he lets fall the waterproof sheet which acts as a door to my dug-out. I
yawn prodigiously, get up slowly from my bed--one of two banks of earth
that run parallel down each side of my muddy hovel, rather after the
fashion of seats down each side of an omnibus--and go out into the
trench, along which the command "Stand to arms" has just been passed.
The men leave their letters and their newspapers; Private Webb, who
earned his living in times of peace by drawing thin, elongated ladies in
varying stages of undress for fashion catalogues, puts aside his
portrait of the Sergeant, who is still smiling with ecstasy at a tin of
chloride of lime; the obstinate sleepers are roused, to a great flow of
bad language, and all stand to their arms in the possibility of an
attack.
It is a monotonous time, that hour of waiting until darkness falls, for
gossip is scarce in the trenches, and the display of fireworks in the
shape of German star shells has long since ceased to interest us--always
excepting those moments when we are in front of our trench on some
patrol. Away to the left, where the artillery have been busy all day,
the shelling slackens as the light fades, and the rifle shots grow more
and more frequent. Presently the extra sentries are posted--one man in
every three--the disgusted working parties are told off to their work of
filling sandbags or improving the communication trenches, and the long,
trying night begins.
All down the line the German bullets spin overhead or crack like whips
against our sandbags, sending little clods of earth down into the
trench; all down the line we stand on our firing platforms, and answer
back to the little spurts of flame which mark the enemy trench; sudden
flashes and explosions tell of bombs or grenades, and star shells from
both sides sweep high into the air to silhouette the unwary and to give
one something to fire at, for firing into the darkness with the
probability of hitting nothing more dangerous than a tree or a sandbag
is work of but little interest.
I wander on my rounds to see that all the sentries are on the alert,
and, suddenly, nearly fall over a man lying face downwards along the
bottom of the trench. "Here, you can't sleep here, you know; you give no
one a chance to pass," I say, and, for answer, I am told to "shut up,"
while a suppressed but still audible giggle from Private Harris warns me
that the situation is not as I had imagined. The figure in the mud gets
up and proves to be an officer of the Engineers, listening for sounds of
mining underneath us. "I think they're at it again, but I'm not certain
yet," he says cheerfully as he goes off to his own dug-out. I, in turn,
lie down in the mud with my ear pressed to the ground, and I seem to
hear, far beneath me, the rumble of the trolleys and the sound of the
pick, so that I am left for the rest of the night in the uncomfortable
expectation of flying heavenwards at any moment.
A buzz of voices which reaches me as I return from a visit to a working
party informs me that the one great event of the night has taken
place--the rations and the mail have arrived and have been "dumped" by
the carrying party in a little side trench. Before I reach the spot a
man comes hurrying up to me, "Please, sir," he says, "young Denham has
been hit by a rifle grenade. 'E's got it very bad." Just as I pass the
side trench, I hear the sergeant who is issuing the letters call:
"Denham. A letter for young Denham," and someone says, "I'll take it to
him, Sergeant, 'e's in my section."
But the letter has arrived too late, for when I reach the other end of
the trench Denham is dead, and a corporal, is carefully searching his
pockets for his letters and money to hand over to the platoon commander.
They have carried him close to the brazier for light, and the flames
find reflection on the white skin of his throat where his tunic has been
torn open, and there is an ugly black stain on the bandage that has been
roughly tied round him. Only one man in millions, it is true, but one
more letter sent home with that awful "Killed" written across it, and
one more mother mourning for her only child.
And so the night draws on. Now there is a lull, and the sentries,
standing on the fire platforms, allow their heavy lids to fall in a
moment's sleep; now a sudden burst of intense fire runs along the line,
and everyone springs to his rifle, while star shells go up by dozens;
now a huge rumble from the distance tells that a mine has been fired,
and we wonder dully who fired it, and how many have been killed--dully
only, for death has long since ceased to mean anything to us, and our
powers of realisation and pity, thank God! have been blunted until the
only things that matter are food and sleep.
At last the order to stand to arms is given again, and the new day comes
creeping sadly over the plain of Flanders. What looked like a great hand
stretched up appealingly to heaven becomes a shattered, broken tree; the
uniform veil of grey gives place to grass and empty tins, dead bodies
lying huddled up grotesquely, and winding lines of German trenches. The
sky goes faintly blue, and the sun peeps out, gleaming on the drops of
rain that still hang from our barbed wire, and on the long row of
bayonets along the trench.
The new day is here, but what will it bring? The monotony may be broken
by an attack, the battalion may be relieved. Who knows? Who cares?
Enough that daylight is here and the sun is shining, that periscopes and
sleep are once more permitted, that breakfast is at hand, and that some
day we shall get back to billets.
XXV
JOHN WILLIAMS, TRAMP AND SOLDIER
On a wet and cheerless evening in September 1914, John Williams, tramp,
sat in the bar of the Golden Lion and gazed regretfully at the tankard
before him, which must of necessity remain empty, seeing that he had
just spent his last penny. To him came a recruiting sergeant.
"Would you like a drink, mate?" he asked.
John Williams did not hesitate.
"You ought to be in the Army," said the sergeant, as he put down his
empty tankard, "a fine great body of a man like you. It's the best life
there is."
"I bean't so sartain as I want to be a sojer. I be a hindependent man."
"It's a good life for a healthy man," went on the sergeant. "We'll talk
it over," and he ordered another drink apiece.
John Williams, who had had more than enough before the sergeant had
spoken to him, gazed mistily at his new acquaintance. "Thee do seem to
have a main lot o' money to spend."
The sergeant laughed. "It's Army pay, mate, as does it. I get a fine,
easy life, good clothes and food, and plenty of money for my glass of
beer. Where did you sleep last night?" he asked suddenly.
"If I do mind me right," said John Williams, "it were in a leaky barn,
over Newton way."
"Where are you going to sleep to-night?" asked the sergeant again.
Williams remembered his empty pocket. "I doan't know," he said with
regret. "Most likely on some seat in the park."
"Well, you come along o' me, and you'll get a comfortable barricks to
sleep in, a life as you likes, and a bob a day to spend on yourself."
John Williams listened to the dripping of the rain outside. To his
bemused brain the thought of a "comfortable barricks" was very, very
tempting. "Blame me if I doan't come along o' thee," he said at length.
In wartime a medical examination is soon over and an attestation paper
filled up. "There's nothing wrong with you, my man," said the Medical
Officer, "except that you're half drunk."
"I bean't drunk, mister," protested Williams sleepily.
"We'll take you at your word, anyhow," said the doctor. "You're too
good a man physically to lose for the Army."
Thus it was that John Williams took the King's Shilling, and swore to
serve his country as a soldier should.
* * * * *
One of the most wonderful things about the British Army is the way that
recruits are gradually fashioned into soldiers. There are thousands of
men fighting on our different fronts who, a year ago, hated the thought
of discipline and order; they are now amongst the best soldiers we have.
But there are exceptions--Private John Williams was one. In a little
over a year of military service, he had absented himself without leave
no fewer than eleven times, and the various punishments meted out to him
failed signally in their object to break him of his habit. In every
respect save one he was a good soldier, but, do what it would, the Army
could not bring him to see the folly of repeated desertion; the life in
the Army is not the life for a man with the wander thirst of centuries
in his blood. Williams had all the gipsy's love of wandering and
solitude, and not even a threatened punishment of death will cure a man
of that.
So it came about that John Williams sat outside his billet one September
evening, and watched the white chalk road that ran over the hill towards
Amiens. After the flat and cultivated country of Flanders, the rolling
hills called with an unparalleled insistence, and the idea of spending
the two remaining days before the battalion went back to the trenches in
company with sixty other men in a barn grew more and more odious. If he
were to go off even for twenty-four hours, he would receive, on return,
probably nothing more than a few days Field Punishment, which, after
all, was not so bad when one grew used to it. He was sick of the life of
a soldier, sick of obeying officers half his age, sick of being ordered
to do things that seemed senseless to him; he would be quit of it all
for twenty-four hours.
John Williams went to the only shop in the village to buy food, with the
aid of fifty centimes and a wonderful Lingua Franca of his own, and when
his companions collected in their billet that night he was already far
away on the open road. He walked fast through the still September
evening, and as he walked he sang, and the woods echoed to the strange
songs that gipsies sing to themselves as they squat round their fires at
night. When at last he came to a halt he soon found sleep, and lay
huddled up in his greatcoat at the foot of a poplar tree, until the dawn
awoke him.
All through the summer day he walked, his Romany blood singing in his
veins at the feel of the turf beneath his feet, and evening found him
strolling contentedly through the village to his billet. Suddenly a
sentry challenged: "'Alt! who goes there?"
"Downshires," came the reply.
"Well, what the 'ell are you doin' of 'ere?"
"I be going back to my regiment."
"Well, your regiment's in the trenches. They relieved us sudden like
last night, owing to us getting cut up. You see, they Germans attacked
us and killed a good few of our chaps before we drove 'em out again, so
the Downshires 'ad to come up and relieve us late; somewhere about
eleven o'clock they must 'ave left 'ere. What are you doing of, any'ow?"
he asked jokingly. "Are you a bloomin' deserter what's come to be
arrested?" But he posed the question to empty air, for Williams was
retracing his steps at a steady double.
"Seems to me that bloke 'll get hisself inter trouble," said the sentry
of the Westfords as he spat in disgust. Then he forgot all about it, and
fell to wondering what the bar of the Horse and Plough must be looking
like at the moment.
John Williams knew that he had burnt his boats, and he became a deserter
in real earnest. For several weeks he remained at large, and each day
made the idea of giving himself up of his own accord more difficult to
entertain; but at last he was singled out from among the many men who
wander about behind the firing line, and was placed under a guard that
put hope of escape out of the question. Not even the wander thirst in
his gipsy blood could set his feet on the wide chalk road again, or give
him one more night of freedom.
* * * * *
"He might have a long term of imprisonment, mightn't he, sir?" asked the
junior member of the Court Martial. "He could have no idea that his
regiment was suddenly warned for the trenches when he deserted. Besides,
the man used to be a tramp, and it must be exceptionally hard for a man
who has led a wandering life to accustom himself to discipline. It must
be in his blood to desert." And he blushed slightly, for he sounded
sentimental, and there is little room for sentiment in an army on active
service.
The President of the Court was a Major who liked his warm fire and his
linen sheets, which, with the elements of discipline and warfare,
occupied most of his thoughts. "I fear you forget," he said rather
testily, "that this is the twelfth occasion on which this man has made
off. I have never heard of such a case in my life. Besides, on this
occasion he was warned that the Downshires were in the trenches by the
sentry of the Westfords, and, instead of giving himself up, he
deliberately turned round and ran off, so that the excuse of ignorance
does not hold water. That the man was a tramp is, to my mind, no excuse
either--the army is not a rest home for tired tramps. The man is an
out-and-out scoundrel."
So the junior member, fearful of seeming sentimental and unmilitary,
timidly suggested the sentence of death, to which the other two agreed.
"We must make an example of these fellows. There are far too many cases
of desertion," said the Major, as he lit his pipe and hurried off to his
tea.
* * * * *
Thus ended the career of No. 1234 Pte. John Williams, formerly a tramp
in the west of England, unmourned and despised.
On the morning after he had been shot, his platoon sergeant sat before a
brazier and talked to a corporal. "'E ain't no bloomin' loss, 'e ain't.
'E gave me too much trouble, and I got fair sick of 'aving to report 'im
absent. It serves 'im blamed well right, that's what I say."
The corporal sipped his tea out of an extremely dirty canteen. "Well,"
he said at length, "I 'ope as the poor devil don't find it so warm where
'e's gone as what it is 'ere. I quite liked un, though 'e were a bit
free with 'is fists, and always dreamin' like," which was probably the
only appreciation ever uttered in memory of John Williams, tramp and
soldier.
XXVI
THE CLEARING HOUSE
You collect your belongings, you stretch and yawn, you rub your eyes to
rid them of sleep--and incidentally you leave great black marks all down
your face--you struggle to get on your equipment in a filthy
second-class carriage where are three other officers struggling to get
on their equipment, and waving their arms about like the sails of
windmills. Then you obtain a half share of the window and gaze out as
the train crawls round the outskirts of the town, that lies still and
quiet in the dusk of the morning. You have arrived at your
destination--you are at the base.
This quaint old town, with its streets running up the hill from the
river, with its beautiful spires and queer old houses, is the great
clearing house of the British Army. Here the new troops arrive; here
they leave for the front; here, muddy and wounded, they are driven in
motor chars-a-bancs and ambulances from the station to the hospitals;
here they are driven down to the river-side and carried on to the
hospital ships that are bound for England.
And this gigantic clearing house buzzes with soldiers in khaki. There
are the hotels where the generals and staff officers take their tea;
there are the cafes haunted by subalterns; there are little "Debits de
Vins" where "Tommies" go and explain, in "pidgin" English, that they are
dying for glasses of beer. In all the streets, great motor lorries
lumber by, laden with blackened soldiers who have been down on the quay,
unloading shells, food, hay, oil, anything and everything that can be
needed for the British Expeditionary Force. And, in the two main
thoroughfares of an afternoon, there flows an unceasing crowd--generals
and privates, French men and women, officers hunting through the shops
for comforts to take up the line, people winding their busy way through
the throng, and people strolling along with the tide, intent on
snatching all they can of pleasure and amusement while they have the
opportunity.
And a few years ago these same streets would lie sleepily in the sun,
dreaming of the days of splendour long by. In the square before the
wonderful cathedral there would be stillness--here and there, perhaps, a
pigeon would come fluttering down from the ledges and cornices of the
Gothic facade; sometimes a nondescript dog would raise a lazy head to
snap at the flies; occasionally the streets would send back a nasal echo
as a group of American tourists, with their Baedekers and maps, came
hurrying along to "do" the town before the next train left for
Paris--beyond that ... nothing.
Now, in the early morning, the Base seems almost to have relapsed into
its slumber of yore. As yet, the work of the day has not begun, and the
whole town seems to stir sleepily as the screeching brakes bring your
train to a standstill. As you stumble out of the carriage, the only
living person in the place appears to be a sentry, who tramps up and
down in the distance, on guard over a few empty trucks and a huge pile
of bundles of straw.
It is a little disappointing, this arrival at the Base, for there is not
even a proper station in sight; you have been brought, like so many
sheep or cows, into the dismal goods station, and you look in vain for
the people who should be there to welcome you, to throw flowers, and to
cheer as you arrive at the first halt of your great Odyssey. However,
you shake yourself, you bundle your valise out of the carriage on to the
railway line, and, with your late carriage companions, you go across to
the sentry and his bundles of straw.
"Can you tell us where the Railway Transport Officer is to be found?"
you ask. "We've got orders to report to him as soon as we can."
"Yes, sir, they's always got those orders, but you won't find 'im not
before 'alf-past nine. 'Is office is over there in them buildings." And
a subaltern in the office gives you the same information--it is now five
o'clock, and the R.T.O. who has your movement orders will not be here
for four and a half hours. "Go and have a look round the town," suggests
the subaltern.
The idea of "looking round a town" at five in the morning! You slouch
over the bridge, and wander up and down the empty streets until an hotel
shows up before you. You are very tired and very dirty and very
unshaven. Instinctively you halt and feel your chins. "Dunno when we'll
get another bath," suggests one of the party, and he goes to ring the
bell. For ten minutes you ring the bell, and then the door is opened by
a half-clothed porter who is also very tired and very dirty and very
unshaven. He glares at you, and then signs to you to enter, after which
he runs away and leaves you in a hall in the company of a dust pan and
brush and a pile of chairs pushed up in the corner--no welcome and no
flowers.
But in a moment there is a shuffle on the stairs, and a fat, buxom
woman, with a cheerful face and a blouse undone down the back, makes
her appearance. Oh yes, Messieurs les Officiers can have a bath--for two
francs, including a towel; and they can have breakfast--for three and a
half francs, including "ze English marmalade" and "un oeuf a la coque"
(which sets you to wondering whether she means a cock's egg, and, if so,
what sort of a thing it may be). "It is a nice bath," she tells you,
"and always full of Messieurs les Anglais, who forget all about the war
and only think of baths and of football. No, zere is only one bath, but
ze ozer officiers can wait," and she leads one of the party away into
the dim corridors and up dim staircases.
Breakfast and a wash work wonders, and you still keep cheerful when the
R.T.O. tells you at half-past nine that your camp is three miles away,
that you may not see your valise for days unless you take a "taxi," and
that there are only three "taxis" in the town. You wander about in
search of one during the whole morning, you find the three all hiding
away together in a side street, you bundle your valises into one, and
arrive at the camp just in time for lunch.
It is a strange life, that life at the Base--it is like life on an
"island" in a London thoroughfare, with the traffic streaming by on
either side. All day long there are men arriving to go to the front, all
day long there are men coming back on their way to England. For a week
you live on this "island," equipping men for drafts all the morning--for
most of them seem to have dropped part of their equipment into the sea
on the way across--and sitting in cafes in the evenings, drinking
strange mixtures of wines and syrups and soda water.
Then, one day, the Colonel sends for you. Your turn has come to set out
on that journey which may have no return. "You will proceed to the front
by the four o'clock train this afternoon," he says. "You are instructed
to conduct a party of 100 Northshire Highlanders, who are in 'S' Camp,
which is over there," and he waves his hand vaguely in the direction of
the typewriter in the corner of the room.
These are your instructions, and, after a prolonged hunt for "S" Camp,
you march off to the station at the head of a hundred Scotchmen, not one
of whom you can understand. At the station you make a great show of
nominal rolls and movement orders, and finally get your Highlanders
packed safely in their compartments under strict injunctions not to
leave the train without your orders.
Now comes the time to look after your own comfort. If you have "been up"
before you have learnt that it is wise to stroll into the town for your
last proper tea, and not to come back much before six o'clock, by which
time the train is thinking of reluctantly crawling out of the station.
If, in your absence, someone has else has tried to settle in your
compartment, providing his rank is not superior to your own, you get rid
of him either by lying strenuously or by using a little force. Thus, if
you are lucky, a good liar, or a muscular man, you can keep the carriage
for yourself, your particular friend, your kits, and your provisions
(which last, in the form of bottles, require no small space).
All along the line are children, waving their grubby hands and shouting
in monotonous reiteration, "Souvenir biskeet, souvenir bully biff," and
you throw them their souvenirs without delay, for no man sets out for
war without a plentiful stock of more interesting provisions to keep his
spirits up. All along the train, in disobedience of orders, the carriage
doors are open, and "Tommies" and "Jocks," and "Pats" are seated on the
footboards, singing, shouting, laughing.
This, until night falls. Then, one by one, the carriage doors are shut,
and the men set about the business of sleeping. Here and there, perhaps,
is a man who stays awake, wondering what the future will bring him, how
his wife and children will get on if he is killed, and how many of these
men, who are lolling in grotesque attitudes all round him, will ever
come back down the line. In the daylight, the excitement drives away
these thoughts--there are songs to sing and sights to see--but as the
train jolts on through the night, there seems to be an undefinable
feeling of fear. What will it be like to be shelled, to fight, to die?
Morning brings cheerfulness again. There are halts at Boulogne and
Calais; news must be obtained from English sentries and French railway
officials; there is, in one place, a train of German prisoners; there
are long halts at tiny stations where you can procure hot water while
the O.C. Train discusses life with the R.T.O.; there are the
thousand-and-one things which serve to remind you that you are in the
war zone, although the country is peaceful, and you look in vain for
shell holes and ruined houses.
At length the railhead is reached--from here the rumble of the guns can
be heard--and the detrainment takes place. You fall your Highlanders in
by the side of the train, you jerk your pack about in a vain effort to
make it hang comfortably, a whistle blows, and you start off on your
long march to your regiment, to those dull, mumbling guns, to your first
peep of war.
* * * * *
A "cushy" wound, a long and aching journey in a motor ambulance, a
nerve-racking night in a clearing hospital, where the groans of the
dying, the hurrying of the orderlies, and your own pain all combine in a
nightmare of horror, and next morning you are in the train once
more--you are going back to the Base. But how different is this from the
journey up to the front! The sound of distant firing has none of the
interest of novelty; the shelling of an aeroplane, which would have
filled you with excitement a short time ago, does not now even cause you
to raise your eyes to watch; you are old in warfare, and _blase_.