if I can get anything to ride."
"You can have the Company's pack horse. I'll order both beasts for two
o'clock."
Now the Captain's horse stands far more hands than any really
respectable horse should, and the Captain is well over six feet in his
socks; I, on the other hand, am nearer five feet than six, and the pack
pony is none too big for me. Again, the Captain is thin and I am fat, so
that even the sentry could scarcely repress his smile as we set forth on
our quest--a modern Don Quixote, and a Sancho Panza with a hole in the
back of his tunic.
But we had little time to think of our personal appearances, for our way
lay over the Mont Noir, and there are few places from which you can get
a more wonderful view, for you can follow the firing line right away
towards the sea, and your field glasses will show you the smoke rising
from the steamers off Dunkirk. We paused a moment, and gazed over the
level miles where Poperinghe and Dixmude and the distant Furnes lay
sleepy and peaceful, but, even as we looked, a "heavy" burst in Ypres,
and a long column of smoke rose languidly from the centre of the town.
"We shan't do much more shopping in that old spot," said the Captain as
he turned his horse off the road, and set forth across country to
Bailleul.
The Captain has hunted with nearly every pack of hounds in England,
while I have hunted with none, so that I was hot and thirsty and
uncommonly sore when we clattered into the town. Leaving the Captain to
see the horses stabled at the Hotel du Faucon, I slipped off to get a
drink.
"Here," said the Captain when he tracked me down, "don't try that game
on again or you'll have to take the early parade to-morrow. Besides,
you're supposed to be Company Interpreter, and you've no right to leave
me to the mercy of two savage grooms like that. I advise you to take
care, young man."
My qualifications for the post of Company Interpreter lie in the fact
that I once, in company of various other youths of my age, spent a
fortnight in and around the Casino at Trouville. Peters of our company
knows a long list of nouns taking "x" instead of "s" in the plural, but
my knowledge is considered more practical--more French.
And now comes a confession. To retain a reputation requires a lot of
care, and to keep my position as Company Interpreter and outdo my rival
Peters I always carried about with me a small pocket dictionary--if
anyone ever noticed it, he probably mistook it for a Service Bible--in
which I searched for words when occasion offered. I had carefully
committed to memory the French equivalents for all the articles on our
shopping list--a pot of honey, a bottle of Benedictine, a pair of
unmentionable garments for Lawson, and a toothbrush--so that I walked
across the main square with a proud mien and an easy conscience.
Pride, they tell us, comes before a fall. We had successfully fought our
way through the crowds of officers and mess waiters who swarm in
Bailleul, we had completed our purchases, we were refreshing ourselves
in a diminutive tea shop, when the Captain suddenly slapped his thigh.
"By Jove," he said, "I promised to buy a new saucepan for the Company
cook. Good job I remembered."
What on earth was the French for a saucepan? I had no opportunity of
looking in my dictionary, for it would look too suspicious if I were to
consult my Service Bible during tea.
"I don't think we shall have time to look for an ironmonger's," I said.
"You blithering ass," said the Captain, "there's one just across the
road. Besides, we don't have dinner before eight as a rule."
The fates were working against me. I made one more effort to save my
reputation. "We should look so funny, sir, riding through Bailleul with
a great saucepan. We might send the Company cook to buy one to-morrow."
I remained in suspense for a few moments as the Captain chose another
cake. He looked up suddenly. "We'll get it home all right," he said,
"but I believe the fact of the matter is that you don't know what to ask
for."
"We'll go and get the beastly thing directly after tea," I said stiffly,
for it is always offensive to have doubts cast on one's capabilities,
the more so when those doubts are founded on fact. Besides, I knew the
Captain would love to see me at a loss, as French has been his touchy
point ever since the day when, having a sore throat, he set out to buy a
cure for it himself. The chemist, mistaking his French and his gestures,
had politely led him to the door and pointed out a clothier's across the
way, expressing his regret the while that chemists in France do not sell
collars.
When we entered the ironmonger's shop I could see nothing in the shape
of a saucepan that I could point out to the man, so I made a shot in the
dark. "Je desire," I said, "une soucoupe."
"Parfaitement, m'sieu," said the shopman, and he produced a host of
saucers of every description--saucers in tin, saucers in china, saucers
big and little.
"What in the name of all that's wonderful are you getting those things
for?" asked the Captain irritably. "We want a saucepan."
I feigned surprise at my carelessness and turned to the shopman again.
"Non, je desire quelque chose pour bouillir les oeufs."
The poor man scratched his head for a minute, then an idea suddenly
struck him. "Ah, une casserole?" he questioned.
I nodded encouragingly, and, to my intense relief, he produced a huge
saucepan from under the counter, so that we trotted out of Bailleul with
our saddle bags full, and the saucepan dangling from a piece of string
round the Captain's neck.
Misfortunes never come singly. We were not more than a hundred yards
from the town when the Captain handed the saucepan to me. "You might
take it," he said, "while I shorten my stirrups."
The pack horse becomes accustomed to an enormous variety of loads, but
apparently the saucepan was something in the shape of a disagreeable
novelty to him. He began to trot, and that utensil rattled noisily
against the bottle of liqueur protruding from my saddle bag. The more
the saucepan rattled the faster went the horse, and the more precarious
became my seat. In a few seconds I was going across country at a furious
gallop.
If I let go my hold of the saucepan it rattled violently, and spurred
the pack horse on to even greater pace; if I held on to the saucepan I
could not pull up my horse and I stood but little chance of remaining
on its back at all, for I am a horseman of but very little skill.
Suddenly I saw a gate barring my way ahead. I let go the saucepan and
something cracked in my saddle bag. I seized the reins and dragged at
the horse's mouth. Then, just as I was wondering how one stuck on a
horse's back when it tried to jump, someone rode up from the other side
and opened the gate.
But it was only when I was right in the gateway that I saw what lay
ahead. Just before me was a major at the head of a squadron of cavalry.
The next second I was amongst them.
A fleeting glimpse of the Major's horse pawing the air with its
forelegs, a scattering of a hundred and fifty men before me, and I had
passed them all and was galloping up the steep slope of the hill.
When at last the Captain came up with me, I was standing at the top of
the Mont Noir, wiping Benedictine from my breeches and puttees. I made
an attempt at jocularity. "I shall have to speak to Parkes about this
engine," I said. "The controls don't work properly, and she accelerates
much too quickly."
But the Captain saw the ruin of the liqueur bottle lying by the
roadside, and was not in the mood for amusement. So we rode in silence
down the hill, while the flames of Ypres gleamed and flickered in the
distance.
Of a sudden, however, the Captain burst into a roar of laughter.
"It was worth it," he panted as he rolled in his saddle, "to see the
poor blighters scatter. Lord! but it was lovely to hear that Major
curse."
X
THE LIAR
For an hour and a half we had been crumped and whizz-banged and
trench-mortared as never before, but it was not until the shelling
slackened that one could really see the damage done. The sudden
explosions of whizz-bangs, the increasing whine and fearful bursts of
crumps, and, worst of all, the black trench-mortar bombs that came
hurtling and twisting down from the skies, kept the nerves at a pitch
which allowed of no clear vision of the smashed trench and the wounded
men.
However, as the intervals between the explosions grew longer and longer
the men gradually pulled themselves together and began to look round.
The havoc was appalling. Where the telephone dug-out had been was now a
huge hole--a mortar bomb had landed there, and had blown the telephone
orderly almost on to the German wire, fifty yards away; great gaps, on
which the German machine guns played at intervals, were made all along
our parapet; the casualties were being sorted out as well as
possible--the dead to be carried into an old support trench, and there
to await burial, the wounded to be hurried down to the overcrowded
dressing station as quickly as the bearers could get the stretchers
away; the unhurt--scarcely half the company--were, for the most part,
still gazing up into the sky in the expectation of that twisting, all
too familiar, black bomb that has such a terrific devastating power.
Gradually quiet came again, and the men set about their interrupted
business--their sleep to be snatched, their work to be finished before
the long night with its monotonous watching and digging began.
With the Sergeant-major I went down the trench to discuss repairs, for
much must be done as soon as night fell. Then, leaving him to make out a
complete list of the casualties, I returned to my dug-out to share the
rations of rum with Bennett, the only subaltern who remained in the
company.
"Where's the rum?" I asked. "Being shelled makes one thirsty."
He handed me a cup, at the bottom of which a very little rum was to be
seen. "I divided it as well as I could," he said rather apologetically.
"If you were thinking of yourself at the time, you certainly did," I
answered as I prepared myself for battle, for nothing sets your nerves
right again as quickly as a "scrap."
We were interrupted, however, in the preliminaries by the
Sergeant-major, who brought with him a handful of letters and pay books,
the effects of the poor fellows who were now lying under waterproof
sheets in the support trench.
"Total killed forty-one, sir, and I'm afraid Sergeant Wall didn't get
down to the dressing station in time. It's a bad day for us to-day. Oh,
and by the way, sir, that fellow Spiller has just been found dead at the
end of the communicating trench."
"Which end, Sergeant-major?" I asked.
"The further end, sir. He left the trench without leave. He told Jones,
who was next to him, that he was not going to have any more damned
shelling, and he appears to have made off immediately after."
Bennett whistled. "Is that the blighter whom poor old Hayes had to
threaten with his revolver the day before we were gassed?"
The Sergeant-major nodded.
"It's just the sort of thing he would do," said Bennett, whose hand was
still unsteady from the strain of an hour ago, "to bunk when Brother
Boche is giving us a little crumping to keep us amused."
I turned to the Sergeant-major. "Let me have these fellows' effects," I
said. "As to Spiller, I don't expect he could have really been bunking.
At all events, let the other fellows think I sent him to Headquarters
and he got hit on the way. I expect he was going down with a stretcher
party." But, in my heart, I knew better. I knew Spiller for a coward.
It is not for me to judge such a man. God knows it is no man's fault if
he is made so that his nerves may fail him at a critical moment.
Besides, many a man who is capable of heroism that would win him the
Victoria Cross fails when called upon to stand more than a few weeks of
trench warfare, for a few minutes of heroism are very different to
months of unrelieved strain. However, Spiller and his like let a
regiment down, and one is bound to despise them for that.
Thoughts of our "scrap" had entirely left us, for Bennett and I had
before us one of the most uncongenial tasks that an officer can have.
The news has to be broken by someone when a wife is suddenly made a
widow, and the task is generally taken on by the dead man's platoon
commander, who sends back home his letters and papers. There were many
men who had died that afternoon, and letters of condolence and bad news
are always difficult to write, so that there was silence in our dug-out
for the next two hours.
The last pay book I examined had belonged to Private E. Spiller. His
other belongings were scanty--a few coppers, a much-chewed pencil, and
two letters. I looked at the latter for a clue as to whom I ought to
write; one was in his own handwriting and unfinished, the other was from
a girl with whom he had been "walking out," apparently his only friend
in the world, as she alone was mentioned in the little will written at
the end of his pay book. But her love was enough. Her letter was
ill-spelt and badly written, but it expressed more love than is given to
most men.
"Take care of yourself, Erny dear, for my sake," she wrote. "I am so
proud of you doing so well in them horrid trenches.... Dear Erny, you
can't have no idear how pleased I am that you are so brave, but be quick
and come back to me what loves you so...."
So brave! I tried to laugh at the unconscious irony of it all, but my
laugh would not come, for something in my throat held it back--perhaps I
was a little overwrought by the recent shelling.
I turned to the other letter, which I have thought fit to transcribe in
full:
"DEAREST LIZ,
"I hope this finds you as it leaves me at present in the pink. Dear
Liz, i am doing very well and i will tell you a secret--i am going to
be rekermended for the V.C. becos i done so well in the trenches. i
don't feel a bit fritened wich is nice, and, dear Liz, i hope to be
made Lance Corpril soon as my officer is so ..."
* * * * *
And here it ended, this letter from a liar. I balanced it on my knee and
wondered what to do with it. Should I tear it up and write to the girl
to tell her the truth--that her lover was a liar and a coward? Should I
tear his letter up and just announce his death? For some minutes I
hesitated, and then I put his half-finished letter in an envelope and
added a note to tell her.
"He died like a soldier," I finished. "His letter will tell you better
than any words of mine how utterly without fear he was."
And I wish no other lie were heavier on my conscience than is the lie I
told to her.
XI
THE CITY OF TRAGEDY
What does it matter that the Cloth Hall and the Cathedral are in ruins,
that the homes and churches are but rubble in the streets? What do we
care if great shells have torn gaping holes in the Grande Place, and if
the station is a battered wreck where the rails are bent and twisted as
bits of wire? We do not mourn for Ypres, for it is a thousand times
grander in its downfall than it was ever in the days of its splendour.
In the town, the houses are but piles of stone, the streets are but
pitted stretches of desolation, the whole place is one huge monument to
the memory of those who have suffered, simply and grandly, for a great
cause. Round the town run the green ramparts where, a few years ago, the
townspeople would stroll of an evening, where the blonde Flemish girls
would glance shyly and covertly at the menfolk. The ramparts now are
torn, the poplars are broken, the moat is foul and sullied, and facing
out over the wide plain are rows of little crosses that mark the
resting-places of the dead.
For herein lies thy glory, Ypres. To capture thee there have fallen
thousands of the German invaders; in thy defence there have died
Belgians and French and English, Canadians and Indians and Algerians.
Three miles away, on Hill 60, are the bodies of hundreds of men who have
fought for thee--the Cockney buried close to the Scotchman, the Prussian
lying within a yard of the Prussian who fell there a year before, and
along the Cutting are French bayonets and rifles, and an occasional
unfinished letter from some long-dead _poilu_ to his lover in the sunny
plains of the Midi or the orchards of Normandy.
And all these men have died to save thee, Ypres. Why, then, should we
mourn for thee in thy ruin? Even thy great sister, Verdun, cannot boast
so proud a record as thine.
But the awful tragedy of it all! That the famous old town, quietly
asleep in its plain, should be shattered and ruined; that so many hopes
and ambitions can be blasted in so few hours; that young bodies can be
crushed, in a fraction of a second, to masses of lifeless, bleeding
pulp! The glorious tragedy of Ypres will never be written, for so many
who could have spoken are dead, and so many who live will never
speak--you can but guess their stories from the dull pain in their
eyes, and from the lips that they close tightly to stop the sobs.
God, how they have suffered, these Belgians! Day after day for over a
year the inhabitants of Ypres lived in the hell of war; day after day
they crouched in their cellars and wondered if it would be their little
home that would be ruined by the next shell. How many lived for months
in poky little basements, or crowded together in the one room that was
left of their home--anything, even death, rather than leave the place
where they were born and where they had passed all their quiet, happy
years.
I knew one woman who lived with her little daughter near the Porte de
Menin, and one day, when the next cottage to hers had been blown to
bits, I tried to persuade her to leave. For a long time she shook her
head, and then she took me to show me her bedroom--such a poor little
bedroom, with a crucifix hanging over the bed and a dingy rosebush
growing up outside the window. "It was here that my husband died, five
years ago," she said. "He would not like me to go away and leave the
house to strangers."
"But think of the little one," I pleaded. "She is only a girl of five,
and you cannot endanger her life like this."
For a long time she was silent, and a tear crept down her cheek as she
tried to decide. "I will go, monsieur," she said at last, "for the sake
of the little one."
And that night she set off into the unknown, fearful to look back at her
little home lest her courage should desert her. She was dressed in her
best clothes--for why leave anything of value for the Germans, should
they ever come?--and she wheeled her few household treasures before her
in the perambulator, while her little daughter ran beside her.
But next morning I saw her again coming back up the street to her
cottage. This time she was alone, and she still trundled the
perambulator in front of her.
I went out, and knocked at her door. "So you have come back," I said.
"And where have you left the little one?"
She gazed at me dully for a minute, and a great fear gripped me, for I
saw that her best clothes were torn and dust stained.
"It was near the big hospital on the Poperinghe road," she said in a
horribly even voice. "The little one had lingered behind to pick up some
bits of coloured glass on the roadside when the shell came. It was a big
shell ... and I could find nothing but this," and she held up part of a
little torn dress, bloody and terrible.
I tried to utter a few words of comfort, but my horror was too great.
"It is the will of God," she said, as she began to unpack the treasures
in the perambulator, but, as I closed the door, I heard her burst into
the most awful fit of weeping I have ever known.
* * * * *
And, day by day as the war goes on, the tragedy of Ypres grows greater.
Each shell wrecks a little more of what was once a home, each crash and
falling of bricks brings a little more pain to a breaking heart. The
ruins of Ypres are glorious and noble, and we are proud to defend them,
but the quiet, simple people of Ypres cannot even find one brick on
another of their homes.
Somewhere in England, they tell me, is a little old lady who was once a
great figure in Brussels society. She is nearly eighty now, and alone,
but she clings on tenaciously to life till the day shall come when she
can go back to her Chateau at Ypres, where she has lived for forty
years. One can picture her--feeble, wizened, and small, her eyes bright
with the determination to live until she has seen her home again.
I, who have seen her Chateau, pray that death may come to close those
bright eyes, so that they may never look upon the destruction of her
home, for it is a desolate sight, even though the sky was blue and the
leaves glistened in the sun on the morning when, two years ago, I
tramped up the winding drive.
The lodge was nothing more than a tumbled pile of broken bricks, but, by
some odd chance, the Chateau itself had never suffered a direct hit. In
front of the big white house there had once been an asphalt tennis
court--there was now a plain pitted at every few yards by huge shell
holes. The summer-house at the edge of the wood--once the scene of
delightful little flirtations in between the games of tennis--was now a
weird wreck, consisting of three tottering walls and a broken seat.
Oddest of all, there lay near the white marble steps an old, tyreless De
Dion motor-car.
I have often wondered what the history of that battered thing could be.
One can almost see the owner packing herself in it with her most
precious belongings, to flee from the oncoming Germans. The engine
refuses to start, there is no time for repairs, there is the hurried
flight on foot, and the car is left to the mercy of the invading troops.
Perhaps, again, it belonged to the staff of some army, and was left at
the Chateau when it had run its last possible mile. At all events, there
it stood, half-way between Ypres and the Germans, with everything of any
possible value stripped off it as thoroughly as though it had been left
to the white ants.
By the side of the tennis court, where had once been flower beds, there
was now a row of little, rough wooden crosses, and here and there the
narcissi and daffodils had sprung up. What a strange little cemetery!
Here a khaki cap and a bunch of dead flowers, there a cross erected to
"An unknown British hero, found near Verbrandenmolen and buried here on
March 3rd, 1915," there an empty shell case balanced at a comical angle
on a grave, and everywhere between the mounds waved the flowers in the
fresh breeze of the morning, while away in the distance loomed the tower
of the Cloth Hall of Ypres, like a gigantic arm pointing one finger up
to heaven.
The Chateau itself, I have said, had never had a direct hit; but do you
think the hand of war had passed it by, and that the little old lady
would find in it something of home?
Every window on the ground floor had been choked by sandbags, and no
glass remained in those upstairs. In a room that had once been a kitchen
and was now labelled in chalk "Officers' Mess" were an old bedstead, two
mattresses, a wooden table, and three rickety chairs; but for these, and
a piano in the dining-room upstairs, the house was absolutely devoid of
furniture. Even the piano, which must have twanged out the tunes of at
least three nations since the war began, had sacrificed its cover for
firewood.
Rooms where once ladies had powdered and perfumed themselves to attract
the fickle male were now bare and empty, and pungent with the smell of
chloride of lime. In the dining-hall, where fine old wines had
circulated, were a hundred weary, dirty men. In the kitchen, where the
fat _cuisiniere_ had prepared her dinners, were now a dozen officers,
some sprawling asleep on the floor, some squatting round the table
playing "vingt-et-un."
For this is war.
* * * * *
There is one more memory of Ypres--a very different one--that comes back
to me. It is the recollection of our regimental dinner.
The first thing that I heard of it came from Lytton's servant.
"Please, sir," he said one morning, "Mr. Lytton sends his compliments,
and can you tell 'im where the Hotel Delepiroyle is?"
"The Hotel de what?"
"The Hotel Delepiroyle, sir. That's what 'e said."
"Ask Mr. Lytton to write it down--no, wait a minute. Tell him I'm coming
over to see him about it." So I strolled across to the other side of the
infantry barracks to find him.
"What, haven't you heard about it?" asked Lytton. "The new C.O., Major
Eadie, is giving a dinner to-night to all the officers of the regiment
as a farewell to Major Barton before he goes off to take command of his
new crowd. It's at the Hotel de l'Epee Royale, wherever that may be.
Let's go and track it down."