'O.P.'
The mystifying habit of speaking in abbreviations, the result of a constant use of rapid means of communication, is one that is developed to its maximum degree in the jargon of artillery. For instance, "L.X.C. El. 25° 30´, 15´ M L ORD BYF 40´´" is a very common type of order, and is the form in which that order would be transmitted. Consequently, whether in writing or in speech, the Observation Post is invariably referred to as the O.P. What more fitting than that these two letters should stand at the head of a sketch that proposes to deal with some of the aspects of these same observation posts?
The modern battery is so concealed that the view from it is often restricted to a few hundred yards in any direction. It therefore follows that the officer who wishes to direct its fire must discover some place from where he can see the target he proposes to engage, and from whence he can establish communication, in practice almost invariably by telephone, with his battery. He may be lucky enough to find some point near at hand, such as a church tower, from which he can obtain the necessary range of vision, and such points certainly have the advantage that they usually afford an extended view. But far more frequently, especially if his target is a hostile trench only a few yards from our own lines, some point right up forward must be selected, for preference just behind our own front line. This usually involves the selection of alternative positions, both because the view from each is usually restricted to a very small section of the hostile line, and also in the not-uncommon event of the observation officer being shelled out of his post, the battery is out of action until he has established himself somewhere else. The forward observation officer (F.O.O.) is the eye of the artillery, it is his business to observe not only the shooting of his own battery, but also to keep a watch over the whole of the enemy's territory visible from his post; to learn by constant inspection every detail, to perceive the smallest alteration or movement that may give a hint from which enemy plans or dispositions may be deduced. Hence it is clear that the selection of a good observation post is one that demands no small skill and experience. Nor is this selection altogether devoid of humour. A battery arrives, apparently from nowhere, its officers have a bundle of unfamiliar maps thrust into their hands, and are told to go and find as many O.P.s as they require to see a certain prescribed area. "So-and-so will go with you, if you like, he knows all about this part of the world." So-and-so is eventually, after a prolonged search, unearthed from the one comfortable chair in his mess, it being, as he bitterly explains, the only afternoon he has had off for a month. We start, preferably along a road pitted with shell-holes that look disconcertingly recent. Our guide informs us with melancholy pride that two telephonists of the 652nd Battery were killed there yesterday. "But it's usually pretty healthy——" A small and particularly vicious shell whizzes apparently just over our heads and bursts a hundred yards or so away. We change the conversation. We come to a place where the road ends, and where it seems as though some lover of beauty had cut a narrow winding course for a merry little streamlet that murmurs contentedly between its banks. Some yards away stands what was once a house, but the doors have been wrenched off their hinges, the windows are blocked up—no loss to internal illumination, for a dozen huge gaps in the wall amply supply the deficiency—and the roof has collapsed, leaving only the chimney-stacks standing. "That might do for you," says our guide, "750th Battery used it for months." "How do we get there?"—for the country looks suspiciously open and deserted beyond our present retreat behind the hedge. "Oh, they don't often snipe here, we can walk across one at a time, or there's the communication trench," pointing to the streamlet. Heroes all, we elect a soldier's death rather than wet feet, and the first of our party starts to walk across the open. Before he reaches the shelter of the house, zip! comes a bullet with the ugly sound that marks the rifle fired in one's own direction. He makes a wild dive for shelter, from which he subsequently watches us as we wade, cursing its maker, knee-deep along the communication trench, and exhorts us to be careful to change our socks when we get home. After much argument, we decide that the house will suit us, and we splash homewards through our clay-coloured rivulet, by no means comforted by the thought that this is the only safe means of access to our new-found property, unless we propose to go there before daylight and stay till after dark. Small things provoke humour where amusements are few. I subsequently discovered that the depth of water in this trench was about two inches less than the length of my gum-boots, and that, therefore, by careful progression, I could navigate it safely. Whilst doing this one day, a large dog, presumably frightened by a shell bursting near him—although animals of all kinds get extraordinarily accustomed to such things as a rule—plunged into the water within a foot of me. The wave of his impact overflowed my boots—they have never been really dry since—and the splash soaked me to the skin. As I stood telling the world at large what I thought of war and dogs and trenches, a gentle voice, near at hand but unseen, demanded of me, in the catchword of the day, "Daddy, what did you do in the great war?" A sense of humour will make, even of war, the finest game in the world.
Frequently the guide is young and enthusiastic, apt to let his confidence outstrip his local knowledge. A representative of this type volunteered to take one of us to a place from whence he declared we could see a particular point that puzzled us. The two set out smiling, and promptly entangled themselves in a maze of unfamiliar trenches. The guide declared he knew every inch of them, and for many hours as it seemed the two wandered in and out, like trippers in the maze at Hampton Court. At last they reached the ruins of a farmhouse. "If you climb up there you can see all right," said the guide. The unwary pilgrim did so, and found himself, outlined against the evening sky, gazing at the German trenches not thirty yards away. My friend is the soul of discretion, he hurled himself rather than jumped into the security of the trench, followed by a rafale of machine-gun and rifle fire. Nor was he mollified by the words of a choleric and indignant infantry major, who came up and wanted to know what the devil he meant by acting like an infernal clown and drawing fire on his trench—I soften his epithets. There was a marked coolness between the three for many days to come.
More harrowing still is the whispered legend of two adventurous spirits who, in the early days of the war, when the armies were not, as now, divided by an unbroken line of trenches, set out to seek for some commanding position from which to survey the surrounding country. At dusk they found a piece of rising ground, that seemed to promise the fulfilment of all their hopes. Seeing a group of men at work upon it, they strolled up to them and enquired whether it were possible to observe the Germans from there. "I know of but one place more suitable, gentlemen, and that is Berlin," was the reply, and in a very short time they were on their way thither. They had chanced upon the headquarters of a German division!
The observation post once found, the next step is to make it tenable. It may be, if Fate is kindly disposed, the upper storey or garret of a house, from whence through a hole in the roof or walls the necessary view can be obtained. Happy the man who finds such available! The alternative is a straw-stack, on the top of which one must lie, covering oneself as much as possible with straw; a tree, amongst whose branches one must perch like a disconsolate and clumsy bird for whom there is no close time; or, worse than all, a spot in some particularly exposed trench, over whose parapet one pops one's head at the longest possible intervals for the shortest possible time, wondering the while whether the man opposite will pull his trigger before one gets it down again. Generally speaking, all these latter are to be avoided. Any sort of ruin is preferable, and the more of a ruin it is, the less likely is the enemy to sit up and take notice of it. It is as well to make it as bullet-proof as possible, by judicious strengthening with timbers and sandbags. Anything more ambitious is waste of time; if a shell of any size hits it directly, it is coming down and oneself inside it, despite the most elaborate fortifications, which in this case only serve to bury one the deeper. All one can hope for is a little box wherein to sit and observe, proof as far as possible from rain and bullets, and a dug-out for one's telephonists, in which one may take shelter oneself if shelled—that is, if one is lucky enough to get there in time. The most important thing to remember is that the exact appearance of every single object within view is known to the observers on the other side, and that consequently it is a remarkably sure form of suicide to alter the exterior view of anything that one proposes to occupy. A careful man, however, can establish quite a home-like resort almost anywhere. I have known observation posts within two or three hundred yards of the German trenches whose occupants have lived in profound peace and contentment for weeks at a time.
A church tower, or even the remains of one, is an ideal place. It is, certainly, sure to be shelled periodically, but the first round is not going to hit it, and a rapid (and, for preference, carefully rehearsed) descent into a cellar or dug-out at its foot usually averts a contretemps. Of course, as happened once in my experience, a lucky round may carry away the stairs or ladders inside the tower below the observing officer, who then spends a mauvis quart d'heure whilst the enemy leisurely shells him. It is surprising, though, how many direct hits from even heavy ordnance a tower will stand without falling. If no church is available, the tallest house or ruin that can be found must be adapted, by making a tiny slit in the wall or roof, invisible at a distance of a hundred yards or so, and rigging up a platform inside on which to sit whilst observing. A very ingenious method that I once saw employed by a French battery was to make a wooden box the exact shape and size of the chimney stack of a cottage, and painted brick red. The box was hollow and had small peep-holes cut in it. One night they skilfully removed the real stack and substituted the imitation one, which served them admirably for many months. In another case all that was left of what had been a fair-sized house was a wall facing towards the enemy. A neighbouring ruined village was ransacked for a dovecot and a long ladder. A band of amateur carpenters fitted the dovecot to the inside of the wall, as high up as possible, cut a small hole through the wall, and arranged the ladder as a means of access to it. I can vouch from personal experience for the comfort and general excellence of the completed work.
Of the delights of a certain pear-tree, behind whose ample trunk was a most rickety ladder, up whose rotten rungs one climbed fearfully—the tree was about seventy yards behind our front trenches, and in full view from the German line—I will not speak. As autumn pursued its sorrowful course we watched the leaves of our tree fall off one by one, until to the prejudiced eyes of the man who had to climb into it there seemed hardly enough cover to hide a caterpillar. Finally, when an enthusiastic sportsman dumped a trench-mortar—the surest thing in the world to provoke a long-suffering enemy to fury—into a pit some twenty yards away, we shook our heads sadly and left it to its fate. It stands there still, waving its bare arms mockingly at us, but I, for one, shall not tempt its embraces until May has seen fit to dress it decently again.
The enemy, on his side, is no less ingenious and probably more painstaking. There was a certain water-tower that stood in a wood, with its top just visible above the surrounding trees. Imperceptibly, as the days went by, it seemed to grow out of the wood, until a month or so after we first noticed it, about ten feet of it were visible. The solution appears to have been that, to increase the field of view, all the trees in front of it, and there must have been two or three hundred of them, were very cautiously pruned every night, so as to show no apparent alteration from day to day, but gradually to allow the required observation.
It sometimes happens that it is necessary for the observing officer to remain night and day in the post, and under such circumstances continual interest is necessary if life is not to become very dull. Frequently the enemy are good enough to provide this interest, an unexpected shell now and again either just over or just short is a powerful antidote against ennui. More often our own headquarters, with a laudable intention of preventing one's interest from flagging, send one encouraging messages—"Can you see a hostile working party at such-and-such a place? If so, kindly keep under observation and report half-hourly," or "Infantry report flashes of hostile battery in the direction of Hill 0, observe and locate if possible." One observes till one's eyes ache as the light grows too bad to see, when a second message comes, "Flashes reported by infantry ascertained to be caused by summer lightning." At night one crawls into the dug-out and endeavours to slumber with one ear glued to the telephone, and, strangely enough, despite the presence of two loud-sleeping telephonists, one usually does.
Or perhaps it is only necessary for the observing officer to be at his post during the hours of daylight, which involves a pleasant walk an hour before sunrise and another an hour after sunset, both times at which the approaches to the O.P. are being shelled, or swept by a machine gun, or at all events are receiving some sort of attention from the enemy, who appear to take a kindly interest in one's movements. Still, this system secures one a night in bed, which is a luxury by no means to be despised, and one is rewarded for one's early rising and walk by the prospect from the observation post during what is often the clearest part of the day, just before and after sunrise. There, right in front, are the two lines of trenches, seemingly deserted, except where a faint curl of blue smoke denotes preparation for breakfast. Over the whole space of country before one there is no sign of life or movement, unless perhaps at some point from a communication trench a spade-full of earth rises regularly. In the middle distance over a cross-roads a succession of white puffs shows the suspicious nature of one of our field batteries, but further back still smoke rises from a tall chimney as though the world knew of no war. The aeroplanes are up, of course, each cruising about in the centre of a constellation of greyish wisps of shrapnel, like flashes of cotton-wool against the greenish blue of the sky. Rifles crack startlingly near at hand. The drone of spent bullets rises and falls, the distant sound of guns blends with the bursting of the shrapnel far overhead and the hum of the aeroplanes. Surely all this noise is of another world, it cannot have any relation to the peaceful scene before our eyes? The treachery of the quicksand is the calm serenity of this Forbidden Land.
Observation posts have each their own legend, which clings to them through successive tenancies. We shared one once with a very youthful officer whose nervousness was only excelled by his ignorance. I fancy myself that he was only there to keep a claim on the place for his battery, but it so happened one fatal afternoon that he had to observe a series. The first round was fired, and the young man, suddenly discovering that observation of fire is one of the most difficult things in the world, and being utterly at sea as to where the shot had fallen, hesitated in his report. The rest of the tale is best told by the telephone. The battery commander is the first speaker. "Ask the observing officer to report where that round fell." "Mr. Jones reports that was a very good shot, sir." "Tell Mr. Jones I don't want criticism of my shooting, I want to know where the rounds fall. No. 2 is just firing." "Mr. Jones reports the last round fell about an inch from the target." "Then I can assume that as a hit?" "Mr. Jones says he means an inch on the map, not an inch on the ground." Threatenings and slaughter ad lib!
Of course, it is an unpardonable crime to do anything in or near an O.P. which might draw the enemy's attention to it. A battery of my acquaintance had for some weeks been installed in a pretty little villa residence of which they were very proud, situated on the outskirts of a mining village. They had certainly spared no pains to make it comfortable or safe; indeed, the interior was a solid mass of sandbags through which a sort of tunnel ran to the little observation chamber, elaborately reached by a series of ladders and passages. One day the battery commander was conducting a deliberate and deeply calculated series, his mind too full of figures and angles to allow room for any idea of possible molestation by the enemy. Suddenly, directly behind the house, he heard a series of violent explosions. In rather less than the proverbial twinkling of an eye he was down below in the dug-out, nearly flayed by violent contact with ladders and other unyielding substances, but still alive and safe. Still the explosions continued, but no shell seemed to strike the house. At last one of his telephonists, more daring than the rest, ventured to peer out, and there, right in the sacred enclosure, was an armoured car in full and noisy action. The scene that followed baffles description. Two heads, one thrust through the hatchway of the car, one cautiously hidden behind a projecting sandbag, discussed the question of unmentionable idiots who wheeled their indescribable tin perambulators into other people's preserves, until the hardy navigators in the car and the stalwart gunners in the O.P. blushed to hear them. Finally, upon a reiterated threat from the major to turn his own battery on to the car if it did not move off, the nuisance was abated. But "Sans Souci," as we called the place, was never its old self again, its restful charm had departed. Some hostile battery had seen the flashes of the car's gun, and afterwards, at uncertain intervals, presumably when things were dull with it, would fire a few rounds in friendly greeting.
The gunner's appreciation of these things is usually keener even than one's own. One day when reconnoitring for an O.P. with a couple of telephonists, I came upon a house that had once been used for the purpose, but out of which its occupants had been driven by heavy shell-fire. The interior of the place presented an indescribable appearance. Its original owners had fled early in the war, leaving everything as it stood, and a succession of inquisitive searchers had been all through it to see if they could find anything of value. Dresses, broken bottles, letters, rags of all descriptions, a sewing machine, blended with the plaster from the walls and clay from the burst sandbags. Very little of the roof was left, and heavy rain had made of this mass a peculiarly evil-smelling mud, from which protruded here and there lumps of bread, bully-beef and cheese, whose increasing age was apparent. Some sort of cesspit had burst and flooded the cellar, which had been used as a dug-out, and in the centre of the savoury flood floated a mattress that looked as if it held the germs of all the plagues of Egypt. Outside, shrapnel were bursting freely, I fancy the enemy had seen us enter the place. I overheard one of my telephonists apostrophizing it: "You're a nice 'ouse, you are," he said. "Blowed if I don't advertise yer in the bloomin' papers, 'Charming bijou residence, quiet 'ealthy situation, perfect repair, hevery convenience, pleasant garden.' I don't think!"
