Bullets Billets

Bullets & Billets

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bullets & Billets, by Bruce
Bairnsfather This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost
and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it
away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Bullets & Billets
Author: Bruce Bairnsfather
Release Date: February 23, 2004 [EBook #11232]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BULLETS
& BILLETS ***

Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Steven desJardins, and Distributed
Proofreaders

Bullets & Billets
By Bruce Bairnsfather
1916

TO MY OLD PALS, "BILL," "BERT," AND "ALF," WHO HAVE
SAT IN THE MUD WITH ME

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Landing at Havre--Tortoni's--Follow the tram lines--Orders for the
Front.
CHAPTER II
Tortuous travelling--Clippers and tablets--Dumped at a siding--I join
my Battalion.
CHAPTER III
Those Plugstreet trenches--Mud and rain--Flooded out--A hopeless
dawn.
CHAPTER IV
More mud--Rain and bullets--A bit of cake--"Wind up"--Night rounds.
CHAPTER V
My man Friday--"Chuck us the biscuits"--Relieved--Billets.
CHAPTER VI
The Transport Farm--Fleeced by the Flemish--Riding--Nearing
Christmas.
CHAPTER VII
A projected attack---Digging a sap--An 'ell of a night--The

attack--Puncturing Prussians.
CHAPTER VIII
Christmas Eve--A lull in hate--Briton cum Boche.
CHAPTER IX
Souvenirs--A ride to Nieppe--Tea at H.Q.--Trenches once more.
CHAPTER X
My partial escape from the mud--The deserted village--My "cottage."
CHAPTER XI
Stocktaking--Fortifying--Nebulous Fragments.
CHAPTER XII
A brain wave--Making a "funk hole"--Plugstreet Wood--Sniping.
CHAPTER XIII
Robinson Crusoe--That turbulent table.
CHAPTER XIV
The Amphibians--Fed-up, but determined--The gun parapet.
CHAPTER XV
Arrival of the "Johnsons"--"Where did that one go?"--The First
Fragment dispatched--The exodus--Where?
CHAPTER XVI

New trenches--The night inspection--Letter from the Bystander.
CHAPTER XVII
Wulverghem--The Douve--Corduroy boards--Back at our farm.
CHAPTER XVIII
The painter and decorator--Fragments forming--Night on the mud
prairie.
CHAPTER XIX
Visions of leave--Dick Turpin--Leave!
CHAPTER XX
That Leave train--My old pal--London and home--The call of the wild.
CHAPTER XXI
Back from leave--That "blinkin' moon"--Johnson 'oles--Tommy and
"frightfulness"--Exploring expedition.
CHAPTER XXII
A daylight stalk--The disused trench--"Did they see me?"--A good
sniping position.
CHAPTER XXIII
Our moated farm--Wulverghem--The Curé's house--A shattered
Church--More "heavies"--A farm on fire.
CHAPTER XXIV
That ration fatigue--Sketches in request--Bailleul--Baths and

lunatics--How to conduct a war.
CHAPTER XXV
Getting stale--Longing for change--We leave the Douve--On the
march--Spotted fever--Ten days' rest.
CHAPTER XXVI
A pleasant change--Suzette, Berthe and Marthe--"La jeune fille
farouche"--André.
CHAPTER XXVII
Getting fit--Caricaturing the Curé--"Dirty work ahead"--A projected
attack--Unlooked-for orders.
CHAPTER XXVIII
We march for Ypres--Halt at Locre--A bleak camp and meagre
fare--Signs of battle--First view of Ypres.
CHAPTER XXIX
Getting nearer--A lugubrious party--Still nearer--Blazing
Ypres--Orders for attack.
CHAPTER XXX
Rain and mud--A trying march--In the thick of it--A wounded
officer--Heavy shelling--I get my "quietus!"
CHAPTER XXXI
Slowly recovering--Field hospital--Ambulance train--Back in England.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Bruce Bairnsfather: a photograph
The Birth of "Fragments": Scribbles on the farmhouse walls
That Astronomical Annoyance, the Star Shell
"Plugstreet Wood"
A Hopeless Dawn
The usual line in Billeting Farms
"Chuck us the biscuits, Bill. The fire wants mendin'"
"Shut that blinkin' door. There's a 'ell of a draught in 'ere"
A Memory of Christmas, 1914
The Sentry
A Messines Memory: "'Ow about shiftin' a bit further down the road,
Fred?"
"Old soldiers never die"
Photograph of the Author. St. Yvon, Christmas Day, 1914
Off "in" again
"Poor old Maggie! She seems to be 'avin' it dreadful wet at 'ome!"
The Tin-opener
"They're devils to snipe, ain't they, Bill?"
Old Bill

FOREWORD
_Down South, in the Valley of the Somme, far from the spots recorded
in this book, I began to write this story._
_In billets it was. I strolled across the old farmyard and into the wood
beyond. Sitting by a gurgling little stream, I began, with the aid of a
notebook and a pencil, to record the joys and sorrows of my first six
months in France._
_I do not claim any unique quality for these experiences. Many
thousands have had the same. I have merely, by request, made a record
of my times out there, in the way that they appeared to me_.
BRUCE BAIRNSFATHER.
CHAPTER I
LANDING AT HAVRE--TORTONI'S--FOLLOW THE TRAM
LINES--ORDERS FOR THE FRONT
[Illustration: G]
Gliding up the Seine, on a transport crammed to the lid with troops, in
the still, cold hours of a November morning, was my debut into the war.
It was about 6 a.m. when our boat silently slipped along past the great
wooden sheds, posts and complications of Havre Harbour. I had spent
most of the twelve-hour trip down somewhere in the depths of the ship,
dealing out rations to the hundred men that I had brought with me from
Plymouth. This sounds a comparatively simple process, but not a bit of
it. To begin with, the ship was filled with troops to bursting point, and
the mere matter of proceeding from one deck to