First Ypres - Continued

On October 31 the Germans attacked the British lines along a narrow front on the Messines Ridge, forcing the British troops from their position.The enemy continued advancing until General Haig’s First Corps staged a ferocious counterattack.

The German Army continued their mission to break through the British line, but whenever this was accomplished, a British counterattack would drive it back to its prior position.

It wasn't until the onset of winter weather that there was a break in the fighting. The combat had been so unrelenting, and the loss of life so horrific, that the British survivors were content to say that a man was not a soldier unless he had served on the Ypres front. Of the one- hundred and sixty thousand men sent to France with the BEF, thirty per- cent were either killed in action or died of their wounds. Nevertheless, ninety percent of them were impacted by the encounter in some way, with either physical injuries or some form of mental and/or emotional distress


Fred Coxen and the rest of 40 battery left the church and returned to the main force, however, establishing a forward observation post was still necessary so Fred and his friend George were ordered to run wire to a convent that was in close proximity to the British troops.

Running wire was a dangerous job because often the runners were exposed to sniper fire and artillery shelling. Often, when shelling was the the heaviest, wires were severed  and the telephonist/signalers would have to crawl along the wire to find and fix the breaks. Fred describes one of his near death experiences:

We rejoined the guns without mishap. George Millington and I were ordered to lay our wire to a large deserted convent near our infantry.As we ran the wire we were sniped at pretty hard by Germans hidden in houses to our left; one missed me by inches. The next morning I went back to the spot, found the bullet, and saved it as a souvenir.
In the afternoon the French infantry had been forced to re- tire; our infantry went up to hold what the French had lost. Although they were greatly outnumbered, they held.
We were firing at very short range, even though we knew we would be observed by the enemy.
The night passed quickly. We were dug in by the side of a stream, which effectually screened us from the continual pres- ence of rifle bullets. We had to go without food all day and were not pleased with the events.

Often soldiers would take advantage or the opportunity of adding variety to their rations when they found food sources in abandoned homes or buildings.

October 22nd
George and I laid our wire to the convent. We described it as heavenly, for it was well-stocked with provisions.We found biscuits, butter, and jam, George and I had a good feast and brought some away with us for the battery.
It got pretty warm getting back to the guns. The enemy sniped at us across a large scarred field. 

Military life during the war could be best described by hours of boredom interspersed with split seconds of terror. Boredom is the devil's playground and men with time on their hands find creative ways to amuse themselves.

While waiting for us to set up good communications, two signalers dug a shallow trench by the edge of the field. They amused themselves by putting their hats on a flagpole, raising them until the crown of the hat was just above the crest of the trench.Tempting the Germans to shoot at them proved to be an amusing diversion.

We fired hard all morning. The enemy replying on the village did grand shooting on the church, where shell after shell passed through the steeple. Finally the church caught fire and was soon one mass of flames. The clock steeple collapsed with a crash; it was a dramatic sight. It seemed that they wanted to get at our battery for they shelled the fellows in front and behind our wagon line, wounding a few men and killing some horses.
Fortunately for those of us at the guns, only a few men were wounded. 

Our infantry was forced to retire, so we requested an infantry escort of 100 men for our guns. All they could send us was one platoon of 20 men. At dark, George Millington (“Old George”) had gone along the wire to forage for food. While he was gone, bullets were very plentiful. Eight of us clutched to our little trench, waiting for him to get into communication and return with the spoils.
Things seemed to quiet down for about half an hour when suddenly the Germans played a machine gun dead on us. We thought they had us.Although we did not know it, the infantry was on our left.They had moved while we were waiting for George.
As the infantry took care of the machine gun, I heard strange rustling sounds in the bushes on the other side of the stream. For a moment I thought it was some of the German snipers getting in our rear. I crawled very cautiously on my hands and knees along the stream to a small bridge crossing. I found after no little time that the sound I had heard was caused by some rabbits that our chaps released from an adjoining 

farm.

It was amusing to think about it afterwards but not at the time.

Old George returned, loaded with goods. When I mentioned the machine gun and the rabbit stalking he said, “Blast the guns and rabbits, and have a bit of this strawberry jam, Old China. It’s the goods.” I declined the food for I was too dry to eat.

Nothing drinkable was to be had except the water in the stream and that was dirty.The rest of the night passed rather quietly. In the morning, out of desperation, I was compelled to drink some of the stream water.