Shellhole

“ When the shell-hole is full of muddy water the trench mats float. This night Cleary and I happened to pass it when it was full. It was very dark and I did not notice that the mat was loose, as I was leading, so upon putting my foot on the mat, down it went. The hole was about eight feet deep, and I felt it going from under me and pulled on the pole. Soup tank, pole, and Cleary and all followed me into that shell-hole. When we came up covered with that lovely, slimy mud, you couldn't tell which was the soup tank. ”

“ With shells it is a very different story than with shrapnel. One can avoid the latter by backing up against a house, but the shells are apt to push it over on you. When the deeper, heavier whistle of a shell is heard, it sounds a good deal like tearing a big sheet of cloth. Men do not brave it. They know its hideous effects, and take to the nearest cellar or doorway. [Pg 77] The first one or two that come in, if well placed, often claim victims. A group of soldiers will be talking or playing cards in front of a house. ”

“ One followed the communication-trench, took up gun or shovel, as the order might happen to be, and became either soldier or laborer; or, more often, both at once. Everything was done at night. Everything was dismal, dangerous, frightful. There was no real repose, no relaxation. The incessant shell-fire added its horror to our other discomforts and dangers. The shell! that insensate creature of chance, which bursts over the innocent, scatters its fragments over the plain, and in stupid indifference crushes a clod of earth or snuffs out the lives of a hundred [123] human beings. ”

“ My experience in watching and timing shell fire now stood me in good stead. I was able by the action of the shells to instantly determine whether the German guns were jumping, rendering their aim uncertain, and, also, to know when the next burst would come, where it would strike, and about how it would operate,—whether gas, shrapnel, or what not. Men were clinging to the walls, trying to take shelter, and it was clearly impossible to get through with the horse. ”

“ Old shell-holes are often death-traps because of the gas that settles in them. The poison fumes, being heavier than air, will lie for hours, and under favorable atmospheric conditions for days, in the bottom of a crater or an abandoned trench. Soldiers seeking shelter in these holes are trapped. The French commanding officers at one time issued a general order prohibiting French soldiers from entering shell-holes. ”

“ Before any American city is raided I hope some chemist will invent a barrage shell which will dissipate all its energy and substance in the bursting. Surely an airplane can be wrecked by concussion.
An Australian soldier and a girl were standing in a doorway near me watching the shells burst. His was that common case—a soldier in London on leave, speculating on where the shrapnel would fall, and becoming peeved as he thought of it. "A hell of a place for a man to come on leave! I came here to get rest and quiet, and I run into this gory mess!" ”

“ Really, if you're planted out in the open, the peculiar awfulness of big shell-fire--what is it more than the peculiar awfulness of being run over by express trains let loose about the sky? Tell Don that when shrapnel empties itself over your head like an old tin pail, you might feel injured, but the big shell has a most disarming air of not being able to help itself, of not looking for anybody in particular. ”

“ When a shell falls, it whirls round, burrows, and excavates the earth to a considerable extent, and bursting, makes dreadful havoc around. I have more than once witnessed fragments of the mangled bodies and limbs of the British soldiers thrown into the air by the bursting of our shells, and by one from the enemy, Captain White, of the seventh Massachusetts regiment, and one soldier were killed, and another wounded near where I was standing. ”

“ Occasionally a shell has been thrown by each side all day; enemy [79] seems to throw shells oftener at night; shall be glad when we are out of range of the enemy's sharpshooters for one. It's not comfortable to be shot at every time one shows himself in daylight; have been writing letters to-day, one to Pert and another to Susan Wheeler; enemy shelling quite lively to-night, but shells all go over us and explode far in our rear among the camp-followers and hospitals where it is said to be more dangerous than here at the front, they suffer greatly from shells there. ”

“ The actual shock to a ship of being struck by a shell of even large calibre is nothing to compare with that from almost any one of these seas that are crashing over us now. But it is the noise of the explosion, the rending of metal, and the bang of flying fragments and falling gear that makes a heavy shelling so staggering, to mind if not to body. Of course everyone on the forebridge was knocked flat by the explosion of the shell which hit it, and [Pg 167] the worst of it was that the most of us didn’t get up again. ”

“ We toiled through the shell-torn ground for about six hours before we got to where Battalion Headquarters were. Sometimes, our guides lost themselves. At other times Fritz would put a barrage across. We would lie down then in a shell hole and start talking about old times, never giving a thought to the shells which would burst quite close to us. In fact they got a few of our boys on the way up. But one has to be there to realize how callous a person appears to shell fire. ”

“ Few of these common shell burst, and when they did, seldom hurt anyone; but no one, however brave or however small, can stand in a place which is being shelled, without feeling that he is the biggest thing there—for miles round—or the most conspicuous person, however many others are round him. The casualties from this first day of thoughtful and thorough shelling were very slight, considering the crowded state of the area, and the men's principal anxiety was to obtain fragments of shells or intact unexploded ones, digging those out before they had time to get cool. ”

“ The noise of the shells from field guns is exactly like that of a rocket going up. When the shell is coming towards you, there is a sharper hiss in it, like a whip. It gives you a second or two to get under cover and then crack-whizz as the shrapnel whizzes out. ”

“ At the last second, when every man was holding his breath, and it seemed that the shell was on the point of falling fairly on top of them, they heard the deafening roar change and diminish ever so slightly, and next instant the shell fell with an earth-shaking crash just beyond the dump and the main road. Some of the splinters sang and hummed overhead, and the workers were just straightening from their crouched positions and turning to remark to one another, when again there came to them the same rising whistle and shriek of an approaching shell. ”

“ When a shell passes very near to one its whistle increases to the roar of an express train, and when there is anything like a heavy bombardment on it is only those shells which pass dangerously close that one can hear above the general din.
More disconcerting than the actual burst of the shell is the ‘whirr’ of the splinters or, in the case of shrapnel, the loud ‘miaow’ of the flying bullets. ”

“ This involves much night-marching along roads pitted with shell-holes; and the trouble about a shell-hole three feet deep is that in wet weather it looks like a perfectly innocent puddle. Frequently, to avoid congested wheel traffic, we have to march across country in single file, under the leadership of a faltering guide. Not a light must be shown, not a word spoken. Each [132] man, loaded with rifle, equipment, gas apparatus, and a few extra and unauthorized comforts, has to follow the ghostly form of the man immediately in front of him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A shell, which is a hollow ball of iron sometimes more than a foot in diameter, and with sides two or three inches thick, and filled within with gunpowder, is thrown from a mortar, at a distance of some miles, high into the air over the town, whence [Pg 230] it descends into the streets or among the houses. The engraving represents the form of the mortar, and the manner in which the shell is thrown from it, though in this case the shell represented is directed, not against the town, but is thrown from a battery under the walls of the town against the camp or the trenches of the besiegers. ”

“ In all parts of the world, even today, people may be seen on the shore at low water gathering for food the shells uncovered by the retreating tide; and although under the changed conditions of life they raise no shellmounds, these people always belong to the lower classes of society, and lead in this manner a primitive as well as a simple life. Peoples depending for food upon collecting shells are usually not agriculturists, but fishermen, and perhaps hunters as a secondary occupation. Their implements are of the rudest kind, made of bone, stone, wood, and the like. ”

“ There was at least one great shell to every nine yards, and at 200 yards its flying steel has a killing power. No idea of it all can be conveyed by many words describing this upheaval of sand-bags and barricades and trenches and redoubts, and this sieve of earth, pitted by countless shell-craters. All the woods where the Germans lived—Oaten Wood and Damstrasse Wood and Ravine Wood, down to Wytschaete Wood and Hell Wood—are but gaunt stumps sticking out of ash-grey heaps of earth. ”

“ For a shell to explode, it is necessary that the nose of the fuse, containing the detonator, shall come in contact with a solid substance, in order to make ignition and cause the explosion. This had not been done; owing to the intervention of kind nature in the shape of the crotch in that tree catching and holding the shell fast in a firm embrace, we were saved from that additional disaster and death.
A dried-up creek that was being used by us for a trench on the Ypres sector was crossed by a wooden bridge about thirty feet long. ”

“ Shot and shell from the batteries came in volleys against the sides of the gunboats. In the fort the condition of affairs was not serious. The shells chiefly fell in the soft earth of the hilltop above, and embedded themselves harmlessly in the mud. One of the gunners after the fight said: "We were more bothered by flying mud than any thing else. A shell bursting up there would throw out great clots of clay, that blocked up the touch-holes of our guns, spoiled the priming of our shells, and plastered up the faces of our men. ”

“ Every few minutes a shell burst close to us. Shrapnel-bullets and fragments of shell-casing forced us to huddle under the baggage for protection. A little to the left some Australians were severely punished. Shell after shell burst among them. A regiment of Sikh troops, mule-drivers, and transport-men were caught half-way up the beach. Above the din of falling shrapnel and the shriek of flying shells rose the piercing scream of wounded mules. The Newfoundlanders did not escape. ”

“ Flood tanks, dive rapidly! The seconds seem interminable. The superstructure abaft the conning-tower is penetrated, and hardly has the hatch been closed when there is a sharp report in the conning-tower, a yellow flash, and explosive gases fill the air. A shell has penetrated the side of the conning-tower and exploded inside. All the fittings are shattered by splinters; there is a sound of breaking glass. Another shell will fall directly and that will be the end of the war for us. Water is splashing in through the shot hole; the boat is sinking into the shelter of the deep. ”

“ But you will soon come to know that the shell often makes more noise than it does harm and that, after a terrific bombardment, by no means is everybody destroyed.
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM SHELLS
The big shell, which is so appalling, is only really dangerous if it falls on the place where a man is standing, because the splinters rise in the air. Fall down flat when the shell bursts. Even if you are quite close, there is comparatively little risk. ”

“ It took a very short time to put our seals out, and, as it was Saturday afternoon by that time, all the work ceased until Monday morning.
I heard an amusing story about a man being nearly drowned in a tank of oil. A sealer came in and four of her tanks nearest to the boiler had the sculps break down into oil, owing to the heat. When the crew were discharging cargo it was the custom for a man to jump into a tank and throw the sculps out. ”

“ Noiselessly except for a little click, with chickens clucking in a field near by, the big breech-block which held the shell fast, sending all the power of the explosion out of the muzzle, was swung back and one looked through the shining tube of steel, with its rifling which caught the driving band and gave the shell its rotation and accuracy in its long journey, which would close when, descending at the end of its parabola, its nose struck building, earth, or pavement and it exploded. ”

“ The foundation could only be made at low water, and as fast as a layer of fagots was laid, it was rapidly pinned down with iron rods, bent at the heads, varying from 9 to 6 feet in length, and driven to the rock under, loaded with stones quarried from the nearest reefs, and upon these, the last thing as the flood came in, chain cables, air-pump covers, fire-bars in large bundles, and the ship’s guns were dropped, care being always taken to have the ends of the chains, and the slings of other heavy matters, fast to the ship. ”