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This page intentionally left blank
Third Edition

Data
Structures
and Algorithm
Analysis in

JavaTM
TM
This page intentionally left blank
 Third Edition

Data
Structures
and Algorithm
Analysis in

Java
TM

Mark A l l e n Weiss
Florida International University

PEARSON

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Weiss, Mark Allen.
Data structures and algorithm analysis in Java / Mark Allen Weiss. – 3rd ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-13-257627-7 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-13-257627-9 (alk. paper)
1. Java (Computer program language) 2. Data structures (Computer science)
3. Computer algorithms. I. Title.
QA76.73.J38W448 2012
005.1–dc23 2011035536

15 14 13 12 11—CRW—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 10: 0-13-257627-9

ISBN 13: 9780-13-257627-7
To the love of my life, Jill.
This page intentionally left blank
 CONTENTS

Preface xvii

Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 What’s the Book About? 1
1.2 Mathematics Review 2
1.2.1 Exponents 3
1.2.2 Logarithms 3
1.2.3 Series 4
1.2.4 Modular Arithmetic 5
1.2.5 The P Word 6
1.3 A Brief Introduction to Recursion 8
1.4 Implementing Generic Components Pre-Java 5 12
1.4.1 Using Object for Genericity 13
1.4.2 Wrappers for Primitive Types 14
1.4.3 Using Interface Types for Genericity 14
1.4.4 Compatibility of Array Types 16
1.5 Implementing Generic Components Using Java 5 Generics 16
1.5.1 Simple Generic Classes and Interfaces 17
1.5.2 Autoboxing/Unboxing 18
1.5.3 The Diamond Operator 18
1.5.4 Wildcards with Bounds 19
1.5.5 Generic Static Methods 20
1.5.6 Type Bounds 21
1.5.7 Type Erasure 22
1.5.8 Restrictions on Generics 23

vii
viii Contents

1.6 Function Objects 24

Summary 26
Exercises 26
References 28

Chapter 2 Algorithm Analysis 29

2.1 Mathematical Background 29
2.2 Model 32
2.3 What to Analyze 33
2.4 Running Time Calculations 35
2.4.1 A Simple Example 36
2.4.2 General Rules 36
2.4.3 Solutions for the Maximum Subsequence Sum Problem 39
2.4.4 Logarithms in the Running Time 45
2.4.5 A Grain of Salt 49
Summary 49
Exercises 50
References 55

Chapter 3 Lists, Stacks, and Queues 57

3.1 Abstract Data Types (ADTs) 57
3.2 The List ADT 58
3.2.1 Simple Array Implementation of Lists 58
3.2.2 Simple Linked Lists 59
3.3 Lists in the Java Collections API 61
3.3.1 Collection Interface 61
3.3.2 Iterator s 61
3.3.3 The List Interface, ArrayList, and LinkedList 63
3.3.4 Example: Using remove on a LinkedList 65
3.3.5 ListIterators 67
3.4 Implementation of ArrayList 67
3.4.1 The Basic Class 68
3.4.2 The Iterator and Java Nested and Inner Classes 71
3.5 Implementation of LinkedList 75
3.6 The Stack ADT 82
3.6.1 Stack Model 82
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 Contents ix

3.6.2 Implementation of Stacks 83

3.6.3 Applications 84
3.7 The Queue ADT 92
3.7.1 Queue Model 92
3.7.2 Array Implementation of Queues 92
3.7.3 Applications of Queues 95
Summary 96
Exercises 96

Chapter 4 Trees 101

4.1 Preliminaries 101
4.1.1 Implementation of Trees 102
4.1.2 Tree Traversals with an Application 103
4.2 Binary Trees 107
4.2.1 Implementation 108
4.2.2 An Example: Expression Trees 109
4.3 The Search Tree ADT—Binary Search Trees 112
4.3.1 contains 113
4.3.2 findMin and findMax 115
4.3.3 insert 116
4.3.4 remove 118
4.3.5 Average-Case Analysis 120
4.4 AVL Trees 123
4.4.1 Single Rotation 125
4.4.2 Double Rotation 128
4.5 Splay Trees 137
4.5.1 A Simple Idea (That Does Not Work) 137
4.5.2 Splaying 139
4.6 Tree Traversals (Revisited) 145
4.7 B-Trees 147
4.8 Sets and Maps in the Standard Library 152
4.8.1 Sets 152
4.8.2 Maps 153
4.8.3 Implementation of TreeSet and TreeMap 153
4.8.4 An Example That Uses Several Maps 154
Summary 160
Exercises 160
References 167
x Contents

Chapter 5 Hashing 171

5.1 General Idea 171
5.2 Hash Function 172
5.3 Separate Chaining 174
5.4 Hash Tables Without Linked Lists 179
5.4.1 Linear Probing 179
5.4.2 Quadratic Probing 181
5.4.3 Double Hashing 183
5.5 Rehashing 188
5.6 Hash Tables in the Standard Library 189
5.7 Hash Tables with Worst-Case O(1) Access 192
5.7.1 Perfect Hashing 193
5.7.2 Cuckoo Hashing 195
5.7.3 Hopscotch Hashing 205
5.8 Universal Hashing 211
5.9 Extendible Hashing 214
Summary 217
Exercises 218
References 222

Chapter 6 Priority Queues (Heaps) 225

6.1 Model 225
6.2 Simple Implementations 226
6.3 Binary Heap 226
6.3.1 Structure Property 227
6.3.2 Heap-Order Property 229
6.3.3 Basic Heap Operations 229
6.3.4 Other Heap Operations 234
6.4 Applications of Priority Queues 238
6.4.1 The Selection Problem 238
6.4.2 Event Simulation 239
6.5 d-Heaps 240
6.6 Leftist Heaps 241
6.6.1 Leftist Heap Property 241
6.6.2 Leftist Heap Operations 242
6.7 Skew Heaps 249
 Contents xi

6.8 Binomial Queues 252

6.8.1 Binomial Queue Structure 252
6.8.2 Binomial Queue Operations 253
6.8.3 Implementation of Binomial Queues 256
6.9 Priority Queues in the Standard Library 261
Summary 261
Exercises 263
References 267

Chapter 7 Sorting 271

7.1 Preliminaries 271
7.2 Insertion Sort 272
7.2.1 The Algorithm 272
7.2.2 Analysis of Insertion Sort 272
7.3 A Lower Bound for Simple Sorting Algorithms 273
7.4 Shellsort 274
7.4.1 Worst-Case Analysis of Shellsort 276
7.5 Heapsort 278
7.5.1 Analysis of Heapsort 279
7.6 Mergesort 282
7.6.1 Analysis of Mergesort 284
7.7 Quicksort 288
7.7.1 Picking the Pivot 290
7.7.2 Partitioning Strategy 292
7.7.3 Small Arrays 294
7.7.4 Actual Quicksort Routines 294
7.7.5 Analysis of Quicksort 297
7.7.6 A Linear-Expected-Time Algorithm for Selection 300
7.8 A General Lower Bound for Sorting 302
7.8.1 Decision Trees 302
7.9 Decision-Tree Lower Bounds for Selection Problems 304
7.10 Adversary Lower Bounds 307
7.11 Linear-Time Sorts: Bucket Sort and Radix Sort 310
7.12 External Sorting 315
7.12.1 Why We Need New Algorithms 316
7.12.2 Model for External Sorting 316
7.12.3 The Simple Algorithm 316
xii Contents

7.12.4 Multiway Merge 317

7.12.5 Polyphase Merge 318
7.12.6 Replacement Selection 319
Summary 321
Exercises 321
References 327

Chapter 8 The Disjoint Set Class 331

8.1 Equivalence Relations 331
8.2 The Dynamic Equivalence Problem 332
8.3 Basic Data Structure 333
8.4 Smart Union Algorithms 337
8.5 Path Compression 340
8.6 Worst Case for Union-by-Rank and Path Compression 341
8.6.1 Slowly Growing Functions 342
8.6.2 An Analysis By Recursive Decomposition 343
8.6.3 An O( M log * N ) Bound 350
8.6.4 An O( M α(M, N) ) Bound 350
8.7 An Application 352
Summary 355
Exercises 355
References 357

Chapter 9 Graph Algorithms 359

9.1 Definitions 359
9.1.1 Representation of Graphs 360
9.2 Topological Sort 362
9.3 Shortest-Path Algorithms 366
9.3.1 Unweighted Shortest Paths 367
9.3.2 Dijkstra’s Algorithm 372
9.3.3 Graphs with Negative Edge Costs 380
9.3.4 Acyclic Graphs 380
9.3.5 All-Pairs Shortest Path 384
9.3.6 Shortest-Path Example 384
9.4 Network Flow Problems 386
9.4.1 A Simple Maximum-Flow Algorithm 388
 Contents xiii

9.5 Minimum Spanning Tree 393

9.5.1 Prim’s Algorithm 394
9.5.2 Kruskal’s Algorithm 397
9.6 Applications of Depth-First Search 399
9.6.1 Undirected Graphs 400
9.6.2 Biconnectivity 402
9.6.3 Euler Circuits 405
9.6.4 Directed Graphs 409
9.6.5 Finding Strong Components 411
9.7 Introduction to NP-Completeness 412
9.7.1 Easy vs. Hard 413
9.7.2 The Class NP 414
9.7.3 NP-Complete Problems 415
Summary 417
Exercises 417
References 425

Chapter 10 Algorithm Design

Techniques 429
10.1 Greedy Algorithms 429
10.1.1 A Simple Scheduling Problem 430
10.1.2 Huffman Codes 433
10.1.3 Approximate Bin Packing 439
10.2 Divide and Conquer 448
10.2.1 Running Time of Divide-and-Conquer Algorithms 449
10.2.2 Closest-Points Problem 451
10.2.3 The Selection Problem 455
10.2.4 Theoretical Improvements for Arithmetic Problems 458
10.3 Dynamic Programming 462
10.3.1 Using a Table Instead of Recursion 463
10.3.2 Ordering Matrix Multiplications 466
10.3.3 Optimal Binary Search Tree 469
10.3.4 All-Pairs Shortest Path 472
10.4 Randomized Algorithms 474
10.4.1 Random Number Generators 476
10.4.2 Skip Lists 480
10.4.3 Primality Testing 483
xiv Contents

10.5 Backtracking Algorithms 486

10.5.1 The Turnpike Reconstruction Problem 487
10.5.2 Games 490
Summary 499
Exercises 499
References 508

Chapter 11 Amortized Analysis 513

11.1 An Unrelated Puzzle 514
11.2 Binomial Queues 514
11.3 Skew Heaps 519
11.4 Fibonacci Heaps 522
11.4.1 Cutting Nodes in Leftist Heaps 522
11.4.2 Lazy Merging for Binomial Queues 525
11.4.3 The Fibonacci Heap Operations 528
11.4.4 Proof of the Time Bound 529
11.5 Splay Trees 531
Summary 536
Exercises 536
References 538

Chapter 12 Advanced Data Structures

and Implementation 541
12.1 Top-Down Splay Trees 541
12.2 Red-Black Trees 549
12.2.1 Bottom-Up Insertion 549
12.2.2 Top-Down Red-Black Trees 551
12.2.3 Top-Down Deletion 556
12.3 Treaps 558
12.4 Suffix Arrays and Suffix Trees 560
12.4.1 Suffix Arrays 561
12.4.2 Suffix Trees 564
12.4.3 Linear-Time Construction of Suffix Arrays and Suffix Trees 567
12.5 k-d Trees 578
 Contents xv

12.6 Pairing Heaps 583

Summary 588
Exercises 590
References 594

Index 599
This page intentionally left blank
 PREFACE

Purpose/Goals
This new Java edition describes data structures, methods of organizing large amounts of
data, and algorithm analysis, the estimation of the running time of algorithms. As computers
become faster and faster, the need for programs that can handle large amounts of input
becomes more acute. Paradoxically, this requires more careful attention to efficiency, since
inefficiencies in programs become most obvious when input sizes are large. By analyzing
an algorithm before it is actually coded, students can decide if a particular solution will be
feasible. For example, in this text students look at specific problems and see how careful
implementations can reduce the time constraint for large amounts of data from centuries
to less than a second. Therefore, no algorithm or data structure is presented without an
explanation of its running time. In some cases, minute details that affect the running time
of the implementation are explored.
Once a solution method is determined, a program must still be written. As computers
have become more powerful, the problems they must solve have become larger and more
complex, requiring development of more intricate programs. The goal of this text is to teach
students good programming and algorithm analysis skills simultaneously so that they can
develop such programs with the maximum amount of efficiency.
This book is suitable for either an advanced data structures (CS7) course or a first-year
graduate course in algorithm analysis. Students should have some knowledge of intermedi-
ate programming, including such topics as object-based programming and recursion, and
some background in discrete math.

Summary of the Most Significant Changes in the Third Edition

The third edition incorporates numerous bug fixes, and many parts of the book have
undergone revision to increase the clarity of presentation. In addition,
r Chapter 4 includes implementation of the AVL tree deletion algorithm—a topic often
requested by readers.
r Chapter 5 has been extensively revised and enlarged and now contains material on two
newer algorithms: cuckoo hashing and hopscotch hashing. Additionally, a new section
on universal hashing has been added.
r Chapter 7 now contains material on radix sort, and a new section on lower bound
proofs has been added. xvii
xviii Preface

r Chapter 8 uses the new union/find analysis by Seidel and Sharir, and shows the
O( Mα(M, N) ) bound instead of the weaker O( M log∗ N ) bound in prior editions.
r Chapter 12 adds material on suffix trees and suffix arrays, including the linear-time
suffix array construction algorithm by Karkkainen and Sanders (with implementation).
The sections covering deterministic skip lists and AA-trees have been removed.
r Throughout the text, the code has been updated to use the diamond operator from
Java 7.

Approach
Although the material in this text is largely language independent, programming requires
the use of a specific language. As the title implies, we have chosen Java for this book.
Java is often examined in comparison with C++. Java offers many benefits, and pro-
grammers often view Java as a safer, more portable, and easier-to-use language than C++.
As such, it makes a fine core language for discussing and implementing fundamental data
structures. Other important parts of Java, such as threads and its GUI, although important,
are not needed in this text and thus are not discussed.
Complete versions of the data structures, in both Java and C++, are available on
the Internet. We use similar coding conventions to make the parallels between the two
languages more evident.

Overview
Chapter 1 contains review material on discrete math and recursion. I believe the only way
to be comfortable with recursion is to see good uses over and over. Therefore, recursion
is prevalent in this text, with examples in every chapter except Chapter 5. Chapter 1 also
presents material that serves as a review of inheritance in Java. Included is a discussion of
Java generics.
Chapter 2 deals with algorithm analysis. This chapter explains asymptotic analysis and
its major weaknesses. Many examples are provided, including an in-depth explanation of
logarithmic running time. Simple recursive programs are analyzed by intuitively converting
them into iterative programs. More complicated divide-and-conquer programs are intro-
duced, but some of the analysis (solving recurrence relations) is implicitly delayed until
Chapter 7, where it is performed in detail.
Chapter 3 covers lists, stacks, and queues. This chapter has been significantly revised
from prior editions. It now includes a discussion of the Collections API ArrayList
and LinkedList classes, and it provides implementations of a significant subset of the
collections API ArrayList and LinkedList classes.
Chapter 4 covers trees, with an emphasis on search trees, including external search
trees (B-trees). The UNIX file system and expression trees are used as examples. AVL trees
and splay trees are introduced. More careful treatment of search tree implementation details
is found in Chapter 12. Additional coverage of trees, such as file compression and game
trees, is deferred until Chapter 10. Data structures for an external medium are considered
as the final topic in several chapters. New to this edition is a discussion of the Collections
API TreeSet and TreeMap classes, including a significant example that illustrates the use of
three separate maps to efficiently solve a problem.
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Other documents randomly have
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one's heart warms to these French women, in their workmanlike
short frocks (nearly all black), thick, home-knitted stockings, and
wooden clogs. How they keep the heels of their stockings so dry and
clean, I can't think. The subject, you notice, is one of peculiar
interest to all of us just now—sock heels, I mean.
There have been a good many jobs for officers all day, so far, and
only an hour or so for rest. But we have arranged for a sumptuous
repast—roast duck and sausages and treacle pudding—at six o'clock,
and the C.O. and Providence permitting, we shall all turn in before
eight. We don't expect to move on from here till early the day after
to-morrow, and shall have our transport with us by then. I gather we
shall march all the way from here to the trenches; and really, you
know, it's an excellent education for all of us in the conditions of the
country. People at home don't realise what a big thing the domestic
side of soldiering is. Our C.O. knew, of course, because he is an old
campaigner. That's why, back there in England, he harried his
officers as he did. We have to know all there is to know about the
feet, boots, socks, food, cleanliness, and health of each one of our
men, and it has been made part of our religion that an officer must
never, never, never eat, sleep, or rest until he has personally seen to
it that each man in his command is provided for in these respects.
He has made it second nature to us, and since we reached France
one has learned the wisdom of his teaching. I must clear out now—a
pow-wow at Battalion Orderly Room: the village Ecole des Filles. The
weather has completely changed. There's a thin, crisp coating of
snow over everything, and it's clear and dry and cold. We're all
rather tired, but fit as fleas, and awfully thankful to be getting so
near the firing line. So make your mind quite easy about your
"Temporary Gentleman."
 THE TALE OF A TUB
If inclined to revile me for apparent neglect of you these last few
days, be charitable and revile lightly.
It's astonishing how full one's days are. And then when late evening
arrives and arrangements for next morning are complete, and one's
been the round of one's platoon billets and seen all in order for the
night—then, instead of being free to write one's own letters, one
must needs wade through scores written by the men of one's
platoon, who—lucky beggars!—have three times the leisure we can
ever get. Their letters must all be censored and initialed, you see.
Rightly enough, I suppose, the military principle seems to be never
to allow the private soldier to be burdened by any responsibility
which an officer can possibly take. The giving away of military
information in a letter, whether inadvertently or knowingly, is, of
course, a serious offence. (German spies are everywhere.) When I
have endorsed all my platoon's letters, the responsibility for their
contents rests on my shoulders and the men run no risks.
If I were an imitative bird now, you would find my letter reading
something after this style:
"Just a few lines to let you know how we are getting on, hoping this
finds you in the pink as it leaves me at present. We are getting very
near the Germans now, and you can take it from me they'll get what
for when we come up with 'em. The grub here is champion, but we
are always ready for more, and I shan't be sorry to get that parcel
you told me of. Please put in a few fags next time. The French
people have a queer way of talking so you can't always understand
all they say, but they're all right, I can tell you, when you get to
know 'em, and I can sling their bat like one o'clock now. It's quite
easy once you get the hang of it, this bong jor and pang parley voo.
Milk is lay, and not too easy to get. The boys are all in the pink, and
hoping you're the same, so no more at present," etc.
One sometimes gets mad with them for trifles, but for all the things
that really matter—God bless 'em all! By Jove! they are Britons.
They're always "in the pink" and most things are "champion," and
when the ration-wagon's late and a man drops half his whack in the
mud, he grins and says, "The Army of to-day's all right"; and that,
wait till he gets into the trenches, he'll smarten the Boches up for
that! Oh, but they are splendid; and though one gets into the way of
thinking and saying one's own men are the best in the Army, yet,
when one means business one knows very well the whole of the
New Army's made of the same fine stuff. Why, in my platoon, and in
our Company for that matter, they are every mother's son of them
what people at home call rough, ignorant fellows. And I admit it.
Rough they certainly are; and ignorant, too, by school standards.
But, by Jingo! their hearts are in the right place, and I'd back any
one of them against any two goose-stepping Boches in the Kaiser's
Prussian Guard.
And, with it all, mind you, they're so English. I mean they are kind,
right through to their bones; good fellows, you know; sportsmen,
every one of 'em; fellows you'd trust to look after your mother.
They're as keen as mustard to get to the strafing of Boches; but
that's because the Boche is the enemy, war is war, and duty is duty.
You couldn't make haters of 'em, not if you paid 'em all
ambassadorial salaries to cultivate a scowl and sing hymns of hate.
Not them. Not all the powers of Germany and Austria could make
baby-killers, women-slayers, and church-destroyers of these chaps
of ours. If I know anything about it, they are fine soldiers, but the
Kaiser himself—"Kayser," they call him—couldn't make brutes and
bullies of 'em. Warm their blood—and, mind you, you can do it easily
enough, even with a football in a muddy field, when they've been on
carrying fatigues all day—and, by Jove! there's plenty of devil in 'em.
God help the men in front of 'em when they've bayonets fixed! But
withal they're English sportsmen all the time, and a French child can
empty their pockets and their haversacks by the shedding of a few
tears.
But I run on (and my candle runs down) and I give you no news.
This is our last night here, and I ought to be asleep in my flea-bag,
for we make an early start to-morrow for our first go in the trenches.
But it's jolly yarning here to you, while the whole village is asleep,
and no chits are coming in, and the Battalion Orderly Room over the
way is black and silent as the grave, except for the sentry's footsteps
in the mud. I'm in rather good quarters here, in the Mayor's house.
When we left that first village—I'm afraid I haven't written since—we
had three days of marching, sleeping in different billets each night.
Here in this place, twelve miles from the firing line, we've had five
days; practising with live bombs, getting issues of trench kit, and
generally making last preparations. To-morrow night we sleep in
tents close to the line and begin going into trenches for instruction.
But, look here, before I turn in, I must just tell you about this
household and my hot bath last night. The town is a queer little
place; farming centre, you know. The farm-houses are all inside the
village, and mine—M. le Maire's—is one of the best. From the street
you see huge great double doors, that a laden wagon can drive
through, in a white wall. That is the granary wall. You enter by the
big archway into a big open yard, the centre part of which is a wide-
spreading dung-hill and reservoir. All round the yard are sheds and
stables enclosing it, and facing you at the back the low, long white
house, with steps leading up to the front door, which opens into the
kitchen. This is also the living-room of M. le Maire and his aged
mother. Their family lived here before the Revolution, and the three
sturdy young women and one old, old man employed on the farm,
all live in the house.
M. le Maire is a warm man, reputed to have a thorough mastery of
the English tongue, among other things, as a result of "college"
education. So I gather from the really delightful old mother, who,
though bent nearly double, appears to run the whole show, including
the Town Hall opposite our Battalion Headquarters. I have never
succeeded in inducing the Mayor to speak a word of English, but he
has a little dictionary like a prayer-book, with perfectly blinding print,
and somehow carries on long and apparently enjoyable
conversations with my batman (who certainly has no French),
though, as I say, one never heard a word of English on his lips.
I know what the newspapers are. They pretend to give you the war
news. But I'll bet they'll tell you nothing of yesterday's really great
event, when the Commander of No. 1 Platoon took a hot bath, as it
were under municipal auspices, attended by two Company
Headquarters orderlies, his own batman, and the cordially expressed
felicitations of his brother officers, not to mention the mayoral
household, and the whole of No. 1 Platoon, which is billeted in the
Mayor's barns and outbuildings. Early in the day the best wash-tub
had been commandeered for this interesting ceremony, and I fancy
it has an even longer history behind it than the Mayor's pre-
Revolution home. It is not definitely known that Marie Antoinette
used this tub, bathing being an infrequent luxury in her day; but if
she had been cursed with our modern craze for washing, and
chanced to spend more than a year or so in this mud-set village of M
——, she certainly would have used this venerable vessel, which, I
gather, began life as the half of a cider barrel, and still does duty of
that sort on occasion, and as a receptacle for the storing of potatoes
and other nutritious roots, when not required for the more intimate
service of M. le Maire's mother, for the washing of M. le Maire's
corduroys and underwear, or by M. le Maire himself, at the season of
Michaelmas, I believe, in connection with the solemn rite of his own
annual bath, which festival was omitted this year out of deference to
popular opinion, because of the war.
The household of the Mayor, headed by this respected functionary
himself, received me at the portals of his ancestral home and
ushered me most kindly and graciously, if with a dash of grave, half-
pitying commiseration, to what I thought at first was the family
vault, though, as I presently discovered, it was in reality the mayoral
salon or best parlour—as seen in war time—draped in sacking and
year-old cobwebs. Here, after some rather embarrassing
conversation, chiefly gesticulatory on my side—my conversational
long suit is "Pas du tout! Merci beaucoup," and "Mais oui, Madame,"
with an occasional "Parfaitement," stirred in now and again, not with
any meaning, but as a kind of guarantee of good faith, because I
think it sounds amiable, if not indeed like my lambs in their billets,
"Bien gentil," and "Très convenable, Monsieur." It is thus they are
invariably described to me when I go inspecting. As I was saying,
here I was presently left alone with the household cat, two sick
rabbits in a sort of cage which must once have housed a cockatoo or
parrot, my own little towel (a torn half, you know, designed to
reduce valise weight), my sponge (but, alack! not my dear old worn-
out nail-brush, now lying in trenches on Salisbury Plain), and the
prehistoric wash-tub, now one quarter filled by what the Mayor
regarded, I gathered, as perhaps the largest quantity of hot water
ever accumulated in one place—two kettles and one oil-can full,
carried by the orderlies.
The cat and the rabbits watched my subsequent proceedings with
the absorbed interest of an intelligent mid-Victorian infant at its first
pantomime. The cat, I blush to say, was female, and old enough to
know better, but I trust the rabbits were of my own sex. Anyhow,
they were sick, so perhaps it doesn't matter. The entire mayoral
household, with my batman and others, were assembled in the big
kitchen, separated from the chamber of my ablutions only by a door
having no kind of fastening and but one hinge. Their silence was
broken only by an occasional profound sigh from the Mayor's aged
mother, and three sounds of reflective expectoration at considerable
intervals from the Mayor himself. So I judged my bathing to be an
episode of rare and anxious interest to the mayoral family.
My feet I anointed copiously with a disgusting unguent of great
virtue—it's invaluable for lighting braziers when one's only fuel is
muddy coke and damp chits—called anti-frostbite grease, that is said
to guard us from the disease known as "Trench Feet," rumoured
prevalent in our sector by reason of the mellow quality and depth of
its mud, which, whilst apparently almost liquid, yet possesses
enough body and bouquet—remember how you used to laugh at our
auction catalogue superlatives in cellar lots?—to rob a man of his
boots at times. For my hands—chipped about a bit now—I used
carbolated vaseline. (Do you remember the preternaturally slow and
wall-eyed salesman, with the wart, in the Salisbury shop where we
bought it?) And then, clothed most sumptuously in virginal
underwear, I crawled into my flea-bag, there to revel from 10.40
P.M. to 6 A.M., as I am about to do now, less one hour in the
morning. How I wish one could consciously enjoy the luxury of sleep
while sleeping! Good night and God bless you! God bless all the
sweet, brave waiting women of England, and France, and Russia;
and I wish I could send a bit of my clean comfort to-night to as
many as may be of our good chaps, and France's bon camarades,
out here.
When next I write we shall have seen a bit of the trenches, I hope,
and so then you should have something more like real news from
your
"Temporary Gentleman."
 THE TRENCHES AT LAST
You must forgive my not having sent anything but those two Field
Service post cards for a whole week, but, as our Canadian subaltern,
Fosset, says, it really has been "some" week. My notion was to write
you fully my very first impression of the trenches, but the chance
didn't offer, and perhaps it's as well. It couldn't be fresher in my
mind than it is now, and yet I understand it more, and see the thing
more intelligently than on the first night.
We are now back in the village of B——, three miles from our
trenches. We are here for three days' alleged rest, and then, as a
Battalion, take over our own Battalion sub-sector of trenches. So far,
we have only had forty-eight hours in, as a Battalion; though, as
individuals, we have had more. When we go in again it will be as a
Battalion, under our own Brigade and Divisional arrangements, to
hold our own Brigade front, and be relieved later by the other two
Battalions of our Brigade.
"A" Company is, I am sorry to say, in tents for these three days out;
tents painted to look like mud and grass (for the benefit of the
Boche airmen) and not noticeably more comfortable than mud and
grass. An old fellow having the extraordinary name of Bonaparte
Pinchgare, has been kind enough to lend us his kitchen and scullery
for officers' mess and quarters; and we, like the men, are contriving
to have a pretty good time, in despite of chill rain and all-pervading
mud. We are all more or less caked in mud, but we have seen Huns,
fired at 'em, been fired at by them, spent hours in glaring through
rag and tin-decked barbed wire at their trenches, and generally feel
that we have been blooded to trench warfare. We have only lost two
men, and they will prove to be only slightly wounded, I think; one,
before he had ever set foot in a trench—little Hinkson of my No. 2
section—and the other, Martin, of No. 3 Platoon, only a few hours
before we came out.
Hinkson was pipped by a chance bullet in the calf of the leg, as we
passed through a wood, behind the support trench. Very likely a
Boche loosed that bullet off in mere idleness, a couple of thousand
yards away; and I doubt if it will mean even a Blighty for Hinkson.
He may be put right in the Field Ambulance or Clearing Station near
here, or, at farthest, down at the Base. Or he may chance to go
across to Blighty—the first casualty in the Battalion. The little chap
was furiously angry over getting knocked out before he could spot a
Hun through the foresight of his rifle, but his mate, Kennedy, has
sworn to lay out a couple of Boches for Hinkson, before he gets back
to us, and Kennedy will do it.
First impressions! Do you know, I think my first impression was of
the difficulty of finding one's way about in a maze of muddy ditches
which all looked exactly alike, despite a few occasional muddy
notice-boards perched in odd corners: "Princes Street," "Sauchiehall
Street," "Manchester Avenue," "Stinking Sap," "Carlisle Road," and
the like. I had a trench map of the sector, but it seemed to me one
never could possibly identify the different ways, all mud being alike,
and no trench offering anything but mud to remember it by. In the
front or fire-trench itself, the firing line, one can hop up on the fire-
step, look round quickly between bullets, and get a bearing. But in
all these interminable communication and branch trenches where
one goes to and fro, at a depth varying from six to ten or twelve
feet, seeing only clay and sky, how the dickens could one find the
way?
And yet, do you know, so quickly are things borne in upon you in
this crude, savage life of raw realities, so narrow is your world, so
vital your need of knowing it; so unavoidable is your continuous
alertness, and so circumscribed the field of your occupation, that I
feel now I know nothing else in the world quite so well and
intimately as I know that warren of stinking mud: the two sub-
sectors in which I spent last week. Manchester Avenue, Carlisle
Road, Princes Street, with all their side alleys and boggy by-ways!
Why, they are so photographed on the lining of my brain that, if I
were an artist (instead of a very muddy subaltern ex-clerk) I could
paint the whole thing for you—I wish I could. Not only do I know
them, but I've merely to shut my eyes to see any and every yard of
them; I can smell them now; I can feel the precise texture of their
mud. I know their hidden holes and traps, where the water lies
deep. I know to an inch where the bad breaks are in the duck-
boards that you can't see because the yellow water covers them.
Find one's way! I know them far better than I know the Thames
Embankment, the Strand, or Brixton Hill! That's not an exaggeration.
Duck-boards, by the way, or duck-walks, are a kindly invention (of
the R.E., I suspect) to save soldiers from the bottomless pit, and to
enable officers on duty to cover rather more than a hundred yards
an hour in getting along their line of trench. Take two six-or eight-
feet lengths of two inches by four inches' scantling; nail two or three
inch bits of batten across these with two or three inch gaps
between, the width of the frame being, say, eighteen inches. Thus
you have a grating six or eight feet long and narrow enough to lie
easily in the bottom of a trench. If these gratings rest on trestles
driven deep down into the mud, and your trenches are covered by
them throughout—well, then you may thank God for all His mercies
and proceed to the more interesting consideration of strafing
Boches, and avoiding being strafed by them. If you haven't got
these beneficent inventions of the R.E., and you are in trenches like
ours, then you will devote most of your energies to strafing the R.E.,
or some other unseen power for good, through your own
headquarters, for a supply of duck-walks, and you will (if you are
wise) work night and day without check, in well and truly laying
every single length you can acquire.
("Acquire" is a good, sound word. I would never blame a man for
stealing duck-walks from any source whatsoever—providing, of
course, he is not so far lost to all sense of decency as to steal 'em
from "A" Company; and even then, if he could manage it, his
cleverness would almost deserve forgiveness; and, equally, of
course, that he's going to use 'em for their legitimate purpose, and
not just to squat on in a dug-out; least of all for the absolutely
criminal purpose of using as fuel.)
"What a fuss you make about mere things to walk on!" perhaps
you'll say. "I thought the one thing really important was getting to
grips with the enemy." Mmmf! Yes. Quite so. It is. But, madam, how
to do it? "There be ways and means to consider, look you,
whateffer," as Billy Morgan says. (Billy was the commander of No. 2
Platoon, you remember, and now, as reserve Machine-Gun officer,
swanks insufferably about "the M.G. Section," shoves most of his
Platoon work upon me, and will have a dug-out of his own. We rot
him by pretending to attribute these things to the influence of his
exalted compatriot, the Minister of Munitions. As a fact, they are due
to his own jolly hard work, and really first-rate abilities.)
This trench warfare isn't by any means the simple business you
might suppose, and neither, of course, is any other kind of warfare.
There can be no question of just going for the enemy bald-headed.
He wishes you would, of course; just as we wish to goodness he
would. You have to understand that up there about the front line,
the surrounding air and country can at any moment be converted
into a zone of living fire—gas, projectiles, H.E. (High Explosive, you
know) flame, bullets, bursting shrapnel. If you raise a finger out of
trenches by daylight, you present Fritz with a target, which he will
very promptly and gratefully take, and blow to smithereens. That's
understood, isn't it? Right. To be able to fight, in any sort of old way
at all, you must continue to live—you and your men. To continue to
live you must have cover. Hence, nothing is more important than to
make your trenches habitable, and feasible; admitting, that is, of
fairly easy and quick communication.
To live, you see, you must eat and drink. The trenches contain no A
B C's. Every crumb of bread, every drop of tea or water, like every
cartridge you fire, must be carried up from the rear on men's
shoulders, along many hundreds of yards of communicating
trenches. Also, in case you are suddenly attacked, or have to attack,
quick movement is vital. Nature apparently abhors a trench, which is
a kind of a vacuum, and not precisely lovable, anyhow; and, in this
part of the world, she proceeds wherever possible to fill it with
water. Pumps? Why, certainly. But clay and slush sides cave in.
Whizz-bangs and H.E. descend from on high displacing much
porridge-like soil. Men hurrying to and fro day and night, disturb and
mash up much earth in these ditches. And, no matter how or why,
there is mud; mud unspeakable and past all computation. Consider it
quietly for a moment, and you will feel as we do about duck-walks—I
trust the inventor has been given a dukedom—and realise the
pressing importance of various material details leading up to that all-
important strafing of Boches.
But there, the notion of trying to tell you about trenches in one letter
is, I find, hopelessly beyond me, and would only exhaust you, even
if I could bring it off. I can only hope gradually to get some sort of a
picture into your mind, so that you will have a background of sorts
for such news of our doings as I'm able to send you as we go on.
Just now, I am going to tackle an alarming stack of uncensored
letters from Nos. 1 and 2 Platoons—some of the beggars appear to
be extraordinarily polygamous in the number of girls they write to;
bless 'em!—and then to turn in and sleep. My goodness, it's a fine
thing, sleep, out of trenches! But I'll write again, probably to-
morrow.
The men are all remarkably fit and jolly. One or two old hands here
have told me the line we are taking over is really pretty bad.
Certainly it was a revelation to our fellows, after the beautiful, clean
tuppenny-tubes of trenches we constructed on Salisbury Plain. But
one hears no grousing at all, except of the definitely humorous and
rather pleased kind—rather bucked about it, you know—the men are
simply hungry for a chance to "get" at the Hun, and they work like
tigers at trench betterment. We are all well and jolly, and even if
sometimes you don't hear often, there's not the slightest need to
worry in any way about your
"Temporary Gentleman."
 A DISSERTATION ON MUD
The second of our rest days is over, and to-morrow night we shall go
into the firing line and relieve the ——s. We shall march back the
way we came out, down the sad-looking green valley round the lips
of which some of our batteries are hidden; through the deserted
streets of ——, with its boarded-up shops and houses; on over the
weed-grown railway track, through a little village whose church is
still unbroken; though few of its cottage windows have any glass left
in them; across the busy little river to Ambulance Corner—a
favourite target for Boche shells, that bit of road—and so through
the wooded hollow where the German gas lies deadly thick when it
comes, into the foot of Manchester Avenue, the long communication
trench leading up to the Battalion's trench headquarters in the
support line, where "A" Company will branch off to the right, "B" to
the left, and "C" to the extreme left of our sub-sector.
That town I mentioned—not the little village close to Ambulance
Corner, where most roofs and walls show shell-torn rents and a few
are smashed to dust—is rather like a city of the dead. It has a
cathedral which the gentle Hun has ranged on with thoughtful
frightfulness. But though, under the guidance of his aerial observers,
the Boche has smashed up that cathedral pretty thoroughly, and its
tower has great gaping chunks riven out of its sides by shells, yet, as
folk say miraculously, its crowning attraction, a monstrous gilt figure
of the Madonna and Child, thirty to fifty feet high, remains intact.
But this remarkable gilt statue has been undermined at its base by
H.E. shell, and now hangs over at right angles to the street far
below it—a most extraordinary sight. The devout naturally claim that
no German projectile will prove powerful enough to lower the sacred
emblem any farther. Boche savagery in France has not weakened
anyone's faith, I think; possibly the reverse.
A foundry or factory near by is now a tangled mass of scrap iron,
and as one marches through the town one has queer intimate
glimpses of deserted bedroom interiors, with homely furnishings
exposed to all the weather, where a shell has sliced one wall clean
down from a first or second storey and left the ground floor intact.
But I was going to tell you about trenches. When I first began to
walk up Manchester Avenue, my thought was, "There's nothing
much to grumble at here. I call this pretty good. A little sloppy under
foot perhaps, but really nothing to write home about." I've often
laughed at that since. For several hundred yards it cuts through a
ridge of chalk. It is wide enough to enable one to pass a man in it
anywhere with comfort. Its parapet and parados tower white, clean,
and unbroken a foot or so over your head. Its sides are like the sides
of a house or a tunnel; good, dry, solid chalk, like our Salisbury
trenches, with never a sign of caving in about them. And on the hard
bottom under foot-perhaps two or three inches of nice clean chalky
slime and water. It has a gentle gradient which makes it self-
draining.
You could easily go right up it to Battalion Headquarters in the
support trench in ordinary marching boots, and be none the worse.
And since then I've known what it means to get a bootful of muddy
water, when wearing trench boots; rubber thigh-boots, you know,
with straps buckling to your belt. The change begins a little way
above the Battalion Headquarters dug-out, in support line. You leave
the chalk behind you and get into clay, and then you leave the clay
behind you and get into yellow porridge and treacle. And then you
come to a nice restful stretch of a couple of hundred yards or so, in
which you pray for more porridge; and it seems you're never coming
to any more. This is a vein of glue in the section which "A" will go
to-morrow night.
"Very old and curious!" "Remarkably fine, full body!" Oh! that glue
vein is from the end bin, genuine old-vatted, I can assure you. It
must have eaten up some hundreds of pairs of boots by now, and a
regular Noah's Ark full of trench stores, ammunition, and other
useful material.
The glue vein probably had a bottom in bygone days, but now I
fancy the Hun has knocked the bottom out of it. In any case, we
never met anyone who had found bottom in that bit of line, and as
the tallest man in the company is only six foot two, I hope we never
shall. At first you think you will skip along quick, like skating fast on
very thin ice, and with feet planted far apart, so as to get the
support of the trench sides. That bit of trench is possessed of devils,
and they laugh when you stretch your legs, meaning to get through
with it as quick as you can. The glue's so thick and strong, after the
soupy stuff you've been wading through, that you welcome the solid
look of it. (That's where the devils begin their chuckling.)
Perhaps at the first few steps you only sink about a foot, leaving
your knees easily clear. "Oh! come!" you say (and that's where the
devils of the glue patch laugh out loud). At the next step you go in a
little deeper, and in your innocence give quite a sharp tug to lift your
foot. You lift it all right, perhaps half-way up the leg of your boot,
possibly ripping off a brace button in the process, if you've been
unwise enough to fasten up the top straps of your boots that way.
(The devils go on laughing.) Then you pause, reflectively, while
shoving your foot down in your boot again, and take a good look
round you, wondering what sort of a place you've struck. (This is
where the devils have to hold their sides in almost painful hilarity.)
While you reflect you sink, so slowly and softly that you don't notice
it till you try the next step. And then, with the devils of that section
roaring their ugly Hunnish heads off all round you, if you have no
better luck than Tommy Dodd had, his first night in, you may
continue reflecting for quite a long while, till somebody comes along
who knows that particular health resort. Then two or three
Samaritans with picks and shovels and a post or two will be brought,
and, very laboriously, you'll be dug and levered out; possibly with
your boots, possibly without either them or your socks.
But what reduces the devils to helpless, tearful contortions of
merriment, is a coincidental decision on the part of a Boche gunner
to start peppering that bit of trench with shrap., or a machine-gun,
during your reflective period. Then it's great; a really first-class
opportunity for reviewing the errors of your past life.
After this substantial pièce de résistance (yes, thanks, I'm
progressing very nicely with my French this term), you come to a
delicately refreshing dessert in Sauchiehall Street, where the water
lies very deep in most parts, but so sweetly liquid as to wash the
glue well off up to our coat pockets. This innocent stuff can be
pumped out quite easily, and is pumped out every day, into a gully,
which we devoutly hope leads well into a Boche sap. But pump as
you will, it fills up very rapidly. And so, with new washed boots (and
coat pockets) to Whizz-bang Corner, where Sauchiehall Street enters
the fire trench, and the Hun loves to direct his morning and evening
hymns of hate in the hope of catching tired ration-carriers, and, no
doubt, of spilling their rations. It was there that Martin of No. 3
Platoon got his quietener on the morning we came out. But with luck
and no septic trouble, hell be back in a month or so. The
surroundings are a bit toxic, as you may imagine. That's why, after
even the slightest wound, they inoculate with anti-tetanus—
marvellously successful stuff.
The fire trench in this particular bit is rather a mockery, as "the
Peacemaker" said, when he tried to climb out of it, our first night in,
to have a look at the barbed wire and No Man's Land. He had a
revolver in one hand and a bomb in the other, but I am pleased to
say the safety-pin of that bomb was efficient; and, in any case, I
relieved him of it after he fell back the second time. The sides of
that trench have been so unmercifully pounded by the Boche, and
the rain has been so persistent of late that the porridge here is more
like gruel than the breakfast dish, and the average sand-bag in the
parapet, when not submerged, is as unfriendly to get a grip on, as
one of those crustaceous pink bombs they sometimes swindle you
with at restaurants. You know, the kind you chase round your plate
and find splinter-proof.
Thirty or forty yards north from Whizz-bang Corner, in the fire
trench, you come to a loop turn to the rear called Whitehall, not
because there's a War Office there, but because there's a queer little
vein of chalk which disappointingly peters out again in less than a
dozen paces. That leads to the Company Headquarters dug-out; an
extraordinary hole, I thought, when I first saw it; a jolly nice, homely
dug-out I think it now, and with a roof—well, not shell-proof, you
know, but water-tight, and quite capable of standing a whizz or a
grenade, or anything short of serious H.E. You stride over a good
little dam and then down two steps to get into it, and it has a real
door, carried up, I suppose, from the village in the rear. It also has a
gilt-edged looking-glass, a good packing-case table, the remains of
two wooden chairs, two shelves made of rum-jar cases, and two
good solid wire-strung bunks, one over the other. There's no doubt it
is some dug-out.
And, madam, don't you go for to think that there's anything
contemptible about our trenches, anyhow. Perhaps I pitched it a bit
strong about that glue patch. In any case, I promise you two things:
(1) They'll be very different trenches before long if "A" Company has
two or three turns of duty in them. (2) They're every bit as good as,
and a bit better than, the trenches opposite, where the Hun is; and I
know it because I've been there. I meant to have told you of that to-
night, but I've left it too late, and must wait for my next letter. But
it's quite right. I've had a look at their front line and found it
distinctly worse than ours, and got back without a scratch, to sign
myself still your
"Temporary Gentleman."
 TAKING OVER ON A QUIET NIGHT
Last evening brought an end to our rest cure, as I told you it would,
and saw us taking over out section of the firing line. Now I have just
turned into the Company dug-out for a rest, having been pretty
much on the hop all night except for a short spell between two and
four this morning. As I think I told you, this is not at all a bad dug-
out, and quite weather-proof. It has two decent bunks one over the
other. We all use it as a mess, and "the Peacemaker," Taffy Morgan,
and myself use it for sleeping in; Tony and "the Infant" kipping down
(when they get the chance) in a little tiny dug-out that we made
ourselves when we were in here for instruction, just the other side of
Whizz-bang Corner, in the fire trench.
You remember "the Infant," don't you? No. 4 Platoon. His father's
doctoring now in the R.A.M.C. He's a nice boy, and has come on a
lot since we got out here. He was to have been a land surveyor, or
something of that sort, and has a first-rate notion of trench work
and anything like building.
In writing to you I'd like to avoid, if I could, what seems to be a
pretty common error among men at the front, and one that leads to
some absurd misapprehensions among people at home. I remember
listening once in a tram-car at home to two Tommies, one of whom
had returned from the front. The other was asking him how they
managed in the matter of shifting wounded men back to some place
where they could be attended to.
"Oh! that's simple enough," said the chap who'd been out. "They've
a regular routine for that. You see, there are always barges waiting,
and when you're wounded they just dump you on board a barge and
take you down the canal to where the dressing station is."
"I see; so that's the way it's done," said the other man.
And I could see that the impression left on his mind was that barges
were in waiting on a canal right along the five hundred miles of
Franco-British line.
You see what I mean. A fellow out here knows only his own tiny bit
of front, and he's very apt to speak of it as if it were the Front, and
folk at home are apt to think that whatever is applicable to their
man's particular mile or so is applicable to the whole Front. Which,
of course, is wildly wrong and misleading. When in trenches one
battalion may find itself in a wood, another on a naked hillside, one
in the midst of a ruined village, with the cellars of smashed cottages
for dug-outs, and another with its trenches running alongside a river
or canal. So don't make the mistake of thinking that what I tell you
applies to the Front generally, although in a great many matters it
may be typical enough.
Now you'd like to know about the business of taking over these
trenches. Well, this was the way of it. "The Peacemaker," our noble
Company Commander, came on here in advance yesterday
afternoon, with the Company Sergeant-Major. Our Company S.M., by
the way, is a remarkably fine institution, and, I think, the only real
ex-regular we have in the Company. He's an ex-N.C.O. of Marines,
and a really splendid fellow, who is out now for a V.C., and we all
hope he'll get it. He and "the Peacemaker" came along about three
hours ahead of us, leaving me to bring the Company. "The
Peacemaker" went carefully all over this line with the O.C. of the
Company we relieved, noted the sentry posts and special danger
spots—unhealthy places, you know, more exposed to Boche fire than
others—and generally took stock and made his plans for us.
I forgot to say that a Sergeant from each platoon accompanied "the
Peacemaker" and the S.M., so as to be able to guide their respective
platoons in to their own bits of the line when they arrived. Then the
S.M. checked over all the trench stores—picks, shovels, wire, pumps,
small-arm ammunition, rockets, mud-scoops, trench repair material,
and all that—with the list held by the S.M. of the Company we were
relieving, which our own beloved "Peacemaker," had to sign
"certified correct," you know. Meantime, "the Peacemaker" took over
from the other O.C. Company a report of work done and to be done
—repairing parapets, laying duck-walks, etc.—though in this case I
regret to remark the only very noticeable thing was the work to be
done, or so it seems to us—and generally posted himself up and got
all the tips he could.
Just about dusk "A" Company led the way out of B——, and marched
the way I told you of to Ambulance Corner. Needless to say, they
presented a fine soldierly appearance, led and commanded as they
were for the time by your "Temporary Gentleman." There was a
certain liveliness about Ambulance Corner when we reached it, as
there so frequently is, and I am sorry to say poor "B" Company in
our rear had two men wounded, one fatally. I took "A" Company at
the double, in single file, with a yard or so between men, across the
specially exposed bit at the corner, and was thankful to see the last
of 'em bolt into the cover of Manchester Avenue without a casualty.
It gave me some notion of the extra anxiety that weighs on the
minds of O.C. Companies who take their responsibilities seriously, as
I think most of 'em do.
Then, when we were getting near Whizz-bang Corner, we were met
by the four platoon N.C.O.'s who had gone on in advance with the
Coy. S.M., and they guided the platoons to their respective sections
of our line. Meantime, you understand, not a man of the Company
we were relieving had left the line. The first step was for us to get
our platoon Sergeants to post sentries to relieve each one of those
of the other Company, on the fire-step, and we ourselves were on
hand with each group, to see that the reliefs thoroughly understood
the information and instructions they got from the men they
relieved. Then our advance N.C.O.'s showed the other men of their
platoons such dug-outs as were available for them—a pretty thin lot
in this section, but we shall tackle the job of increasing and
improving 'em as soon as we can, while we Platoon Commanders
had a buck with the Platoon Commanders of the other Company.
Finally, "the Peacemaker" shook hands with the O.C. of the Company
we relieved outside Company Headquarters—that's this dug-out—the
other fellow wished him luck, both of them, separately, telephoned
down to Battalion Headquarters (in the support trenches) reporting
the completion of the relief, and the last of the other Company filed
away out down Sauchiehall Street to Manchester Avenue, billets and
"alleged rest." As a matter of fact, they are to get some real rest, I
believe, another Company of our Brigade being billeted in the village
just behind the lines this week, to do all the carrying fatigues at
night—bringing up trench-repair material and all that.
It was a quiet night, with no particular strafing, and that's all to the
good, because, in the first place, it gives us a better chance to study
the line again by daylight, and, again, it enables us to get on quickly
with certain very necessary trench repairs. We had half the Company
working all night at the parapet, which had some very bad gaps,
representing a serious multiplication of unhealthy spots, which have
to be passed many times day and night, and must always be
dangerous to pass. The Boche is pretty nippy in locating gaps of this
sort and getting his snipers and machine-gunners to range on them,
so that unless they are repaired casualties are certain. One repairs
them by building up the gaps with sand-bags, and for these it is
necessary to find approximately dry earth: a pretty difficult job in
this section.
No strafing and a quiet night! I wonder how you, and people
generally at home, interpret that? "The rest of the Front was quiet";
"Nothing of interest to report"; "Tactical situation unchanged," and
so on. They are the most familiar report phrases, of course.
Well, there was a time last night, or, rather, between two and four
this morning, when on our particular section there was no firing at
all beyond the dropping rifle fire of the Boche sentries opposite and
a similar desultory fire from our sentries. Now and again a bullet so
fired may get a man passing along a communication trench, or, more
likely, of course, a man exposed, either on patrol in No Man's Land
or in working on the parapet. More often they hit nobody. During the
same time, in our particular section, a flare-light went up from the
Boche line opposite, I suppose about every other minute. That's to
give their sentries a chance of seeing any patrol we may have
creeping about in their direction.
During all the rest of this quiet night of no strafing there was just
"normal fire." That is to say, the Boche machine-guns sprayed our
parapet and the intervening bit of No Man's Land, maybe, once
every quarter of an hour. Their rifle fire was more continuous; their
flares and parachute and star-lights the same. Eight or ten times in
the night they gave us salvoes of a dozen whizz-bangs. Twice—once
at about ten, and again about twelve—they gave our right a bit of a
pounding with H.E., and damaged the parapet a little. Once they
lobbed four rifle grenades over our left from a sap they have on that
side. But we had been warned about that, and gave 'em gyp for it.
We had a machine-gun trained on that sap-head of theirs, and
plastered it pretty effectually, so quickly that I think we must have
got their grenadiers. They shut up very promptly, anyhow, and a
bombing patrol of ours that got to the edge of their sap half an hour
later found not a creature there to bomb.
Our fire during the night was similar to theirs, but a bit less. "The
Peacemaker" has a strong prejudice in favour of saving his
ammunition for use on real live targets, and I think he's right. We
had one man slightly wounded, and that's all. And I think that must
be admitted to be pretty good, seeing that we were at work along
the parapet all night. That is a specimen of a really quiet night.
At Stand-to this morning Fritz plastered our parapet very thoroughly
with his machine-guns, evidently thinking we were Johnny Raws. He
wasted hundreds of rounds of ammunition over this. We were all
prepared. Not a head showed, and my best sniper, Corporal May, got
one of their machine-gun observers neatly through the head. Our
lines are only a hundred yards apart just there.
But I must turn in, old thing, or I'll get no rest to-day. I know I
haven't told you about the look I had at the Boche trenches. But
perhaps I'll have something better to tell when I next write.
Meantime, we are as jolly as sand-boys, and please remember that
you need not be in the least anxious about your
"Temporary Gentleman."
 "WHAT IT'S LIKE"
The wonder is, not that I didn't get the one post card you mention,
but that you apparently have had everything I have written. Really, I
do think the British postal arrangements out here are one of the
most remarkable features of the war. The organisation behind our
lines is quite extraordinary. Right up here in the firing line itself we
get our letters and parcels every day. In the midst of a considerable
bombardment I have seen fellows in artillery shelters in the line
reading letters and opening parcels of little luxuries just received
from home.
It's very nice of you to copy out my letters for friends at home to
read. One simply can't hope to write to a number of different people,
you know, because any spare time going one wants to use for sleep.
I'm sorry I've omitted to tell you about some things I promised to
explain, and must try to do better.
As to the time I saw into the Boche trenches while we were in for
instruction, that was nothing really; due to my own stupidity, as a
matter of fact, and I dare say that's why I said nothing about it. It
was our second night in for instruction, and the Company we were
with was sending out a small bombing patrol, so, of course, I asked
if I could go too, and see what was to be seen. The O.C. of the
Company very kindly let me go, and take with me Corporal Slade, of
my platoon, an excellent chap, and very keen to learn. I wish he
could have had a better teacher.
While close to the Boche wire our little party—only five, all told—
sighted a Boche patrol quite twenty strong, and our officer in charge
very properly gave the word to retire to a flank and get back to our
own trench, or, rather, to a sap leading from it, so as to give warning
of the Boche patrol. This was where, in my experience, I went
wrong and led Slade astray. I was very curious, of course, to have a
good look at the Boche patrol—the first I'd seen of the enemy in the
open—and, like a fool, managed to get detached from the other
three of our lot, Slade sticking close to me with a confidence I didn't
deserve.
When I realised that the others were clean out of sight, and the
Boche party too, I made tracks as quickly as I could—crawling, you
know—as I believed for our line, cursing myself for not having a
compass, a mistake you may be sure I shall not make again. Just
then a regular firework display of flares went up from the Boche line,
and they opened a hot burst of machine-gun fire. We lay as close as
we could in the soggy grass, Slade and myself, and got no harm.
Things were lively for a while, with lots of fire from both sides, and
more light from both sides than was comfortable.
Later, when things had quietened down, we got on the move again,
and presently, after a longish crawl through barbed wire, reached
the parapet, and were just about to slide in, side by side, pretty glad
to be back in the trench, when a fellow came round the traverse—
we were just beside a traverse—growled something, and jabbed at
Slade with his bayonet.
Bit confusing, wasn't it? Makes you think pretty quick. I suppose we
realised we had struck the Boche line instead of our own in
something under the twentieth part of a second, and what followed
was too confused for me to remember much about. No doubt we
both recognised the necessity for keeping that chap quiet in the
same fraction of time that we saw we had reached the wrong
trenches. I can remember the jolly feeling of my two thumbs in his
throat. It was jolly, really, though I dare say it will seem beastly to
you. And I suspect Slade did for the chap. We were lying on a duck-
board at the bottom of the trench, and I know my little trench
dagger fell and made a horrid clatter, which I made sure would bring
more Boches. But it didn't.
I am sorry to say I left the little dagger there, but I collared the
Boche's rifle and bayonet, thinking that was the only weapon I had,
and clean forgetting the two Mills bombs in my pockets. Slade was a
perfect brick and behaved all through like the man he is. We were
anxious to make tracks without unnecessary delay, but, being there,
thought we might as well have a look at the trench. We crept along
two bays without hearing or seeing a soul. And then we heard a
man struggling in deep mud and cursing in fluent German. I've
thought since, perhaps, we ought to have waited for him and tried a
bomb on him. But at the same time came several other different
voices, and I whispered to Slade to climb out and followed him
myself without wasting any time. The trench was a rotten bad one at
this point, worse, I think, than any of ours. And I was thankful for it,
because if it had been good those Boches would surely have been
on us before we could get out. As it was, the mud held them, and
the noises they made grovelling about in it prevented them from
hearing our movements, though we made a good deal of noise,
worrying through their wire, especially as I was dragging that Boche
rifle, with bayonet fixed.
There were glimmering hints of coming daylight by the time we got
into the open, which made it a bit easier to take a bearing, and also
pretty necessary to have done with it quickly, because in another
half-hour we should have been a target for the whole Boche line.
Here again Slade was first-rate. He recognised a big shell-hole in the
ground, which he had noticed was about fifty yards north of the
head of a sap leading from our own line, and that guided us in to
the same opening in our wire from which we had originally started.
Fine chap, Slade! Three minutes later we were in our own trench,
and I got a good tot of rum for both of us from the O.C. Company,
who'd made up his mind he'd have to report us "Missing." So, you
see, you didn't miss much by not being told all about this before,
except an instance of carelessness on my part, which might have
been more costly if I hadn't had a most excellent chap with me.
"The Peacemaker's" going to recommend him for Lance-Sergeant's
stripes, by the way, when we get out of trenches this time.
You know, that question of yours about what it is really "like" here at
the front isn't nearly so easy to answer as you might suppose. You
must just be patient. I'll tell you things as I learn them and see
them, gradually; and, gradually, too, you must try to piece 'em
together till they make some sort of picture for you. If I were a real
writer I might be able to make it all clear in one go, but—well, it's
not easy.
I've told you about the trenches on the way up from Ambulance
Corner, the communication trenches, that is, running up at right
angles to the firing line. The chief difference between the firing line
and the communication trenches, of course, is that it faces the
Boche front line, running roughly parallel to it, and that, say
eighteen inches above the bottom of it, there is a fire-step running
along its front side. When you get up on that you have a fire
position: that is, you can see over the parapet, across No Man's
Land, to the Boche front line, and fire a rifle.
The lines of trenches are not straight, of course. They curve about
according to the nature of the ground. Running out from them on
both sides towards the enemy lines there are saps, at the end of
which we station listening posts at night with wired-up telephone
and bell connections with the firing line. Roughly speaking, a fire
trench is cut out rather like this:

with traverses every twenty or thirty paces, so as to make it

impossible for an enemy on your flank to get what is called enfilade
fire down and along the trench. Enfilade fire is deadly, of course. Fire
from the front, on the other hand, if it falls short or overshoots the
mark even by a yard lands in front of or behind your trench. You get
that?
And what does it look like when one stares out from one's front
trench? Well, it depends. It's always pretty queer, but it's queerest at
night, when the Boche is sending up his ghostly flares, or when
there's enough moonlight to make you fancy all the time you can
see all manner of things. First, there's your own parapet, anything
from five to five-and-twenty feet of it, sloping gradually down to the
open grass of No Man's Land. That's what stops the bullets destined
for your head. When Boche shells are well enough placed to blow it
in, you must build it up again as soon as you can, or the bit of
trench behind it will be exposed, and as your men pass to and fro
there will be casualties.
Well, then, anything from ten to twenty or thirty feet beyond the lip
of your trench, your wire entanglements begin, and extend, say a
good thirty or forty paces out into No Man's Land. You've seen
barbed-wire entanglements in pictures: row after row of stakes
(some of ours are iron screw standards now, that can be set up
silently) laced together across and across by barbed wire, forming an
obstacle which it is particularly difficult and beastly to get through,
especially at night, which, of course, is the only time you could even
approach it without being blown to bits.
Here and there all through our wire are old bells, tin cans, bits of
flattened tin, and oddments of that sort hanging loosely, so that
when even a rat begins cavorting about in the wire at night your
sentries know about it, and the Boche is neither so slim nor so agile
as a rat. Say that he comes by night with bombs in his hand. One
cannot throw a bomb with any accuracy of aim more than twenty or
thirty yards. Boche finds himself stopped by our wire, say fifty or
sixty yards from our line. If he slowly worms himself in, say twenty
paces, without being heard—and he won't—and lobs a bomb at our
line, imagine the hail of lead that's coming about him as he tries to
wriggle his way back through the wire after shying his bomb!
But, as a matter of fact, the Boche is not good at that game. He
does not shine at all at creep-in on our line. When he leaves his
trenches at all he seems to prefer coming out in pretty close
formation, rubbing shoulders with his pals. Our fellows are a good
deal better at sculling about over the sticks than he is.
Here and there in the wire, among the tin cans and things, you can
see fluttering bits of weather-worn uniform and old rags, and, at
times, things more gruesome. Beyond the wire you see the strip of
No Man's Land. Where we are, the average width of it is round
about a hundred yards. In some places it's more, and in one place
we can see, perhaps a mile off, it narrows down to much less than
half that. Then begins the Boche wire, and through and across that
you see the Boche front line, very much like your own, too much like
your own to be very easily distinguished from it at night.
But that's a wonderful thing, that strip we call No Man's Land,
running from the North Sea to Switzerland, five hundred miles. All
the way along that line, day and night, without a moment's
cessation, through all these long months, men's eyes have been
glaring across that forsaken strip, and lead has been flying to and fro
over it. To show yourself in it means death. But I have heard a lark
trilling over it in the early morning as sweetly as any bird ever sang
over an English meadow. A lane of death, five hundred miles long,
strewn from end to end with the remains of soldiers! And to either
side of it, throughout the whole of these five hundred miles, a
warren of trenches, dug-outs, saps, tunnels, underground passages,
inhabited, not by rabbits, but by millions of rats, it's true, and
millions of hiving, busy men, with countless billions of rounds of
death-dealing ammunition, and a complex organisation as closely
ordered and complete as the organisation of any city in England!
It's also inhabited at this moment by one man who simply must stop
scribbling, and have some grub before going on duty. This one
among the millions, with the very healthy appetite, manages, in
despite of all the strafing, to think quite a lot about you, and hopes
you will go on thinking equally cheerily of him—your
"Temporary Gentleman."
 THE DUG-OUT
Here's an odd coincidence. The second sentence in your letter that
reached me last night (with our rations of candles and coke) says:
"Do tell me just what a dug-out is like." You are always asking me
what something or other is "like," which forces upon me the sad
conclusion that my letters are not in the least descriptive. But, "Do
not shoot the pianist: he is doing his best," and if I had the pen of a
readier writer you may be sure I'd use it. Yet the odd thing is, with
regard to this particular command for information, I have the pen of
a readier writer. You know Taffy Morgan—Billy—of our Company?
Well, it seems he's quite a bit of a writer, and occasionally sends
things home to his father who, is trying to keep a consecutive
narrative of the doings of the Battalion. Now last night, within an
hour of getting your letter, I read a thing Taffy showed me that he
was sending home, all about a Company Headquarters dug-out in
the line: much more decent than my scribbles. So I've asked him to
let me copy some of it, and here it is pat, in answer to your
question:
"'Dug-out' is the only word for it. I don't know who did the
christening, but it is, like so many words and phrases adopted
without question by Tommy at the front, the one proper, exact, and
adequate name for the places we inhabit in the trenches. The
particular dug-out I have in mind is a Company Headquarters,
situated, like a good many others, in a loop trench, perhaps seventy
to a hundred yards long, which curves round at a distance of twenty
or thirty yards in rear of the fire-trench. The average depth of this
little back-water of a trench is, say, seven feet. It was made by the
French before we took over, and is very wide at the top. It has no
made parapet, but is just a gaping ditch, its ragged, receding top
edges eight or ten feet apart, the lower part, in which one walks,
being two to three feet wide. The bottom of this ditch is duck-
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