I would search a body for identification marks and jot down the
data found on a piece of paper. When the man was buried under, I
would stick a rifle up over him and tuck the record into the trap
in the butt of the gun where the oil bottle is carried.
When the pioneers came up, they would remove the rifle and
substitute a little wooden cross with the name painted on it. The
indifference with which the men soon came to regard this burial
fatigue was amazing. I remember one incident of that first morning,
a thing that didn't seem at all shocking at the time, but which,
looking back upon it, illustrates the matter-of-factness of the
soldier's viewpoint on death.
"Hi sye, Darby," sang out one fellow. "Hi got a blighter 'ere wif
only one leg. Wot'll Hi do wif 'im?"
"Put him under with only one, you blinking idiot," said I.
Presently he called out again, this time with a little note of
satisfaction and triumph in his voice.
"Darby, Hi sye. I got a leg for that bleeder. Fits 'im perfect."
Well, I went over and took a look and to my horror found that the
fool had stuck a German leg on the body, high boot and all. I
wouldn't stand for that and had it out again. I wasn't going to
send a poor fellow on his last pilgrimage with any Boche leg, and
said so. Later I heard this undertaking genius of a Tommy grousing
and muttering to himself.
"Cawn't please Darby," says he, "no matter wot. Fawncy the
blighter'd feel better wif two legs, if one was Boche. It's a fair
crime sendin' 'im hover the river wif only one."
I was sure thankful when that burial fatigue was over, and early in
the forenoon we started back to rest.
Rest, did I say? Not that trip. We were hardly back to Mametz and
down to breakfast when along came an order to fall in for a
carrying party. All that day we carried boxes of Millses up to the
dump that was by High Wood, three long miles over hard going. Being
a corporal had its compensations at this game, as I had no carrying
to do; but inasmuch as the bombs were moved two boxes to a man, I
got my share of the hard work helping men out of holes and lending
a hand when they were mired.
Millses are packed with the bombs and detonators separate in the
box, and the men are very careful in the handling of them. So the
moving of material of this kind is wearing.
Another line of man-killers that we had to move were "toffy
apples." This quaint toy is a huge bomb, perfectly round and
weighing sixty pounds, with a long rod or pipe which inserts into
the mortar. Toffy apples are about the awkwardest thing imaginable
to carry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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