Section 4 of The Dead Devil of the Army Experiences as a Buzzer and Dispatch Rider by Austin Patrick Cochorin. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 2. The author assists at a victory and abandons his bike for better things. Part 2. Come here, said the officer in perfect English. He approached, and once more they went through his pockets. Then he was ordered to take off his clothes. I thought the Brutes only meant to make their search more thorough, so, of course, I complied very promptly. While I was doing it, one of their soldiers, at a sign from the officer, ran up to a motor-lorry, took off a bundle, and brought it over to me. And can you guess what was in it? I give up. A German private's uniform. Harrison stops for a moment, as if the memory were too much for him. Even when they ordered me to put it on, he says, I could scarcely realise what it meant. Can you think of me fighting on their side? I suppose they were too far from their base or something to send me back, but fancy putting me in one of their beastly coats. And God, how those Brutes treated me! To Frank, too courageous to pretend any friendship, he glared at the men round. I can imagine the look on his young, haughty face. An Englander. How they were hating us just then. But there was nothing for him to do but obey orders. So with a German pack on his back and the Kaiser's cap on his head, he started on his weary march. For a while, goes on Harrison, I was wild with anger, but they soon cured me of that. I swung round once when someone laughed behind me, but a prick of a bayonet brought me to my senses. Then someone kicked me in the shins, and another spat at me.   He spits the word out viciously. That's the only fit name for them. Lord, if our officers treated us as theirs, treat them with mutiny. At least, I would. A nurse comes in just at this point and notices Harrison's flush face. She threatens to separate us if there is any more excitement. Bad for his head, she whispers to me. I suppose she is right, but I am longing for the end of his story. I get it along in the afternoon. I don't know how many days we were marching, he says. To me, it seemed like years. Of course, I was alone all the time. They gave me food, but I had to eat by myself. They treated me as if I had the plague.  I wonder they didn't starve me or stick a ban at through me. Sometimes I felt like doing it myself. I'm surprised I didn't when I look back on it, but I suppose we all like to be alive. This is a very much older Harrison than the boy I met last. Then he was 18. Now he's 30. We were way back of the fighting most of the time, he goes on, though we could always hear the din of the guns. Then one day it seemed to come very near. Next I heard the shrapnel again, and then the ping of bullets, so I knew we were nearing the real fighting. Finally, about three o'clock on an afternoon, I saw a village in the distance through the shade of thick trees, and I realized that there was a battle on in that town. Thank God it was good to know that you were somewhere near, even if I was on the wrong side of the line. Then began his real ordeal. He had re-entered the fight in the midst of a street scrap, one of those contests in which the houses on opposite sides of a street formed the lines for the opposing troops. Almost before I realized what was happening I found myself in a house. It was dark. They had closed those long French shutters. But presently I was close up beside one. Through the cracks I could see the street, very narrow and clouded with smoke. I kept on peering through. They had forgotten me in the excitement. Suddenly a head bobbed up on the opposite side. A tommy. I could have shrieked with delight. But the next instant a red-black spot appeared on his forehead, and then the head disappeared. They'd shot him, the brutes. How I loathed them. Harrison stops for a moment, and there comes a glare in his eye. I'm afraid he's getting excited. I feel I ought to stop him, but I dread the coming of the nurse. The glare dies down, and I am relieved. In its place comes a look of determination. I just made up my mind then, he says, that I would not stay with them. I guessed that they'd kill me if I tried to get across, but I decided to risk it anyway. The door of the house had been blown open by a shell. This gave him his chance. He moved towards it, and presently caught sight of a window on the opposite side, from which glass and frame had been shot out. Sprint across and climbed through. That was his program. No one was watching me, he explains, and I'm a pretty good runner. So I tucked my head under my arm, and dived into the street. For a moment no one fired, each side probably dumbfounded by the sight of this man, dashing through no man's land. Then, rip, rip, spoke up the bullets from both sides. But the moment had been enough. He was almost across. He felt a tickling sensation in his shoulder, a stab in his right foot, but he managed to muster up his energy. I'm British! British! He sheltered for the benefits of his own side. Don't shoot! By now the others had recognized him. Too late, however, he had dived through the window and was safe on his own ground. When I woke, he finished as, I was in hospital, and here I am again. For five weeks they keep me in the hospital, part of the time in bed, part hobbling round on crutches. I learn to be thankful that I am not crippled for life. While Harrison is with me, we have excellent sport. There is one person who plays poker, and another who is learning golf. Each day the latter comes home with a tall story of some extra-ordinary stroke that he has mastered. Finally, one fine morning, he invites us all out to watch him, and we stroll out to the nine-hole course. After much hemming and whoring, primping and prancing, he swings. Something hurtles through the air. For a moment he watches it with the critical eyes of an expert, then turns to us triumphantly. Well, what do you say to that? We say nothing, but our glance travels significantly but silently to the earth. His follows. There, at his feet, lies the ball. Perplexed, he looks at his stick. The head is missing. In deference to his cloth, I refrain from repeating his comment, but that afternoon he deserts the links for the tennis court. Soon it is discovered that Harrison's wound is not healing properly, so they send him to his native English air. I am chumless, and consequently rather cheerless. Not an appallingly monotonous thing convalescence can be. This early-to-bed, early-to-rise existence may be healthy, but it fails entirely to appeal to me. I begin to long even for the roar of a Jack Johnson. So when at last I get my orders to march once more, I leave with a light heart. My wound, I find, has placed me in the veteran class, so my duties are to be easy for a time. I am sent to the signal depot at Aberville to act as instructor to recently arrived rookies. All morning I lecture to them on such diverse matters as their duty, the difficulty of being hygienic under fire, how they may accomplish the first and overcome the latter. In the afternoon, with the aid of maps, we plot out a line of our own. We pick different points to represent different brigades, each about two or three miles apart. Then I distribute fake messages, and find out how long it will take the novices to deliver them and return to their base. Some prove to be splendid messenger boys, others get the opportunity of returning to England with the option of transferring to another branch of the service, or doing a clerical job at home. But these latter are few and far between. However, this job does not last long. Soon I am in excellent condition, a fact of which the authorities make me aware, by informing me that I am to report to a brigade stationed outside St. Alloy. I am in no hurry now to get to the line, so I dawdle luxuriously along the road, a beautiful wooded road over which the sun is shining amiably. Famous men mar such scenes with smoke and fearful slaughter. You see, I have lost all my enthusiasm for the noble art of war. At St. Paul I stop off for a good night's rest, and a visit to a local movie house. I see Charlie Chaplin in the children's auto race, and laugh at it with all the abandon of a regular fan. Next morning I am on the road by six o'clock, and by eight I have arrived at my new station. The Hooge show has about begun, so I am plunged into the thick of it promptly. The first day I ride to Ypres, the sight of which fails to revive in me any respect for the great God Mars. But not until next morning do my troubles really begin. It is August the first, on which date we lost a recently achieved position by an overpowering attack of gas. For the first time in my life I am made familiar with a gas mask, not the ingenious contrivance which our troops wear now, but a homemade variety that is anything but comfortable. It consists of a piece of saturated cotton wool tied up in a strip of gauze which is strapped over the nose and mouth. I record a mental resolution that, law or no law, no dog of mine will ever again be subjected to the indignity of a muzzle. But I have seen some men already writhing in an agony of suffocation, so I submit to my mask without demure. I am inclined to think, however, that it affected my sight as well as my sensation, else how account for the accident that presently overtook me. I have just rounded the bend of a road. Yawning in front of me is a shell pit, large enough, the Lord knows, to be seen even by a blind man. Yet it escapes my notice, until forcibly thrust on it. Plop! I go into it, again on top of my machine, which, this time, succumbs under my weight. I have probably put on a few pounds in that excellent hospital. Anyway, the front wheel crumples up like so much cardboard. I get to my destination on foot and return by the same method, to be met by an irate officer who gives me a very sound rating for the negligence to which he attributes my mishap. Didn't I know that it was a new machine and very precious? He gives me another and dismisses me with a message and a warning. I start off in a downpour of rain and am not more than half an hour on the road when I come plump into a five-ton truck. I try to pass it on the wrong side of the road. To punish me it crowds me into the ditch. In spite of the warning, I prefer my own safety to that of the machine. I jump clear and the back wheel of the truck passes over the gearbox of the bike, which also crumples up like so much cardboard. I am debating the desirability of footing the rest of the journey or commandeering the truck on the spot when I perceive another motorcycle approaching. The rider is good enough to give me a lift. I deliver my message and once more return to my headquarters on foot and oh the dusting down I get now. My officer recently arrived and in consequence most conscientious threatens to report me for carelessness. How I should like to be that man's superior for a few minutes. I teach him to treat veterans with a little more deference. The worst of it is that I know he is quite right and I am very conscious of the fact that for a seasoned cyclist I am doing very badly. However, circumstance forces him to entrust another bike to my bad hands. This time I am sent to a small village on the north of E-Pro. I get through safely and I'm about to leave the signal office when someone stops me. Would I take a message to a battery commander located in a dugout on the main road midway between this point and Hooge? I agree, of course, on the one condition that my brigade is notified as to my delay. On route I become painfully conscious of the extraordinary activity of the Bosch guns. The shells were over my head at the rate of 60 to the second. I cover my mile or two at about the same speed. I get through, get my receipt and return in safety. The incident passes from my mind. Pass four or five days with the same dangerous routine. These are hot times for the town of Hooge. At the end of this time our brigade is relieved and we retire without reluctance for a rest. It is a couple of mornings later that a large and hercute sergeant major wakes me up with the message that I am to report at eight sharp to the brigade's signal officer. What for? Don't know, but you'd better not be late. That sounds promising and sets my brain to work. Had that blankety blank rookie officer reported me after all? If he had. Well, I only hoped that we would both survive the war and that the gods would be kind enough to make his path lie near mine. Nothing for it, however, but to report in time. I do so. The officer looks me over. Oh, Yorkacorin. Yes, sir. His tone relieves my tension. Well, at eight thirty you're to see the brigade major. See that you get there on time. More mysteries. Again I report promptly and once again I'm met with a smile. You've been recommended for a commission. He informs me amiably. I suppose I look puzzled, for he adds the explanation. For good work, carrying dispatchers under fire. The commission, he goes on, is to take effect from August the 17th. It is now August the 20th. He shakes my hand and wishes me all sorts of good luck. I depart, extremely perplexed. What else have I been doing since the beginning of this business, but carrying dispatchers under fire? What else had I been doing when I received my wound? I decide that strange are the ways of the war-office. While I am deciding it, my feet lead me involuntarily to the signal office, where the signal officer is still sitting. I put the problem up to him. He smiles. Do you remember? He asks. On August the 1st delivering a dispatch to a battery commander outside Hooge. Of course I do. But what of it? Well, he explains. You may not be aware of the fact, but six men had tried to carry it before you, and every single one of them was killed. Good Lord! The ejaculation comes out unconsciously. There can be no doubt of the fact that ignorance often brings bliss. Thus unwittingly and involuntarily do I become a hero in spite of myself. Thanks be to Mars. He is henceforth my friend. Next morning, August the 21st, I received my discharge and am sent back to England for an officer's training. Automatically my commission is in the signal service of the Royal Engineers. My orders are to report on arrival at the signal depot at Fanny Stratford, where I find Lieutenant Colonel Lister as officer commanding at the time. He grants me five days leave, in which I may see my friends and get my new uniform. I rush down to Devonshire, where my people are just then, and live for the first three days in a blur of handshaking, hugging, kissing, questioning, from which I finally escape to London. Follows a hectic time with the tailor, a round of dining and dancing. I find no let-up in the old life here. But oh, how the good time flies! Then on the fifth morning, talked out to my new trim dress, I report for duty at my station. I have quite decided, of course, by this time, that I shall have at least four months at home. They can't turn out completed officers in a shorter period than that. So I begin to plan for myself all sorts of pleasant surprises. Let all those eager youngsters who are so anxious to get across hurry over if they want to. I'll take my time. I am quite aware of the fact that the Bosch will still be waiting there, and far be it from me to unduly hasten the meeting. At Fenney Stratford an adjutant takes me in hand, and inculcates the first principles of such important trifles as Esprit de Cor. Then he turns me over to the officer in charge of the school. He puts me through my paces to see what I know. Ever done any telegraphy? Ever heard of such things as circuits? I inform him that I have taken an electrical course at Cambridge, which elicits an exclamation of please surprise. Then, of course, you've been in touch with the signalers all the time in France. You know about cable laying, airline rigging, etc.? I allow that I am at least initiated into these intricate rites. Ever ridden a horse? He asks me next. Well, I ranched in Bolivia for a few years. Good. It won't take you any time to get on to the Mounted Drill. I should think you'll be through it in about ten days. Through? What did the man mean? I don't know what sensation my expression signified, but he goes on pleasantly in his reassuring voice. Oh, yes, another three weeks ought to see you back on the line. My lord, why haven't I learned to keep my mouth shut? Once more, my Spanish castle comes tumbling about my ears. I always thought I was a fool. Now I know it. My stay at the depot is not prolonged over two days. Then I am hustled off to Haynes Park, Bedfordshire, and put into a drill-class that has commenced the same day. I get a mount. Poor beast! If he were mine, I'd either shoot him, or pension him for the rest of his natural life. However, having taken one look at my sergeant major, Ridingmaster, I keep all such reflections to myself.  Now, gentleman, he bulls before beginning the class. You're it, I learn to ride an horse, and I'm it, I learn yet to do it. I know very well as El Year officers, but they are far here with me. Please remember year my pupils. Now then, all who think they can ride, ride out in front. For a few seconds I hesitate. The man has killed me. Then I take a chance with two others. Where did you learn to ride? He asked me sarcastically. In Ireland, and then in Bolivia. Oh, he turns to the man next to me, a chap named Finney. I'm from North West Canada. Finney informs him. I ain't inquiring about your birthplace. I'm asking if you can ride. What a terrible man. But Finney is not terrified. Well, I've been at it twenty years. He replies with a drawl. The sergeant major turns to the third. Poor chap. He had learned in a London riding school. We are put through our paces in front of the class. Finney and I manage to qualify, but the rider from London. He is informed, quite audibly, that when it comes to managing horses, he may be an excellent master of his mother's clothes horse. As the first six of the ten days are devoted to teaching the others to set a stride, Finney and I are dismissed. We have some grand gallops all over the country. What a magnificent horseman that man was. I doubt if I have ever seen his equal. Then, for the last four days, we are told to chip in and pick up the mounted drill required of a signal officer. It isn't much, and the horses, well-trained brutes, carry out the orders on their own account. That over, we are handed our certificates. That is, all of us who manage to qualify. Follow seven days leave, another oasis in the desert, from which we return to be placed on the list for the overseas draft. For a week, I do such routine duty as that of orderly officer or paying billets. This last is incidental only to certain depots and camps. Where the number of men is too great for the regular accommodation, they are placed with private people round, a regulation which adds from fifteen to twenty-two shillings weekly to the coffers of the families chosen for the honour. An officer is detailed to distribute the money. At the end of the week, I am chosen with several others for the doubtful honour of a Cook's tour. This tour consists of a two-weeks visit to the firing line, and its object is to give young officers an idea of their future duties, before they are entrusted with a section of their own. At the conclusion of the tour, they return to England. Sometimes. My case, of course, came among the exceptions. Some people have none of the luck. End of Section 4 Section 5 of the Daredevil of the Army Experiences as a Buzzer and Dispatch Rider by Austin Patrick Cochorin This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3 In which the telephone proves its utility and instability. Part 1 Our Cook's tour, not being supervised by the experienced gentleman himself, fell apart very early in the game. In fact, when I left Bologna, I was a party of one, with a ticket for the First Army Headquarters, stationed near Bethune. In that well-shelled town, I found a host of determined tradesmen, trying their best to carry on business as usual. A very lively business it was. Whenever the vivacious barber at the corner of the square laid his razor against my well lathered cheek, I began to wonder whether a whiz-bang would not finish the job for him. But his hand was nonetheless steady for that possibility, nor the flow of his language the less fluent. Too bad I could not catch a word of what he said. Not that he minded. No, indeed, he kept right on talking, thereby making me feel quite at home. My stay in his town, however, was destined to be short. In a few days Mr Cook decided to send me further. This time my ticket was for a point nearer the line, the rear of the now famous town of Luce. Just then we were preparing, as you say, to put the place on the map. My part in the preparations was to be contributed under the title of Supernumerary Signal Officer to the Seventh Division. It was early, too early, on a September morning, when I started on my journey from Bethune. The road I was to take launched out from the Great Square, a peculiarity it had in common with about a hundred others. Round and round I flew on the motorbike that furnished my means of transit, but no distinguishing mark of my street could I see.  In reply to my questions he raised a lazy finger and jerked it over his shoulder. In no measured language I tried to indicate what I thought of him and his square, rotten tricky place. I hoped the Bosch would get it, but somehow they never get the things you could best spare. Arrived at my destination I found a batman and billets awaiting me. My quarters were to be in an old French farmhouse on the main road between Vermelles and Noyels. Well here I am, no longer a freelance, but a fixture in the fighting forces, with my own small but significant part to play in the gory game.  Being a typical French farmhouse, it is also typically Irish. That is to say, judged by the conventions of most other countries, it puts the cart before the horse. The first object to assail your senses, it attacks two at a time, is the garbage pile which the family heaps up in public. This flanks one side of the rambling yard. Most of the remainder is given over to a species of mud bath, not to be recommended, however, for cases of rheumatism. In it the non-human livestock despot themselves daily. At the back of this yard and fronting the gate comes the house, with its various adjuncts. Lastly there is the family which emerges to view by slow degrees. There is Madame, the stocky, stolid and dark-eyed, around whom in the absence, and perhaps in the presence of Monsieur, all activities pivot. There is another Madame, presumably her mother, and another, still older, but here we stop. The degrees of this minage could be distinguished only by a genealogist. But as an outsider I should say that at least four generations lived under that roof. One of the youngest is the first to meet my eye. I was riding toward the house, when the strangest little rag-bag swung round a corner into my sight. It was his whistle that first attracted my attention.  As he came nearer I was able to distinguish his wardrobe.  Round his body was a tommy's ground-sheet, in which three holes had been made to allow egress for his head and arms.  And around his neck it took some time to distinguish this ornament was a circular loaf, one of those horseshoe affairs that you see so often on the tables of France. Jean, or was it Joseph, was returning from Marquette. I think I recognise that loaf later when I sat down to table in the spotless kitchen and living-room of the family. But did I, or my fellow officers remark the fact to madame? Not we. We would not dare, even if we so desired. But we did not desire. All three of us are old timers in this show, and such details as a little dirt from Jean's, or is it Joseph's, neck, do not in the least disturb our excellent appetites. There is Harry Wills, a lieutenant from the Norfolk Regiment, one of the earliest of the Old Contemptables. Shattered nerves had sent him home to England. Now he's here to finish his rescue amid the autumn amusements at Luz. Little joke on the part of the Royal Army Medical Corps. In contrast to him comes Collins, a second lieutenant from South America. A shell burst near Collins two days ago, making a crater as big as a house. Dan Newson's, said Collins, turning nonchalantly around. There was a nice shady spot to smoke in under those trees. I share a room with Collins for a night. Then my Batman, a wily beggar who can manage even madame, secures an outhouse for my special accommodation. I call it an outhouse, but in reality it consists of four walls and a roof. The floor is of cobblestones, but they are beautifully cool. On this my bed is erected, and I live on France. In other words, I have privacy, a prized possession. Last evening I was sitting here, trying to write home, when a perfect chorus of voices, male and female, floated on the evening breezes to my ear. They came from the direction of a field nearby. I peeped out and beheld this pleasant scene, calculated to gladden the hearts of the believers in the entente cordiale. On a ditch sat on gel, eldest daughter of the house, as yet scarcely sixteen. With her was a brother, and round her three tommys. In inharmonious unison they were rendering the popular air known to us as, We won't be home till morning. Angel and Freyre gave it in the words of their native land. Malbrox on vat and gear, and not a verse did they miss, nor a line. But the tommys, I noticed, though trying to prove their right to the song, knew no more than the first line, which they repeated ad lib. Angel! Angel! shrilled a voice across the yard. It was madame interrupting the concert. Eldest daughters have little time for such indulgence. Immediately Angel hopped off her perch, and presently I heard one of those seemingly interminable and unintelligible monologues rendered by the mother of the house. Was she scolding, or merely ordering? It might have been either. I confess madame always baffled me completely. Like all foreigners, I had thought of French women as flighty. Yet she, a very typical sample, I am told, of her sex, was the stolidest human being I ever beheld. I was in her kitchen on one occasion, when a shell burst in the yard, damaging the wall of the house and breaking every pane of glass. She was cooking her everlasting soup at the time. She looked at the kitchen window, staring silently for a few moments at the whole, and then calmly proceeded with her stirring. Not a sound, not even a sigh escaped her. But I should not like to be nearby when Monsieur returns to lift the burden from her shoulders, when the terrible tension at length relaxes and releases nature from its strain. I should be inclined to predict that she will celebrate the occasion by a wild burst of hysterics. Meantime there is not a tear in her eye. More power to her, as they say in my country, though I can't fathom, I can at least admire her. But to come back to the business on hand. As I have said, we are in the throes of preparation for one of the greatest pushers in the war. My duty, as supernumerary signal officer, is to superintend the laying of cable that will ensure telephonic communication, both behind and on the line. Our playful friends, the infantrymen, have their own names for our corps. They call us the idiomtes, or the buzzers. To the war-office we are known as the royal engineers, signalers, and you may recognize us easily by the blue and white bands that adorn our strong left arms. A much abused person is the buzzer. In the world military he occupies much the same position as that enjoyed in the civil community by our friend the hello girl. Like her he is accustomed to all degrees of language, from the zero to the boiling or bubbling point. Unlike her he is untrained to the niceties of etiquette. He has not learned, so to speak, to turn the other cheek. Please and thank you, do not rise naturally to his lips, when an impatient conversationalist consigns him to torrid regions. Indeed, at times he is apt to reciprocate the wish, and he allows you a small chance of turning to the manager for relief. Such a desire would probably provoke on his part a loss of hearing. Still, as I have said, he is much abused. Also, he is much used in the modern army. His headquarters is a signal office, designated by a blue and white flag. His habitat may be anywhere according to the exigencies of the moment. The signal office, however, is always attached to a unit, usually to a brigade headquarters from which all activities radiate. Hence, cable links up communications with the battalion headquarters, and with company headquarters all along the actual trenches. Hence, airline connects up the brigade with division headquarters, and division headquarters with corps, and corps with army, and army with general headquarters, and general headquarters with the war office. In short, it is the buzzer's business to link up the whole line. He is an indispensable person, as you may see, but for him you would never read those daily bulletins telling you what the troops are doing on the front. A ubiquitous person, he is everywhere at once, letting the right hand of the army know what the left hand is doing, and letting the world know what both are accomplishing at the same time. This story, however, not being concerned with the high command, we will return forthwith to the brigade headquarters to which my particular section was attached. Here, the personnel of the signal office consisted of telegraph clerks, telephone operators, linemen, messengers, and dispatch riders. A subaltern, assisted by a senior sergeant, acted as boss. In conjunction with him, but not subordinate to him, worked two cable sections, two airline sections, and a wireless section, each controlled also by a subaltern. Brigade headquarters naturally controls the whole brigade, which means as a rule that it commands about three miles of actual fighting front. All its business is transactored over the telephone, the operators taking their turn at the signal office and on the line just as the hello girls do in New York City. In the trenches these operators are, as a rule, infantrymen, the most intelligent of the company being chosen for the job. Loud cries of contradiction from the infantrymen. The most intelligent, indeed, are none too good. Seated in dugouts, which also fly the blue and white flag, they are under the control of the Royal Engineer's officers who see that the work is done properly and the lines always kept in repair. When Fritz is taking his intermittent naps, and sometimes even when he is about his kaiser's business, the work of these trench operators consist in conveying such messages as the non-arrival that morning of the Colonel's clean socks, the non-appearance of the company's plum and apple for tea, with an occasional detail concerning the havoc of a Bosch shell. The speed of his work is, as a rule, about 15 words to the minute. The regular Royal Engineer's signalers is anywhere between 25 and 35. He, of course, is a professional. The instrument on which the message is sent can be used either for telephone or telegraph. The operator decides which shall be used. It depends largely on his mood or his attitude of mind toward the sender. When, however, our side has decided to get busy, a new batch of signalers is prepared for the event. Then, as the waves of the infantry roll over no man's land, these men bring up the rear, reeling out cable as they go. Behind, the old operator remains at his old position. If a Bosch trench is taken, then a new operator is there installed. He connects up with his old trench, which connects up with the battalion headquarters, which connects up with the brigade, which is thus connected with the attackers. When a big push is on, the same principle is pursued, with the difference that the work is done on an infinitely larger scale. Should the cable, that is thus laid, collapse for any reason, there are many usually why it should, then the safety of the whole section is threatened. If battalion headquarters, and through battalion brigade, is not acquainted with the movements of the troops, if they do not know the strength of the resistance, the approximate number of the casualties, the need for reinforcements, whether of men or guns, then the position of the Tommys is highly precarious. Suppose the attack has been successful, and they are ready to advance further, then reserves must be brought up behind. Suppose the line is breaking, and there is danger of there being driven back, then assistance must be rushed to them without delay. But suppose the communications give way, and their needs cannot be made known. Well, the inference is too obvious to need mention. The signalers, as I have said, are the nerves of the modern army. Without them it is paralysed, and might as well be dead. Later in this story we shall see what part the wireless plays in the supplying of the nervous system. For the present our business is with the cable section. It is to this that I was attached at Luz, both before and after the scrap. My job was the super-intending of the laying of the cables, saying that they were put in the safest places, that they were mended when cut, that they were not earthed, thus making conversation undistinguishable. A nerve-wracking job, a nasty job, rather tiresome and thankless, but entirely necessary, as are so many jobs in this romantic business of making war. Now the engineers, unfortunately, are not the only people who find it necessary to lay cable for the purpose of signalling in France. A little incident will explain the necessity for making this statement. Casual infantrymen are apt to confuse skilled with unskilled labour, and lay the sins of the latter at the door of the first. Needless to say, we are the party with the grievance. I was invited to dinner one evening with the brigade mess. For twenty minutes we waited patiently in a sort of anti-room for the arrival of the brigadier, in whose absence we could not eat. He is a red-faced man at his coolest moments. When he arrived his complexion rivaled that of a lobster or a beet boiled to a turn.  I'd hang every one of them if I had my way! He spluttered as he strode down the room. What's the matter, sir? inquired some venturesome person. Matter? Matter? He re-echoed the question. What do you think, sir?  Outrage! That's what it is. Leaving it lying about like that. Hit me first on the head, then caught me on the foot and threw me headlong into a trench. His attire, to say the least, was disordered. Someone glanced significantly at me, but I merely elevated my chin to express my supreme indifference. There was no opportunity at the moment to explain, but I take occasion to do so now. That cable, my friend, belonged not to us, but to the gunners. They use it to connect their batteries with the forward observation officer, also with the battalion commanders. Their method is to string it up on poles, each about eighty yards apart. Should a shell cut it, or should it become broken in another way, it will naturally sag to the earth. Do they mend it? Not they. They have no reputation to sustain in the matter. So their simple method is to let it sag, string up another. This, in turn, is broken. They let that sag, string up another, and so on, add infinitum, until finally their poles assume the complicated appearance of the master-besailing ship gone mad. As an officer aptly expressed it one evening, the Boshers may rush our first line, they may penetrate our second and pierce our third, but as long as the gunner's cable is somewhere in the rear, England can always feel herself secure. And now let me describe our more skilled and elaborate method. From general headquarters up to brigade headquarters, our telephones are connected by airline, a comparatively stationary and safe method of communication. From brigade headquarters to battalion headquarters, that is, from two or three miles behind the line, right up to the trenches, cable has to be used for various reasons. The chief reason lies in the fact that it is the quickest and easiest method, easily laid, easily raised, according to the exigencies of the moment. These two points are, of course, movable. In fact, they may be changed within an hour. A cable detachment consists of ten men, eight horses, four riders, four drafts, and a wagon, the leader and the near-wagon horse having drivers mounted. The wagon carries a number of poles for bridging crossings and four drums of cable, each containing five miles of insulated copper wire. The inside end of each drum is connected with the wagon and contact is made with a telephone on the box seat. Suppose the cable is to be laid between points A and B. The loose end is paid out and man number 8, number 9 and 10 being mounted on the draft horses, connects it with the telephone and remains at point A, while the wagon moves off at a trot. Man number 1, who is mounted, now rides on ahead to pick out the most suitable road to travel. Man number 2 works the telephone on the wagon, constantly keeping in touch with point A. Man number 3 sits in the wagon, easing the cable off the drum. Numbers 4 and 5 sit in the wagon, armed with mat hook and spade, ready at any moment they reach a crossing to jump down and dig a small trench. Numbers 6 and 7 both riders bring up the rear, each carrying a crook stick. This consists probably of a broom handle fitted at the end with an iron hook. Should the route lie along a straight unshaded road, then the duty of the rear riders consists in seeing that the cable does not fall directly in the line of traffic. Usually they push it into the ditch. Should a hedge, a small tree or some other standing object cross their path, then the crook comes into play. With the lift of his arm, number 6 swings the cable aloft. Should he miss, number 7 takes on the job. If the road takes a curve, giving the cable a tendency to drag, then these two dismount and tie it at the side, either to a branch or a stake stuck in the ground. Suppose they come to a crossing of no great size, then out hop numbers 4 and 5, dig a trench usually about 4 inches deep, and bury the cable to preclude any danger of its being cut by a passing vehicle or a horse hoof. Having buried it, they then tie each end to some object nearby, so that the cable cannot be pulled out of its grave. This operation completed, the wagon moves on again. Should the crossing, however, be large, or should a brook come in their path, then the cable is not buried, but borne overhead. In this case it becomes the duty of numbers 4 and 5, assisted by numbers 6 and 7, to erect two poles, each about 18 feet high, on either side of the crossing or water, an operation that takes about 45 seconds. The rate at which cable can be laid by this method averages about 6 miles an hour. In the trenches, naturally, this is out of the question. Horses and wagons have no room here, so a man-pack takes their place. Four men go to make up this detachment. Number one, whose duty it is to pay off the cable, carries his equipment strapped to his back. It is done up now in a reel, consisting of about 1800 yards of 18 gauge, a smaller one than that used in the wagon set. Number two, here leads the way, fixing little wooden pegs in the sides of the trenches. Number one comes next, paying out the cable as he goes. Then come numbers three and four, who tie up the cable to the wooden pegs affixed by number two. Shellfire may at any moment, of course, cut through this cable, and various devices have been introduced to lessen the danger of the communications being destroyed thereby. For one thing, the cable is always laid in loops, one of which may be trusted to preserve the contact, though all the others be cut. This has been found effectual, even in severe fighting. But no method has yet been discovered to lessen the dangers nearer home. Even in the trenches, it is necessary at times to appeal to the gods to save from our friends, as well as our enemies. For often, the sight of our cables remind a strolling infantryman that his shoe is sadly in need of a string, snip, and our cable has supplied one. Such accidents, combined with the unusual activity of threats, served to enliven the monotony of the days before lose. There were others, however, more mysterious that also disturbed our peace, the disconcerting cause of which we discovered only after much damage was done. A few hundred yards from our house, there was a curve in the road, prettily bordered on one side by a clump of thick bushes.  His flock, sadly depleted by the advent of shells, he used to tend in a field adjoining the hut, the same field in which stood the clump of bushes. Now this road led directly to the back of our line, so parties of Tommy's and their officers were daily tramping over it on their way to and from the trenches. But not a party passed for days without losing an officer. Usually he was shot in the back. For a time we stood it. Then an enterprising young subaltern decided to take the matter in hand. Receiving the necessary permission, he and a friend took refuge in the shaded ditch that bordered the shepherd's field. For their trip they chose an hour when they knew a party of men would be passing along the road toward the line. Crouched in their corner they could hear the tramp of the Tommy's feet, an occasional whistle and the buzz of conversation. It came nearer and something stirred in the bushes. Up crept the two, keeping close to the wall. Presently the men swung round the curve. As they did so an arm became visible in the clump, holding a rifle in position. Then the subaltern threw discretion to the winds. With a bound he was in the bushes and the rifle was in his hands. The next instant he was grappling with the old shepherd. But the odds were on his side. The old chap was a spy and the handle of his harmless crook, which it is the custom for shepherds in France to carry, supplied the rifle that had been shooting our precious officers. But he had shot his last. The subaltern saw to that. End of Section 5 Section 6 of the Dare Devil of the Army Experiences as a Buzzer and Dispatch Rider by Austin Patrick Kokorin This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3 In which the telephone proves its utility and instability. Part 2 Well, it is September the 24th and our preparations are complete. All the cables have been laid. All the men have been notified of the positions they are to occupy tomorrow. The particular sector whose communications are in our hands lies facing the famous quarries north of Hullock. God grant we may be occupying them by next sundown. The infantryman is equally ready for his task. In my travels along the trenches, superintending my own men, I have caught glimpses of the efforts he is making. Here is a party filling piles of sandbags. There another serving out ammunition and bombs. A third is concealing the long iron gas cylinders. We have adopted the Hun tactics at last. It is a difficult but all important matter to get these cylinders in a safe place. Should a shell hit them we would be hoist with our own patard. Finally it is decided to bury them under the firing step. The most convenient and best protected spot in the trench. At 7.30 tomorrow morning the loose ball will begin. The band has already begun to play. For the past month the artillery has been tuning up. Over the seven mile front on which our advance is to be made, 1300 guns have been pounding out their promise, sending intermittent samples of the music we may expect at the rate of 300 rounds per gun. Now the intervals are growing shorter between items. The rounds have increased to 500. They are rending the very sky with their screams. Meantime, of course, Fritz has not been backward. He is preparing a little pleasantry of his own. Whizz! Bang! The little hill behind our house has suddenly been transformed into a hollow. Beep! Squeak!  Madame, the stolid, is already poorer by the loss of a barn, and our men are looking for other billets. Scully, my Batman, robbed of his home, decides to share the one he has procured for me. Like the gentleman in the scriptures, he takes up his bed and walks. Now his straw is lying in a corner on my nice clean cobbled floor, but he's comfortable. Little accidents don't disturb him. For tonight he will have the outhouse practically to himself. I've decided to spend the evening with some friends in a neighbouring village. As there is prospect of some fun, I give him the tip that I may not be home before morning. He receives the news without any perceptible trace of sorrow. Poor chap! He's to regret it before long. Day has not yet dawned when I start on my return journey. I feel I should like a little sleep before the scrap. A sudden silence has sprung up all along the line, and I speed up to take advantage of this unaccustomed lull. But I have not yet reached home when the storm again breaks loose. The reason, of course, is obvious. All along the roads men are tramping to the trenches to relieve those others who have been working for the past ten days. Fritz, naturally, is trying to thin their ranks. So it goes all round. The day is breaking, and in the distance I see my billet. As I look I see smoke. Lord, have they hit the house? I enter the yard, and the grey light reveals a heap of stones on the left. My room! I go nearer to investigate the damage. Evidently the shell had hit the ground just outside, causing the wall on one side to collapse. The corner where my bed stood has crumpled in. In the other Scully's straw is lying undisturbed. I look round, wondering where he can be, and presently discover him amid the ruins. Poor chap! He had taken advantage of my tip to crawl into my more comfortable quarters. He has paid for the small pleasure with his life. But suppose I had been careful and stayed at home for the sake of my sleep? Well, evidently in this case the gods are rewarding the prodigal. Let us hope they will be equally kind on the morrow. Collins takes me in for the few hours remaining. By five I am out again to report to the signal office, where I am detailed to look after the wiring of a sector of trenches between two points north of Vermelles. Already the activity of the artillery is so violent that the sky overhead resembles a sheet of steel. So thick and fast do the shells come that they seem a solid grey mass. Our ears are buzzing with the whir of their flight. Round us, too, explosions are sending up their spray of smoke. Our eyes begin to ache and our tongues have an acrid taste. Can a man preserve his mind amid such confusion of the senses? I get my answer on entering the next traverse. This is the scene that meets my gaze. On the firing step an altar has been erected. At it stands a Catholic priest. He is just finishing the morning mass. Round him on their knees are grouped a body of Irishman, caps in hand, their bent heads betraying the reverence in their hearts. By no sign, not even a side glance at the havoc all round, do they show any interest in the peril of their position. Some faces are grim. All are grave, but not one shows a trace of nervousness, much less of terror. For the moment they seem to be lifted by some superhuman force above the physical horror of their surroundings. And these are the same men, who, a little later in the fight, are to quail before the torrent of the terrible liquid fire. Big, brawny and brave, they hesitated for a few seconds on the sight of this new instrument of torture, then outrushed their commanding officer, waving their own flag. A pirate shun at him, he roared above the guns.  Fauga bullock, they sheltered, as they leapt forward to the attack, and though they fell like saplings under the sweep of a forest fire, the Germans had to yield before their fury. Wild beasts was the name of Bosch prisoner applied to them later, but there is no evidence of ferocity in them now. The mass over, they rise from their knees, shake themselves with a sigh, straighten up, and stroll off to their positions. Magnificent men, morally and physically, they can ill be spared by their small country, but of such war is reaping a heavy harvest. It is seven twenty. In ten minutes our artillery will lift the curtain, and our men will go over the top. I am standing in a trench, directing some wiring, and incidentally watching the men who will make the fight. Territorials these, amateurs at the game. It is their first dip in the baptism of blood. It is curious to see how the different types react to the trial. There is Charlie, who, before the war, was somebody's indifferent clerk with somewhat more energy than ability. When the first wave of patriotism struck his country, Charlie was on the top crest of the bellow, bellowing with all his little might. An excitable gentleman, he is finding it hard to control his nerves. Now he sits on the firing step, grinning inanely. Now he walks up and down, cursing in a low tone. Presently a voice interrupts his soliloquy. Give us a match, says Bill, and the hand that takes it is steady. Bill is the calm cuss who enlisted as a matter of course, without enthusiasm, with no evidence of any ardour. Now he is smoking his pipe, but I notice that his eye wanders and always in the same direction, with an expression of anxiety and some sympathy. I follow his glance, and mine falls on Jim. He is sitting on the ground, white-faced but quiet. His sensitive features are positively twisted with terror, and between his lips hangs a cigarette that has been lit, but is now dead. Have a light, Bill says to him presently, and a mechanical smile lights up the fine face. Jim is one of those imaginative, highly strong lads who joined up from a sheer sense of duty, and who is seeing the thing through in a positive agony of fear. Up with you boys, comes the order at last. A quiver seems to run through the traverse, and instantly all the men are on their feet. Charlie makes for the firing step with the uncertain gait of a blind man.  For a moment Jim holds back. Will the boy funk at the last lap? I can see the officer eyeing him, and again there is sympathy in the glance. But again his soul nerves him, though his heart fails. With a sudden rush, as if possessed by some demon of determination, the boy makes for the firing step. Up he climbs, over the top, and is out ahead of the rest, the bravest man of the whole bunch. Soon we are advancing at a rate which even the most optimistic would not have dared to hope for this morning. Trench after trench is taken by our men. We signalers are extending our lines forward, but the task becomes more difficult every moment. Shells, machine guns, even rifle fire are thinning our ranks, and at the same time cutting our cables. To keep the established communications intact, and at the same time lay new lines, would require double our usual complement of workers. We are already reduced to half. But that is not our only problem. Elaborate systems of communication trenches had been dug to facilitate all movements of troops. Signboards stuck up all along the line gave direction in extreme detail. This way out, this way in, for the wounded. They were all over the place, but no attention is being paid to them now. Every traverse is packed tight with the proverbial closeness of the sardine can. God, how the casualties are pouring in. In tens, 20s, 50s, hundreds. They lie on the ground, they line the walls. Sometimes so great is the congestion that new batches have to be borne out in the open, where an enemy shell occasionally mercifully puts them past their pain, or adds to it as the case may be. And then the new men, the reinforcements on whom our hope depends to consolidate positions already won. They must be let through at all costs, and with the least possible exposure to danger. Meantime in these very trenches our wires are being cut. How to get at them and do the necessary repairing. Here and there a man manages to crawl through, but it takes so long, and we are already so handicapped. Out of 26 workers, I have four left now. Request after request goes back for reinforcements. Finally they send me out 12, but already complaints are coming in. See here, Mr. Signaler.  We can't distinguish a word that's being said. Better see to it. The telephone has gone groggy. I look over it. D3. It seems OK to me, but probably the line has been earthed somewhere. I send a lineman out to look for the cause of the trouble, and this is what he finds. I give the story as he gave it to me. Well, sir, I go along the line and test in every 200 yards, and all of a sudden light I see a sight that makes me sick in my insides. Right there in front of me is sure enough Harry. Clearly, least way, sir, all that was left of him.  Well, sir, I mens the cable, and then looks about me, and I sees a long trail of blood about 20 yards.  There seems to be tears in Hawkins voice as he tells the story. For a few moments he stops, looking at me indecisively, as if debating whether he shall proceed. Then he lowers his tone to a confidential pitch as he goes on. You see, sir, me and Harry was the best of pals, sort of engaged to his sister Lucy, I was, sir. God almighty! Of a sudden his pity gives way to fury, and a string of oaths and curses rain from his mouth. I'll make those bleed and swine pay for this, I will. You see if I don't. He has almost forgotten my presence. Then the rage subsides, and he sidles off, as if half ashamed. Poor fellow, he gets small chance to wreak the revenge he threatened. A piece of high explosive gets him a few hours later, and so I lose two of my most valuable men. At last we have reached the quarries that lie between Hullo and the Hohenzollan Redoubt, but it is a thin, tired line that now advances bravely on these formidable enemy defences, and yet a line on which our whole success depends. In the comparative security of the Hohlo behind these clay hills, the Bosch has had time to steady himself. Now heavily reinforced, he has rallied and is ready for the little troop that is so doggedly pressing on. But why is the troop so little? What has become of the reserves that had been promised earlier from the 21st and 24th Divisions? Surely to heaven they won't fail us at a crisis like this, when we had trusted to them for new strength in the terrible struggle. On moves the line, and is met by the machine guns. It sways, steadies itself, sways again, falls back. Thicker and thicker comes the rain of bullets pressing the advantage for the Bosch. Again the line gives way. It is no more than a mere trickle now. Great God, won't those reserves ever come up?  It finds itself blocked from the rear. Barbed wire, their own barbed wire which the engineers, sure of success, had moved too far up behind them. They attack it, try to tear it down, get entangled in their own efforts. They find target for those terrible guns. And still no sign of the reserves coming to the rescue. What has happened? Who has blundered? Someone hints that the fault lies in the weakness of the cable communications. The hurried calls, they say, were delayed. The messages hadn't got through properly. I go hot and cold all over as I listen. Surely to God they are telling lies. We couldn't have failed in spite of our efforts. They were desperate enough in all truth, and made against terrible odds. Well, if it is our fault, there is no use grumbling now. We can only stick to our posts and put our trust in the Scotchman. There they are, out in front, putting up a desperate resistance, the London Scottish First Territorial Regiment in the British Army to make a charge. No one will dare to laugh at the terriers after this. Time after time they rush at the oncoming Germans.  Here is the evidence of it close at hand. Four hundred Bosch prisoners sent to the rear after surrendering to one kilty and three Royal Army Medical Corps men. They are trembling, poor chaps, and their faces are yellow with lidite. So it goes for days, attack and counterattack, trenches won and lost, now through gas, now through liquid fire. The expected reserves come at last, but too late. We had lost our great advantage. We had hampered the great advance. In one other part of the line an equal failure is reported, but it fails to afford us any consolation. Then on October the 8th the terrible battle is over. Comparative quiet reigns along the line. We proceed to accounting of our casualties. Sixty thousand in two weeks.  But the Germans are even worse off than we. Eighty percent, something over one hundred thousand men. Well I can rival them in my small way. Out of a unit of fifty I have lost forty men, and every one of them killed. Well, as I have said, we are now enjoying a comparative calm, and I am now on another part of the line. In the fighting to the south round loose, and facing hill seventy, we have lost a brigade signal officer, and I am detailed to his post. I find the office in a disused house to the east of the village, about a mile and a half away from the famous hill. Again there is a deadlock along the front, and I proceed to get my section into working order. There is plenty to be done these days in the way of repairing. Occasionally Fritz disturbs us at the job. He sends over a shell by way of reminder that he is not yet o'ers to combat, and at times succeeds in putting us in that condition. About a week after I had taken on my new job, I was sitting at my desk in the signal office, a much more elaborate affair than the farmhouse kitchen in which I found myself at the start. This is a large long room. At one end and along one side is a bench to which telegraph and buzzer instruments are attached. At these sit the operators working. On the other side is a switchboard with its attendant. In the centre, at a desk, to be accurate to large box, sits the sergeant, supervisor of the slaves. Behind him at another desk, an inferior box, are two corporals, one acting as dispatch clerk and the other as checking clerk, whose duty it is to keep tabs on all messages, whether incoming or outgoing. Well, on the day when Fritz decided to get busy, we were all at our posts, more's the pity. For some time the artillery had been exchanging compliments, but to these we paid no attention. It was a habit of theirs, and had never yet disturbed us. However, one never knows along the line. This time, it seems, our turn had come. Straight through the roof, with a horrible crash, tore a shell, splitting the house in half. For a moment the noise stunned me, and I was thrown out of my chair, right on top of the orderly, who was sharing my corner. Then I stood up and looked round, to find myself, alfresco. It was one of the strangest freak shots that I have ever seen. Gone were all the instruments with their operators. Gone, too, were the sergeant and the two corporals. And here were the orderly and myself, standing safely in the shaky remnant of the room.  At times, however, they serve to strengthen a man's belief in his luck, give him the impression that he is somehow immune. But let me tell you another story that came to my notice next day, and gave me pause in my rejoicing over my escape. There was a widow in the north of England, who had five sons before the war. One was a regular soldier. He went to France in August 1914. His brothers, civilians before, now joined Kitchener's army, and went out with the first hundred thousand. Now Bill, as we call the regular, I've heard but forgotten his name, was in every scrap going from the start. He fought at Mons, on the Marne, at the Ain, Nerve-Chapelle, and just now he had come safely through at Luz. The other four had not lasted more than a few days on the line. They were killed, one after the other. Now the war-office, though a machine, betrays human feeling at times. On this occasion it was moved by the tail of the five brothers, and the mother they had left alone in the north of England. So the order, after much red tape, went forth to the front to release Bill, and sent him home to a profitable job at munition making, where he could help his country and his mother in comparative immunity from death. So Bill, who had just survived the slaughter at Luz, packed his kit without regrets, shook hands with his friends, and mounted the motor lorry that was to take him to the station. You might think that the immortals had no use for Bill, having let him live so long in the midst of death. But Mars, it seems, must have his little joke. He was in sight of the station, and of safety, one would say, when over came a shell, picked the motor lorry for a target, and up it went, carrying Bill to kingdom come. It was a sour-faced sergeant who told me the tale. It was most effective in shaking my belief in my own immunity. I presumed that was his object in telling it. As your American cartoonist says, someone is always taking the joy out of life. Here we are again, going up in the world all the time. Now myself and my orderly, with our new instruments and our new operators, are installed in no meaner quarters than a chateau. They've given us the dining room. I believe my maps are spread on the very table, at which fair ladies of France once sat and sipped champagne. Sick transit, says the poet. The glory of goblets is replaced by charts. Still, they are helping to save the ladies' country. Nothing exciting so far, save Fritz's morning frolics. The blighter is always disturbing our best sleep. Never mind, we've upset one of his apple carts today. He is not quite as efficient as he thinks he is, at least when it comes to learning our language, apt to be too accurate, which is a mistake. Only today, Sergeant Major Bradley of our signal section was strolling through one of the village streets. As he passed, he noticed a man near the top of one of those odd-looking towers, which in France take the place of the telephone poles used in this country. Now the Sergeant Major happens to be in charge of our linemen. He knows every one of them, not only by sight, but by name. Moreover, he has an accurate memory for the duties he has told them to do. He failed to remember, however, that any man had been assigned to that tower. Then what the devil was he doing up there, testing the wires? This, at a casual glance, seemed to be the gentleman's occupation. The Sergeant Major, who had passed, decided to retrace his steps and investigate. With certain omissions, which you can supply for yourself, he sheltered to the figure on high. What, blank, are you doing there? Who, blank, are you anyway? I'm a royal engineer, came the answer. Now, as it happens, no seasoned member of our corps ever refers to himself by such a title. He might call himself an R.E., though that is unusual. He prefers either sapper or linemen. Oh, indeed, said the Sergeant, becoming facetious. Royal Engineer, are ye? Well, suppose you come down and let's have a look at ye. The man prepared to descend. There was nothing else to do, but as he complied with the request, he slipped something in his pocket, which did not fail to catch the weary Sergeant's eye. So you're a royal engineer, he reiterated, when the gentleman had reached the ground. And what might this be?  It was a most compact instrument for tapping the wires. That man was in his grave before two hours, and the Sergeant is likely to wear a declaration. End of Section 6


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