DIARY - INTO THE TRENCHES

DIARY - INTO THE TRENCHES

known 9th April 1915

April 9th 1915 - British Front, near Bethune We paraded at 1pm for our first day in the trenches. It was hot and I was glad a slow pace was set – that march (from Bethune to the Cuinchy trenches) seems very long each time. We had a halt at Brigade Headquarters and there our first fire experience came. A British battery on our right and one our left were both in action, and the Germans were replying, and some of their shells came near us. I saw two or three shrapnels burst – a sudden black puff of smoke with a flame in the middle, the report comes some time after. The sound of a shell passing is like that of a railway train, heard in the distance on a still night. We had tea made under fire. Then the Grenadiers came up in columns of double sections in fours at 100 yard intervals. We went on till we came to a pontoon, …went over via Windy Corner, and across a field and entered a maze of communicating trenches. All of us were very quiet and had been so since we heard the first shells; there were several abortive attempts at jocularity which fell very flat – obviously a cloak for nervousness. Still we continued up Edgeware Road till we came to Berkeley Street and turned left into Oxford Street and nous voila in the fire trench! I was very proud indeed, though still nervous. The trench was seven feet deep with a fire platform two feet high and a sandbag parapet. We had no dug-out and spent the night on the fire platform’ Luckily the weather was pretty good, only one or two April showers; the trenches were good, dry and warm too. The Guards acted as our mentors and fixed up a little look-out mirror for us, with a cleft-stick and my shaving mirror. During the night they were constantly in and out, chatting cheerily and telling us about their experiences. The first thing they showed us in the mirror, and though a periscope too, was the dead bodies of the King’s Liverpools killed during their unsuccessful charge on the day of Neuve Chapelle. Further along could be seen the blue-clad bodies of German dead. It was 6pm ‘ere we were in. As it grew dark we divided ourselves into one-hour watches with fixed bayonets; the man on duty stands on the platform and peeps from time to time over the parapet to see that no German is crawling up to throw bombs, or that no other activity is being shown by the enemy. I took 9-10, 12-1, 3-4 watches. As darkness drew on, rifle-fire grew more and more brisk, from German and English snipers firing on spec’. I huddled myself in my corner, and my first bobs up and down were very quick indeed; but it’s queer how quickly one gains confidence, and I grew to disregard the continuous crack-whizz (liked a twanged bow-string) of the bullets. Big guns were going all the time and there was an added interest in the star-shells and searchlights that continually illuminated the lines. As the star-shells came up the Guardsmen told me to bob up quickly – risky work, but a sinister sight to see; first the line of our barbed wire, and beyond that, about 250 yards, the dim black line of the German parapet. Occasionally a bigger boom to right or left showed the discharge of a bomb. So the night passed. We had to talk in whispers.

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  • Profile picture for Gerald Molyneaux Pickett

    Born 1893

    Died 1916

    British Army 2374 Private Royal Irish Fusiliers

    British Army Second Lieutenant Machine Gun Corps

    British Army 2374 Private London Regiment 15th Battalion (Prince of Wales Own Civil Service Rifles)