FROM THE TRENCHES.
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News of the Queen�s
Regiment.
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INTERESTING NARRATIVE BY A COY. SERGT.-MAJOR.
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Anxiously Awaiting the Arrival of
the Bermuda Contingent.
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9-2-15
�I am writing under trying circumstances sitting in what is called a �Dug-out,� that is a shelter erected in a wider part of a firing trench, so that we can sleep a few hours now and then. Most of the sleep, we get is during the day, for all the night long one has to exercise the utmost vigilance--constantly on the look-out and patrolling the ground between our trench and the Germans. The distance is about 200 yards, so that you may guess, we don�t feel so very easy during the hours of darkness--last night the Germans were singing and shouting and seemed to be quite cheerful. I expect they were getting relieved. That is, a fresh lot taking their places. We had a good number of shells coming over our trench yesterday, but they burst near our supports. I think there was one or two casualties. We had two this morning in our company. It seems so horrible to be shot in a trench. I think I should prefer it on the open country As on the day when I got wounded, we happened to be attacking over open fields then�.
21-2-15
�Fancy it being a trouble to raise a Company for the Front in Bermuda. I should have thought they could have raised two easily. At present I am writing in a smoky kitchen in a French Farmhouse, and my bed is a heap of straw fairly comfortable and quite warm--We have 4 days in the trenches, and 4 out still. I am keeping quite well, but some of the fellows suffer a good deal. Frozen feet is quite a common occurrence. We got shelled two days ago, but escaped with only a few casualties, no joke being under fire, �I can tell you. We are absolutely covered with mud when we emerge from the trenches and it takes a couple of days to get anything like clean again.
4-3-15
�Our artillery has just opened fire and is doing splendid work on the enemy�s trench opposite. I am in a �Dug-out� writing to you at present. They are fairly cozy especially when clean straw is put down. Our food is very good and plentiful, and of course we can always supplement it with various things, such as eggs, and fresh vegetable, and French bread, which can be bought at the numerous �Estaminets� which abound. The troops call these �just a minutes.� Of course they are bound to find a nick-name for everything. All the French people seem to wear black or very dark clothes. Of course they are all farm hands etc., here. It would be quite a treat to see people in Summer clothes again�.
7-3-15
�I am at present in what was the original Dining Room, in a good sized farm house. Next to the room is the kitchen with a splendid fire going. I am quite comfortable here for about 4 days. three days ago I was in a house just in rear of the firing line, when a shell came right through and just outside the door the beastly thing burst only 5 feet away. Jolly lucky there was a wall between. They shelled this house for sometime. The German shells don�t do very much damage. All they seem to do is knock down houses. Last time we were in the trenches we had an enormous number of shells at us. Several hit the parapet of the trench, but we had no casualty in our Company. One can hear them coming quite distinctly. They actually whistle over head, and are liable to explode anywhere. It is really surprising how the troops treat all this with contempt. After a few weeks, one becomes quite used to it. Our guns again shelled the German trenches on the 5th and I watched them burst right into their trench doing tremendous damage�
13-3-15
�I am keeping a sharp lookout for the B.V.R.C. Contingent here:--It�s about time they received [sic] some of the troops here. Though they are sticking it well. Never a grumble of any kind.�
20-3-15
�We are out of the trenches again for a bit, after 10 days of it. I am very comfortably situated on a pretty large town, or rather a village, and we have actually got the gas laid on in the house where I am. I am enclosing a war souvenir, a mark note, (it was taken off a prisoner that was captured at �Neuve Chapelle� just recently.
Queen�sS Regt.