THE TURN OF THE TIDE
The next day the Battalion linked up with the Brigade, and instead of
proceeding in the usual direction--southwards--they turned to the north.
There was a great deal of subdued excitement. They were not going to
move off for a precious hour or so, and, as "battle seemed imminent,"
the Subaltern did his best to make up the "deficiencies" in his
equipment.
Another Subaltern lay stricken with dysentery in one of the regimental
wagons, and he "borrowed" his revolver and ammunition. Apart from the
fact that the poor fellow was in too great pain to dispute the robbery,
he declared with embellishments that he never wanted to see the ----
thing again. "Take it, and be ---- to it!" he said.
Curiously enough, the Subaltern was able to stick to the loan through
all the troubles that followed, and was eventually able to return it to
its owner, met casually in the London Hippodrome, months later.
Soon afterwards, when they were marching through a village called
Chaumes, he learnt that in the forthcoming battle they were to be in
General Reserve, and this relieved the nervous tension for the moment.
There was a feeling that a great chance of distinguished service was
lost, but as the General Reserves are usually flung into the fight
towards its concluding stages, he did not worry on that score.
The four Regiments of the Brigade were massed in very close formation in
a large orchard, ready to move at a moment's notice. There they lay all
day, sleeping with their rifles in their hands, or lying flat on their
backs gazing at the intense blue of the sky overhead.
The heat, although they were in the first week in September, was greater
than ever. The blue atmosphere seemed to quiver with the shock of guns.
General Headquarters had been established in a house near by, a
middle-class, flamboyant, jerry-built affair. How its owner would have
gasped if he could have seen the Field-Marshal conducting the British
share of the great battle in his immodest "salle à manger!"
Aeroplanes were continually ascending from and descending to a ploughed
field adjacent to the orchard. Motors were ceaselessly dashing up and
down. Assuredly they were near to the heart of things.
That afternoon some one procured a page of the _Daily Mirror_, which
printed the first casualty list of the war. Perhaps you can remember
reading it. One was not used to the sensation. One felt that "it brought
things home to one." Not that this was by any means necessary at that
time and place. Still it was very depressing to think that in God's
beautiful sunlight, brave, strong men were being maimed and laid low for
ever. One had a vague feeling that it was blasphemous, and ought to be
stopped.
It was not until dusk that a start was made, and the Regiment halted
again about a mile further on and settled down for the night in a
stubble field opposite a very imposing château.
Evidently the fight had gone well, for they passed at least two lines of
hasty trenches quite deserted.
The Germans had at last been driven back!
Any joy that this discovery might have occasioned was sobered and
tempered by the sight of small bodies of men bent double over their work
in the purple twilight. They were burying-parties. Two twigs tied
together and stuck in the brown mounds of earth was all the evidence
there was of each little tragedy. During the retreat the Subaltern had
naturally had little opportunity to realise this most pitiable side of
war, the cold Aftermath of Battle.
I will tell you of the inglorious way in which one man spent this
momentous day, the wonderful hours in which the tide turned, and a
Continent was saved--in chasing chickens! He was the Mess Sergeant, and
it was his duty. Anyway, the Mess dined gloriously off the chickens he
caught, and as a couple of hayricks had been dismantled and distributed,
everybody spent a tolerably comfortable night.