Notes from Calais base

Of course all our troops are trained before they go to France, whether the individual soldier goes out with his battalion or in a draft sent from its reserve battalion at home to reinforce it. But when reinforcements are landed in France they are put through a further course of instruction, before they go up to join their regiments at the Front.

This final period of instruction is very short; it is tightly packed with work; it assumes that the men already know their work and only need to do it with greater finish; and it is given by the best experts the British Army possesses in trench warfare as it is carried on to-day. That is, really to-day, and not as it was carried on six or even three months ago.

Training Schools.

For these infantry training schools at the base are in constant living contact with the Front. The instructors come fresh from the trenches, 6and if the latest experience gained by the Army on the Somme or before Cambrai leads to a change in the recognised technique of bomb-throwing or the cutting out of an unnecessary movement in the bayonet exercise, the officers and non-commissioned officers who instruct can show the young soldier, from their own experience, just how the improvement will help him at the crisis of a scrimmage.

Thus the course may be compared with the short final period of very exacting coaching in which “racing polish” is put on a boat’s crew which has already undergone a long training. Or it may be compared with the “post-graduate courses” in a university, at which the latest results of special research are imparted by original researchers to students whose previous ordinary training enables them to profit by this higher teaching.

Trench Warfare.

The men under instruction have to learn—or else show that they know already—everything that a soldier in trenches must know in order to protect himself and endanger the enemy. They are “put through it” in the ordinary parade movements in close order, in open order work, in bayonet fighting, musketry and bombing. There is not much time for each subject, but none is wasted; the men 7are intensely keen to get up to their regiments, and they know that they cannot go till they are passed as qualified; the instructors teach with the zest of veterans relating their own experiences to recruits.

No Idle Moments.

There is not a vacant moment in which to be bored. Work is knocked off for an hour towards mid-day to let the men eat the rations which the drafts have brought in their haversacks from their quarters at the base depôt camp of the division to which their battalion belongs. But a band begins to play from the moment of dismissing, and it also gives priceless help in keeping up march discipline and smartness on the few route marches for which there is room in the course.

Defence against Gas.

A detail, which needs care and gets it, is instruction in self-defence against gas. Lachrymatory gas is comparatively a trifle. The men are practised in walking through an open trench full of the heliotrope smell of the gas, and come out shedding tears and laughing at the far end. The more serious poison gas is let loose in a tunnel-like chamber through which every officer and man bound for the Front must pass. The foul stuff in 8the chamber is some hundred times as dense as any gas to be met in actual warfare. But if the man’s gas mask is in order, and he uses it as he has been told, he suffers no inconvenience while passing through or afterwards, and thenceforward no German gas has any terrors for him.

Varied Lessons.

The photographs bring out many interesting details in the training course. One of them shows, in a night scene, how skilfully the general atmosphere of the Front, as well as the details of trenches and craters, is reproduced for purposes of instruction. Another shows non-commissioned officers receiving instruction by the help of “picture targets” in the indispensable art of describing any point in a landscape exactly and tersely. In a photograph of the bayonet fighting course the Indian soldiers’ firm balance of the body and excellent carriage of the head are noticeable.

Sandbag-Filling.

Speed in sandbag-filling, for trench fortification purposes, is extremely important; in some battalions it is encouraged by systematic competitions, the competitors working in pairs. Note, in the photograph of men aiming or loading, in a lying position, the uniformity with which their heels are 9kept down. In a badly trained draft several heels would be sticking up, inviting enemy bullets.

Swedish Drill.

The photographs of Swedish drill or “physical exercise”—as one out of a soldier’s many forms of physical exercise is formally called—do less than justice to that admirable part of our present military training. Its object is not to produce a rigid protrusion of the chest or a poker-like straightness of figure, but to give every separate muscle in the body its share of work and development, and also to give a free, easy balance and elasticity to the whole. There is still, in the New Army, so much of the tradition, or instinct, of the old one that the men will insist on “throwing a chest” when confronted with a camera on a parade ground. The value of Swedish drill is realised later when sterner conditions demand the “negotiation” of trenches, fences and breastworks.

En Route.

The photograph of troops disembarking in France, prior to boarding the train for “Somewhere in France,” needs no explanation. Railway accommodation is not luxurious, but a good soldier is generally a great boy, and it is an unfailing 10source of boyish pleasure to our troops in France to be restrained by no railway bye-laws and to be allowed to travel, in adventurous discomfort, in or on every sort of closed or open truck except an ordinary passenger carriage.

In the few cases where men who are not sick or wounded travel by passenger train, there is a noticeable tendency among the gayer spirits to travel on the footboard or on the roof. A genial array of smiling faces, indicative of high spirits, may generally be observed among the troops en route for the Front.

The first thing to do with a wounded man is to “first-aid” him. This, of course, is done chiefly to check dangerous bleeding, prevent the aggravation of unset fractures, and, generally, to enable the patient to travel with as little risk and pain as possible to a place where his injuries can be more completely dealt with.

The next thing to do is to get him out of the trench. (If he has been wounded in No Man’s Land, he must first be got back into the trench.) If he can walk out, he does. During some of the chief engagements on the Somme in 1916 many seriously wounded men walked astonishing distances to dressing-stations in order to leave the ambulances and stretchers for others in still worse case.

Removal from the Trench.

If a man wounded in or near the firing trench cannot walk, he may have to be carried on a stretcher for a mile or more along a deep, narrow communication trench with scores of right-angled 12turns and a few more irregular incidental twists. It may have an uneven and slippery floor, perhaps a foot or two under water at its lower-lying parts.

Four strong men, used to the job, find it extremely hard work to carry a stretcher case along such a trench. They may repeatedly have to raise the stretcher well above their heads, almost at arm’s length, so as to clear the walls of the trench at an awkward turning. To overcome this difficulty a trolley stretcher, suspended from a mono-rail running above the trench almost at the surface level, is used in such trenches as permit of its passage. It saves an immense amount of tedious labour and much lessens the discomfort of wounded men.

The Advanced Dressing-Station.

Arrived at an advanced dressing-station, a patient can be immediately operated upon, if this be necessary to save life. Or his wound may be one of those which, though grave, are likely to do better for some delay before operation. Just whatever is necessary at the moment is done; the recognised precautions against the states technically known as shock and collapse are taken; and then the patient is sent on at once to a casualty clearing station, with its ampler space and larger equipment. Probably he will ultimately pass from 13the C.C.S. to a general, or stationary, hospital more remote from the Front, and perhaps to a hospital in England.

The Eye Hospital.

If a case presents any special difficulty it will be sent to a specially equipped ward or to a specialist hospital. A typical hospital of the kind is the Army Eye Hospital, near the coast, commanded by a London oculist of distinction. Part of its equipment is a magnet of great power, which begins to draw out of the eye any fragments of metal that are in it as soon as the patient enters the room.

By combining the use of instruments with this extricatory power of the magnet the sight of many men with severe eye-wounds is saved; the hospital possesses a remarkable collection of jagged fragments and sharp splinters of metal thus cut and coaxed out of eyes. Or a man with a rather intractable fracture of the thigh may be sent to one of the special wards photographed here, where the limb, and his whole body, can be slung at any angle that is convenient.

Ingenious Aids.

In the British Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, near the French coast, there was lying, throughout 14last winter, an Australian soldier whose life, in the opinion of the surgeons, had only just been saved by the perfection of a special kind of bed which someone had given to the hospital. The man had been deeply and very dangerously wounded in the back, in such a way that his wounds could not have been dressed in an ordinary bed without such changes of position as would themselves have been injurious.

By an ingenious mechanism the special bed could be hoisted, tilted and inclined till it was in any desired plane and at any convenient height, and any portion of the patient’s body could be reached without turning him over.

A Perfect Hospital.

This Hospital of St. John is perhaps the most perfect we have in France. It is housed in good wooden huts, amply spaced out and admirably planned for convenience in working and administration; each wooden ward is light, airy, cheerful in colour and provided with every imaginable aid to cleanliness and good order. One of its special belongings is a cardiograph, or apparatus for recording on a chart, by the help of electricity, all the movements of the heart, so that in cases of irregular action of the heart the evenly serrated 15line produced on the paper by a normal heart action is varied with spasmodic upward leaps or downward collapses.

Varied Conveyances.

Between the front and the base a wounded man may travel, for some part of the way, in any one of a large variety of conveyances. The ordinary stretcher and the overhead trolley have been mentioned. The wheeled stretcher, balancing like a dog-cart between two large bicycle wheels, or between two smaller ones with pneumatic tyres, is extremely useful for saving jolts and labour. Its chief sphere of action is between the rear ends of communication trenches and the points, perhaps a mile or two farther on, beyond which it is not advisable for motor ambulances to go. But of course it can only be used to advantage where the ground to be traversed is not completely broken up by shell fire, mines or bombs.

Narrow-Gauge Railways.

An excellent way of transporting casualties—where it is available—is by the narrow-gauge Decauville railways which now carry stores and ammunition up from many of our full-gauge railheads to the front line, or near it. A photograph shows two ambulance trolleys accommodating 16four laden stretchers. A similar trolley is used at some casualty clearing stations to convey patients from the wards to the Red Cross train by which they are to be evacuated. Such contrivances are sometimes invented independently, in slightly different forms, by the staffs of different clearing stations or hospitals. Like the combatants, the medical officers are constantly devising new methods and new apparatus to meet the changing needs of active service.

Motor Ambulances.

The motor ambulance, to carry four stretcher patients, is the regular means of conveyance from a few miles behind the front line to the casualty clearing stations at the railheads. “Sitting wounded” travel either in motor ambulances, with the interior arranged to receive them, or in motor lorries—usually in the former. From the casualty clearing stations the wounded go to the base, as a rule, either by train or by canal.

Water Transport.

For cases requiring special ease of movement and quiet the broad, square-built French canal boats make excellent travelling hospitals. Nearly all the rivers of Northern France are canalised, and these waterways are kept up free of toll by the 17State, so that water transport is almost as available as transport by rail. A photograph shows what roomy wards the ordinary French canal boat provides. The boats in British use are usually towed in pairs by small tugs. During the battle of 1916 the big red crosses on the boats’ sides were to be seen everywhere on the Somme.

Red Cross Trains.

The equipment of Red Cross trains is more generally known and several improvements have been made in it during the war. With its operating theatre, kitchen, store-room and staff accommodation, a Red Cross train is now a travelling hospital rather than a vehicle plying between one hospital and another.

In the early part of the war the petrol needed for the motor transport of the British Expeditionary Force was shipped from England in tins, ready for use. When the growth of the Army made more exacting demands on shipping, it was decided to economise sea transport by making, filling and packing the tins in France.

Transplanting a Works.

To do this, it was necessary to transplant the existing works from England to France. But it was also necessary not to interrupt the supply; for, without petrol, a modern army would be like a modern nation without coal. So one half of the plant in England was dismantled and re-erected in France, the other half undertaking the whole work of supply until the first half was in working order in France. Then the second half followed across the Channel. The whole migration took twelve weeks.

20Of course, the Army does not run the risks of having only one base depôt of petrol. At each of its depôts every process is carried out that is needed for the transfer of a gallon of petrol from a tank steamer lying at a port to the divisional lorry or staff car by which it is used. The first thing to do is to make receptacles for its conveyance. At each depôt there is one factory for making tins and another for making the cases or boxes in which the tins are packed. A single depôt employs more than 200 men and boys on these two kinds of work.

The photographs will suggest the power and precision of the machinery which they use—one machine for cutting out the tin, another for shaping the cans, a third for rolling the edges on, a fourth for soldering, a fifth for stamping, and so on. A leaky tin is, of course, worse than useless, so every can has to be tested by air.

Filling the Tins.

The finished and tested can is placed on an endless belt at the factory, and travels upon the belt to the filling-house. A French woman, girl, or boy takes a tin in each hand and fills them with petrol, which has been conveyed in pipes from the tanks at the port to the tanks at the depôt, and 21thence flows by gravitation to the filling-house. These Frenchwomen are extremely industrious and cheerful workers, and deserve the good wages they get.

Packing.

From their hands the filled tins pass to another endless belt to be packed in wooden boxes. The photographs show some of the men and machines employed in making these boxes. As soon as the boxes are filled with tins the covers are nailed down, an elevator transports the boxes to a “gravity conveyor,” on which they descend to the “loading platform.” Thence lorries take them to the store, where they are stacked until their time comes to go up by train to the front.

Returned Empties.

The rule is that every empty tin or case must be returned to the depôt. About seven out of every ten do return. Of the rest, a few may have been lost or destroyed by accident; a few may have become casualties of war; a few may have been diverted by human frailty into some other service, as company water-jars; and a few may have found their way to some other part of the front and be still serving the cause there.

Wherever they go, near the Front, the eye of desire is cast on the wooden cases. Either as 22building material, as furniture, or as firewood, they are treasures that would tempt a saint.

Repairs.

When a tin returns from the Front it is first superficially inspected. If damaged past repair, it has the brass screw in the opening removed, and then the tin may be used for making paths or for building up tiers of seats in an outdoor lecture theatre at a training school, or in some other secondary occupation. If apparently sound, it is first cleaned by one more machine, and then filled and stacked upside-down for 10 minutes, with other returned tins, in order that small leaks may be detected.

If it leaks it goes to the can-testing workshop, is tested under pressure, has the defective spot marked on it in white chalk, and goes forward to the soldering shop. After repair here it is tested again, and, when perfect, is issued for re-filling. A typical can-repairing shop employs 26 men, 126 women, and 67 boys.

The men who do the box-making and tin-making were, and still are, employees of the company who supply the petrol. They have been enrolled in the Army, and wear khaki, but are still paid piece rates. The women who fill the tins are also employees of the company.

23The line across which the petrol passes from the company’s hands into those of the Army is just outside the doors of the filling sheds. Here the Army Service Corps men take the full cases over, and give a receipt for each case, in the form of a brass disc, to the company’s representatives. Conversely, the Army Service Corps hand in the empty cases and tins to the company’s men, and receive similar receipts for them. A balance between these two sets of receipts is struck at the close of business by the officers on both sides.

The biggest cobbler’s shop in the world is at one of the British Army’s bases in France. It mends the boots of about as many persons as live in Liverpool or Glasgow. But nearly all the persons whose boots it mends are adult men living in the open, most of them using their feet on wet or rough ground for the greatest part of each day. So it has to mend 2,800 boots a day.

The Worn Boots’ Departure.

It would be too much to ask that, after the mending, every man should get his own boots back. Even if that could be done, he would have to wear strange boots meanwhile; for, unlike the soldiers of some other countries, the British soldier does not bring two pairs of boots into the field, and does not want to, having enough weight to carry without. So, when his boots need repair, he hands them in to his company quartermaster-sergeant and sees them no more.

They depart from him into the general stock of 26still serviceable, though not new, army clothing, just as his shirt does when he comes out of trenches, has a hot shower-bath, and puts on somebody else’s shirt which has been disinfected and washed at the Divisional Laundry.

The Receiving Room.

The damaged boots go, higgledy-piggledy, into a sack, with others. The sack goes to the rail-head, with or without the help of a battalion transport cart and a divisional motor lorry. From the rail-head the sack goes, without trans-shipment, to a siding outside the back door of the base repair depôt, and the boots are emptied out on the floor of what may be called the receiving room.

Here they are first roughly sorted out and cleaned of the mud which often encases them. This is done by women. Thence they are passed on to an expert shoemaker, to be tried for their life. He does nothing but diagnose the condition of boot after boot. He picks up each boot, looks it over for a couple of seconds with a swift, judicial glance at sole, heel, uppers and welt, and throws it down on his right or on his left.

Bootlaces.

The boots thrown on his right are not worth repair. But even they are worth something. They 27go to another room where women cut out of each boot two round pieces of the leather over ankle bone on each side. The women do this all day. Everybody here does some one special thing all day. These discs of leather are passed on to another sub-workshop, full of women, who lay each disc on a board, stick a kind of awl through its middle, put a very sharp knife to its edge, and then make it revolve round the awl in such a way that the knife cuts an excellent bootlace—a quite straight one, too, strange to see—out of the circle of leather, paring it down and down till nothing of it is left.

Nothing Wasted.

Of what remains of the boot itself the softer parts are combined with other ingredients to form a useful manure. The more intractable and less succulent heel is carried to the furnace room where the power needed for the machinery is generated. A boot heel has been found to make excellent fuel, a large furnace not being particular about its food. Thus no part, even of the most decrepit boots, goes to waste. It is like the drowned man in the Tempest—

28From the judgment chamber those boots which are not despaired of pass to a place where another body of experts assess the amount of repair required by each boot. To each boot one of them attaches the kind and quantity of leather required to mend it—perhaps a new sole, or a sole and a heel, or what not. The boot, together with this allowance of material, is then placed in a pigeon hole, one out of a great case of pigeon holes. From this it is taken, in its turn, by another shoemaker—a soldier in khaki, like all the other men here—who goes to work on it.

Division of Labour.

But he does not do the whole job. One man pares down the new sole or heel to the dimensions of the particular boot in hand. Another man, or woman, holds the boot and the sole in contact with a machine which sews on the sole in about the time in which you could sprint 100 yards. Another person and another machine drive in nails all round the sole almost as fast as you could draw your finger along the line of nail-heads that they trace.

It would be tedious to go through all the other stages of repair. But one may hark back to mention 29one which was forgotten in its place. Just after leaving the seat of judgment where, as it were, the sheep were separated from the goats, each boot to be mended was handed over to an expert who put it on a last and simply banged it back, with a heavy hammer, into the original shape of a new boot.

The effect of this skilful violence seems miraculous to the layman. Boots which for months have been taking a heavy list to port or starboard emerge from the ordeal, to all appearance, absolutely upright, although anyone who has worn a boot down to one side until the lower part of the upper is in contact on one side with the ground knows how incorrigible the deformity seems.

Return of the Renewed Boots.

The end of it all is that the boots, completely mended and re-shod with iron heels, go to a woman who bathes them in oil till the leather has drunk its fill. Thus they are both softened and re-armed against the wet. They are now ready for reissue to troops. They go again into a sack, are carried back to the railway siding and make the return journey to the Front, where the sack will be opened by some quartermaster-sergeant, and an 30order will go round some company for any men in need of new boots to report at the quartermaster’s stores.

The Employees.

Of the 2,400 persons employed in this huge cobbler’s shop, 1,500 are women and girls, all French. It thus helps to absorb the labour displaced in France by the derangement of the cotton, linen and woollen industries at and near the seat of war in the North. The women and girls earn higher wages than they did before the war. They are extremely cheerful workers, sing most of the time, and look up at the occasional British visitors to the place with amused curiosity. To each group of them there is assigned as a friend and adviser some educated and motherly Englishwoman, a volunteer.

A Model Organisation.

The workmen are all British and shoemakers by trade. They have either enlisted specially for the work or been combed out of ordinary battalions on account of their special usefulness here. The officers were experts in boot trade management before joining the New Army. The whole place is a model of industrial organisation. There is nowhere in it any trace of the makeshift and rough-and-ready 31methods for which the difficulties of war are sometimes made an excuse elsewhere. The minute economies that are practised in all the processes of repair are enough to put to shame any visitor who has not done his very utmost to save his country money.

The place described is not the only one of its kind at the British bases in France. Great as it is, it could not mend all the boots of more than two million men. But in each of the Army’s giant cobbler’s shops the same methods prevail.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Notes from Calais base

NOTES from CALAIS BASE AND PICTURES OF ITS MANY ACTIVITIES

TRAINING IN FRANCE