Terrible toilet.

A German writer described the pleasures of being out of the front line. what would you do to relax? sleep? write letters to your family? clean your toenails? Not Erich Maria Remarque, the author of the famous book, All Quiet on the Western Front, who said that...

The experienced soldiers do not use the unpleasant, indoors, common toilet, where 20 men sit side by side in a line. as it is not raining, they use the individual square wooden boxes with carrying handles on the sides. they pull three into a circle and sit there in the sun all afternoon, reading, smoking, talking, playing cards.

in the front line trenches it was different and more dangerous. there were no toilet in the Brit trenchers, just buckets., if you upset the Sergeant you would be given the job of taking the buckets out after dark. your job was to dig a hole and empty the buckets. once you were out of the cover of the trenches you were in danger, but some soldiers still lit cigarettes to hide the smell from the buckets. enemy snipers were just waiting to ain at the glow of a cigarette end. emptying toilet buckets could be bad for your health.

even going to the toilet shed just behind the trenches was dangerous. the enemy knew men used these toilets at dawn and liked to drop a few shells among the toilet huts to catch the soldiers with their pants down!