OBSERVATION
It has been said in a previous chapter that the fire of any given battery is, in the majority of cases, directed by an officer in an observation post from whence he can see the target and the ground surrounding it. The general principles of this observation are as follows. The position of the battery and target are ascertained upon a map, and by means of it the range and direction of the target from the battery are obtained. A calculation based upon this information is made, and a certain elevation and direction given to the guns. A round is then fired, and the position of the point where it falls relative to the target noted by the observation officer, who gives a correction based upon the error. This correction is transmitted to the battery by methods depending on the distance between it and the observation post, but almost invariably by telephone, and applied to the guns. Another round is then fired, which is again observed and a fresh correction made as before. This process continues until the rounds are falling at or very close to the target. It sounds remarkably simple, but is in practice extremely difficult. To hit an unknown target with the expenditure of the minimum possible number of rounds requires considerable experience in observation, for the puff of a bursting shell lasts only for the fraction of a second, and is apt to look very small at a distance of more than a few hundred yards. Further, knowledge of the vagaries of each individual gun is required, and also a keen appreciation of the nature of the country round about the target. Observation of fire may be truly said to be an art, in that it comes naturally to some people, whilst others may spend a lifetime in its practice without ever becoming proficient.
The second part of an observation officer's duty, that of keeping a general watch on the ground spread out in front of him, is considerably easier, as it only requires a keen eye and a good memory. After a little practice, it is soon found that the apparent changeless calm of a deserted land is in the highest degree deceptive. Although they are utterly invisible, that land is thickly populated with hidden troops, whose object it is perpetually to turn every feature of it, natural and artificial, to the best possible use for attack or defence. The ruins of a barn stand some little way back from the enemy's line, roofless and abandoned. The telescope shows it to have some part of its walls yet standing, and within them a ladder. Now ladders are precious things in a strip of country where everything is made to serve a useful purpose. Examine the place daily and perhaps at dawn a single figure may be seen scurrying up the ladder, or perhaps its position may have altered slightly. For weeks, perhaps, one has noticed a dilapidated house, so broken down that through the shell-holes that breach the front wall one can see the horizon beyond. Yet one morning one of these shell-holes shows dark, or perhaps a new one has appeared higher up, although no battery has been seen to fire at it. A flock of starlings pours suddenly from the stump of what was once a church tower, and for a long time the birds circle in clamorous flight about it, seemingly afraid to re-enter their accustomed haunt. Hints, all of these, indicating that some use is being made of these places, either as observation stations or snipers' posts.
Even the innocent-looking surface of a weed-grown field is not above suspicion. The naked eye is suddenly drawn to it by what seems at first almost inspiration, but one becomes conscious as one watches of an indeterminable movement taking place on its surface. Mark the place very carefully and bring the telescope to bear upon it. The sense of movement resolves itself into the periodic sprinkling of brown earth thrown up as by an industrious mole. These are spadefuls of earth, showing that a trench is being dug. Natural features themselves have a habit of changing their positions with the same disconcerting effect as that phenomenon had upon Macbeth. Of course, one is never lucky enough to catch them actually in motion, but a morning of surprises will often reveal the disappearance of a well-known hedge, or the sudden apparition of an orchard of full-grown trees in the middle of a ploughed field, or even a stately plantation of elms on what was formerly a pavÉ road. The hedge was removed to provide something with a field of fire, or to allow somebody to see a particular part of our line; the game is now to discover the whereabouts and nature of that something or somebody. The orchard and the elm trees were required as cover, probably for guns; the surest plan is to shell them and await developments. It may be possible to drive the detachments out into the open, when every weapon that can be brought to bear will sing its own particular song of triumph.
A certain redoubt was located by our aeroplanes, and its position indicated to us by the fact that it lay right in front of the seventh from the northern end of a row of trees such as occur at intervals along the side of most French Routes Nationales. For many days we used this mark, until it suddenly struck one of our observation officers that the trees looked somehow different to what they did when first he noticed them. Suspicion being thus aroused, further aeroplane reconnaissance was undertaken, when it was found that the third tree of the row now marked the position of the redoubt. The enemy, seeing that they had been "spotted" by the first aeroplane, had dug up the four trees at the northern end of the row and replanted them at the southern end, and must consequently have watched, with a delight not very difficult to imagine, our shells raising a little inferno of their own a couple of hundred yards away from them.
All this is a part of the great game of war that it is most difficult to learn in times of peace. "Pretending to look for something you know isn't there," as I have heard it described, is an occupation that palls upon the dullest mind. Well do I remember many years ago forming one of a class of young officers under instruction in the use of the "Observation of Fire Instrument," which consists of a telescope fearfully and wonderfully mounted on a gigantic tripod—it is now, in the language beloved of the text-books, "becoming obsolescent," may it soon be relegated to the limbo of forgotten things! Our instructor, a highly capable but choleric major (majors always were apt to be petulant, I thought, in those days), had spent the best part of a warm June morning explaining the use of the cumbrous toy, until the whole class were sick at heart. At last he sent one of our number some distance away with orders to observe and report upon some object in the distance out to sea, the while he discoursed to the remainder. The minutes slipped by, and no word came from the keeper of the lonely vigil. "Go and see what that dam! fool is up to, sergeant-major," said our instructor. Anon the sergeant-major returned, with a face as impassive as the metal of the instrument itself. "Well?" rapped out the major. "If you please, sir, Mr. Robinson is a-studying observation on the ladies' bathing-place!"
Observation, it may be repeated, is an art, but every art requires considerable training, if only in technique, before the artist can acquire perfect and instinctive expression. Where, as in the case of the art of the gunner, art leans for its support upon the strong arm of science, the probationary stage requires even more time and application on the part of the tyro. It has been said that it takes three years to teach an artillery officer the elements of his profession. It will doubtless be claimed as a triumph of foresight for our military administration that, although at the outbreak of war our heavy artillery matÉriel was, in equipment and numbers, such as would not inspire pride in a Central American Republic, we had a large reserve of highly-trained artillery officers and men languishing in the enforced sloth of our coast fortresses all over the world. Well it is for us that this was so, for this is a war of heavy artillery, and without these men to train, command and leaven the newly formed batteries that we were forced so hurriedly to raise, our artillery would never have attained its present admitted dominance. Splendid indeed is the new material; the artillery manage to secure officers of the higher and better educated classes, and men, thanks to rigidly-enforced physical standards, of the sturdier build; all ranks are full of the interest of their new profession, enthusiastic, keen to learn, absorbing in the sharp days of war knowledge that others required the leisurely weeks of peace to acquire. Still, may the country, in its just pride in the performances of these men, never forget the debt that it owes to that little band whose pay it loved to curtail and whose ambitions to discourage in the old forgotten years of peace!
But this is a digression, typical of the observation officer, whose thoughts stray into strange channels during the course of the long days of watching. How keenly he longs sometimes for "something to happen," especially during his first experiences of the work, before he realizes that something is always happening under his eyes, if he can only detect it. My own pet longing was to see my first real live Hun in his natural surroundings, a longing conceived in much the same sort of inquiring spirit that inspires the naturalist. I saw him at last, he sprang from a trench in which a shell had just fallen, ran literally as if his life depended on it, which, in grim earnest, it did, and dived like a rabbit into a support trench a few yards away, followed by cheers and bullets from our own lines. My observation post was at that time not more than a hundred yards behind our front line, but, owing to the intricate nature of the country, no signs of immediate war could be seen except from the little slit in the wall from which I observed. One day I was stretching my legs in the road outside, when a staff officer, somewhat of a rara avis in so advanced a spot, came by, having evidently lost his way. Now a staff officer was once defined to me by a very distinguished regimental officer as "a being whose natural common sense was buried for ever beneath the vast mountain of his own ignorance." This magnificent gentleman—he had probably been a distinguished grocer, the pride of the local volunteers, before the war—informed me that observation was impossible from where I then was, and, indicating a ruin, the remains of whose roof could just be seen above the hedges, expressed his intention of surveying the country from its more favourable eminence. Bowing before his superior wisdom, I saluted and we parted, he to pursue the even tenor of his way, I to my seat behind the window to watch the fun, knowing that his objective was about half a mile behind the German lines. With an unholy delight, I saw him blunder into our trenches, exchange a hurried word with an officer who came forward to meet him, and then beat a precipitate retreat pursued by a most audible titter that ran swiftly along the line.
He took care to avoid on his return the Bath Club, as we called that O.P., from the number of flooded cellars it contained.
The study of nomenclature at the front is a very fascinating one, if only for the light that it throws upon the psychology of nostalgia. Every road, every communication trench is christened with some name around which hang the memories of the men who gave it, so that the native origins of these shrewd godfathers is never for a moment in doubt. Who but a native-born Londoner would have evolved a Harrow Road, off which, in an orgy of local geography, branch Edgware Road, Finchley Road, Maida Vale and a dozen other familiar names? Who but a young subaltern—his heart still unforgetful of the old joie de vivre, having established an O.P. at the end of a muddy ditch already known as Burlington Arcade, would have proudly labelled it "The Bristol," or who, but his envious friends near Shaftesbury Avenue, would have emulated him with "Maxime's" and "The Villa-villa"! Moray Avenue, Prince's Street, Deansgate, Dale Street, College Green, all tell their own story. And where association ends, description begins. Stink Farm, is, I believe, now marked as such on the official maps. Quality Street has already a place in history that may one day be shared by Mud Cottage, Canadian Orchard, la Maison des Mitrailleurs, Rue d'Enfer, and Le Tirebouchon. Sometimes the names of places have been anglicized almost out of recognition. Wingles and Hinges are pronounced as they appear to an English eye, Choques is Chokes, Gris Pot is Grease Pot, Lozinghem is Lozenges, to quote a very few examples. The same may be found on the German side. The Hohenzollern Redoubt is familiar by name to everybody. Near it is Breslauer ChausÉe Loos contained Unter den Linden, Friedrichstrasse, and, rather curiously, Ringstrasse; Vendin le Vieil is Alt-Vendin, Lens, Lenze. But this is yet another digression, the wandering thoughts of the idle observer; let us suppose him suddenly recalled to the affairs of the moment by the insistent voice of the telephone.
"Message for you, sir—from headquarters," says the telephonist, bearing a piece of pink paper in his hand. I take it, and read, "Fire twenty rounds at intersection of communication trenches at——" Here follow a combination of figures and letters that denote the position on the map. "Very well, call up the battery and give 'action.' Tell them to report when ready." Out comes the map, and the point mentioned in the message found. A road runs east and west close by it, yes, I know that road, have often noticed it. A communication trench runs along it for some way, then turns off at right angles by a hedge, which it follows for a couple of hundred yards till it meets its fellow, which place of meeting I am ordered, in the parlance of the front, to "strafe." Can I see that hedge, I wonder? Prolonged inspection through the glasses assures me that I cannot. There is nothing for it but to take a bearing. One hundred and seventeen degrees from my position, five degrees left of the church tower. Compass and sextant agree, giving me the line to the corner of a wood on the horizon, on which line my target must somewhere be situated. Out come the glasses again. There certainly is a mound right in line with my mark in the centre of that meadow, but it might be anything. Yes, the telescope shows it to be earth thrown up from some excavation or other, it must be the trench junction. It looks hopelessly foreshortened, nothing like the map, but then the map seems to look down on things with a calm judicial air, whilst I can only peer at them from their own level. A very little practice in observation soon shows one that the human eye is utterly unreliable as a gauge of the length of anything that stretches away from it. "Battery reports ready for action, sir," says the telephonist. "Thank you. No. 1 gun ranging, elevation nineteen degrees, etc., etc." Back comes the warning, "No. 1 reports ready to fire, sir." "Fire No. 1!" "No. 1 fired, sir!" and then an eternity of breathless anxiety, during which all the fabled deadly sins of gunners long since condemned to everlasting execration rush upon my memory. Suppose I have read the map wrong, and that is not the place at all? An instant's piercing scrutiny, which fails to reassure me in the least. Even if that is the place, it is not very far from our own trenches. Did I give the right elevation? Did I allow enough for wind? Were my orders perfectly clear to the section commander? Did the layer lay correctly? Shall I be "broke" if I slaughter a whole platoon in our own trenches, or only shot?... Eternity comes to an end at last after a life of some ten seconds, and I hear the whistle of the shell coming ever nearer—safely over my head, anyhow, thank heaven! Yes, she must have passed the trenches by now; where's she going to fall? The whistle ends abruptly, but nowhere is there any sign of smoke, nor does the sound of the burst reach me. A blind, I suppose, the shell must have fallen into something soft, but I'd give ten years of my life to know where. Well, there is nothing for it—"No. 1, repeat, fire!" "No. 1 fired, sir!" The whistle again, then right in line with the target, and hiding it, a bright flash, a spout of earth and a cloud of black smoke, followed by a peculiar, sharp crash, and the hell of doubt gives way to the heaven of satisfaction. Such are the delights of observation.
And variously the excitement infects the blood of the observer. One will sit far back from his window, lest prying eyes should detect him through it, and give his orders slowly and methodically, weighing each carefully and making elaborate calculations the while, and occasionally exhorting the battery to care and deliberation. Another will thrust a telescope through a chink between two sandbags so that it shines like a heliograph in the morning sun and one wonders if some well-disposed angel has smitten the enemy with blindness for that every battery within range does not open fire on him. He, meanwhile, oblivious of such minor dangers, roars contradictory orders as through a megaphone, calling on the inhabitants of Tophet with strange formulÆ because his orders are not obeyed before he gives them. I have seen a French Territorial battery in action for the first time in their lives, Mons. le capitaine subdued, almost tearful, but resolved to die in his O.P. as befits a soldier. His telephonists and assistants (he appeared to have dozens) equally anxious to see the fray, festoon themselves all over the building, hanging out of windows, clambering on to the roof, expressing their delight at the top of their voices. Eventually he restores some degree of order, and, rushing to the telephone, sweeps aside the operators, and gives the word himself. "Tirez, tirez, pour l'honneur de la belle France!" The shot falls apparently in a totally different direction to where he anticipates. Again he rushes to the instrument, more perhaps in sorrow than in anger, and demands the presence of the section commander. "Mon lieutenant!" he says, "ce n'est pas juste, c'est Épouvantable! Je me sens brisÉ! Nom d'un nom, que vous Êtes maladroit! Dirigez la piÈce encore vous mÊme!" He finishes his series at last, and as he turns to go, he salutes me gravely, saying, "Au revoir, monsieur, j'aimerais bien travailler ici À cotÉ de vous, mais, hÉlas! c'est fort impossible. Dans cette observatoire il y en a toujours de bruit!" It must not for a moment be supposed that I speak disparagingly of the French gunners. They are, as a matter of fact, far better artillerists than ourselves, and we have much to learn from them. Possibly they lack something of our insular calm, as we certainly lack the vivid power of imagination and discernment that contributes very largely to their success. For this same calm the British gunner is hard to beat. On one occasion a heavy shell hit an O.P. fair and square, bringing it down in a heap of ruins. The observer, who by some miracle was not hurt, extricated himself from the pile of rubbish under which he found himself, and rushed down to the cellar, where he expected to find the mangled remains of his telephonist. There was the man, his hands full of fragments that had once been a telephone, standing with a puzzled expression on his face. "I 'ardly know what to do with this 'ere instrument, sir," was his greeting. "I don't see as 'ow I'm goin' to mend it without goin' back to the battery for some spare parts."
Observation by night is sometimes useful, as then the flashes of hostile batteries can be seen most distinctly. It is, however, a peculiarity of modern propellants that the actinic power of the flame produced on their combustion is such as to attract attention in broad daylight. I have had my eye caught by the flash of a ten-centimetre gun about four miles away at four o'clock on a sunny afternoon in September, and there is no doubt that this distance has frequently been exceeded. Still, night of course is the best time, although then it is very much easier to mistake the flash of a bursting shell for that of a gun, and even if flashes are observed, nothing can be noted except their direction, their surroundings being invisible. And a few hours at night in an O.P. have their compensations. Over the trenches rise continually the searching lights, throwing everything into sudden contrast of light and shade, making of the familiar scene whose every stone and blade of grass one thought to know by heart, a strange land of white snow islands standing sheer out of yawning black gulfs. Every now and then sharp tongues of flame dart out from the parapet, a sudden lurid flash in the air shows a bursting shrapnel, or a brighter one on the ground the more violent detonation of high explosive. Perhaps a rocket signal of green and red goes up, followed by a quicker succession of flashes of all kinds as a patrol between the trenches is discovered. Perhaps one may be lucky enough to see a chance shell start a huge fire, such as burnt once for three days and three nights in CitÉ St. Pierre, producing a glow as of twilight two good miles away. Whatever may be seen, night has its fascination in this strange world of sleepless activity as much as in a land of quiet, but here its fascination is a stirring into life of eager pulses, a whispering in the ear of that ever-ready lust of battle that makes of war the finest sport that man ever devised. Somehow at night all deeds seem possible.
