R.N.V.R. Leslie Henson is now a mechanic in the motor-transport by day and a
Gaiety star in the evenings. He says that it costs him much money to cure the
ache which the Army gives to his back—but he continues to do his “bit” by day
and to amuse Tommies home on leave in the evenings.
Next day, Saturday, I went down to Bath to meet Raemaekers, the Dutch
cartoonist. Mr. Lane was our host. Raemaekers is a great man. On the journey I
tried to picture him. I saw him as a pale-faced man, with lank black hair and
a touch of the Jew about him. I rather expected to find him worn and slightly
more than middle-aged, with nervous hands and hollow eyes. I reminded myself
that of the world’s artists, he was the only one who had risen to the
sheerness of the occasion. He expresses the conscience of the aloof
cosmopolitan as regards Germany’s war-methods. England, incurably
good-humoured, has only Bairnsfather’s comic portrayals of Old Bill to place
beside this indignant Dutchman’s moral hatred of Hun cruelty. From the station
I went to the Bath Club; there I met not at all what I had imagined. He looks
like a Frans Hals burgher, comfortable, with a high complexion, a small
pointed beard, chestnut hair, and searching grey eyes. His charity of
appearance belies him, for his eyes and mouth have a terrific purpose. His
hands are the hands of a fighting man which crush. You would pass him in the
street as unremarkable unless he looked at you—his eyes are daggers which stop
you dead.
There were four of us at lunch—he sat at my right and we talked like a river
in flood. He’s just back from America, thrilled by the Americans’
unimpassioned, lawful thoroughness. He had found something akin to his own
temperament in the nation’s genius—the same capacity to brush aside
facetiousness in a crisis, and to attain a Hebrew prophet’s faculty for
hatred. One doesn’t want to laugh when women lie dead in the ash-pits of
Belgium. I have been with him many hours and have scarcely seen him smile, and
yet his face is kindly. As you know, the Kaiser had set a price upon his head.
His death would mean more to the Hun than the destruction of many British
Divisions. He has pilloried the Kaiser’s beastliness for all time. When future
ages want to know what the Kaiser said to Christ, they will find it all in the
thousand Raemaekers’ sketches. Traps have been laid for his capture from time
to time. Submarines have been dispatched with orders to take him alive. He
knows what awaits him if such plans should meet with success—a lingering,
tortured death; consequently he travels armed, and has promised his wife to
blow his brains out the moment he is captured. We talked of many things—of the
Hague and H. among other things. He knew the P.’., and drew a sketch of Mr. P.
on the tablecloth with his pencil. I tried to purchase the tablecloth that I
might send it to America, but the club secretary was before me.
In the afternoon I went to the railway-station and spoke with a porter who was
pushing a barrow—Henry Chappell, who wrote “The Day”—the first war-poet of
1914. As luck would have it, it was Saturday, the day upon which John Lane had
brought out his volume of poems; it was rather pathetic to find him carrying
on with his humble task on the proudest afternoon of his life. I told him how
I had seen his poem pasted up in prominent places all the way from the
Atlantic to the Pacific. He smiled in a patient fashion, and said that he had
heard about it. I understand that he made one hundred pounds out of this poem
and gave it all to the Red Cross. A gentleman, if you want to find one! I
asked him if he didn’t look forward to promotion now. He shook his head
gravely—he liked portering. At parting I shook his hand, but, when I had
dropped it, he touched his cap—and touched my heart in the doing of it.
On Sunday I was back in town. Eric turned up this morning, looking gallant and
smiling, with an exceedingly glad eye. He’s just the same as he always was,
discontented with his job because he thinks it’s too safe and trying to find
one more dangerous. We’re going to have a great time together, unless I get my
marching orders from the Foreign Office.
I lunched with Raemaekers at Claridge’s today and have just come back. He’s an
elemental moralist, encased in a burgher’s exterior. He affects me with a
sense of restrained power. One is surprised to see him eating like other men.
How I wish that I could detest as he detests! And yet he has heart in plenty.
He told me a story of a French battalion going out to die. The last soldier
stepped out of the ranks towards his colonel, who was weeping for his men who
would not come back. Flinging his arms about his commanding officer, he kissed
him and said, “Do not fear, my Colonel; we shall not disgrace you.” He has an
eye for magnanimity, that man.
XXIII
London
December 31, 1917
This foggy London morning early your three letters from 5th to 18th December
arrived. I jumped out of bed, lit the gas, retreated under the blankets, and
devoured them, leaning on my elbow.
This is the last day of the old year—a quaint old year it has been for all of
us. I commenced it quite reconciled to the thought that it would be my last;
and here I am, while poor Charlie S. and so many other fellows whom I loved
are dead. It only shows how very foolish it is to anticipate trouble, for the
last twelve months have been the very best and richest of my life. If I were
to die now, I should feel that I had at least done something with my handful
of years.
I’d like to have another glimpse of America now that in the face of reverses
she has grown sterner. It’s certain at last that there’ll be a lot of American
boys who won’t come back. They’re going to be real soldiers, going to go over
the top and to endure all the fierce heroisms of an attack. It’s cruel to say
so, but it’s better for America’s soul that she should have her taste of
battle after all the shouting.
On Saturday F. R. came to see us. He’s home on leave. He and P. and I sitting
down together after all the years that have intervened since we were at Oxford
together! As F. expressed it, blinking through his spectacles, “Doesn’t it
seem silly that I should be dressed up like this and that you should be
dressed like that?” He went out in January as a second lieutenant, and
returned commanding his battalion. God moves in a mysterious way, doesn’t He?
One can’t help wondering why some should “go west” at once and others should
be spared. Bob H., who was also with us at Oxford, as you will remember,
lasted exactly six days. The first day in the trenches he was wounded, but not
sufficiently to go out. The sixth day he was killed.
Did I tell you that there’s a nerve hospital near here crowded with
nerve-shattered babies on one floor and nerve-shattered Tommies on the next?
The babies are all dressed in red and the Tommies in the usual hospital blue.
Each day the shell-shocked chaps go up to visit the children; the moment the
door opens and the blue figures appear, the little red crowd stretch out their
arms and cry, “My soldier! My soldier!” for each Tommy has his own particular
pet. When a child gets a nervous attack, it is often only the one particular
soldier who can do the soothing. Who’d think that men fresh from the carnage
could be so tender! And people say that war makes men brutal. Humph!
XXIV
A French Port
January 3, 1918
Here I am again in France and extraordinarily glad to be here. I feel that I’m
again a part of the game—I couldn’t feel that while I was in London. I landed
here this morning and arrive in Paris to-night. The crossing was one of the
quietest. I know a lot of people didn’t lie down at all, and still others
slept with their clothes on. Like a sensible fellow I crept into my berth at 9
p.m., and slept like a top till morning. If we’d been submarined I shouldn’t
have known it.
I feel tremendously elated by the thought of this new adventure, and intend to
make the most of it. As you know, nothing would have persuaded me to delay my
return to the Front except an opportunity for doing work of these dimensions.
I really do believe that I have the chance of a lifetime to do work of
international importance. I want to make the Americans feel that they have
become our kinsmen through the magnitude of their endeavour. And I want to
make the British shake off their reticence in applauding the magnanimity of
America’s enthusiasm.
It’s been snowing here; but I don’t feel cold because of the warmth inside me.
The place where I am now is one of the pleasure-haunts which Eric and I
visited together in that golden summer of long ago. Little did I think that I
should be here next time in such belligerent attire and on such an errand.
Life’s a queer kaleidoscope. But, oh, for such another summer, with the long
secure peace of July days, and the whole green world to wander! One doubts
whether El Dorado will ever come again.
I see the girl-soldiers of England everywhere nowadays. A reinforcing draft
crossed over with me on the steamer—high complexions and laughing faces, trim
uniforms and tiny ankles. They’re brave! It’s a pity we can’t give them a
chance of just one crack at the Huns. But they have to stop behind the lines
and drive lorries, and be good girls, and beat typewriters. Their little
girl-officers are mighty dignified. What a gallant world! I wouldn’t have it
otherwise.
For me the New Year is starting well. I face it in higher spirits than any of
its predecessors. And well I may, for I didn’t expect to be alive to greet
1918. I hope you are all just as much on the crest of the wave in your hopes
and anticipations. Nothing can be worse than some of the experiences that lie
behind—and that’s some comfort. Nothing can be more chivalrous than the
opportunities which lie before us.
So here’s good-bye to you from France once again.
XXV
Paris January 8, 1918
Here I am in Paris, starting on my new adventure of writing the story of what
the Americans are doing in the war. I left England on 2nd January, which was a
Wednesday, and arrived here Thursday evening. As you know, while I was in the
Front line I had very little idea of what France at war was like. One crossed
from England, clambered on a military train with all the windows smashed, had
a cold night journey, and found himself at once among the shell-holes. I was
very keen on seeing what Paris was like; now that I’ve seen it, it’s very
difficult to describe. It’s very much the same as it always was—only while its
atmosphere was once champagne, now it is a strong, still wine. As in England,
only to a greater extent, women are doing the work of men. The streets are
full of the wounded—not the wounded with well-fitted artificial limbs that you
see in London, but with ordinary wooden stumps, etc. Our English wounded are
always gay and laughing—determined to treat the war as a humorous episode to
the end. The French wounded are grave, afflicted, and ordinary. I think the
Frenchman, with an emotional honesty of which we are incapable, has from the
first viewed the war as a colossal Calvary, and has seen it against the
historic skyline of a travailing world. Never by speech or gesture has he
disguised the fact that he, as an individual, is engaged in a fore-ordained
and unparalleled adventure of sacrifice. The Englishman, self-conscious of his
own heroic gallantry, cloaks his fineness with pretended indifference and has
succeeded in deceiving the world. Our sportsmanship in the face of death
impresses more complex nations as irreligion. So while London is outwardly
gayer than ever, Paris has a stiff upper lip, a look of sternness in its eyes,
and very little laughter on its mouth. By nine-thirty in the evening every
restaurant is closed, and the streets are empty till the soldiers on leave
troop out from the theatres.
As for the food, I have seen no shortage in France as yet. You can get plenty
of butter and sugar, whereas in London margarine is rare and sugar is doled
out. The talk of France being ex hausted is all rubbish; you can feel the
muscles of a great nation struggling the moment you land.
I have had a most kindly and helpful reception from the American Press
Division. They have realized with the usual American quickness of mind the
importance of what I propose to do. One of their officers starts out with me
to-night on my first tour of military activities. It will take about five
days. I then return to Paris to write up what I have seen, and afterwards set
out again in a new direction. If I take the proper advantage of my
opportunities, I ought to get an amazingly interesting lot of material.
Saturday I was lucky enough to secure a car, and went the round of my
introductions, to the British Embassy and your friends from Newark.
I’ve been to two theatres. The audiences were composed for the most part of
soldiers on leave—American, British, Canadian, Australian, Belgian, French,
with the merest sprinkling of civilians. Sunday I walked through the
Luxembourg, most of the galleries of which are closed. Afterwards I walked in
the Gardens and watched the Parisians sliding on the ice. For the moment they
forgot they were at war, and became children. There were little boys and
girls, soldiers with their sweethearts, fat old men and women, all running and
pushing and sliding and falling and chattering. I thought of Trilby with her
grave, kind eyes. Then I walked down the Boule Miche to Notre Dame, where
women were praying for their dead.
To-day Paris is under snow, and again the child spirit has asserted itself.
Soldiers and sailors are pelting one another with snowballs in the streets,
and Jupiter continues to pluck his geese and send their feathers drifting down
the sky.
This time last year I was marching into action with temperature of 104
degrees, and you were reaching London, wondering whether I was truly coming on
leave. A queer year it has been; in spite of all our anticipations to the
contrary, we’re still alive. I wish we were to meet again this year, and we
may. We know so little. As Whitcomb Riley says in complete acceptance of human
fortuitousness, “No child knows when it goes to sleep.”
XXVI
Paris
January 13, 1918
About an hour ago I got into Paris from my first trip. I’ve been where M. and
I spent our splendid summer so many years ago, only now the river is spanned
with ice and the country is a grey-sage colour. From what I can see the
Americans are preparing as if for a war that is going to last for thirty
years. America is in the war literally to her last man and her last dollar;
when her hour comes to strike, she will be like a second England in the fight.
I made my tour with an officer who was with Hoover three years in Belgium, and
who before that was a student in Paris. As a consequence, he speaks French
like a native. Every detail of my trip was arranged ahead by telephone and
telegram; automobiles were waiting. There is no pretence about the American
Army. My rank as lieutenant is, of course, quite inadequate to the task I have
undertaken. But the American high officer carries no side or swank. Having
produced my credentials, I am seated at the mess beside generals and allowed
to ask any questions, however searching. Everyone I have met as yet is hats
off to the English and the French—they go out of their way to make comparisons
which are in their own disfavour and unjust to themselves. I have been making
a particular study of their transport facilities and their artillery training.
Both are being carried out on a magnificently thorough scale. I undertake to
assert that they will have as fine artillery as can be found on the Western
Front by the time they are ready. I certainly never saw such painstaking and
methodical training.
As you know, the phase of the war that I am particularly interested in is the
closeness of international relations that will result when the war is ended.
The tightening of bonds between the French, Americans and English can be daily
witnessed and felt. The Americans are loud in their praise of their French and
British instructors—the instructors are equally proud of their pupils. On the
street, in hotels and trains, the three races hobnob together.
I came back to-day with a French artillery and cavalry officer—splendid
fellows. We had fought together on the Somme, we discovered, and had occupied
the same Front, though at separate times, at Vimy. The artilleryman was a
young French noble, and, as only noblemen can these days, had a car waiting
for him at the station He insisted on taking me to my hotel, and we parted the
most excellent friends.
I have two days in which to write up my experiences, and on Tuesday I shall
set out on a tour in a new direction. So much I am able to tell you; the rest
will be in my book when it is published.
This time last year we were together in London—how long ago it seems and
sounds! Years are longer and of more value than they once were. This year I’m
here. Next year where? This time next year the war will not be ended, I’m
certain, nor even the year after that, perhaps. The more we feel our strength,
the more we are called upon to suffer, the sterner will become our terms.
It’s nearly eleven, my dear ones, and time that I was asleep. I have Henri
Bordeaux’s story of The Last Days of Fort Vaux beside me—it’s most heroic
reading. What shall we do when the gates of heroism grow narrow and peace has
been declared? Something spiritual will have gone out of life when the
challenge of the horrible is ended.
XXVII
Paris
January 19, 1918
I’m expecting to go to American Headquarters on Tuesday and to see something
of work immediately behind the lines. I find what I am doing exceptionally
interesting, and hope to do a good book on it.
Wherever one goes the best men one meets are Hoover’s disciples from Belgium.
They tell extraordinary stories of the heroism of the patriots whom they knew
there—people by the score who duplicated Miss Cavell’s courage and paid the
penalty. Their experience of Hun brutality has somehow dulled their sense of
horror—they speak of it as something quite commonplace and to be expected.
On Friday I saw Miss Holt’s work for the blind. She bears out for France all
that I have said about the amazing sharing of the wounded in England. One man
in her care was not only totally blind, but he had also lost both arms. In the
hospital there were men less grievously mutilated than himself, who hardly
knew how to endure their loss. For the sake of the cheeriness of his example,
he used to go round the ward with gifts of cigarettes, which he almost thought
he lit for the men himself, for he used to say to Miss Holt before undertaking
such a journey, “You are my hands.”
We, in England, and still less in America, have never approached the loathing
which is felt for the Boche in France. Men spit as they utter his name, as
though the very word was foul in the mouth. Wherever you go lonely men or
women are pointed out to you; all of his or her family are behind the German
lines. We think we have suffered, but we have not sounded one fathom of this
depth of agony. On every hand I hear that the French Army is stronger than
ever, better equipped and more firm in its moral. As an impassioned Frenchman
said to me yesterday, his eyes blazing as he banged the table, “They shall not
pass. I say so—and I am France.”
In the face of all this I do not wonder that the French misunderstand the easy
good-humour with which we English go out to die. In their eyes and with the
throbbing of their wounds, this war is a matter for neither good-humour nor
sportsmanship, but only for the indignant, inarticulate wrath of a Hebrew god.
If every weapon was taken from their hands and all the young men were gone,
with clenched fists those who were left would smite and smite to the last. It
is fitting that they should feel this way, but I’m glad that our English boys
can still laugh while they die.
And now I’m going out on the Boulevards to get lunch.
XXVIII
Paris
January 30, 1918
Yesterday on my return to Paris I found all your letters awaiting me—a real
big pile which took me over an hour to read. The latest was written on New
Year’s Day in the throes of coal shortage and intense cold. Really it seems
absurd that you should be starved for warmth in America. Last week I was
within eighteen kilometres of the Front line staying in a hotel as luxurious
as the Astor, with plenty of heat and a hot bath at midnight in a private
bathroom. All the appointments and comforts were perfect; booming through the
night came the perpetual muttering of the guns. There were troops of all kinds
marching up for an attack; the villages were packed, but there was no
disorganization.
Well, I’ve had a great trip this last time. I went to see refugee work—and saw
it. There were barracks full of babies—the youngest only six days’ old. There
were very many children who have been re-captured from the Huns.
To-morrow I start off for the borders of Switzerland to see the repatriated
French civilians arrive. Then I go with the head of the Red Cross for a tour
to see the reconstruction work in the devastated districts. When that is
finished, I return to London to put my book together. I hope to get back to my
battery about the end of March.
What a time I have had. A year ago it would have seemed impossible. I’ve
motored, gone by speeders and trains to all kinds of quiet and ancient places
which it would never have entered my head to visit in peace times. The
American soldier is everywhere, striking a strange note of modernity and
contrast. He sits on fences through the country-side, swinging his legs and
smoking Bull Durham, when he isn’t charging a swinging sack with a bayonet. He
is the particular pal of all the French children.
I’m now due for a day of interviews and shall have to ring off. I rose at
seven this morning so as to write this letter. At the moment I’m sitting in a
deep arm-chair, with an electric lamp at my elbow. It’s an awful war! In less
than two months I’ll be sitting in clothes that I haven’t taken off for a
fortnight—the mud will be my couch and the flash of the guns my reading lamp.
It’s funny, but up there in the discomfort I shall be ten times more happy.
XXIX
Paris
February 13, 1918
I’ve not heard from you for two weeks—which is no fault of yours. There was a
delay in getting passports—so I’m only just back from the devastated districts
and get on board the train for London to-night. It’s exactly six weeks today
since I left England on this adventure.
I’ve done a good many things since last I wrote you. Did I tell you that among
others I visited Miss Holt’s work for the blind? I can think of nothing which
does more to call out one’s sympathy than to sit among those sightless eyes. I
have talked about courage, but these men leave me appalled and silent. They
are covered with decorations—the Legion d’.onneur, etc. They all have their
stories. One, after he had been wounded and while there was still a chance of
saving his sight, insisted on being taken to his General that he might give
information about a German mine. When his mission was completed his chance of
ever seeing again was ended.
On the way back I saw Joffre walking. I now know why they call him Papa
Joffre. He is huge, ungainly, and white and kind. Somehow he made me think of
a puppy—he had such an air of surprise. There was a premature touch of spring
in the tree-tops. The grand old man of France was aware of it—he looked as
though it were his first spring, so young in an ancient sort of way. He was
stopping all the time to watch the sparrows flying and the shrubs growing
misty with greenness. For all his braid and decorations he looked like an
amiable boy of splendid size.