine-gun rattled noisily, and at intervals, a heavy long-distance shell lazily passed over their heads with a drone that reminded them of a tramcar passing in Blighty. Now and again, a verey-light shot up, illumined for a few seconds the misty gloom then fell and fizzled out. Some of the troops used to say there was but one German soldier, an aged man, occupying the opposite trench, whose duty was to move along to various posts and fire star shells to delude Tommy into believing that Jerry’s line was full of troops!1

The rule for sentries was: one hour on and two off, during the night; another pair relieving. The only ‘relief’ they got when they stood down was freedom to stamp along the few yards to try to get some warmth into their frozen feet. Shelter there was none. The platoon spent six days and nights of this.2 Without doubt the most looked-for event of front-line life in winter was the rum issue during morning stand-to. After a foul night, the men used to hail with pleasure the appearance of the brown jar under an officer’s arm. The amber magic drove the chill from the stomach, enlivened the heart’s action and revived the spirits. It was good to see the rose of dawn displace the purple on a comrade’s nose and see the light of hope rekindled in his eyes. Certain peculiar people in Blighty, who would have withheld this medicinal dram, might have modified their views had they spent but one of those bleak nights out there.

Going back to their billets at Riez Bailleul when relieved, the troops resembled little old men, weak-kneed, swollen-eyed, backs and shoulders in excruciating pain through being unable to recline their bodies and rest their heads, under the constant weight of their equipment and steel helmets, and the grip of the gas respirators on their chests. And lousy withal.3 Little Wills was so weak that he hobbled along alone. When they reached the billet Frane dropped on the floor in the dark without shedding his equipment and lay thus in a sort of stupor. The field kitchens stood in the yard. The two cooks had made tea for the platoons. Corporal Blown called out: “Thomas and Lawley, fetch the tea”.

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