Ralph Scott

“ I had just been told that we were to go forward with the Fusiliers against the banks of a canal and help them across as well as we could—there would be machine-gun fire and no cover. Those were the facts. We have done infinitely worse a thousand times and thought nothing of it.
But I lay in that chair for two hours actually shivering with fear and apprehension. My crazy mind wouldn’t rest, and I saw myself killed in a dozen different ways as we rushed for the canal bank—at one time I had the wildest impulse to run away and hide until the attack was over. ”

“ Was coming home this morning about 5 a.m. very weary, when Jerry put down still another barrage. There were no trenches handy and I spent a nasty 66half-hour in a ditch on the side of the track. When you have once been strong it is awful to lie in a ditch and quiver like a jelly when shells are falling fifty yards away. I am going all to pieces and my imagination is killing me. Last night I was alone inspecting the wire when for some hellish reason I saw a picture of myself disabled by a bullet and lying for hours until I bled to death—days it would have been, for my vitality is tremendous. ”

“ I am just carrying on like an automaton, mechanically putting up wire and digging ditches while I wait, wait, wait for something to happen—relief, death, wounds, anything, anything in earth or hell to put an end to this, but preferably death. I am becoming hypnotised with the idea of Nirvana—sweet, eternal nothingness. My body crawls with lice, my rags are saturated with blood, and we all “stink like the essence of putrefaction rotting for the third time.” ”

“ Accordingly we do a little drill, paint our transport, clean rifles and ammunition, overhaul explosives, etc., etc.
There is some fascination about this war game, some inexplicable grip which it has over us. In spite of everything we have gone through there is, once more, a thrill of expectation in the air, and the men seem keener, as though looking forward to something.
No one could hate war more than I do, and yet I would be bitterly disappointed if sent on leave to-morrow. And if we, of all men, can still feel moments of exhilaration, can there ever be a League of Nations? ”

“ And still they go without a murmur, night after night, until a merciful shell shall take them too, and they leave the saddle for ever. Each night they see the last night’s wreckage, and, if times are very bad, the unburied bodies of their one-time pals grinning at the stars until Time and the rats have done their work. ”

“ The rise and fall of the Verey Lights makes a circle of fire all round us, and except just where the Poperinghe road connects us with the rest of France we appear to be completely surrounded. It is more than a marvel to me how they have failed to cut us off in that little bottle-neck. On this particular night Fritz was raining shrapnel into Dickebusch and our people were giving him a warm time in reply. The 4.5 howitzers were firing hammer-and-tongs, and as I watched the angry shell-bursts on the ridge in front I began to feel quite sorry for the Bosche infantry. ”

“ And always they know their time will come, so that to me at least it is an eternal marvel how they find the strength to go. Perhaps some thought of home, some pride of England drives them on, or the memory of some dearly loved, dead officer sitting quietly on a mule among those shrieking shells and telling them not to leave their horses. ”

“ A noble end and yet—how infinitely better if such true nobility could have served a better cause—or must we, in despair, admit our civilisation to be a sham and war the only reality which can show us at our best? ”

“ Then I realise that the bitterest passages in my diary are only too true—the sway of the old men has returned, the dead are forgotten, and betrayed. Please God that they may never know the futility of their sacrifice. ”

“ The reason for the publication of this diary is given by the author in his entry for October 6. “The only way to stop war is to tell these facts in the school history books and cut out the rot about the gallant charges, the victorious returns, and the blushing damsels who scatter roses under the conquering heroes’ feet. Every soldier knows that the re-writing of the history books would stop war more effectively than the most elaborately covenanted league which tired politico-legal minds can conceive.” ”

“ A small party sneaked close up to us on the left away from the gun and threw some bombs right into us, blowing an infantryman to bits and wounding a sapper. Then they shelled us steadily for half an hour and got one of the look-out men in the shoulder—another rifle useless. At this point we had our one piece of luck—found a rum jar with just enough in it to give each man a mouthful—it put new heart into us and helped us more than twenty reinforcements. Everything went quiet for a time, and in thinking things over I had an awful job to keep myself under control. ”

“ For three-quarters of an hour we lay in that ditch with the earth jumping and falling all round us—at times the whole trench seemed to move three or four feet. A ration party out on the mule track hadn’t got such good cover, and we could hear the poor devils moaning and screaming as some of the others tried to drag them back to the aid post. ”

“ Surely our years of sacrifice were vain if the most highly educated people in Europe remain in ignorance of the real nature of war and are open scoffers at the League of Nations. They believe that England is the biggest brigand in the world, and look upon Germany as the home of all Progress, valiantly defending herself against a league of jealous enemies. ”

“ It even seems now that in some queer way I was distinctly happier and more tranquil than I had ever been in my life before. I felt nobler, mightier, than any human being on earth, and death seemed welcome as the only fitting end. ”

“ The gunners were killed to a man round their pieces, and could have no finer monument than their pile of empty shell-cases. Their bodies still lay there unburied, mixed up with the carcasses of the horses with which they had tried to get the guns away at the last moment—some were headless, limbless, and with their entrails strewn around them—most had had the clothing blown from their bodies, and some had been half eaten by the rats. ”

“ However, it doesn’t matter—if the whole damn shaft falls in and kills twenty men there are plenty more in England. Life is much cheaper than timber! Managed to get home for tea and dinner, but back out again all night. While talking to one of the working-party officers a piece of whizz-bang landed between us and another one smashed his respirator. I am sure some one is going to be killed in the mines—the earth runs like quicksand, and even with decent frames it would be a dangerous job. Without, it is sheer suicide, and a shell anywhere near us on the surface will cave the whole thing in. ”

“ Had a very interesting day making gas attacks and committing sundry other barbarities—among them walking round a room smelling bottles and trying to identify the contents by their stinks—my nose feels as if the world were composed of one vast unmentionable stink! ”

“ Was out all night trying to get some work out of the Americans, but found it a hard job as they are not yet accustomed to working under shell and machine-gun fire, and are very nervous. Among our own men I would have considered their behaviour rank mutiny, but I kept them at it until 3 a.m. and got 150 yards done. Have never been so unpopular or so violently cursed in my life before.
In the course of the wire we came across a shell-hole with a mule and three rotting Frenchmen in it, and the Americans were very worried that they had not been buried!
Poor devils, they have a lot to learn. ”

“ It is difficult to make comparisons where all men are so wonderful, but as an example of the purest form of stolid courage I think the limber driver is unique. In a place like this there is never more than one decent road, and in consequence it is packed from dusk to dawn with every conceivable form of wheeled transport. Food, water, ammunition, guns, wire, and everything else which the linesman needs, must pass along this solitary lane, and the German knows it. The shell-fire is seldom heavy, as the line knows it, but it 71is persistent, wearing, and of the most deadly accuracy. ”

“ We have a division which, with the exception of the few days’ recent rest, has had about six months of continuous hard fighting. Our front is twice as long as it should be, we are still below half strength, and most of our effectives are boys of 18–19 going into the line for the first time. On the other hand, the Huns hold very superior positions and they are flushed with victory. Such is our problem; the answer will be written in blood around the slopes of Kemmel. I forgot to say that there are no reserves between ourselves and Calais. ”

“ Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice Lord Robert Cecil has said that he is amazed at the false picture of war given by the history books, and that he trusts that the historians of the future will give us a better picture of what war really is than have historians of the past. ”

“ But we can never again go forward with the same fiery ardour and implicit faith in the Justice of our Cause, which drove us onwards in the early days. We have seen brave Germans die with faith as great as ours, and, knowing their intelligence to be not less, we must at least doubt the validity of our first conclusions. ”

“ Most of the companies are down to half strength and trench-foot is very prevalent—it is as much as most of the men can do to carry two sheets of iron per night for their own protection. Our own billets are flooded now and we are knee-deep in mud everywhere—the horses feel it more than we do and I have had to send them back. ”

“ I saw Death in a thousand forms just as on the night before the attack at Courtrai. Sleep was impossible, so I got up at last and wrote these lines with a trembling hand. The others are chipping me about “My Last Will and Testament,” and there is the usual fatuous talk of medals. Day says that if I come back they will roll all my previous non-fructifying recommendations into one and make it a real V.C. at last. Oh! God, if they only knew—and they look to me as a sort of Bayard.—Written at Calais waiting for leave boat. ”

“ It is at least certain that I am far too sentimental to be a Staff Officer—a man who unconsciously visualises the widows and the orphans could never do it, and to me it will always be something more than a game of chess. ”

“ I shall never forget one sight. A big highlander with the lower part of his face blown off walking down the railway with a prisoner in front of him—his right hand on the back of the German’s neck and his left hand holding his face together with the blood pouring through his fingers. ”

“ I mounted a piquet with the Lewis gun a few hundred yards forward of the farm, and sent out patrols every half-hour, but the night passed off without incident. I took out two patrols myself but could find neither our own people nor Huns.
We have had a bad day to-day—hard 171fighting, heavy losses, and no progress—people at home seem to think that we are chasing a beaten army which runs so fast that we cannot keep in touch with them. Would that it were true; but we have been badly mauled to-day and there is precious little offensive spirit in our nineteen-year-olds. ”

“ Heavy shelling continued all night with a lot of machine-gun fire and gas. Was busy with casualties all night and feel like a corpse myself now.
Aug. 22. Beastly hot day and was tortured to death in the evening by mosquitoes—during this warm weather one usually knocks about in the day-time in one’s shirt which becomes saturated with sweat, and then dries off again in the cool of the evening—the mosquitoes love the stink and after dusk they feed on us in millions—there is no respite, you grow tired of killing them and dawn finds you on the edge of insanity, swollen like a long-dead 102mule. ”

“ About 4.30 p.m. all officers cycled forward to inspect work. Everything is utterly destroyed, and the once prosperous little town 47in front of us is now nothing but a pile of bricks. It requires large parties of men working all night to keep one road clear for the transport. When one considers that the town has been utterly wiped out in two months one can form some conception of the intensity of the German shell-fire. After struggling through the debris we left our cycles behind a hillock, entered a trench, and walked round to the front. ”

“ I have told Brigade Headquarters three times that it is madness to work here in daylight and that I cannot accept any responsibility for casualties—the German observation balloons can see us all the time, and we are shelled continuously. However, they don’t get shelled, so it is “Carry on, the work has to be done!” The mists are the only things that save us—as soon as there is a clear day we shall be wiped out. ”

“ The whole of Kemmel Hill and the valley and the ravines in front are one solid mass of shell-holes. The earth has been turned and turned again by shell-fire, and the holes lie so close together that they are not distinguishable as such. The ground in many places is paved with shrapnel balls and jagged lumps of steel—in ten square yards you could pick up several hundredweight. ”