was ‘Young Alf,’ or some such name, a professional heavyweight. I never expect to meet a man with a kindlier outlook on men and things. His boils got well, and he was marked for convalescent camp. When he said good-bye he insisted on giving me two English pennies, ‘for remembrance,’ as he said. I knew they were all he had in the world and I determined not to part with them. But I forgot. They were spent or lost when I got back to the regiment. I rather think ‘Young Alf’ would not have forgotten.
The most awesome and in some ways most dreadful thing I ever saw was a kind of ceremonial gas attack in the autumn of 1917. We withdrew from the front line to the support trench, so that the engineers could operate on the ground between. It was a still moonlight night, one of those nights when the guns on both sides were quiet and there was nothing to show there was a war on. The attack began with a firework display of golden rain. The fireworks petered out and a line of hissing cylinders sent-a dense grey mist rolling over No Man’s Land. What breeze there was must have been exactly right for the purpose. But the unusual silence, the serene moonlit sky, and that creeping cloud of death and torment made a nightmare scene I shall never forget.
It seemed ages before Jerry realized what was afoot. At last, however, the first gas alarm went and I think most of us were glad to think he would not be taken unawares. Presently the gongs and empty shell-cases and bars of steel were beating all along his front, almost as though he was welcoming in the New Year. But I was haunted for hours afterwards by the thought of what was happening over there. Sympathy was blown sky-high the next night, however. We were going out to rest and shortly before the relieving troops were due Jerry started one of the fiercest barrages I ever experienced. The relief could not come up. The trenches were crowded with men all packed up and unable to go, and it rained-heavens, how it rained! Hour after hour we stood there in the rising flood, helpless as sheep in the pen, while the guns did their worst.
It was six in the morning before we got back to the rest billets, more dead than alive. Even then there was no rest for me. I was detailed to parade for battalion guard in four hours. Battalion guard was a spit and polish business, and a full day would not have sufficed to remove nine days’ mud from my uniform and clean my saturated equipment. A scarecrow guard of deadly tired men eventually paraded. We had done our best to get clean, but neither the sergeant-major nor the adjutant, both looking fresh and beautiful, applauded our efforts. Very much the contrary, in fact. But we were all past caring what they thought or said about our appearance.
The next time I went into the line a spot of gas sent me out of it for good. I did not know American troops were in France till I found myself in one of their hospitals at Etretat. The nurses and doctors were gentle beyond anything I ever experienced. I could only account for it by thinking they must regard my case as hopeless, and when I found a large white bow pinned on my bed there seemed no room for doubt. I got rather light-headed and fancied my obsequies had already begun in the hustling fashion of the Americans. But the white bow only meant that I was on milk diet.
A week later I was in Blighty, the soldier’s Promised Land. Six months afterwards I appeared in the streets again as a civilian with a profound hatred for war and everything it implies.
Private Harold Saunders enlisted in the 14th London (London Scottish) in November 1915, and went to France with the 2nd Battalion in June 1916. When the 60th Division left France for Salonika he was left behind with a septic heel. He was transferred to the 1st Battalion, and was with them till a whiff of gas at Cambrai completed the wreck in October 1917. He was finally discharged April 1918
.
IN A KITE BALLOON
W. Sylvanus Lewis
I am not what is termed a
The most awesome and in some ways most dreadful thing I ever saw was a kind of ceremonial gas attack in the autumn of 1917. We withdrew from the front line to the support trench, so that the engineers could operate on the ground between. It was a still moonlight night, one of those nights when the guns on both sides were quiet and there was nothing to show there was a war on. The attack began with a firework display of golden rain. The fireworks petered out and a line of hissing cylinders sent-a dense grey mist rolling over No Man’s Land. What breeze there was must have been exactly right for the purpose. But the unusual silence, the serene moonlit sky, and that creeping cloud of death and torment made a nightmare scene I shall never forget.
It seemed ages before Jerry realized what was afoot. At last, however, the first gas alarm went and I think most of us were glad to think he would not be taken unawares. Presently the gongs and empty shell-cases and bars of steel were beating all along his front, almost as though he was welcoming in the New Year. But I was haunted for hours afterwards by the thought of what was happening over there. Sympathy was blown sky-high the next night, however. We were going out to rest and shortly before the relieving troops were due Jerry started one of the fiercest barrages I ever experienced. The relief could not come up. The trenches were crowded with men all packed up and unable to go, and it rained-heavens, how it rained! Hour after hour we stood there in the rising flood, helpless as sheep in the pen, while the guns did their worst.
It was six in the morning before we got back to the rest billets, more dead than alive. Even then there was no rest for me. I was detailed to parade for battalion guard in four hours. Battalion guard was a spit and polish business, and a full day would not have sufficed to remove nine days’ mud from my uniform and clean my saturated equipment. A scarecrow guard of deadly tired men eventually paraded. We had done our best to get clean, but neither the sergeant-major nor the adjutant, both looking fresh and beautiful, applauded our efforts. Very much the contrary, in fact. But we were all past caring what they thought or said about our appearance.
The next time I went into the line a spot of gas sent me out of it for good. I did not know American troops were in France till I found myself in one of their hospitals at Etretat. The nurses and doctors were gentle beyond anything I ever experienced. I could only account for it by thinking they must regard my case as hopeless, and when I found a large white bow pinned on my bed there seemed no room for doubt. I got rather light-headed and fancied my obsequies had already begun in the hustling fashion of the Americans. But the white bow only meant that I was on milk diet.
A week later I was in Blighty, the soldier’s Promised Land. Six months afterwards I appeared in the streets again as a civilian with a profound hatred for war and everything it implies.
Private Harold Saunders enlisted in the 14th London (London Scottish) in November 1915, and went to France with the 2nd Battalion in June 1916. When the 60th Division left France for Salonika he was left behind with a septic heel. He was transferred to the 1st Battalion, and was with them till a whiff of gas at Cambrai completed the wreck in October 1917. He was finally discharged April 1918
.
IN A KITE BALLOON
W. Sylvanus Lewis
I am not what is termed a
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