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"CONTEMPTIBLE"
SOLDIERS' TALES OF THE GREAT WAR
Each volume cr. 8vo, cloth.
I. WITH MY REGIMENT. By "Platoon Commander."
II. DIXMUDE. The Epic of the French Marines. Oct.-Nov. 1914. By
Charles le Goffic. _Illustrated_
III. IN THE FIELD (1914-15). The Impressions of an Officer of Light
Cavalry.
IV. UNCENSORED LETTERS FROM THE DARDANELLES. Notes of a French Army
Doctor. _Illustrated_
V. PRISONER OF WAR. By André Warnod. _Illustrated_
VI. "CONTEMPTIBLE." By "Casualty."
VII. ON THE ANZAC TRAIL. By "Anzac."
Philadelphia J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY London: WILLIAM
HEINEMANN
"CONTEMPTIBLE"
BY
"CASUALTY"
Philadelphia: J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
MCMXVI
_Printed in Great Britain._
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I LEAVING ENGLAND 1
II CALM BEFORE THE STORM 10
III THE ADVANCE TO MONS 14
IV MONS 21
V THE BEGINNING OF THE RETREAT 27
VI DARKNESS 34
VII VENÉROLLES 39
VIII ST. QUENTIN AND LA FÈRE 44
IX SIR JOHN FRENCH 51
X A PAUSE, AND MORE MARCHING 55
XI A REAR-GUARD ACTION 62
XII VILLIERS-COTTERETS 66
XIII HEAT AND DUST 74
XIV THE OCCUPATION OF VILLIERS 78
XV THE LAST LAP 86
XVI THE TURN OF THE TIDE 95
XVII THE ADVANCE BEGINS 98
XVIII THE CROSSING OF THE MARNE 104
XIX AN ADVANCED-GUARD ACTION 109
XX DEFENCE 117
XXI THE DEFENCE OF THE BRANDY 122
XXII STRATEGY AS YOU LIKE IT 126
XXIII THE LAST ADVANCE 133
XXIV SATURDAY NIGHT 141
XXV THE CROSSING OF THE AISNE 151
XXVI THE CELLARS OF POUSSEY 161
XXVII THE FIRST TRENCHES 168
XXVIII IN RESERVE AT SOUVIR 177
XXIX TO STRAIGHTEN THE LINE 186
XXX THE JAWS OF DEATH 193
XXXI THE FIELD HOSPITAL 204
XXXII OPERATION 213
XXXIII ST. NAZAIRE 219
XXXIV SOMEWHERE IN MAYFAIR 221
CHAPTER I
LEAVING ENGLAND
No cheers, no handkerchiefs, no bands. Nothing that even suggested the
time-honoured scene of soldiers leaving home to fight the Empire's
battles. Parade was at midnight. Except for the lighted windows of the
barracks, and the rush of hurrying feet, all was dark and quiet. It was
more like ordinary night operations than the dramatic departure of a
Unit of the First British Expeditionary Force to France.
As the Battalion swung into the road, the Subaltern could not help
thinking that this was indeed a queer send-off. A few sergeants' wives,
standing at the corner of the Parade ground, were saying good-bye to
their friends as they passed. "Good-bye, Bill;" "Good luck, Sam!" Not a
hint of emotion in their voices. One might have thought that husbands
and fathers went away to risk their lives in war every day of the week.
And if the men were at all moved at leaving what had served for their
home, they hid it remarkably well. Songs were soon breaking out from all
parts of the column of route. As the Club House, and then the Golf Club,
stole silently up and disappeared behind him, the Subaltern wondered
whether he would ever see them again. But he refused to let his
thoughts drift in this channel. Meanwhile, the weight of the
mobilisation kit was almost intolerable.
In an hour the station was reached. An engine was shunting up and down,
piecing the troop trains together, and in twenty minutes the Battalion
was shuffling down the platform, the empty trains on either side. Two
companies were to go to each train, twelve men to a third-class
compartment, N.C.O.s second class, Officers first. As soon as the men
were in their seats, the Subaltern made his way to the seat he had
"bagged," and prepared to go to sleep. Another fellow pushed his head
through the window and wondered what had become of the regimental
transport. Somebody else said he didn't know or care; his valise was
always lost, he said; they always made a point of it.
Soon after, they were all asleep, and the train pulled slowly out of the
station.
When the Subaltern awoke it was early morning, and they were moving
through Hampshire fields at a rather sober pace. He was assailed with a
poignant feeling of annoyance and resentment that this war should be
forced upon them. England looked so good in the morning sunshine, and
the comforts of English civilisation were so hard to leave. The sinister
uncertainty of the Future brooded over them like a thunder cloud.
Isolated houses thickened into clusters, streets sprang up, and soon
they were in Southampton.
The train pulled up at the Embarkation Station, quite close to the wharf
to which some half-dozen steamers were moored. There was little or no
delay. The Battalion fell straight into "massed formation," and began
immediately to move on to one of the ships. The Colonel stood by the
gangway talking to an Embarkation Officer. Everything was in perfect
readiness, and the Subaltern was soon able to secure a berth.
There was plenty of excitement on deck while the horses of the
regimental transport were being shipped into the hold.
To induce "Light Draft," "Heavy Draft" horses and "Officers'
Chargers"--in all some sixty animals--to trust themselves to be lowered
into a dark and evil-smelling cavern, was no easy matter. Some shied
from the gangway, neighing; other walked peaceably on to it, and, with a
"thus far and no farther" expression in every line of their bodies, took
up a firm stand, and had to be pushed into the hold with the combined
weight of many men. Several of the transport section narrowly escaped
death and mutilation at the hands, or rather hoofs, of the Officers'
Chargers. Meanwhile a sentry, with fixed bayonet, was observed watching
some Lascars, who were engaged in getting the transport on board. It
appeared that the wretched fellows, thinking that they were to be taken
to France and forced to fight the Germans, had deserted to a man on the
previous night, and had had to be routed out of their hiding-places in
Southampton.
Not that such a small thing as that could upset for one moment the
steady progress of the Embarkation of the Army. It was like a huge,
slow-moving machine; there was a hint of the inexorable in its
exactitude. Nothing had been forgotten--not even eggs for the Officers'
breakfast in the Captain's cabin.
Meanwhile the other ships were filling up. By midday they began to slide
down the Solent, and guesses were being freely exchanged about the
destination of the little flotilla. Some said Boulogne, others Calais;
but the general opinion was Havre, though nobody knew for certain, for
the Captain of the ship had not yet opened his sealed orders. The
transports crept slowly along the coast of the Isle of Wight, but it was
not until evening that the business of crossing the Channel was begun in
earnest.
The day had been lovely, and Officers and men had spent it mostly in
sleeping and smoking upon the deck. Spirits had risen as the day grew
older. For at dawn the cheeriest optimist is a pessimist, while at
midday pessimists become optimists. In the early morning the German Army
had been invincible. At lunch the Battalion was going to Berlin, on the
biggest holiday of its long life!
The Subaltern, still suffering from the after-effects of inoculation
against enteric, which had been unfortunately augmented by a premature
indulgence in fruit, and by the inability to rest during the rush of
mobilisation, did not spend a very happy night. The men fared even
worse, for the smell of hot, cramped horses, steaming up from the lower
deck, was almost unbearable. But their troubles were soon over, for by
seven o'clock the boat was gliding through the crowded docks of Havre.
Naturally most of the Mess had been in France before, but to Tommy it
was a world undiscovered. The first impression made on the men was
created by a huge negro working on the docks. He was greeted with roars
of laughter, and cries of, "Hallo, Jack Johnson!" The red trousers of
the French sentries, too, created a tremendous sensation. At length the
right landing-stage was reached. Equipments were thrown on, and the
Battalion was paraded on the dock.
The march through the cobbled streets of Havre rapidly developed into a
fiasco. This was one of the first, if not the very first, landing of
British Troops in France, and to the French it was a novelty, calling
for a tremendous display of open-armed welcome. Children rushed from the
houses, and fell upon the men crying for "souvenirs." Ladies pursued
them with basins full of wine and what they were pleased to call beer.
Men were literally carried from the ranks, under the eyes of their
Officers, and borne in triumph into houses and inns. What with the heat
of the day and the heaviness of the equipment and the after-effects of
the noisome deck, the men could scarcely be blamed for availing
themselves of such hospitality, though to drink intoxicants on the march
is suicidal. Men "fell out," first by ones and twos, then by whole
half-dozens and dozens. The Subaltern himself was scarcely strong enough
to stagger up the long hills at the back of the town, let alone worrying
about his men. The Colonel was aghast, and very furious. He couldn't
understand it. (He was riding.)
The camp was prepared for the troops in a wonderfully complete
fashion--not the least thing seemed to have been forgotten. The men,
stripped of their boots, coats and equipments, were resting in the shade
of the tents. A caterer from Havre had come up to supply the Mess, and
the Subaltern was able to procure from him a bottle of rather heady
claret, which, as he was thirsty and exhausted, he consumed too rapidly,
and found himself hopelessly inebriate. Luckily there was nothing to do,
so he slept for many hours.
Waking up in the cool of the evening he heard the voices of another
Second-Lieutenant and a reservist Subaltern talking about some people he
knew near his home. It was good to forget about wars and soldiers, and
everything that filled so amply the present and future, and to lose
himself in pleasant talk of pleasant things at home.... The dinner
provided by the French caterer was very French, and altogether the last
sort of meal that a young gentleman suffering from anti-enteric
inoculation ought to have indulged in. Everything conspired to make him
worse, and what with the heat and the malady, he spent a very miserable
time.
After about two days' stay, the Battalion moved away from the rest
camp, and, setting out before dawn, marched back through those fatal
streets of Havre, this time deserted in the moonlight, to a sort of
shed, called by the French authorities a troop station. Here as usual
the train was waiting, and the men had but to be put in. The carriages
could not be called luxurious; to be frank, they were cattle-trucks. But
it takes more than that to damp the spirits of Mr. Thomas Atkins. Cries
imitating the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep broke out from
the trucks!
The train moved out of the depôt, and wended its way in the most casual
manner through the streets of Havre. This so amused Tommy that he roared
with laughter. The people who rushed to give the train a send-off, with
many cries of "Vive les Anglais," "A bas les Bosches," were greeted with
more bleatings and brayings.
* * * * *
The journey through France was quite uneventful. Sleeping or reading the
whole day through, the Subaltern only remembered Rouen, passed at about
midday, and Amiens later in the evening. The train had paused at
numerous villages on its way, and in every case there had been violent
demonstrations of enthusiasm. In one case a young lady of prepossessing
appearance had thrust her face through the window, and talked very
excitedly and quite incomprehensibly, until one of the fellows in the
carriage grasped the situation, leant forward, and did honour to the
occasion. The damsel retired blushing.
At Amiens various rumours were afloat. Somebody had heard the Colonel
say the magic word "Liège." Pictures of battles to be fought that very
night thrilled some of them not a little.
* * * * *
Dawn found the Battalion hungry, shivering and miserable, paraded by the
side of the track, at a little wayside station called Wassigné. The
train shunted away, leaving the Battalion with a positive feeling of
desolation. A Staff Officer, rubbing sleep from his eyes, emerged from a
little "estaminet" and gave the Colonel the necessary orders. During the
march that ensued the Battalion passed through villages where the three
other regiments in the Brigade were billeted. At length a village called
Iron was reached, and their various billets were allotted to each
Company.
The Subaltern's Company settled down in a huge water-mill; its Officers
being quartered in the miller's private house.
A wash, a shave and a meal worked wonders.
And so the journey was finished, and the Battalion found itself at
length in the theatre of operations.
* * * * *
I have tried in this chapter to give some idea of the ease and
smoothness with which this delicate operation of transportation was
carried out. The Battalions which composed the First Expeditionary Force
had been spread in small groups over the whole length and breadth of
Britain. They had been mobilised, embarked, piloted across the Channel
in the face of an undefeated enemy fleet, rested, and trained to their
various areas of concentration, to take their place by the side of their
French Allies.
All this was accomplished without a single hitch, and with a speed that
was astonishing. When the time comes for the inner history of the war to
be written, no doubt proper praise for these preliminary arrangements
will be given to those who so eminently deserve it.