Friday 11th February 1916: Lieutenant Hargreaves of the
Bedfordshire Yeomanry is home on leave and gave a talk in Bedford on the
Regiment and its recent exploits, going into the front line trenches for the
first time in January. Probably the audience, said Mr Hargreaves, had formed a
wrong impression about trench life, but he had found it more interesting,
exciting and full of incident than he had expected, even when no operations of
first-class importance were in progress. One was apt to think that except at
the time of an actual attack by the enemy there was little going on, but this
was a mistake, as from the first moment of entering the trenches to that of leaving, there was incessant hard
work and almost continuous “bickering” with the Germans. During the day-time
there was a steady, though not violent, bombardment going on, and during the
night there was an exchange of rifle grenades and trench mortars and incessant
sniping. The sort of work done is the constant repair of shell-fire damage to
the trench, cleaning and scraping the floor-boards, strengthening the weak
places in the trench and heightening the parapet. For this purpose the men were
divided into shifts, with sentries actually on duty, men resting for the next
duty and those who are used for fatigues.
It is each
man’s duty to keep his equipment and rifle clean, but this is no easy matter
where water is scarce and difficult to obtain. The first turn of the
Bedfordshire Yeomanry in the trenches was marked by brilliant moonlit nights
and this enabled them to witness a spectacle which was wonderfully dramatic.
The lines of trenches curling away in the distance to the left and right,
picked out by the flashes of the snipers’ rifles, illuminated by the Verey, or
star(1), lights fired into the air and on the ground before the trenches to
enable the sentries to get an efficient look-out and the flash of the artillery
fire on the horizon, all continued to make the scene a most impressive
spectacle.
Source: Bedfordshire Standard 25th
February 1916
