But there was another side to our life up the line, thanks to the regal
hospitality of Battalion Headquarters. Thither we were bidden to all
meals, and there we presented ourselves with feverish punctuality at
least three times a day.
It was only about a minute's walk along the trench, past more dug-outs
lit by cigarette-ends, past a trench store-cupboard quietly labelled
BOMBS, and a sentry in a sand-bagged _cul-de-sac_. The door at which we
knocked was no more imposing than our own, the sanctuary within no
roomier, but like the deck-house of a well-appointed yacht after a
tramp's forecastle. Art-green walls and fixed settees, a narrow table
all spotless napery and sparkling glass, forks and spoons as brilliant
as a wedding-present, all these were there or I have dreamt them. I
would even swear to flowers on the table, if it were a case of swearing
one way or other. But what they gave us to eat, with two exceptions, I
cannot in the least remember; it was immaterial in that atmosphere and
company, though I recall the other man's bated breathings on the point.
My two exceptions were porridge at breakfast and scones at tea; both
were as authentic as the mess-waiter's speech; and it would not have
surprised me if the porridge had been followed by trout from the burn,
so much was that part of the Line just then a part of Scotland.
It was a genial atmosphere in more ways than one. Always on coming in
one's spectacles turned to ground-glass and one's out-door harness to
melting lead. The heat came up an open stairway from the bowels of the
earth, as did the chimney which I painfully mistook for a hand-rail the
first night, when the Colonel was kind enough to take me down below. It
was the first deep dug-out I had seen in working order, and it seemed to
me deliciously safe and snug; the officers' berths in fascinating tiers,
again as on shipboard, all but the Colonel's own, by itself at one end.
It made me very jealous, yet rather proud, when I thought of our
freezing lair upon the sunken road.
Then, before we went, he took me up to an O.P. on top of all. I think we
climbed up to it out of the _cul-de-sac_, and I know I cowered behind a
chunk of parapet; but what I remember best is the zig-zag labyrinth in
the foreground, that unending open grave with upturned earth complete,
yet quiet as any that ever was filled in; and then the wide sweep of
moonlit snow, enemy country nearly all, but at the moment still and
peaceful as an arctic floe. Our own trenches the only solid signs of
war, like the properties in front of a panorama; not a shot or a sound
to give the rest more substance than a painted back-cloth. It was one of
those dead pauses that occur on all but the noisiest nights, and make
the whole war nowhere more unreal than on the battle-field.
But when the very next day was at its quietest we had just the opposite
experience. We were sitting at luncheon in this friendly mess, and the
guns might have been a thousand miles away until they struck up all at
once, like a musical-box in the middle of a tune. Their guns, this time;
but you would not have thought it from the faces round the table. One or
two exchanged glances; a lifted eyebrow was answered by a smile; but the
conversation went on just the same until the officer nearest the door
withdrew detachedly. New subject no longer avoidable, but treated with
becoming levity. Not a bombardment, just a Strafe, we gathered; it might
have been with blank shell, had we not heard them bursting. Exit another
officer; enter man from below. Something like telegram in his hand:
retaliation requested by front line. 'Put it through to Brigade.'
Further retirements from board; less noise for moment. New sound: enemy
'plane over us, seeing what they've done. New row next door: our
machine-guns on enemy 'plane! New note in distance: retaliation to
esteemed order.... Other man and I alone at table, dying to go out and
see fun, but obviously not our place. And then in a minute it is all
over, not quite as quickly as it began, but getting on that way. Strafe
stopped: 'plane buzzing away again: machine-guns giving it up as a bad
job: cheery return of Belisarii, in the order of their going, Colonel
last and cheeriest of all.
'Had my hair parted by a whizz-bang,' says he, 'up in that O.P. we were
in last night.'
And, as he replenished a modest cup, the curtain might have fallen on
the only line I remember in the whole impromptu piece, which could not
have played quicker as a music-hall sketch, or held a packed audience
more entranced than the two civilian supers who had the luck to be on
the stage.
But we had to pay for our entertainment; for although it turned out to
have been an absolutely bloodless Strafe, yet a portion of our parapet
had been blown in, which made it inexpedient for us to go round the
front line that afternoon, as previously arranged by our indulgent
hosts. In the evening they were going into reserve, and another famous
Regiment coming to 'take over.' The new-comers, however, were just as
good to us in their turn; and the new Colonel so kind as to take me
round himself on Christmas morning.