THE ADVANCE BEGINS
Although they stood to arms at the first flush of daylight on the
following day, they did not march off until nearly eleven o'clock. The
men were moved into the leafy grounds of the château to keep them out of
the sun, and beyond the observation of hostile aircraft.
The regimental butchers slew one or two sheep during the wait; but the
meat subsequently proved to be abominably tough, and the fat collected
to oil the bolts of the men's rifles only served to make them stiffer
than ever.
The Subaltern had entertained fond hopes that owing to his recent
unusually long hours of sleep he would not be attacked by the same
nauseating sensations of fatigue; but his hopes were vain. The sleep
seemed to have made things worse. A little rest had developed an
overwhelming desire for more, and he felt worse than ever.
He longed as he had never longed before for long cool drinks and clean
white sheets. He imagined himself at home. What would he do? He pictured
himself in the bathroom eagerly peeling off his puttees as the water
splashed into the pale blue bath. How he would wallow in it! He could
feel how the water would caress his body, tepid and soothing.
On the table in the dining-room, green and cool with its view of the
sombre pine wood, stood a long cold drink of what? Cider, perhaps, or
lime-juice and soda, something you could drink and drink and drink. Last
of all--culminating pleasure of heaven--his red bedroom, with the sheets
ready turned down for him, soft and white and alluring. That would have
been heaven.
But this heaven of his was very far away from the hard dusty road and
the eternal poplars! With a painful jolt his thoughts would return to
the realities of life; he would feel dazed and annoyed, and in his heart
of hearts he wanted to cry.
* * * * *
Sir Archibald Murray passed in a car, holding an animated conversation
with a much-beribboned and distinguished-looking French General. He
looked very pleased with himself, as well he might, for the greatest
work of his career had begun the day before with astounding success.
The Subaltern must have felt very tired and dissatisfied that afternoon.
Having exhausted the painful thoughts of home, he began to tell himself
what an awful life Active Service was. It never occurred to him to be
thankful that a youth so young should have the luck to play his part in
such tremendous events. He did not at the time realise that there were
thousands of adventurous souls at home who would have given an arm to
have been where he had been.
He did not realise that in after days the memory of every weary hour of
trudging, of every bullet that had hummed by, and of every shell that
had burst, would be a joy for ever. The thought had never struck any of
them, unsentimental souls!
At this point his memory confessedly breaks down. He remembers perfectly
a certain "ten minutes' halt" spent in the shade of a sheaf of corn. He
remembers plunging into a pine forest; but thenceforward there is a
blank. His memory snaps. He cannot recollect passing through that wood,
much less passing out of it. A link in the chain of his memory must have
snapped.
When next he recollects anything clearly it may have been that night,
the next night, or the night after that. Anyway, it was very dark, and
the Battalion was eventually halted in an open field. Somehow or other,
straw was procured for the rest, but his own Platoon was sent forward to
hold an outpost position along the banks of a small stream.
Although in the daytime the sun shone with undiminished fervour, the
nights were getting certainly far more chilly than they had been in
August. But when one has to get up at daybreak, having never had more
than four hours sleep, one does not notice it much.
During the night a fresh draft arrived.
The next morning they very soon encountered an entirely new sight, a
French village hastily evacuated by the enemy. At least half of the
houses had been broken into, and all the shops and inns. The Germans had
dragged chairs and tables to the roadside, and they must have been
sitting there drinking and smoking when the news of the British advance,
and orders to retire had come upon them. Everything seemed to show that
the enemy had left at the shortest notice. He had not had time to
perpetrate any of his well-known barbarities on the few inhabitants who
had remained in their houses, and no attempt had apparently been made
even to burn the village!
A little further on, the abstemious Hun had obviously made a halt. The
litter of bottles was appalling. There was a perfect wall of them for
about a quarter of a mile. The proportion of bottles to the number of
men estimated to occupy four hundred yards (1000) was alarming. There
must have been enough drink to upset a British Army Corps. Most
certainly the Germans in front must have been out of hand, and very
drunk. The men were vastly amused.
The day dragged on very wearily, and no deployment was made. Apparently
the enemy had taken about as much as he could comfortably endure on the
previous two days. He was not waiting to be pushed back; he was speeding
north-east as fast as his legs could carry him.
In the afternoon a heavy shower rather damped the excitement evoked by
the enemy's dramatic failure to hold his own. Sounds of a fierce
encounter were heard in front, and the Brigade was hurried down a steep
and wooded decline to the scene of action. They arrived too late to
share in the actual infliction of defeat upon the enemy, but they were
immediately sent in pursuit, as the other Brigade was very tired and
rather shaken.
A man told the Subaltern that some unfortunate company, marching in
fours up a village street, had been fired upon by a machine-gun
controlled by a few men left behind by the enemy to inflict the greatest
possible damage before discovery and capture. They had done their work
well, for, concealed in the roof of a house, they had swept the street
at point-blank range and literally mown down a whole company before they
had been located, and "put out of action." Still they must have been
brave men, for the personal result of such an exploit is certain death.
The state of that street had better not be described. The Aftermath of
Battle! It is depressing, cold and passionless, dirty and bloody; the
electricity of life has gone from the air, and the wine of life-blood is
spilt, it seems, so needlessly upon the ground. Perhaps the spirits of
the dead linger over it. Their presence is instinctively felt. As,
overpowered with the sorrow of it, you pass by, the thought steals into
your mind, "When will my turn come?" This Aftermath of Battle is
assuredly the most awful thing in war.
As soon as the men began to scale the steep incline opposite, they saw
that the costs had not been paid by the British alone. Figures, covered
in most cases by their own grey overcoats, lay out upon the ground.
Leaning up against a wall a body was still lolling. It was a sight that
no one who saw it will ever forget. There was no head; it had been shorn
oft as cleanly as if the man had been guillotined. An unburst shell had
probably swept the man's head from his shoulders as he looked over the
wall, and the aimless-looking trunk was still leaning against the wall
as if "waiting for further orders."
The pursuit was continued until it was quite dark. The Companies wheeled
into the fields, and slept where they stood. The Colonel delivered a
short address, which showed that all was not as well as it looked. But
what really _did_ worry them was lack of straw. The Colonel was of the
opinion that the enemy would take his stand on the opposite bank of the
Marne, which, he told them, was only half a mile ahead. To-morrow there
would be a fight, the like of which neither they nor any one else had
seen before.
They were disturbed that night, not indeed by the fear of what to-morrow
might hold in store, but by a small stampede of escaped horses, who
careered madly over the sleeping lines, injuring one man very severely.