Front was already at a standstill. Tommies in steel helmets and
muddied to the eyes were swarming out onto the tracks. They looked
terrible men with their tanned cheeks and haggard eyes. I felt how
impractical I was as I watched them--how ill-suited for
campaigning. They were making the most of their respite from
travelling. Some were building little fires between the ties to do
their cooking--their utensils were bayonets and old tomato cans;
others were collecting water from the exhaust of an engine and
shaving. I had already tried to purchase food and had failed, so I
copied their example and set about shaving.
Later in the day we passed gangs of Hun prisoners--clumsy looking
fellows, with flaxen hair and blue eyes, who seemed to be thanking God
every minute with smiles that they were out of danger and on our side
of the line. Late in the afternoon the engine jumped the rails; we
were advised to wander off to a rest-camp, the direction of which was
sketchily indicated. We found some Australians with a transport-wagon
and persuaded them to help us with our baggage. It had been pouring
heavily, but the clouds had dispersed and a rainbow spanned the sky. I
took it for a sign.
After trudging about six miles, we arrived at the camp and found that
it was out of food and that all the tents were occupied. We stretched
our sleeping-bags on the ground and went to bed supperless. We had had
no food all day. Next morning we were told that we ought to jump an
ammunition-lorry, if we wanted to get any further on our
journey. Nobody seemed to want us particularly, and no one could give
us the least information as to where our division was. It was another
lesson, if that were needed, of our total unimportance. While we were
waiting on the roadside, an Australian brigade of artillery passed
by. The men's faces were dreary with fatigue; the gunners were
dismounted and marched as in a trance. The harness was muddy, the
steel rusty, the horses lean and discouraged. We understood that they
were pulling out from an offensive in which they had received a bad
cutting up. To my overstrained imagination it seemed that the men had
the vision of death in their eyes.
Presently we spotted a lorry-driver who had, what George Robey would
call, “a kind and generous face.” We took advantage of him, for once
having persuaded him to give us a lift, we froze onto him and made him
cart us about the country all day. We kept him kind and generous, I
regret to say, by buying him wine at far too many estaminets.
Towards evening the thunder of the guns had swelled into an ominous
roar. We passed through villages disfigured by shell-fire. Civilians
became more rare and more aged. Cattle disappeared utterly from the
landscape; fields were furrowed with abandoned trenches, in front of
which hung entanglements of wire. Mounted orderlies splashed along
sullen roads at an impatient trot. Here and there we came across
improvised bivouacs of infantry. Far away against the horizon towards
which we travelled, Hun flares and rockets were going up. Hopeless
stoicism, unutterable desolation--that was my first impression.
The landscape was getting increasingly muddy--it became a sea of
mud. Despatch-riders on motor-bikes travelled warily, with their feet
dragging to save themselves from falling. Everything was splashed
with filth and corruption; one marvelled at the cleanness of the
sky. Trees were blasted, and seemed to be sinking out of sight in this
war-created Slough of Despond. We came to the brow of a hill; in the
valley was something that I recognised. The last time I had seen it
was in an etching in a shop window in Newark, New Jersey. It was a
town, from the midst of whose battered ruins a splintered tower soared
against the sky. Leaning far out from the tower, so that it seemed she
must drop, was a statue of the Virgin with the Christ in her arms. It
was a superstition with the French, I remembered, that so long as she
did not fall, things would go well with the Allies. As we watched, a
shell screamed over the gaping roofs and a column of smoke went up.
Gehenna, being blessed by the infant Jesus--that was what I saw.
As we entered the streets, Tommies more polluted than miners crept out
from the skeletons of houses. They leant listlessly against sagging
doorways to watch us pass. If we asked for information as to where our
division was, they shook their heads stupidly, too indifferent with
weariness to reply. We found the Town Mayor; all that he could tell us
was that our division wasn't here yet, but was expected any
day--probably it was still on the line of march. Our lorry-driver was
growing impatient. We wrote him out a note which would explain his
wanderings, got him to deposit us near a Y. M. C. A. tent, and bade
him an uncordial “Good-bye.” For the next three nights we slept by our
wits and got our food by foraging.
There was a Headquarters near by whose battalion was in the line. I
struck up a liaison with its officers, and at times went into the
crowded tent, which was their mess, to get warm. Runners would come
there at all hours of the day and night, bringing messages from the
Front. They were usually well spent. Sometimes they had been gassed;
but they all had the invincible determination to carry on. After they
had delivered their message, they would lie down in the mud and go to
sleep like dogs. The moment the reply was ready, they would lurch to
their feet, throwing off their weariness, as though it were a thing to
be conquered and despised. I appreciated now, as never before, the
lesson of “guts” that I had been taught at Kingston.
There was one officer at Battalion Headquarters who, whenever I
entered, was always writing, writing, writing. What he was writing I
never enquired--perhaps letters to his sweetheart or wife. It didn't
matter how long I stayed, he never seemed to have the time to look
up. He was a Highlander--a big man with a look of fate in his
eyes. His hair was black; his face stern, and set, and extremely
white. I remember once seeing him long after midnight through the
raised flap of the tent. All his brother officers were asleep, huddled
like sacks impersonally on the floor. At the table in the centre he
sat, his head bowed in his hands, the light from the lamp spilling
over his neck and forehead. He may have been praying. He recalled to
my mind the famous picture of The Last Sleep of Argyle. From that
moment I had the premonition that he would not live long. A month
later I learnt that he had been killed on his next trip into the
trenches.
After three days of waiting my division arrived and I was attached to
a battery. I had scarcely had time to make the acquaintance of my new
companions, when we pulled into my first attack.
We hooked in at dawn and set out through a dense white mist. The mist
was wet and miserable, but excellent for our purpose; it prevented us
from being spotted by enemy balloons and aeroplanes. We made all the
haste that was possible; but in places the roads were blocked by other
batteries moving into new positions. We passed through the town above
which the Virgin floated with the infant Jesus in her arms. One
wondered whether she was really holding him out to bless; her attitude
might equally have been that of one who was flinging him down into the
shambles, disgusted with this travesty on religion.
The other side of the town the ravages of war were far more
marked. All the way along the roadside were clumps of little crosses,
French, English, German, planted above the hurried graves of the brave
fellows who had fallen. Ambulances were picking their way warily,
returning with the last night's toll of wounded. We saw newly dead
men and horses, pulled to one side, who had been caught in the
darkness by the enemy's harassing fire. In places the country had
holes the size of quarries, where mines had exploded and shells from
large calibre guns had detonated. Bedlam was raging up front; shells
went screaming over us, seeking out victims in the back-country. To
have been there by oneself would have been most disturbing, but the
men about me seemed to regard it as perfectly ordinary and normal. I
steadied myself by their example.
We came to a point where our Major was waiting for us, turned out of
the road, followed him down a grass slope and so into a valley. Here
gun-pits were in the process of construction. Guns were unhooked and
man-handled into their positions, and the teams sent back to the
wagon-lines. All day we worked, both officers and men, with pick and
shovel. Towards evening we had completed the gun-platforms and made a
beginning on the overhead cover. We had had no time to prepare
sleeping-quarters, so spread our sleeping-bags and blankets in the
caved-in trenches. About seven o'clock, as we were resting, the
evening “hate” commenced. In those days the evening “hate” was a
regular habit with the Hun. He knew our country better than we did,
for he had retired from it. Every evening he used to search out all
communication trenches and likely battery-positions with any quantity
of shells. His idea was to rob us of our _morale_. I wish he might
have seen how abysmally he failed to do it. Down our narrow valley,
like a flight of arrows, the shells screamed and whistled. Where they
struck, the ground looked like Resurrection Day with the dead elbowing
their way into daylight and forcing back the earth from their eyes.
There were actually many dead just beneath the surface and, as the
ground was ploughed up, the smell of corruption became distinctly
unpleasant. Presently the shells began to go dud; we realised that
they were gas-shells. A thin, bluish vapour spread throughout the
valley and breathing became oppressive. Then like stallions, kicking
in their stalls, the heavy guns on the ridge above us opened. It was
fine to hear them stamping their defiance; it made one want to get to
grips with his aggressors. In the brief silences one could hear our
chaps laughing. The danger seemed to fill them with a wild excitement.
Every time a shell came near and missed them, they would taunt the
unseen Huns for their poor gunnery, giving what they considered the
necessary corrections: “Five minutes more left, old Cock. If you'd
only drop fifty, you'd get us.” These men didn't know what fear
was--or, if they did, they kept it to themselves. And these were the
chaps whom I was to order.
A few days later my Major told me that I was to be ready at 3:30 next
morning to accompany him up front to register the guns. In registering
guns you take a telephonist and linesmen with you. They lay in a line
from the battery to any point you may select as the best from which to
observe the enemy's country. This point may be two miles or more in
advance of your battery. Your battery is always hidden and out of
sight, for fear the enemy should see the flash of the firing;
consequently the officer in charge of the battery lays the guns
mathematically, but cannot observe the effect of his shots. The
officer who goes forward can see the target; by telephoning back his
corrections, he makes himself the eyes of the officer at the guns.
It had been raining when we crept out of our kennels to go forward. It
seems unnecessary to state that it had been raining, for it always has
been raining at the Front. I don't remember what degree of mud we had
attained. We have a variety of adjectives, and none of them polite, to
describe each stage. The worst of all is what we call “God-Awful Mud.”
I don't think it was as bad as that, but it was bad enough.
Everything was dim, and clammy, and spectral. At the hour of dawn one
isn't at his bravest. It was like walking at the bottom of the sea,
only things that were thrown at you travelled faster. We struck a
sloppy road, along which ghostly figures passed, with ground sheets
flung across their head and shoulders, like hooded monks. At a point
where scarlet bundles were being lifted into ambulances, we branched
overland. Here and there from all directions, infantry were
converging, picking their way in single file to reduce their
casualties if a shell burst near them. The landscape, the people, the
early morning--everything was stealthy and walked with muted steps.
We entered a trench. Holes were scooped out in the side of it just
large enough to shelter a man crouching. Each hole contained a
sleeping soldier who looked as dead as the occupant of a catacomb.
Some of the holes had been blown in; all you saw of the late occupant
was a protruding arm or leg. At best there was a horrid similarity
between the dead and the living. It seemed that the walls of the
trenches had been built out of corpses, for one recognised the
uniforms of French men and Huns. They _were_ built out of them, though
whether by design or accident it was impossible to tell. We came to a
group of men, doing some repairing; that part of the trench had
evidently been strafed last night. They didn't know where they were,
or how far it was to the front-line. We wandered on, still laying in
our wire. The Colonel of our Brigade joined us and we waded on
together.
The enemy shelling was growing more intense, as was always the way on
the Somme when we were bringing out our wounded. A good many of our
trenches were directly enfilade; shells burst just behind the parapet,
when they didn't burst on it. It was at about this point in my
breaking-in that I received a blow on the head--and thanked God for
the man who invented the steel helmet.
Things were getting distinctly curious. We hadn't passed any infantry
for some time. The trenches were becoming each minute more shallow and
neglected. Suddenly we found ourselves in a narrow furrow which was
packed with our own dead. They had been there for some time and were
partly buried. They were sitting up or lying forward in every attitude
of agony. Some of them clasped their wounds; some of them pointed
with their hands. Their faces had changed to every colour and glared
at us like swollen bruises. Their helmets were off; with a pitiful,
derisive neatness the rain had parted their hair.
We had to crouch low because the trench was so shallow. It was
difficult not to disturb them; the long skirts of our trench-coats
brushed against their faces.
All of a sudden we halted, making ourselves as small as could be. In
the rapidly thinning mist ahead of us, men were moving. They were
stretcher-bearers. The odd thing was that they were carrying their
wounded away from, instead of towards us. Then it flashed on us that
they were Huns. We had wandered into No Man's Land. Almost at that
moment we must have been spotted, for shells commenced falling at the
end of the trench by which we had entered. Spreading out, so as not
to attract attention, we commenced to crawl towards the other
end. Instantly that also was closed to us and a curtain of shells
started dropping behind us. We were trapped. With perfect coolness--a
coolness which, whatever I looked, I did not share--we went down on
our hands and knees, wriggling our way through the corpses and
shell-holes in the direction of where our front-line ought to
be. After what seemed an age, we got back. Later we registered the
guns, and one of our officers who had been laying in wire, was killed
in the process. His death, like everything else, was regarded without
emotion as being quite ordinary.
On the way out, when we had come to a part of our journey where the
tension was relaxed and we could be less cautious, I saw a signalling
officer lying asleep under a blackened tree. I called my Major's
attention to him, saying, “Look at that silly ass, sir. He'll get
something that he doesn't want if he lies there much longer.”
My Major turned his head, and said briefly, “Poor chap, he's got it.”
Then I saw that his shoulder-blade had burst through his tunic and was
protruding. He'd been coming out, walking freely and feeling that the
danger was over, just as we were, when the unlucky shell had caught
him. “His name must have been written on it,” our men say when that
happens. I noticed that he had black boots; since then nothing would
persuade me to wear black boots in the trenches.
This first experience in No Man's Land did away with my last flabby
fear--that, if I was afraid, I would show it. One is often afraid.
Any soldier who asserts the contrary may not be a liar, but he
certainly does not speak the truth. Physical fear is too deeply
rooted to be overcome by any amount of training; it remains, then, to
train a man in spiritual pride, so that when he fears, nobody knows
it. Cowardice is contagious. It has been said that no battalion is
braver than its least brave member. Military courage is, therefore, a
form of unselfishness; it is practised that it may save weaker men's
lives and uphold their honour. The worst thing you can say of a man at
the Front is, “He doesn't play the game.” That doesn't of necessity
mean that he fails to do his duty; what it means is that he fails to
do a little bit more than his duty.
When a man plays the game, he does things which it requires a braver
man than himself to accomplish; he never knows when he's done; he
acknowledges no limit to his cheerfulness and strength; whatever his
rank, he holds his life less valuable than that of the humblest; he
laughs at danger not because he does not dread it, but because he has
learnt that there are ailments more terrible and less curable than
death.
The men in the ranks taught me whatever I know about playing the
game. I learnt from their example. In acknowledging this, I own up to
the new equality, based on heroic values, which this war has
established. The only man who counts “out there” is the man who is
sufficiently self-effacing to show courage. The chaps who haven't done
it are the exceptions.
At the start of the war there were a good many persons whom we were
apt to think of as common and unclean. But social distinctions are a
wash-out in the trenches. We have seen St. Peter's vision, and have
heard the voice, “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.”
Until I became a part of the war, I was a doubter of nobility in
others and a sceptic as regards myself. The growth of my personal
vision was complete when I recognised that the capacity of heroism is
latent in everybody, and only awaits the bigness of the opportunity to
call it out.
THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES
We were too proud to live for years
When our poor death could dry the tears
Of little children yet unborn.
It scarcely mattered that at morn,
When manhood's hope was at its height,
We stopped a bullet in mid-flight.
It did not trouble us to lie
Forgotten 'neath the forgetting sky.
So long Sleep was our only cure
That when Death piped of rest made sure,
We cast our fleshly crutches down,
Laughing like boys in Hamelin Town.
And this we did while loving life,
Yet loving more than home or wife
The kindness of a world set free
For countless children yet to be.
III
GOD AS WE SEE HIM
For some time before I was wounded, we had been in very hot places. We
could scarcely expect them to be otherwise, for we had put on show
after show. A “show” in our language, I should explain, has nothing in
common with a theatrical performance, though it does not lack
drama. We make the term apply to any method of irritating the Hun,
from a trench-raid to a big offensive. The Hun was decidedly annoyed.
He had very good reason. We were occupying the dug-outs which he had
spent two years in building with French civilian labour. His U-boat
threats had failed. He had offered us the olive-branch, and his peace
terms had been rejected with a peal of guns all along the Western
Front. He had shown his disapproval of us by paying particular
attention to our batteries; as a consequence our shell-dressings were
all used up, having gone out with the gentlemen on stretchers who were
contemplating a vacation in Blighty. We couldn't get enough to
re-place them. There was a hitch somewhere. The demand for
shell-dressings exceeded the supply. So I got on my horse one Sunday
and, with my groom accompanying me, rode into the back-country to see
if I couldn't pick some up at various Field Dressing Stations and
Collecting Points.
In the course of my wanderings I came to a cathedral city. It was a
city which was and still is beautiful, despite the constant
bombardments. The Huns had just finished hurling a few more tons of
explosives into it as I and my groom entered. The streets were
deserted; it might have been a city of the dead. There was no sound,
except the ringing iron of our horses' shoes on the cobble pavement.
Here and there we came to what looked like a barricade which barred
our progress; actually it was the piled-up walls and rubbish of
buildings which had collapsed. From cellars, now and then, faces of
women, children and ancient men peered out--they were sharp and
pointed like rats. One's imagination went back five hundred
years--everything seemed mediaeval, short-lived and brutal. This might
have been Limoges after the Black Prince had finished massacring its
citizens; or it might have been Paris, when the wolves came down and
François Villon tried to find a lodging for the night.
I turned up through narrow alleys where grass was growing and found
myself, almost by accident, in a garden. It was a green and spacious
garden, with fifteen-foot walls about it and flowers which scattered
themselves broadcast in neglected riot. We dismounted and tied our
horses. Wandering along its paths, we came across little
summer-houses, statues, fountains and then, without any hindrance,
found ourselves in the nave of a fine cathedral which was roofed only
by the sky. Two years of the Huns had made it as much a ruin as
Tintern Abbey. Here, too, the flowers had intruded. They grew between
graves in the pavement and scrambled up the walls, wherever they could
find a foothold. At the far end of this stretch of destruction stood
the high altar, totally untouched by the hurricane of shell-fire. The
saints were perched in their niches, composed and stately. The Christ
looked down from His cross, as he had done for centuries, sweeping the
length of splendid architecture with sad eyes. It seemed a miracle
that the altar had been spared, when everything else had fallen. A
reason is given for its escape. Every Sabbath since the start of the
war, no matter how severe the bombardment, service has been held
there. The thin-faced women, rat-faced children and ancient men have
crept out from their cellars and gathered about the priest; the lamp
has been lit, the Host uplifted. The Hun is aware of this; with malice
aforethought he lands shells into the cathedral every Sunday in an
effort to smash the altar. So far he has failed. One finds in this a
symbol--that in the heart of the maelstrom of horror, which this war
has created, there is a quiet place where the lamp of gentleness and
honour is kept burning. The Hun will have to do a lot more shelling
before he puts the lamp of kindness out. From the polluted trenches of
Vimy the poppies spring up, blazoning abroad in vivid scarlet the
heroism of our lads' willing sacrifice. All this April, high above
the shouting of our guns, the larks sang joyously. The scarlet of the
poppies, the song of the larks, the lamp shining on the altar are only
external signs of the unconquerable, happy religion which lies hidden
in the hearts of our men. Their religion is the religion of heroism,
which they have learnt in the glory of the trenches.
There was a line from William Morris's _Earthly Paradise_ which used
to haunt me, especially in the early days when I was first
experiencing what war really meant. Since returning for a brief space
to where books are accessible, I have looked up the quotation. It
reads as follows:--
“Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing,
I cannot ease the burden of your fears
Or make quick-coming death a little thing.”