14 
LAND ^ WATER 
November 7, 1918 
''H.E." — A First Experience: By Martin Gilkes 
THE new Subaltern, just out from England, sat 
in the parlour of a cottage which formed his 
company mess. The cottage, long deserted by 
its owners, stood now at the head of a main 
communication trench leading to the battalions 
in the line, scarcely three-quarters of a mile away. Opposite 
sat the Captain, and round the little table the other three 
subalterns ; they had just finished dinner, and were lying 
back in their chairs, smoking and drink'ing little cups of 
coarse coffee made by one of the mess servants, who had 
mistaken himself for a cook. 
"Shells?" said the Captain. "I don't mind shells. If 
they catch you — well, they put you out straight and quick, 
and no more said ; but I do hate bullets. They're beastly 
things, if you like." 
"Yes," said Crowther, the senior sub., "yes; I don't 
much care for bullets. They rather put the wind up me. 
But shells ! They're all right, if you light a cigarette to 
take your mind off them, and keep on joking. Just lavigh 
all the time, and you'll be all right." 
The new Subaltern sat up, and looked at Crowther and 
the Captain. Now the Captain was big and black and 
strong, with the visible strength that such men have ; but 
Crowther was little and sandy haired, for all the world like 
a stoat : not at all the sort of person to impress a stranger, 
and not at all the ideal type of Grenadier in the eyes of the 
new Subaltern, who had exalted ideas about the importance 
of the battalion bombing officer. He remembered his secret 
pride a week before, when his colonel chose him for the job. 
" Fine fellow, the Colonel ! He knew a good man when 
he saw one. So he picked me out ! " It never occurred to him 
that, being the last out from England, and therefore knowing 
least, the battalion would have least to lose by his death. 
He looked across at Jones, the subaltern sitting opposite. 
Jones had his feet on the table, and his eyes half-shut. 
"I don't give a damn for bullets," said Jones, "nor for 
shells. If you've got to be killed, you've got to be, and 
there's an end of it. Curse ! I've got to go down to see 
the engineers about those grenades." 
The Captain and Crowther rose to go as well, and the new 
Subaltern remembered, with a sort of pang, that they were 
going to see the Colonel at the headquarters mess, and longed 
for the day when he would be old enough in the regiment 
to drop in there without an invitation. When they were 
gone, he turned to Holford, the other subaltern— a week 
older than himself in the bombing company. 
"Well," he said, "we're left alone for the evening." 
"Yes," said the other. "My God, how they're shelling 
that mine ! " 
About four hundred yards down the road every few minutes 
sounded the crash and burst of German shells, pitching 
un rringly into a mine-tower and buildings, behind which 
were the "cookers" of a battalion in the trenches in front, 
and he began to feel that security which comes to a soldier 
when the enemy are shelling some definite object, other 
than himself, even though only a short distance away. 
"Well, thank Heavens, they're not shelling us," he said 
lightly, and poured out another cup of the execrable coffee. 
Suddenly, without warning, the roof shook with a crash : 
there was a loud explosion, and slates began to slide and 
clatter to the ground. It sounded exactly as if a shell had 
landed on the roof itself. They found out afterwards that 
it had pitched in the garden, six yards from the back door. 
He jumped to his feet, looking rather white. Inside, his 
heart was hammering like a thing possessed (he knew, then, 
how mice feel when their little hearts beat so fast that they 
can beat no more). The voice of his companion recalled 
him to himself. 
"The dug-outs! They're shelling us!" cried Holford, in 
a strange high voice ; and together they rushed out and 
made for the dug-out against the wall of the house behind. 
As they ran, blind terror struck again at him, when he 
heard the long whine of another high-explosive shell twisting 
through its invisible tube of air. He ran blindly, scarcely 
knowing where he went. Holford reached the dug-out first, 
and bolted down the steps and disappeared into the friendly 
depths below. But the new Subaltern made a dead-heat 
in the race for the entrance with the Company Sergeant- 
Major, who was running for shelter also from his billet 
across the way. Now, since the Company Sergeant-Major 
was a large, fat man, and since they both reached the entrance 
to the dug-out exactly at the same time, and were both 
running hard for safety, the inevitable happened, and they 
both stuck fast in the narrow doorway. Then some God- 
given sense of the ridiculous came over him. To be stuck in 
the doorway of a dug-out with the fat Sergeant-Majcr I It 
was absurd. He drew back and began to laugh. 
"After you, sir," said the Sergeant-Major. 
"No, Thomson," said the new Subaltern; "after you; 
and if you get stuck in the entrance, I'll push you through 
from behind." 
The feeble joke served, and both laughed immoderately, as 
men will in moments of great excitement ; and he never 
heard the who -oo-oosh of the oncoming shell — that terrible 
sound which means that it has begun to rush downward to 
the ground, and is going to land very near. He ran down 
the steps of the dug-out behind the Sergeant-Major. The 
shell burst close by and covered the dug-out top with earth 
and splinters and slates from the roof of the house above. 
Down in the dugout his cars caught the approaching whine 
of another shell. Terror gripped him again, shook him from 
head to foot, set his heart swirling and racing like a mill- 
stream between narrow banks. Terribly lucid, morbid 
thoughts probed his mind, like knives. Would it drop on 
the roof of the dug-out ? If so, they would all be buried 
alive. He had a vivid recollection of a nightmare of his 
childish days, and in the fraction of a second he suffered all 
the agonies of suffocation. He heard, as in a dream, far 
away, the voice of the Sergeant-Major. " 'Ere comes another 
ruddy shell. 'Ave you the trenchin' tool, Charley, to dig us 
out with, if it 'its the roof ? " (This to one of the officers' 
servants, also sheltering in the dug-out.) 
"Yus, sir," said Charley. (How cool and unperturbed his 
voice sounded !) " They're a-searchin' for that perishin' 
batt'ry in the wood be'ind.'" 
But suddenly came recollection of Crowther's words in 
the mess: "Light a cigarette to take your mind off it. 
Laugh, and you'll be all right." 
" Has anyone got a cigarette ? " he asked, and was surprised 
to find that his voice was level and ordinary, and showed no 
trace of his terror within. The talk then became general in 
the dug-out. He could never remember, afterwards, exactly 
what the jokes were that were made, except that they were 
very feeble ; but they all laughed and laughed again at 
them — and so the minutes passed. The shells were dropping 
now a little further away, nearer to the battery in the wocd ; 
but every now and then, when he heard the sound of a shell 
as it drew near, sheer terror gripped him again. After about 
half an hour, the shelling stopped as suddenly as it had begun. 
"Well," said the new Subaltern, "I think we can go out 
now, Sergeant-Major." 
"Better wait a bit, sir. Give 'em a minute or two more, 
to see if they've really stopped. They're cunning divils, 
these Boches I " 
A little thrill ran through him. He could not have shown 
so much fear, after all ! 
At last, when all seemed safe, he found himself back in the 
little front parlour with Holford. Everything there was the 
same : the coffee on the table, his own cup untouched, the 
two chairs drawn up round the stove, and all the litter of 
dinner on the table. Everything was the same, exactly as 
they had left it, thirty short minutes ago ; and yet how long 
a time it seemed since they were all sitting round the table, 
talking about bullets and shells ! Ages seemed to have 
gone by. He took up his cup of coffee — now s one cold — 
and drank it off. Then he became aware that Holford was 
speaking. He turned and looked at his comrade's white, 
strained face. 
"My God," Holford was saying; "it was awful, helhsh, 
damnable. O my God, I shook all over; I'm shaking now. 
I'm beastly frightened of shells. I'm trembling now, till 
I can hardly stand ! " 
The new Subaltern pulled himself together and looked at 
Holford. Why, the man was only saying what he himself 
had suffered as well. He, too, had been terrified ; he, too, 
had shaken all over. But Holford was telling him ! Yes, 
that was the difference. The man was talking about it, 
and could not conceal it. An odd sense of superior manhood 
came over him ; he knew in that moment that he had learned 
one of War's great lessons. All are frightened— terribly, 
abjectly frightened— but the man is he who contrives not to 
show it by face, by speech, "or by bearing. Men, thank God' 
are judged not by their inward feelings, but by their out- 
ward actions. 
"Yes, old man," he said, almost pityingly, "I was dam' 
frightened, too." 
