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Page 12
After an attack there was generally a roll call--from which there were
many absentees.
More trying--more wearing and tearing to the nerves--than anything
that in my experience ever followed it was the stand to itself. The
moments, minutes, even hours, that followed that old familiar order,
"stand to," were the worst I ever went through. As every eventide comes
on I still feel just a little--just a very little--of what I felt then.
Even now: and I fear me I always shall till death bids me stand to.
I see I have written so much with only one illustration, that perhaps it
won't be amiss if I place here a few typical heads and a couple of
typical full figures, the original sketches of which I pencilled in
spare places in my notebook at odd times. If they be really typical they
need no labelling.
[Illustration: TYPICAL FIGURES AND FIGURE-HEADS.]
CHAPTER V.
THE LIGHTER SIDE OF TRENCH LIFE.
That there was (and is) a lighter side, a social side, of trench life,
as of the life generally of a soldier on active service, even in this
war, merely incidental remarks of mine such as could not be omitted from
any true and fair description of that life must furnish abundant
evidence; but this lighter side was, in my experience, so very real and
so pronounced that to illustrate a few set observations thereon I take a
few sketches from my notebook out of the order in which I find them in
it.
SING-SONGS.
Our concert parties were "immense," and there was no forced gaiety in
our enjoyment of them. Some of the best sing-songs were in "Leicester
Lounge," named after the luxurious resort (which it didn't resemble)
hard by the Empire Theatre. The reflection occurs to me for the first
time that only men with whom high spirits were rampant would or could
have been so fond of inventing such nicknames as--in mood jovially
ironic--we coined for all sorts of places, persons and things.
"Leicester Lounge" was a dug-out adjacent to "Hammersmith Bridge," and
the surroundings of "Hammersmith Bridge," there being nothing in
connection with them to suggest--save by absence--either a garden or a
city, were "the Garden City."
[Illustration: "HAMMERSMITH BRIDGE."]
It was the biggest, roomiest, and most palatial dug-out we had. The top
was just a small roof-garden, carefully planted and laid out. It had
statuary, too, in groups. The statues were fashioned in clay by amateur
hands, and the artistic effects were original and novel, to say the
least. It was also the safest place, this "Lounge," because it was sunk
four feet below the level of the trench itself. It accommodated twelve
easily. Impromptu concerts were frequent here; our far-famed mouth-organ
band performed at such intervals as our own military duties and the
enemy's cascades of shells permitted. It was here the names of
neighbouring streams and nullahs were chosen from which we drew our
daily beverage of "Adam's Ale" (untaxed, and rather thick), such as the
portentous "C�sar's Well." In another spacious dug-out we had our "Times
Book Club." This "eligible tenement" had the special distinction of a
stove and chimney (purloined from a ruined farm)--that is, it had a
chimney till the enemy spotted and so riddled it that it collapsed. It
had a glass window (fixed in clay), statuary (modelled in clay),
decorations (log-cabin order), one chair (also purloined, back broken
off), one table (very treacherous); and I mustn't forget the president's
bell (tobacco tin shell, and a cartridge for a clapper). It was lit by
many candles, and as the fee for membership was a book or magazine from
home, it served a good purpose.
"DIRTY DICK'S".
[Illustration: "DIRTY DICK'S".]
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