Books: Over The Top

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We had an orchestra of seven men and seven different instruments. This
orchestra was excellent, while they were not playing.

The performance was scheduled to start at 6 P.M.

At 5.15 there was a mob in front of our one entrance and it looked
like a big night. We had two boxes each accommodating four people, and
these we immediately sold out. Then a brilliant idea came to Ikey
Cohenstein. Why not use the rafters overhead, call them boxes, and
charge two francs for a seat on them? The only difficulty was how were
the men to reach these boxes, but to Ikey this was a mere detail.

He got long ropes and tied one end around each rafter and then tied a
lot of knots in the ropes. These ropes would take the place of
stairways.

We figured out that the rafters would seat about forty men and sold
that number of tickets accordingly,

When the ticket-holders for the boxes got a glimpse of the rafters and
were informed that they had to use the rope stairway, there was a howl
of indignation, but we had their money and told them that if they did
not like it they could write to the management later and their money
would be refunded; but under these conditions they would not be
allowed to witness the performance that night.

After a little grousing they accepted the situation with the promise
that if the show was rotten they certainly would let us know about it
during the performance,

Everything went lovely and it was a howling success, until Alkali Ike
appeared on the scene with his revolver loaded with blank cartridges.
Behind the bar on a shelf was a long line of bottles. Alkali Ike was
supposed to start on the left of this line and break six of the
bottles by firing at them with his revolver. Behind these bottles a
piece of painted canvas was supposed to represent the back of the bar,
at each shot from Alkali's pistol a man behind the scenes would hit
one of the bottles with his entrenching tool handle and smash it, to
give the impression that Alkali was a good shot.

Alkali Ike started in and aimed at the right of the line of bottles
instead of the left, and the poor boob behind the scenes started
breaking the bottles on the left, and then the box-holders turned
loose; but outside of this little fiasco the performance was a huge
success, and we decided to run it for a week. New troops were
constantly coming through, and for six performances we had the "S. R.
O." sign suspended outside.

CHAPTER XIX

ON HIS OWN

Of course Tommy cannot always be producing plays under fire but while
in rest billets he has numerous other ways of amusing himself. He is a
great gambler, but never plays for large stakes. Generally, in each
Company, you will find a regular Canfield. This man banks nearly all
the games of chance and is an undisputed authority on the rules of
gambling. Whenever there is an argument among the Tommies about some
uncertain point as to whether Houghton is entitled to "Watkins"
sixpence, the matter is taken to the recognized authority and his
decision is final.

The two most popular games are "Crown and Anchor" and "House."

The paraphernalia used in "Crown and Anchor" consists of a piece of
canvas two feet by three feet. This is divided into six equal squares.
In these squares are painted a club, diamond, heart, spade, crown, and
an anchor, one device to a square. There are three dice used, each
dice marked the same as the canvas. The banker sets up his gambling
outfit in the corner of a billet and starts bally-hooing until a crowd
of Tommies gather around; then the game starts.

The Tommies place bets on the squares, the crown or anchor being
played the most. The banker then rolls his three dice and collects or
pays out as the case may be. If you play the crown and one shows up on
the dice, you get even money, if two show up, you receive two to one,
and if three, three to one. If the crown does not appear and you have
bet on it, you lose, and so on. The percentage for the banker is large
if every square is played, but if the crowd is partial to, say, two
squares, he has to trust to luck. The banker generally wins.

The game of "House" is very popular also. It takes two men to run it.
This game consists of numerous squares of cardboard containing three
rows of numbers, five numbers to a row. The numbers run from one to
ninety. Each card has a different combination.

The French estaminets in the villages are open from eleven in the
morning until one in the afternoon in accordance with army orders.

After dinner the Tommies congregate at these places to drink French
beer at a penny a glass and play "House."

As soon as the estaminet is sufficiently crowded the proprietors of
the "House Game" get busy and as they term it "form a school." This
consists of going around and selling cards at a franc each. If they
have ten in the school, the backers of the game deduct two francs for
their trouble and the winner gets eight francs.

Then the game starts. Each buyer places his card before him on the
table, first breaking up matches into fifteen pieces.

One of the backers of the game has a small cloth bag in which are
ninety cardboard squares, each with a number printed thereon, from one
to ninety. He raps on the table and cries out, "Eyes down, my lucky
lads."

All noise ceases and everyone is attention.

The croupier places his hand in the bag and draws forth a numbered
square and immediately calls out the number. The man who owns the card
with that particular number on it, covers the square with a match. The
one who covers the fifteen numbers on his card first shouts "House."
The other backer immediately comes over to him and verifies the card,
by calling out the numbers thereon to the man with the bag. As each
number is called he picks it out of the ones picked from the bag and
says, "Right." If the count is right he shouts, "House correct, pay
the lucky gentleman, and sell him a card for the next school." The
"lucky gentleman" generally buys one unless he has a Semitic trace in
his veins.

Then another collection is made, a school formed, and they carry on
with the game.

The caller-out has many nicknames for the numbers such as "Kelly's
Eye" for one, "Leg's Eleven" for eleven, "Clickety-click" for
sixty-six, or "Top of the house" meaning ninety.

The game is honest and quite enjoyable. Sometimes you have fourteen
numbers on your card covered and you are waiting for the fifteenth to
be called. In an imploring voice you call out, "Come on, Watkins,
chum, I'm sweating on 'Kelly's Eye.'"

Watkins generally replies, "Well keep out of a draught, you'll catch
cold."

Another game is "Pontoon" played with cards; it is the same as our
"Black Jack," or "Twenty-one."

A card game called "Brag" is also popular. Using a casino deck, the
dealer deals each player three cards. It is similar to our poker,
except for the fact that you only use three cards and cannot draw. The
deck is never shuffled until a man shows three of a kind or a "prile"
as it is called. The value of the hands are, high card, a pair, a run,
a flush or three of a kind or "prile." The limit is generally a penny,
so it is hard to win a fortune.

The next in popularity is a card game called "Nap." It is well named.
Every time I played it I went to sleep.

Whist and Solo Whist are played by the high-brows of the Company.

When the gamblers tire of all other games they try "Banker and
Broker."

I spent a week trying to teach some of the Tommies how to play poker,
but because I won thirty-five francs they declared that they didn't
"Fawncy" the game.

Tommy plays few card games; the general run never heard of poker,
euchre, seven up, or pinochle. They have a game similar to pinochle
called "Royal Bezique," but few know how to play it.

Generally there are two decks of cards in a section, and in a short
time they are so dog-eared and greasy, you can hardly tell the ace of
spades from the ace of hearts. The owners of these decks sometimes
condescend to lend them after much coaxing.

So you see, Mr. Atkins has his fun mixed in with his hardships, and,
contrary to popular belief, the rank and file of the British Army in
the trenches is one big happy family. Now in Virginia, at school, I
was fed on old McGuffy's primary reader, which gave me an opinion of
an Englishman about equal to a '76 Minute Man's backed up by a Sinn
Feiner's. But I found Tommy to be the best of mates and a gentleman
through and through. He never thinks of knocking his officers. If one
makes a costly mistake and Tommy pays with his blood, there is no
general condemnation of the officer. He is just pitied. It is exactly
the same as it was with the Light Brigade at Balaclava, to say nothing
of Gallipoli, Neuve Chapelle, and Loos. Personally I remember a little
incident where twenty of us were sent on a trench raid, only two of us
returning, but I will tell this story later on.

I said it was a big happy family, and so it is, but as in all happy
families, there are servants, so in the British Army there are also
servants, officers' servants, or "O. S." as they are termed. In the
American Army the common name for them is "dog robbers." From a
controversy in the English papers, Winston Churchill made the
statement, as far as I can remember, that the officers' servants in
the British forces totaled nearly two hundred thousand. He claimed
that this removed two hundred thousand exceptionally good and
well-trained fighters from the actual firing line, claiming that the
officers, when selecting a man for servant's duty, generally picked
the man who had been out the longest and knew the ropes.

{Photo: Right Arm Smashed by Shell (in Plaster Cast); has been Told it
will Have to be Amputated.}

But from my observation I find that a large percentage of the servants
do go over the top, but behind the lines, they very seldom engage in
digging parties, fatigues, parades, or drills. This work is as
necessary as actually engaging in an attack, therefore I think that it
would be safe to say that the all-round work of the two hundred
thousand is about equal to fifty thousand men who are on straight
military duties. In numerous instances, officers' servants hold the
rank of lance-corporals and they assume the same duties and authority
of a butler. The one stripe giving him precedence over the other
servants.

There are lots of amusing stories told of "O. S." One day one of our
majors went into the servants' billet and commenced "blinding" at
them, saying that his horse had no straw, and that he personally knew
that straw had been issued for this purpose. He called the
lance-corporal to account. The Corporal answered, "Blime me, sir, the
straw was issued, but there wasn't enough left over from the servants'
beds; in fact, we had to use some of the 'ay to 'elp out, sir."

It is needless to say that the servants dispensed with their soft beds
that particular night.

Nevertheless it is not the fault of the individual officer, it is just
the survival of a quaint old English custom. You know an Englishman
cannot be changed in a day.

But the average English officer is a good sport, he will sit on a fire
step and listen respectfully to Private Jones's theory of the way the
war should be conducted. This war is gradually crumbling the once
unsurmountable wall of caste.

You would be convinced of this if you could seem King George go among
his men on an inspecting tour under fire, or pause before a little
wooden cross in some shell-tossed field with tears in his eyes as he
reads the inscription. And a little later perhaps bend over a wounded
man on a stretcher, patting him on the head.

More than once in a hospital I have seen a titled Red Cross nurse
fetching and carrying for a wounded soldier, perhaps the one who in
civil life delivered the coal at her back door. Today she does not
shrink from lighting his fag or even washing his grimy body.

Tommy admires Albert of Belgium because he is not a pusher of men, he
LEADS them. With him it's not a case of "take that trench"--it is
"come on and we will take it."

It is amusing to notice the different characteristics of the Irish,
Scotch, and English soldiers. The Irish and Scotch are very impetuous,
especially when it comes to bayonet fighting, while the Englishman,
though a trifle slower, thoroughly does his bit; he is more methodical
and has the grip of a bulldog on a captured position. He is slower to
think, that is the reason why he never knows when he is licked.

Twenty minutes before going over the top the English Tommy will sit on
the fire step and thoroughly examine the mechanism of his rifle to see
that it is in working order and will fire properly. After this
examination he is satisfied and ready to meet the Boches.

But the Irishman or Scotchman sits on the fire step, his rifle with
bayonet fixed between his knees, the butt of which perhaps is sinking
into the mud,--the bolt couldn't be opened with a team of horses it
is so rusty,--but he spits on his sleeve and slowly polishes his
bayonet; when this is done he also is ready to argue with Fritz.

It is not necessary to mention the Colonials (the Canadians,
Australians, and New Zealanders), the whole world knows what they have
done for England.

The Australian and New Zealander is termed the "Anzac," taking the
name from the first letters of their official designation, Australian
and New Zealand Army Corps.

Tommy divides the German army into three classes according to their
fighting abilities. They rank as follows, Prussians, Bavarians, and
Saxons.

When up against a Prussian regiment it is a case of keep your napper
below the parapet and duck. A bang-bang all the time and a war is on.
The Bavarians are little better, but the Saxons are fairly good sports
and are willing occasionally to behave as gentlemen and take it easy,
but you cannot trust any of them overlong.

At one point of the line the trenches were about thirty-two yards
apart. This sounds horrible, but in fact it was easy, because neither
side could shell the enemy's front-line trench for fear shells would
drop into their own. This eliminated artillery fire.

In these trenches when up against the Prussians and Bavarians, Tommy
had a hot time of it, but when the Saxons "took over" it was a picnic,
they would yell across that they were Saxons and would not fire. Both
sides would sit on the parapet and carry on a conversation. This
generally consisted of Tommy telling them how much he loved the Kaiser
while the Saxons informed Tommy that King George was a particular
friend of theirs and hoped that he was doing nicely.

When the Saxons were to be relieved by Prussians or Bavarians, they
would yell this information across No Man's Land and Tommy would
immediately tumble into his trench and keep his head down.

If an English regiment was to be relieved by the wild Irish, Tommy
would tell the Saxons, and immediately a volley of "Dormer und
Blitzen's" could be heard, and it was Fritz's turn to get a crick in
his back from stooping, and the people in Berlin would close their
windows.

Usually when an Irishman takes over a trench, just before "stand down"
in the morning, he sticks his rifle over the top aimed in the
direction of Berlin and engages in what is known as the "mad minute."
This consists of firing fifteen shots in a minute. He is not aiming at
anything in particular,--just sends over each shot with a prayer,
hoping that one of his strays will get some poor unsuspecting Fritz in
the napper hundreds of yards behind the lines. It generally does;
that's the reason the Boches hate the man from Erin's Isle.

The Saxons, though better than the Prussians and Bavarians, have a
nasty trait of treachery in their make-up.

At one point of the line where the trenches were very close, a stake
was driven into the ground midway between the hostile lines. At night
when it was his turn, Tommy would crawl to this stake and attach some
London papers to it, while at the foot he would place tins of bully
beef, fags, sweets, and other delicacies that he had received from
Blighty in the ever looked-for parcel. Later on Fritz would come out
and get these luxuries.

The next night Tommy would go out to see what Fritz had put into his
stocking. The donation generally consisted of a paper from Berlin,
telling who was winning the war, some tinned sausages, cigars, and
occasionally a little beer, but a funny thing, Tommy never returned
with the beer unless it was inside of him. His platoon got a whiff of
his breath one night and the offending Tommy lost his job.

One night a young English Sergeant crawled to the stake and as he
tried to detach the German paper a bomb exploded and mangled him
horribly. Fritz had set his trap and gained another victim which was
only one more black mark against him in the book of this war. From
that time on diplomatic relations were severed.

Returning to Tommy, I think his spirit is best shown in the questions
he asks. It is never "who is going to win" but always "how long will
it take?"

CHAPTER XX

"CHATS WITH FRITZ"

We were swimming in money, from the receipts of our theatrical
venture, and had forgotten all about the war, when an order came
through that our Brigade would again take over their sector of the
line.

The day that these orders were issued, our Captain assembled the
company and asked for volunteers to go to the Machine Gun School at
St. Omer. I volunteered and was accepted.

Sixteen men from our brigade left for the course in machine gunnery.
This course lasted two weeks and we rejoined our unit and were
assigned to the Brigade Machine Gun Company. It almost broke my heart
to leave my company mates.

The gun we used was the Vickers, Light .303, water cooled.

I was still a member of the Suicide Club, having jumped from the
frying pan into the fire. I was assigned to Section I, Gun No. 2, and
the first time "in" took position in the front-line trench.

During the day our gun would be dismounted on the fire step ready for
instant use. We shared a dugout with the Lewis gunners, at "stand to"
we would mount our gun on the parapet and go on watch beside it until
"stand down" in the morning, then the gun would be dismounted and
again placed in readiness on the fire step.

We did eight days in the front-line trench without anything unusual
happening outside of the ordinary trench routine. On the night that we
were to "carry out," a bombing raid against the German lines was
pulled off. This raiding party consisted of sixty company men, sixteen
bombers, and four Lewis machine guns with their crews.

The raid took the Boches by surprise and was a complete success, the
party bringing back twenty-one prisoners.

The Germans must have been awfully sore, because they turned loose a
barrage of shrapnel, with a few "Minnies" and "whizz bangs"
intermixed. The shells were dropping into our front line like
hailstones.

To get even, we could have left the prisoners in the fire trench, in
charge of the men on guard and let them click Fritz's strafeing but
Tommy does not treat prisoners that way.

Five of them were brought into my dugout and turned over to me so that
they would be safe from the German fire.

In the candlelight, they looked very much shaken, nerves gone and
chalky faces, with the exception of one, a great big fellow. He looked
very much at ease. I liked him from the start.

I got out the rum jar and gave each a nip and passed around some fags,
the old reliable Woodbines. The other prisoners looked their
gratitude, but the big fellow said in English, "Thank you, sir, the
rum is excellent and I appreciate it, also your kindness."

He told me his name was Carl Schmidt, of the 66th Bavarian Light
Infantry; that he had lived six years in New York (knew the city
better than I did), had been to Coney Island and many of our ball
games. He was a regular fan. I couldn't make him believe that Hans
Wagner wasn't the best ball-player in the world.

From New York he had gone to London, where he worked as a waiter in
the Hotel Russell. Just before the war he went home to Germany to see
his parents, the war came and he was conscripted.

{Photo: The Author.}

He told me he was very sorry to hear that London was in ruins from the
Zeppelin raids. I could not convince him otherwise, for hadn't he seen
moving pictures in one of the German cities of St. Paul's Cathedral in
ruins.

I changed the subject because he was so stubborn in his belief. It was
my intention to try and pump him for information as to the methods of
the German snipers, who had been causing us trouble in the last few
days.

I broached the subject and he shut up like a clam. After a few minutes
he very innocently said:

"German snipers get paid rewards for killing the English."

I eagerly asked, "What are they?"

He answered:

"For killing or wounding an English private, the sniper gets one mark.
For killing or wounding an English officer he gets five marks, but if
he kills a Red Cap or English General, the sniper gets twenty-one days
tied to the wheel of a limber as punishment for his carelessness."

Then he paused, waiting for me to bite, I suppose.

I bit all right and asked him why the sniper was, punished for killing
an English general. With a smile he replied:

"Well, you see, if all the English generals were killed, there would
be no one left to make costly mistakes."

I shut him up, he was getting too fresh for a prisoner. After a while
he winked at me and I winked back, then the escort came to take the
prisoners to the rear. I shook hands and wished him "The best of luck
and a safe journey to Blighty."

I liked that prisoner, he was a fine fellow, had an Iron Cross, too. I
advised him to keep it out of sight, or some Tommy would be sending it
home to his girl in Blighty as a souvenir.

One dark and rainy night while on guard we were looking over the top
from the fire step of our front-line trench, when we heard a noise
immediately in front of our barbed wire. The sentry next to me
challenged, "Halt, Who Comes There?" and brought his rifle to the aim.
His challenge was answered in German. A captain in the next traverse
climbed upon the sandbagged parapet to investigate--a brave but
foolhardly deed--"Crack" went a bullet and he tumbled back into the
trench with a hole through his stomach and died a few minutes later. A
lance-corporal in, the next platoon was so enraged at the Captain's
death that he chucked a Mills bomb in the direction of the noise with
the shouted warning to us: "Duck your nappers' my lucky lads." A sharp
dynamite report, a flare in front of us, and then silence.

We immediately sent up two star shells, and in their light could see
two dark forms lying on the ground dose to our wire. A sergeant and
four Stretcher-bearers went out in front and soon returned, carrying
two limp bodies. Down in the dugout, in the flickering light of three
candles, we saw that they were two German officers, one a captain and
the other an unteroffizier, a rank one grade higher than a
sergeant-major, but below the grade of a lieutenant.

The Captain's face had been almost completely torn away by the bomb's
explosion. The Unteroffizier was alive, breathing with difficulty. In
a few minutes he opened his eyes and blinked in the glare of the
candles.

The pair had evidently been drinking heavily, for the alcohol fumes
were sickening and completely pervaded the dugout. I turned away in
disgust, hating to see a man cross the Great Divide full of booze.

One of our officers could speak German and he questioned the dying
man.

In a faint voice, interrupted by frequent hiccoughs, the Unteroffizier
told his story.

There had been a drinking bout among the officers in one of the German
dugouts, the main beverage being champagne. With a drunken leer he
informed us that champagne was plentiful on their side and that it did
not cost them anything either. About seven that night the conversation
had turned to the "contemptible" English, and the Captain had made a
wager that he would hang his cap on the English barbed wire to show
his contempt for the English sentries. The wager was accepted. At
eight o' clock the Captain and he had crept out into No Man's Land to
carry out this wager.

They had gotten about half way across when the drink took effect and
the Captain fell asleep. After about two hours of vain attempts the
Unteroffizier had at last succeeded in waking the Captain, reminded
him of his bet, and warned him that he would be the laughingstock of
the officers' mess if he did not accomplish his object, but the
Captain was trembling all over and insisted on returning to the German
lines. In the darkness they lost their bearings and crawled toward the
English trenches. They reached the barbed wire and were suddenly
challenged by our sentry. Being too drunk to realize that the
challenge was in English, the Captain refused to crawl back. Finally
the Unteroffizier convinced his superior that they were in front of
the English wire. Realizing this too late, the Captain drew his
revolver and with a muttered curse crept blindly toward our trench.
His bullet no doubt killed our Captain.

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