things, a warrant for me to go on leave to-morrow. Instantly the whole
affair changed, and I was seized with a blue shivering funk. In six
hours I was due to go through the German lines, and there, lying on the
table was a bit of paper waiting to take me to England in the morning.
It was the cruellest stroke of all, for I felt certain that I should
never return. I went back to my bunk and sweated and shivered with fear.
My mind and my body seemed to be completely separated from each other,
and I found it quite impossible to stop the quaking of my limbs. I saw
Death in a thousand forms just as on the night before the attack at
Courtrai. Sleep was impossible, so I got up at last and wrote these
lines with a trembling hand. The others are chipping me about “My Last
Will and Testament,” and there is the usual fatuous talk of medals. Day
says that if I come back they will roll all my previous non-fructifying
recommendations into one and make it a real V.C. at last. Oh! God, if
they only knew—and they look to me as a sort of Bayard.—_Written at
Calais waiting for leave boat._
After leaving the Mess and that infernal warrant, I calmed down somewhat
and was able to get my mind on to the work ahead—my old campaigning
instincts began to return and I became once more a scout, clear-headed
and fearless. It was a grand night for my work, miserable and stormy,
with rain and hail blowing in the gusty wind. Arrived in the outposts it
dawned on me that Stephens would be quite useless, and I couldn’t
remember why I had ever decided to take him—if things went all right he
could do nothing, and if they found us it would be two corpses instead
of one. He pleaded to come with me, and I had to hurt his feelings to
get rid of him.
I got all the information I could from the outpost officers, said
good-bye to them, and went forward towards the river. It was then about
half a mile in front of me, and separated from our posts by a belt of
marsh and flooded fields. This belt was traversed by two roads with a
small bridge in each where they crossed a stream running parallel to the
main river. I had to investigate these two roads and bridges and the
main bridge where the two roads joined across the river. It was my plan
to work up one road, look at the river, and the main bridge, and then
return down the other road.
There was practically no cover on the road, but the night was dark and I
felt fairly safe along the water’s edge. I calculated that I had gone
200 yards and then I waited, as I was a little nervous at having heard
nothing, and felt certain that there would be posts along the road.
After five minutes I heard the tapping of a mallet on stakes, and knew
that they were wiring some 200 yards down the road. Still I waited, but
I had no clear notion why. I assumed, of course, that there were
protective troops on this side of the wiring party, but it was instinct
rather than reason which made me halt. I was just preparing to go
forward again when two men rose out of the road not 15 yards away,
walked a few paces up and down the road, and then appeared to lie down
again. I had all but walked on to their rifles and my heart thumped
crazily. There was nothing for it but to take to the water and the
marsh. I retreated 20 yards and waded in, holding my revolver over my
head. It was deathly cold, and after about 100 yards I nearly gave it
up—at times the water was up to my shoulders and I seemed to make no
progress. The noise of the working party guided me, and eventually I
judged that I was behind them and therefore about in line with the first
small bridge.
About this time I realised that another five minutes in the water would
kill me, and I struck back for the road, regardless of everything except
a desire to get on dry land. Unfortunately, I blundered into a colony of
waterfowl, and they flew up all round my head, making a terrific noise.
My heart stood still and I waited again—was there a scout among those
Huns on the road, who could read the meaning of the terrified waterfowl?
Apparently not, for I still heard the regular tapping of the mallets,
and several minutes later I was lying exhausted by the roadside. I half
emptied my flask and pushed on up the road—I was right in the middle of
the Huns now and crawling on my stomach as I did not know how near or
far they might be—I thought the cold would kill me, and wondered what
the Huns would think to find a dead Englishman inside their lines. To my
unspeakable delight there was no one on the bridge, and I was able to
make a thorough examination. I laughed at the Huns working solemnly down
the road, and for a second forgot my terrible condition. Here I think my
mind went a little dull, as I blundered straight on down the road until
I had almost reached the river and the main bridge. It was sheer
madness, but I would certainly have perished without the movement to aid
my circulation. I remember thinking grimly that it would be just my fate
to die of a cold after all that I had been through. I found a lot of
Huns round the bridge, so I struck the river about 100 yards above it
and then worked down under cover of the banks. I spent some twenty
minutes under the bridge and all the time I could hear their voices in
the darkness above me—the meaning of their words was drowned by the
noise of the wind and the rain.
Now I had to get back down the other road before it began to grow light,
and, as I truly imagined, deliver my message before I died. Half a mile
inside the Hun lines, after spending two hours up to my shoulders in
water on a November night my condition is better imagined than
described. I ate a sodden mass of crumbs and bully that had once been
sandwiches in my pocket and finished the rum. I was nearly caught in
getting to the downstream side of the bridge and lay shivering under a
hedge for several minutes while a party marched by within three paces of
my head. I think they were the working party off the road and I noticed
that it was beginning to grow lighter—luckily the storm grew worse.
Eventually I got on to the second road and crawled back along the
water’s edge until I came to my last bridge—there was a German
machine-gun party sitting right in the middle of it. My brain was still
perfect, but I had lost all sense of feeling in my body—I wanted to
cry—they sat there between me and England, and I believe I had some idea
of getting up and asking them to let me go home. For a few minutes I had
no more will power than a child. Then some of our shells came over and I
could hear them bursting on the road over the bridge. There was only one
way back and that was as I had come—through the water. I forgot all
about the stream and waded in. The cold seemed to pull me together,
although, God knows, nothing could be colder than my own body. There was
a bit of dry land between the flood and the stream, but I got across
without being seen—I was keeping close to the bridge in the hope of
seeing something of it as I passed. If I couldn’t wade the stream I was
done, but I determined to try even if my head was under water and I had
to hold my breath. It was not more than five feet deep in the centre and
I got across and so over the bank into the flood on the far side. I had
still to keep to the water, as I was afraid there would be a patrol on
the road in advance of the people on the bridge. A few of our shells
were still falling on the road, and I could hear the angry hisses as the
red-hot bits of steel rained into the water round about. I did about 200
yards like this and then I gave up—it was either the road or collapse
and drown in the water. I got on to the road, worked back carefully
until I felt safe, and then ran like the devil until I knew I was inside
our posts. When I stopped I nearly fainted, so I set off again—my head
pulling me up into the clouds like a bubble and my legs holding me to
the road as if they were tons of lead.
Eventually I came across some gunners and they marvelled at the whisky I
drank. I told them I had been out scouting and slipped into some water—I
didn’t really know what had happened just at the time—I had vague
impressions of a mass of water and some Germans sitting on a bridge,
refusing to let me go home. Then I fell asleep, just sat down bang on
the mess floor and collapsed.
They woke me after a couple of hours, lent me a horse, and directed me
to the company.
To-morrow I shall be in England.
_Nov. 9._ In the paper this morning there is a brief announcement that
the Second Army is across the Scheldt. I was proud to see it and felt
amply rewarded for my terrible night in the water. It has left no
apparent after-effects, so there must have been more resistance left in
my old carcass than I gave myself credit for.
_Nov. 11._ It is over. These last few days I have hardly dared to hope
for it, and now that it has come I can hardly realise exactly what it
means. The thought of going back to it was killing me, and I have been
suffering from the most ghastly nightmare dreams—sometimes I am stuck in
the wire, unable to duck, with bullets whistling past my head—another
time I am trying to run through knee-deep mud with the shell-bursts
slowly overtaking me. I haven’t slept peacefully since my return, but
think it will be better now.
I went out to see the celebrations to-night, and had only one
regret—that my revolver was left in Flanders.
For of these how many know,
Or, how many knowing, care
Of the things that bought them this
In the mud fields over there.
It is most emphatically over and will forthwith be forgotten.
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN,
_30th Aug., 1920_.
It is late at night and I am lying on the silken cushions of a private
yacht; my host’s daughter, a beautiful blue-eyed girl, is reclining by
my side, her hand on my shoulder.
All around us the harbour lights are twinkling merrily and the warm
breath of the idle breeze carries the sound of pleasant music from the
gardens in the town. The little waves whisper and sigh seductively under
the stem of the ship, and overhead, “the soft, lascivious stars leer
from the velvet skies.” I recall a similar night at Colwyn in 1914 and
wonder if these people, too, will fail to read the writing on the wall.
We are living once more in the days of “pomp and circumstance”—each
morning I see their Guards march to the Royal Palace with brazen music
and all the childish pageantry of war—each afternoon I see their
sartorially perfect officers parade the Strandvagen before the
gay-gowned beauties of the cafés.
Is there no one with the courage to tell them that war is not like this,
that there will come a day without music, when there are no bright
colours and no admiring eyes, but when “the lice are in their hair and
the scabs are on their tongue”? Surely our years of sacrifice were vain
if the most highly educated people in Europe remain in ignorance of the
real nature of war and are open scoffers at the League of Nations. They
believe that England is the biggest brigand in the world, and look upon
Germany as the home of all Progress, valiantly defending herself against
a league of jealous enemies. To me it is incredible and I
remonstrate—they mention Ireland, Egypt, India, and Versailles. Then I
realise that the bitterest passages in my diary are only too true—the
sway of the old men has returned, the dead are forgotten, and betrayed.
Please God that they may never know the futility of their sacrifice.
I am weary and tired of life myself; a mere shell of a man, without
health or strength, whose vitality was eaten out by the Flanders mud.
This ease and luxury is sent to mock me; I fling my cigar overboard with
angry contempt.
Along the northern sky the summer sunset is mingling with the dawn in a
riot of impossible colours. My mind turns back to a day when Gheluvelt
lay smoking in the sun, England still slumbered, and the flower of the
Prussian Army were pouring in overwhelming numbers along the road to
Calais. The 1st Division was fought to a standstill, dying in thousands
but yielding not an inch; the 7th was practically annihilated but
somehow held their line, counterattacking again and again until the
khaki drops were swallowed in the sea of gray; there was an open gap at
last. Haig himself rode down the Menin road to call for a last effort
from the weary men; a gunner officer, his arm hanging in shreds from the
shoulder, took his last gun on to the open road and fired into the gray
masses until he died; the Worcesters flung their remnants across the
road, and the line was made again.
The whitest gentlemen of England died that day, and I would that I had
rotted in their company before I saw their sacred trust betrayed. We
have dropped their fiery torch and the silken cushions call us.
GLASGOW: W. COLLINS SONS AND CO. LTD.
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[Illustration]
=Messrs.
COLLINS’
Latest Novels=
_Messrs. COLLINS will always be glad to send their book lists
regularly to readers who will send name and address._
PIRACY
Michael Arlen
This is the story of Ivor Pelham Marlay between the ages of 18 and 32,
and the period is London, 1910–1922. It is the history of England, two
loves, and an ideal. Mr. Arlen deals with all the types of London
Society, and he likes to bring out the queer and unexpected sides of his
characters. No one who read Mr. Arlen’s first book, _A London Venture_,
or his delightful short stories, _A Romantic Lady_, needs to be told
that he writes wittily and well.
TYLER OF BARNET
Bernard Gilbert
Author of _Old England_
This long, powerful novel shows the dilemma of a middle-aged man with an
invalid wife and grown-up children, who falls passionately in love for
the first time. As he is a man of iron self-control he represses his
passion till it bursts all bounds, with a tragic result. No one now
writing knows so well or describes so vividly life in the English
countryside as does Bernard Gilbert.
THE PIT-PROP SYNDICATE
Freeman Wills Crofts
Another brilliantly ingenious detective story by the author of _The
Ponson Case_. The mystery of the real business of the syndicate utterly
baffled the clever young “amateurs” who tried to solve it, and it took
all the experience and perseverance of the “professionals” to break up
the dangerous and murderous gang.
THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED
F. Scott Fitzgerald
This book has caused an even greater sensation in America than _This
Side of Paradise_. It is a long, searching, and absolutely convincing
study of degeneration, that degeneration which ruins so many of the
rich, young, idle people. The “smart set” of New York is hurled into the
limelight and mercilessly revealed. A witty, pungent, and entirely
original book.
DANDELION DAYS
Henry Williamson
This is the tale of a boy’s last terms at a public school, a very
sensitive, unusual boy, and it is in a sense a sequel to _The Beautiful
Years_. It is the work of a very clever young writer whose nature essays
have attracted the widest attention here and in America, and is utterly
unlike the usual “school story.” It is a subtle and beautifully written
study of character.
BEANSTALK
Mrs. Henry Dudeney
A charmingly told novel of Sussex. The theme is Motherhood, and all the
emotional subtleties of the desire for children.
PENDER AMONG THE RESIDENTS
Forrest Reid
This is an episode in the life of Rex Pender, who inherited and came to
live at Ballycastle. It is the story of the curious spiritual experience
which came to him there. It is in a sense a “ghost story,” but it is
told by an artist and a stylist. “The Residents,” moreover, are
admirably contrasted, and in some cases deliciously humorously drawn. A
charming, enigmatic, “different” book.
THE DEAVES AFFAIR
Hulbert Footner
This is a story of Evan Weir’s wooing, and a very strenuous and original
pursuit it proved. In fact the lady of his choice so far dissembled her
love, as frequently to threaten his further existence. At the time, Evan
was acting as secretary to old Simeon Deaves, famed as the possessor of
the “tightest wad” in New York.
Now certain individuals had designs upon old Simeon and his hoard, and
amongst them was the forcible and beautiful object of Evan’s affections.
Like _The Owl Taxi_, it goes with a splendid snap, and is packed with
exciting and humorous incidents.
ROSEANNE
Madame Albanesi
The author calls this an “old-fashioned story.” It does not concern
itself with sex or any other problems, but is just a lively, well-told
life of a very fascinating heroine who has plenty of adventures
sentimental and otherwise.
Collins’ ‘First Novel’ Library
AUTUMN TITLES
EXPERIENCE
Catherine Cotton
This charming chronicle has no “plot.” It is an attempt to present a
happy, witty, simple-minded woman who attracted love because she gave it
out. This is a very difficult type of book to write. The attention of
the reader must be aroused and held by the sheer merit of the writing,
and the publishers believe they have found in Catherine Cotton a writer
with just the right gifts of wit, sympathy, and understanding.
DOMENICO
H. M. Anderson
This is the story of a Cardinal of Rome, a member of one of the great
noble families. In his youth something had happened which had thrown a
shadow over his life. There are three great crises in his life, one of
them due to this shadow, one to the contrast between his conscience and
his ambition, and the third when, an exile in England, he falls in love.
Miss Anderson shows much skill in drawing the character of this great
and tragic figure.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.