WITH MY REGIMENT
WITH MY REGIMENT
FROM THE AISNE TO LA BASSÉE
BY
"PLATOON COMMANDER"
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
_London: William Heinemann, 1915_
TO "PAT"
_Who was killed in front of La Bassée on
October 21, 1914, this book is
affectionately dedicated
by the author_
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
_The author desires to thank the Editors of_ The English Review, The
Evening Standard, _and_ The Westminster Gazette _for kind permission
to reproduce in this volume, articles which appeared in their various
columns_.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
I. TAKING OUT A DRAFT 8
II. RAILHEAD AND BEYOND 25
III. EARLY DAYS ON THE AISNE 40
IV. IN BILLETS 58
V. THE MOVE UP (1) 71
VI. THE MOVE UP (2) 83
VII. NEARING THE FIRING-LINE 93
VIII. GETTING INTO ACTION 101
IX. AN ATTACK AT DAWN 111
X. THE RESERVE COMPANY 120
XI. A NIGHT ATTACK 129
XII. THE FARM IN THE FIRING-LINE 138
XIII. PUSHING FORWARD 146
XIV. IN FRONT OF LA BASSÉE 156
XV. A NIGHT PATROL 166
XVI. WITH THE SUPPORTS 176
XVII. BETWEEN ACTIONS 187
XVIII. "THE ----TH BRIGADE WILL ATTACK ----" 197
XIX. BY THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH 206
XX. "AND THENCE TO BED" 220
INTRODUCTION
"Report yourself to O.C. 1st Battalion at ---- immediately.--GROUP."
So the time had come. Of course I guessed what was going to be in the
wire before I opened it, but somehow the pink telegraph envelope, and
that little word Group at the end of the message, shook me out of an
exciting day-dream into reality. For years we had been brought up
on the word "GROUP," which was to come at the end of the order for
mobilization. Now it was being flashed over wires all over the country.
Our training was to bear fruit. The happy, careless--some people say,
rather useless--life of the army officer in peace time was over. The
country had gone to war.
I was staying at the time in a large house by the banks of the Thames.
My hostess was a mother of soldiers. She took the news calmly, as a
mother of soldiers should; said good-bye to her eldest boy, who was to
go with the first troops that left England, arranged for the outfit
of her two second sons, and sent for her baby from Eton, whom she saw
dispatched to the Royal Military College. It was a great house to be
in on the outbreak of war--a house whose sons to the third and fourth
generation had built up the British Empire, and which, now, when the
Empire was called upon to fight for its life, stood firm and undismayed.
I went up to London to my rooms to collect a few things. My landlady
was breathless with helping me pack, aghast at the National crisis, and
rather shocked at my levity. Levity--yes, I suppose I was flippant.
What else could one be when suddenly told one was going to war with
Germany? I was rather enjoying the packing and everything up to a
point, but as I ransacked drawers I came on a bundle of letters with
some absurd comic postcards. The letters had a faint scent of violet
about them. They had to be sealed up and left behind, with directions
for their disposal if I didn't come back. And there was a photograph to
be taken from the mantelpiece and put in a pocket-book, a photograph
which had been in many places with me. Well, now it must go on its
travels again. I got an aching in the back of my throat and hurried to
my club for a drink.
From the club I went to the station. There was a big crowd on the
platform of the boat-train. Many women had come to see their menfolk
off, and some to travel with them as far as they could. There were
also a great many people who were crossing over to Ireland under the
impression that it would be the last night of the Channel service for
civilian traffic. There were business men, and people whose homes were
in Ireland, and officials. All looked a little anxious, as much as to
say, "Well, it has begun!"
Our journey was uneventful until we came alongside the wharf at ----,
and here newsboys met us with placards, "ENGLAND DECLARES WAR ON
GERMANY."
At the camp I reported myself to the Adjutant. There was little in
his manner to show that he was getting a regiment ready to go to war,
except that he showed an indisposition to talk, and seemed trying to
keep his mind clear of everything except for the sequence of things
which had to be done.
After reporting to the Adjutant I went across to the mess. The mess
was in a state of packing. Cases, boxes, and litter of all descriptions
blocked the corridors; each officer's room was like the interior of a
furniture removal van, and the mess waiters were busy packing away all
the regimental silver and pictures. The only things which stood out
clearly from the jumble were the field-service kits of the different
officers.
These were for the most part all neatly rolled up in brown or green
valises ready to be thrown on the transport wagon at an instant's
notice. Now and again an officer would come to a pair of scales outside
the mess, weigh his kit, and then start frantically to undo it, pull
out a pair of boots or a blanket, and roll it up again. It took some
nice adjustment to get all that was wanted into the 35 lb. allowed.
The following morning we heard a band and cheering, and looking out of
the window saw some three hundred men marching up from the station. All
the regiment turned out to greet the new arrivals--they were fine men
in the prime of life, and swung along evidently well used to pack and
rifle. They were the old soldiers of the regiment--reservists who had
been called back to the Colours on mobilization from civil life.
They had been down to the depot, thrown off their civilian clothes, and
taken up their rifles once more. They had most of them served under
many of the officers who were still with the regiment. It put heart
into all, and strengthened the general feeling of confidence that we
should see the thing through, to see so many old faces coming back to
march with the regiment once more.
For a night or two before the regiment embarked we dined in mess thirty
strong. I used to wonder, as we sat round the table, looking at the
faces of my brother officers, what fate held in store for them, how
many would come back, how others would die. It was going to be "a hell
of a war." All were agreed on that. There was no feeling of going off
for a day's hunting about anyone. Men made their wills quietly, packed
their belongings, and wrote letters of good-bye to their friends.
One grey morning at six the regiment marched across the open plain
behind the barracks to the little siding. A few officers' wives and
those left behind came to see them off, but there was no cheering and
few tears. The train stole quietly out of the station, and the regiment
went to war.
"Well--see you out soon," Goyle called to me.
"Yes--I expect so," I answered, and said good-bye to him and the others.
Alas, there are few left now to read these words. The war continues.
Of the survivors a half have still to serve. For me, my fighting days
are done. I am not sorry. Whatever ideas I had as a cadet, this war has
taught me that fighting is too fierce and heart-racking to be a sport
or anything except a duty.
These sketches of war as I saw it I write once more by the banks of
the upper reaches of the Thames, calm and beautiful with her fringe of
browning leaves, as she was stately and magnificent in full midsummer a
year before. Now autumn has come and the dead leaves lie in the golden
sunlight.
Of my brother officers, who read these words, I ask only the kindly
tolerance they have always shown. Should they recognize themselves in
deeds described, and find fault with the accuracy of the account, will
they remember that it is difficult to give chapter and verse without
notes to refer to. And for notes, I think all will agree that to have
taken them for such a purpose while out there would have been a waste
of time.
"PLATOON COMMANDER."
I. TAKING OUT A DRAFT
I was sitting drinking a gin-and-bitters in the lounge of the big hotel
facing the sea when Mulligan came dashing in.
"I say, you're wanted back at the barracks at once. You've got to come
out with me with the draft to-night."
"All right, old son, have a gin-and-bitters anyway. What time does the
train start?"
"In an hour's time--seven o'clock," said Mulligan, still much excited,
but not, however, making any attempt to move away as the waiter
approached.
"Well, here's to the enterprise and our handsome selves," he said a few
minutes later, raising his glass.
Mulligan was not handsome; he had a face the colour of boiled beetroot,
very blue eyes, and a humorous mouth. He was a Special Reserve
subaltern, who before the war had done a chequered month's training
with the battalion every year, and spent the other eleven months
interesting himself in aviation, theatrical life, and the motor
business. To go out to the Front with him as one's colleague in charge
of a draft of 180 men was a certain way of avoiding _ennui_.
We had been waiting some while with the reserve battalion for our turn
to go out, and now, just four weeks after the regiment sailed with the
vanguard of the Expeditionary Force, we were sent for at two hours'
notice.
We were ready, of course. There was not much to get ready, except
our 35 lb. kit, and that we always kept rolled up by our beds. Our
revolvers, field-glasses, water-bottles, and haversacks were hung on
our belts, and we had only to tell our servants to take our kits down
to the transport wagon and walk on to the square where the draft was
paraded, which we did.
The Colonel said a few words, the town band fell in at the head of the
column, the crowd waved good-bye, and the draft cheered and yelled and
sang their way to the station. The draft was in the best of spirits;
it cheered the colonel, adjutant, and any officers on sight; it leant
out of the carriage windows and waved beer bottles, and rifles, and
caps; and it greeted with such uproarious applause any attempt to give
orders on the part of Mulligan or myself that we thought it best to
remain in the corner of our first-class carriage. There were 180 men
of all ages from nineteen to forty, old soldiers and young soldiers,
militiamen, reservists, and a few regulars.
"We are going to have a jolly time with these," said Mulligan,
indicating the draft.
Our transport was a converted Blue Line boat, which the trip before had
brought over German prisoners, and the trip before that cattle from
America. She had been carpentered up to carry troops, and her hold
was a network of planks and scaffolding. She was to carry, besides
ourselves, drafts for five other regiments, and each of these had to
receive, on embarkation, rations to last for five days.
From the moment we got on board Mulligan began to prove invaluable. He
collected our full number of rations from the bewildered and suspicious
Army Service Corps official, he annexed an easily defended corner in
the hold, stored the rations there, and put a guard over them; he
frightened two other draft officers out of the only remaining officer's
cabin and put our kit on to their bunks, and finally, when all was
quiet, he led me to a hotel in the port where we could get a drink
after ten.
The transport sailed the next morning, and once under way there was
little or nothing for officers and men to do except lie about in the
sun. It was a glorious September morning as we steamed past the Isle of
Wight, with only two destroyers, one ahead and one to port, to remind
us we were at war. But as we sat smoking and talking on deck there was
a feeling in the air which dispelled the sense of being on a pleasure
trip.
I think that just for those few hours as we left the shores of England
there was heaviness in each man's heart. It was no holiday this we
were going on. There was an officer in a Highland regiment, who was
one of fifteen officers of the same regiment on their way out to
replace fifteen brother officers who had only crossed the sea four
weeks before: a splendid-looking fellow, with his kilt and gaily cocked
glengarry; there would be very few fellows in the regiment that he knew
out there now, he said to me. He had rather a serious expression. It
was grim work going out to fill the place of a friend who had been
killed. And there was another fellow whom I'd known well years ago and
who welcomed me with delight when he found we were to be on the same
transport. "You know, I don't like this a bit," he said, evidently much
relieved to find some one to whom he could speak his heart, instead of
keeping up the conventional mask of joy at having been ordered to the
Front. "As far as I can see, one is certain to be killed."
We talked over old days when we had been quartered near London and gone
off together to Covent Garden balls and other entertainments. "You
know, I'm married now," he told me. "You're _not_?" I said, laughing;
it seems so funny when one's bachelor friends get married; and he
looked just the same dog as ever.
"Yes, I've been married a year--got a brat too," he said with an
air of having conclusively reformed; then, returning to the subject
of the war, "absolutely certain to get hit, you know--it's all very
well--never even had time to say good-bye to my wife and kid."
A month or two afterwards I saw from the papers that his regiment had
been in action and lost fourteen officers--eleven wounded and three
killed. It seemed just the infernal luck of the thing that he should
have been one of the three killed.
The voyage lasted three days. By the middle of the second day quite
half the troops were sea-sick. It also came on to rain. The men had
therefore all to remain in the hold. Owing to the exigencies of war
they had to be packed like Chinese coolies, and there was no room for
them to walk about, barely enough for them to lie down. The boards on
which they lay soon became littered with bits of biscuit, cheese, clots
of jam, and fragments of bully beef. The rain found its way down to
the hold through the improvised companion ways, and not more than half
the men could keep dry. The stench in the hold soon became appalling.
The men themselves did not seem to worry much, but lay about, those
who were well enough smoking, those who were not, with the aggrieved
expression Tommy often wears when he is sorely tried, as much as to
say: "---- it, what next am I going to be asked to do?" But when Tommy
wears this expression it by no means follows he is not going to carry
out the command. He retreated from Mons in this fashion.
The sun was shining again as we arrived off the mouth of the Loire.
As we steamed slowly up the river we began to see the first signs of
war. There was a large concentration camp on the left bank. We were
passed and were vociferously cheered by another transport, lying off
the dock with her decks thick with men waiting to be disembarked. We
were eventually moored alongside a quay and told we must all remain on
board till to-morrow morning. This was a disappointment to the men, a
few of whom endeavoured to land on their own initiative by means of a
rope ladder. A guard was put over the ladder and most of the officers
retired to the saloon for drinks. We had various distractions during
the evening. First a visit from a wounded officer who had been sent
down from the base camp. He said his regiment had been badly cut
up. Some of the others asked him about individual officers in his
regiment. "The colonel--oh, the colonel has 'gone.' Chippendale--poor
Chippendale, he thought he'd been hit in the stomach and was dead.
'Curtes,' yes, Curtes had been alongside him in the trench and shot
through the head. There was a fellow in hospital with him who had had
eleven bullets in his leg. He was dying. He didn't know how long he'd
be at the base camp. They had tried to put him on a hospital boat for
England, but he had got off again. He thought he'd go back in a week.
It was awful up there."
He was the first wounded man we had seen, and we said one to another:
"By Jove, he has been through it."
Now I know that his funny way of saying everybody was dead, and the
shocked look on his face, combined with the wish to go back, and "we
are in for a bigger thing than we ever thought" attitude, were all
symptoms of nervous strain, which most men get after a certain time in
action.
Besides our visitor we saw something of the life of the town from the
sides of the boat. There were a good many men in khaki coming and going
along the streets and in cafés, apparently all rather the worse for
drink, and there was an officer's picket parading the streets putting
the more drunken under arrest. It was the first few days of the new
base camp, and the provost-marshal was just getting the town in order.
As Mulligan and I were turning in for the night an orderly reported
that a man had been drowned trying to get off the boat, and an officer
was wanted to go down to the quay. Mulligan was up immediately. It
seemed rather an unpleasant job for a boy like him, so I said there was
no need for him to go as the man might not belong to our draft.
He grinned and put on his cap. "I think I'll go and get a sight of my
first corpse," he said.
It was pouring with rain when we landed the next morning. We were
told to march to No. 7_a_ base camp, which we should find two miles
outside the town, shown the direction, and off we started. There were
the details of some five divisions quartered round the town, first
reinforcements, second reinforcements, artillery units, cavalry,
A.S.C., and Royal Flying Corps. As these were all divided into various
small settlements, which each guarded its domain jealously and denied
all knowledge of us when we offered ourselves for accommodation, it was
no easy matter to arrive at the right spot. It rained steadily during
our search; however, at last, after plodding through miles of tents and
across a half-dried swamp, we found a small camp in a field which had a
board by the guard-tent marked "7_a_."
The sergeant of the guard pointed out to me the Camp Adjutant's tent
and, leaving the draft in charge of Mulligan, I went across to it. The
men were by this time wet to the skin and, as clean sheets and pyjamas
were not included in their kit, or, as a matter of fact, any change of
clothing except a pair of socks and a clean shirt, it looked as though
they would most of them have pneumonia the next morning. However, one
thing about active service is that it eliminates most of the minor
worries of life. A man who may have a bullet through him before he is
many days older is not very much afraid of catching cold when he is
wet, and the men, when their tents were shown them, just shook the rain
off their caps and turned inside.
The Camp Adjutant was a very fierce individual, and when I inquired
about a tent for Mulligan and myself said he did not think there was
one; when I asked him what then it would be best for us to do, he was
first blasphemous and then completely indifferent. A tent standing by
itself behind the men's lines, he said, was a cavalry officer's tent,
in fact, the whole camp was really a cavalry camp, and he did not know
why the ---- we had been sent there.
After he had gone I decided to go and look at the cavalry officer's
tent. Pulling aside the flaps cautiously I peered inside and there saw,
sitting on his valise and eating a biscuit with jam, a very immaculate
young gentleman, with light, white-balled breeches and a large silver
eagle on his cap. His head was bent as I looked in, but as he looked up
I saw the pink and white, ingenious face of Herbert Beldhurst.
"Hullo!" I said.
"Hullo!" said Herbert, looking at me in polite perplexity, then,
remembering who I was: "Oh, hullo! Come inside."
I entered.
"Have a cigarette?"
He produced a huge new leather campaigning cigarette case. Everything
in his tent was new and designed, regardless of cost, to make
campaigning as comfortable as possible. He had a smart spare saddle
with two bright leather revolver holsters, a sandwich-case, a box of
Fortnum and Mason's groceries, a special Burberry, and a gorgeous
canary-yellow woollen waistcoat.
Hearing of our difficulty he at once offered me a share of his tent,
and I had my kit put inside. Mulligan I left to look after himself,
with implicit confidence in his power to do so.
Half an hour later Mulligan had billeted himself on two young officers
fresh from Sandhurst, combined their rations with ours, and constituted
himself president of a joint mess.
For the next few days we remained at the base camp waiting for
orders to go up to the Front. The time was passed in route marching,
inspecting arms and equipment, and trying to instil some sense of
discipline into the draft. This last duty took some performing, as the
draft resented being cooped up in the square acre of camp ground, and
showed a disposition individually to go off into the town and get drunk.
One evening, about 7.30, an order came for the drafts for the 5th
Division to entrain, and Mulligan and I and our 180 followers marched
to the station.
That journey up to the Front was for me a never-to-be-forgotten
experience. It lasted for three days, the train creeping along at ten
miles an hour. As on the boat, we were a mixed party, comprising drafts
for some eight regiments, and totalling about 1500 men. The train
was of immense length. The senior officer was an elderly ex-Militia
subaltern, completely incompetent. He made no regulations, posted no
guards at stations, gave none of the draft officers orders, and by the
end of the third day was firing his revolver wildly out of the window.
For this I do not blame him much, for the situation had by this time
reached a climax. The different drafts remained fairly quiet in their
carriages for the first night, but when the next morning broke fine
and sunny and we stopped at a station in the middle of a French town,
first one man and then another climbed down from the stuffy, crowded
carriages on to the platform. From the platform it was only a step
into the main street of the town, and this step was quickly taken.
When the train wanted to move on there were no drafts. The drafts were
all in cafés, cottages, and pie shops, receiving a hearty welcome from
the inhabitants. The elderly ex-Militia subaltern said they must be
collected and put back in the train, and set off with different draft
officers to do this, but as fast as the men were turned out of one
shop they went into another lower down the street. Eventually Mulligan
organized a drive from the lower end of the town up to the station, the
men were collected, and off we started again.
Warned by this experience, the ex-Militia subaltern ordered the driver
of the train on no account again to stop near a town. Our next halt
was, therefore, well in the middle of open country. Beside the line
there ran a peaceful stream. The noonday heat was by now at its height,
and after a glance out of the carriage windows we settled to sleep,
secure in our remoteness from trouble. Suddenly the ex-Militiaman,
putting his head out of the window, exclaimed:
"My God! Look at the ----s."
We looked, and saw several of the draft divesting themselves of their
clothes preparing to bathe. We jumped out to order them into the train
again, but while we were doing this every carriage was opened and the
different drafts, perhaps thinking a bathing parade had been ordered
and the officers were going down to superintend, all jumped out and
made for the river.
"I should start the train again," said Mulligan, looking coldly on the
scene of confusion. "They'll come back quick enough if they think they
are going to be left behind."
The order was given, and with a long, warning whistle the train started
slowly off. The effect was electrical. The men began to pour back at
once. The train was kept going at two miles an hour, and those dressed
were quickly on board again. One man, stark naked except for a pair
of trousers, was left racing after her down the line holding up his
trousers with one hand. He soon took a heavy toss over a switch wire,
and the train had to be stopped and a party sent back to fetch him.
While this was happening the ex-Militia subaltern in charge, who was
keeping an eagle look-out all along the train, spied another man making
off. He called to him to stop, but the man apparently did not hear and
continued. The distracted subaltern then called on a corporal in the
next carriage to fire at the culprit with his rifle, which he did.
The victim, suddenly alive to his position, gave a wild yell when the
shot was fired, and ran away as hard as he could. He disappeared into a
wood and was never seen again.
Nearing Paris we began to pass hospital trains going west, and outside
the city were halted alongside a train-load of German prisoners. They
were a miserable, abject-looking lot, huddled together on the floors
of the carriages, all in their muddy grey uniforms as they had been
captured. I do not think in those days there was much hate in the
heart of the British Tommy towards his foe, for our fellows threw them
biscuits which they devoured ravenously, and cigarettes which they lit
and passed round one to another with trembling hands.
The suburban trains were running into Paris with women, and men unfit
for service or over military age, much as though business was going
on as usual, but we were hardly beyond the outskirts before we were
passing through ground which we were told the Germans had held a few
weeks before, and the impression gathered was very different from any
which could be derived within fifteen miles of London.
Beyond Paris we passed through some beautiful, thickly wooded country,
and were told we were within thirty kilometres of the enemy. At one
point we halted by a field-ambulance station. Here the wounded were
brought down from behind the firing-line in motor ambulances, their
wounds dressed, and then put on to a train. It was a stern first sight
of war, that long barn strewn with straw and packed with groaning,
blood-stained, muddy men straight from the trenches.
II. RAILHEAD AND BEYOND
For the last stage of the journey the train crawled very slowly. Very
faintly in the distance we could hear the boom of guns. We looked at
one another, Mulligan and I and the two lads from Sandhurst.
"We're getting into it now," said one of the Sandhurst boys.
"Yes--maybe this time twenty-four hours we shall be dead," said
Mulligan with a grin.
In those days it did indeed happen that an officer only survived one
day after reaching railhead. Some had been killed literally on their
way to the trenches. However, Mulligan's cheery attitude of fatalism,
combined with the sound of the guns, did not infect me with any wild
good spirits, and I pulled out my pipe and filled it for the fifth time
since lunch.
The four of us had been living for three days in the first-class
carriage ever since we had entrained with our respective drafts at the
base. We had slept, eaten, smoked, and made ourselves as comfortable
as space would permit, and had also become very good friends. They
were splendid boys, the two cadets from Sandhurst--one eighteen, the
other nineteen. Theirs had been a short interval between the schoolboy
and the man. A month after leaving the Royal Military College they
had found themselves responsible officers sent out with a draft to
their regiment in France. It had been instructive to watch the perfect
self-possession of the boys and the way they handled their men. Now
as we neared our journey's end they sat calmly looking out of the
window, their ears pricked to catch the sound of the distant guns,
liking the thought of war perhaps no more than others do when they find
themselves very near to it, but perfectly self-possessed and prepared
to do whatever was required of them. They have both given their lives
for their country now, poor lads--such bits of life as they had to
give, having passed through only two stages of it, and never known "the
lover" or the full strength of man.
At railhead the train stopped about half a mile outside the station.
The railway transport officer came down the line to give us our
instructions. He said he proposed to leave us in a siding for the
night and we could have the train to ourselves, which would be better
than turning out in a field to sleep. The men could light fires by
the railway line for cooking, but they must not drink the water from
a stream which ran alongside the line as it was unsafe. There were
two wells from which water could be drawn for the troops a little way
beyond a level-crossing further up the line. If each draft would send
water-carrying parties they should be directed to the wells. He wished
a guard put at the level-crossing to prevent any man walking up the
line into the town. He was with us about four minutes giving his orders
concisely, and so that they could be clearly understood; then he went
back towards the station to attend to the multitude of duties which
fall to the lot of a railway transport officer. He spoke without flurry
or excitement and gave the impression, which every staff-officer should
give, of being a thoroughly capable man who knew exactly what he
wanted the troops he was handling to do.
When the R.T.O. had gone we went along the line to carry out the orders
we had received. Having been explicitly told that the stream was
poisoned and not fit to drink, and that all fires must be lit on the
right side of the line and not on the left, some of the men proceeded
to light fires on the wrong side of the railway and to fill their
bottles from the stream. Having put these matters right by standing
about and yelling at the offenders, and things having been put more or
less in shape for the night, Mulligan and I went off into the town.
The town which lay deep down in a valley was in pitch darkness. There
was no sign of life in the streets, except in the market square where
some wagons were parked and a group of soldiers were sitting round the
embers of a fire. Now and again large, silent motor-cars with officers
wrapped up to the chin in overcoats and mufflers glided through. One of
the men by the wagons told us that Sir John French had been in the town
half an hour ago, had a quick consultation with some general officers,
and passed on. In spite of the darkness, quiet, and absence of signs
of activity, one felt somehow, as one stood in that market square
with the shadowy wagons and group of men round the fire, that one had
crossed the border and come into the zone of war. Railways were done
with now and the infantry must take to their feet.
In view of certain reports we had heard about officers being picked off
by specially detailed snipers, Mulligan and I had decided that at the
first opportunity we would get rid of our brown leather belts and put
on the web equipment worn by the men. Accordingly, when we got to the
market square, we asked if there was any ordnance store in the town. A
soldier directed us to a house at the corner of the square. We knocked
on the door, and after a little difficulty roused the storeman, who
took us into a large room where a quantity of clothing, equipment,
and rifles collected from the dead, were piled on the floor. The
storeman was a Royal Field Artilleryman, and he told us he was one of
three survivors of a battery which had been left to fight a desperate
rearguard action in the retreat from Mons--it was the battery in which
all but one gun were put out of action. The man had a subdued manner
and was reluctant to speak much of the engagement. To us, who had not
yet seen a shell burst, this meeting with a man who had been through so
much fighting was significant. We took our web equipment and made our
way back to the train.
The morning broke fine and sunny, and we turned out along the line
quite ready to march. As we were putting on the web equipment we had
collected over night, the French driver of the train came along. He
stopped and looked at us curiously, then asked why we were discarding
our officer's belts and putting on men's equipment. We explained it was
because we did not want to be picked out as officers. He said: "With
our officers it is the same uniform in peace as in war." I could not
think of an adequate reply to this, but the natural and irritable one
would have been "more fools they," which Mulligan made without any
hesitation. However, the engine driver's remark rankled, and as the
R.T.O. said that most of the officers he had seen had gone up to the
front in their Sam Browne belts, we decided to do the same after all
and pack the web equipment in our kit.
We got our orders to march at noon. Mulligan and I with our draft and
the draft for another regiment were to start first; the two Sandhurst
lads, who were going to another brigade, were to wait till the
afternoon. We sorted out our different drafts, wished them good-bye,
and set off.
Part of the way from railhead to divisional headquarters lay over a
ridge which overlooked the valley of the Aisne. From this ridge we saw
our first shells bursting at a comfortable distance of some two mile
away. One wondered as one watched the little white puffs of smoke which
appeared suddenly and noiselessly, hovered for a minute a score of feet
above the earth, and blew away, what damage they had caused and what it
must be like for the men who formed the target beneath them.
The valley of the Aisne, as we saw it, except for those white puffs of
smoke and the occasional distant boom of a heavy gun, showed no signs
of war. The fields were quiet and empty as on a Sunday, with crops
growing tranquilly and here and there a stack of hay. At one point we
passed an artillery supply park with an imperturbable-looking gunner
subaltern, with an eyeglass, and a major in charge. The major had a
large scale-map of the area, and showed me from it where our lines and
the German's lines lay, pointing out the actual places on the horizon.
He was passing the time making out possible phases of battles to come
from the map. The subaltern told us that the word "Uhlan" (in the early
days of the war often heard) was extinct as a form of terrorism, for,
he said, they and their horses were half-starved, and turned and bolted
on sight.
After some five miles march we arrived at divisional headquarters,
which consisted of the principal house in a tiny village. Here I found
an officer in my regiment who was attached to the staff, and who asked
me to come in and have tea while he found out what I was to do with the
men I had brought out from England.
The general and his staff were having tea round a deal table in the
front room of the house when I went in and all greeted me kindly. Tea
consisted of bread, jam, and tea without milk. There was no butter,
only two or three plates, and some brown sugar in a paper bag. The
meal belied any impression I may have had of the luxury in which
generals and their staff were wont to live in war time.
There was a discussion among the staff officers as to what they were to
do with the draft and myself and Mulligan. One was for sending us down
to the trenches that night, another for keeping us back in reserve. I
personally hoped for a night in peace and quiet, and I could see that
the staff officer who was in favour of keeping us in reserve thought it
would be rather a severe experience for a draft to be sent down into
the trenches the first night they arrived at the front.
Eventually it was decided that we should go to our second line
transport which lay some two miles behind the firing-line, and with
directions as to the road we started off. It was by this time dark;
however, we had no difficulties until we came to the village where
our second line transport was supposed to be. This village was packed
with troops, and from no one could we get information about the
whereabouts of our second line transport. There followed an hour of
hopeless wandering and questioning, while Mulligan and I cursed the
army and everything to do with the army (with especial reference to the
staff) for fools and worse. At one point we came into collision with a
regiment marching out to take its turn in the trenches. The officers
all were wearing Burberrys and mufflers, and had greatcoats rolled
on their backs. The men were carrying little pots for cooking, extra
bandoliers of ammunition, and other things likely to be useful to them
in the trenches. All looked prepared to be thoroughly uncomfortable.
At last, after some further wandering, we struck boldly out on a road
along which we were told we should find our second line transport. I
was a little uneasy as we left the village behind us and marched out
into the darkness, for I knew we were going in the direction of the
enemy, and it would be a never-to-be-forgotten episode in an officer's
career to lead a draft of reinforcements fresh from England straight
into the hands of the enemy instead of to their regiment. However,
before we had gone far a voice greeted me cheerily and I discovered our
quartermaster.
"You come with me, I'll take you to the transport. Now then, lads,
close up there," he said, in the crisp, businesslike voice I had often
heard on the parade-ground in times of peace when he was regimental
sergeant-major.
Only those young officers who served in the days before the war, and
learnt to lean a little on the "backbone" of the army, can understand
the relief it was to me, after a fortnight's responsibility with the
180 rascals who formed my draft, to feel them gripped once again by the
voice of an old regular ex-non-commissioned officer.
Under Clay's guidance the draft followed like sheep into the courtyard
of a farm, and stood quietly in their ranks while we went into the
building. In the centre of the yard a fire was burning and the
sergeant-cook was busy preparing supper (this would have been too
much for the draft altogether if they had been alone with me). The
sergeant-cook shook my hand warmly in his huge red paw and wished me
luck on joining the regiment on active service. He then busied himself
preparing a dixie of tea for the men. Inside the farm I found Sergeant
Mace, the officers' mess sergeant, in khaki and shirt sleeves but just
as anxious that the officers should have everything they wanted as
he had been when his portly chest had been covered by a glossy white
shirt. He brought me a cup of tea, unearthed from the mess van a bottle
of rum, poured it liberally into the tea, and went out with some bread,
dripping, and eggs to fry some supper over the fire in the yard.
Of the welcomes I have had I shall always remember the first night when
I reached the second line transport of my regiment in France.
Thinking to remain with the transport that night, Mulligan and I had
found some straw for the draft and were sitting on biscuit boxes over
the fire drinking hot rum and water, and hearing the gossip of the
regiment from Clay and Mace before turning in, when an orderly arrived
with orders. We were to go down into the trenches that night.
Clay said it was rough luck we should not get one night's rest. He was
also extremely matter of fact. He roused the men from their slumbers
in a trice, cursed a man roundly who dropped his rifle, harangued the
draft in a hoarse whisper, telling them that they were going to be
sent across to the other side of the river into the firing-line, and
that if they made a noise they would get a German battery turned on
them, said a few words to Mulligan and myself aside, advising one of us
to keep at the head of the company and one behind, and to keep the men
well closed up, as if fire was suddenly opened at night on troops just
out of England it might be touch and go what would happen, and said
good-bye to us, without--as I thought, considering the occasion--much
tenderness.
It was pitch dark when we started off from the transport to go down to
the firing-line. The transport sergeant came with us to show the way
and marched with me at the head of the draft. He told me that he had to
take the supply-wagon down every night to the regiment, and that it was
a job he was glad to have over for the day. That morning he had been
late returning, and day was breaking as he crossed the river. Three
shells had been fired, two narrowly missing his wagon. I could see
he was rather shaken by his morning's experience and that he did not
particularly relish the task of piloting down the draft. However, never
having seen any shells burst, they had no terror for me, and I rather
enjoyed the quiet sense of adventure which hung over the expedition.
After half a mile we left the main road and crossed the pontoon bridge.
From this point onwards our way lay across the fields. In the darkness
we could see nothing and had no compass to give the direction. The
transport sergeant picked his way by keeping to a muddy track which had
been worn across the fields and stubble by troops passing to and fro
from the firing-line to the rear. Whenever our boots stopped squelching
and slipping back we knew we were off the track and groped about till
we were back in the mud and cart-ruts again.
A few months afterwards when I read that the French troops, who had
taken over our line when the British Army was moved up to Flanders,
had had to retire to the high ground south of the Aisne owing to the
impossibility of keeping up communication with their line across the
river when the winter rain came, I remembered that muddy, slippery walk
and understood their difficulties.
We had been going for what seemed quite an hour when we came to a large
hay shed. Here we halted as the sergeant said he was not quite sure
where we were wanted, but that the trenches were quite near. It was
late, the men tired, and the hay-shed presented at any rate a certainty
of shelter and some warmth, so I decided to remain there for the night.
III. EARLY DAYS ON THE AISNE
There was a big difference between the first and second occasions on
which I joined my regiment.
The first time was as a Sandhurst cadet and I joined a regiment at full
strength of officers and men. I remember we sat down to dinner that
night some twenty of us, and being bewildered by all the faces and
trying to make out which was the colonel and wondering if I should ever
learn the names of all the different subalterns and captains. The mess
table was laden with silver and outside a band in scarlet tunics played.
The second time was when I rejoined after a year's absence on the
outbreak of war, and went with Mulligan and the draft to join them in
the trenches on the Aisne. By then they had fought at Mons, Le Cateau,
and the Marne.
The Adjutant, who met me behind the lines to take me to the Commanding
Officer, prepared me a little for what to expect.
"Blain is commanding," he said, as we threaded our way single file down
a path through a wood. Blain, I knew, had been a very junior captain a
month before when war broke out.
The Adjutant proceeded to explain:
"The Colonel and Ames were hit at Mons." (Ames was the senior major.)
Johnson and Hewett (another major and a captain) had been hit on the
Marne. "Clark and Sergeant Johnson--you remember Johnson?" I nodded,
well remembering Clark's inimitable colour-sergeant--the pair had
been inseparable and the officer greatly dependent on the man for the
keeping of his company accounts, etc., in the days of peace--"were
killed the day before yesterday. They are buried together by that
farm." The Adjutant softened his voice from the tone of matter-of-fact
recital as he pointed to a farm building through the trees.
"Well, here we are," he said as we came to a little straw and earth
shelter in the wood. "Here's some fresh blood, sir," he said, to a
youthful looking captain sitting on a tree stump outside the shelter.
This was Blain, who through the accidents of war was now left in
command of the regiment. There were left, besides, one other captain
and some half-dozen subalterns. Of these the scout officer and
machine-gun officer were with Blain, the others out in command of their
companies in the trenches.
"Hullo!" said Blain, holding out his hand. "We are going to put you
with Goyle's company."
I grinned as unconcernedly as I could. So Goyle was one of the
survivors, then. Goyle was the regimental fire-eater. He had been
longing for this war for years and was more pleased than many others
I knew when it actually happened. To be Goyle's subaltern on active
service, I had always surmised, was to have guarantee of plenty of
fighting.
If ever a reluctant youth found himself holding out against
overwhelming odds in an impossible position it would be one of Goyle's
subalterns.
"Goyle has had bad luck with his subalterns," said Blain. "He has lost
four."
"I hope he doesn't lose me," I said with some sincerity.
Blain and the Adjutant laughed. "Well, we'll send you on up to him,"
said the former. "Let's see--I think he has got the forward trench
to-day."
"Yes, he has," said the Adjutant; then, turning to me, "You'll be near
enough to them for your first day in the trenches--two hundred yards."
I grinned again as genially as possible.
"Have some breakfast before you go up," said the C.O., handing me a
biscuit and a pot of jam and pointing to a pannikin of tea.
It was very damp in the wood. The trees were dripping. The tea
was cold. The party, with Blain as C.O., and the Adjutant and two
subalterns, were a forlorn little group to be left out of a regiment.
All had rather a strained air, and my good spirits and feeling of being
fresh out from England were evidently not infectious to men who had
been through what they had. They had had a shell near them already that
morning and were all frankly apprehensive of another. From that moment
any ideas I may have had about the pleasures and excitements of active
service left me, and I merely wondered what sort of a trench I was
going to and what Fate might have to bring me on my first day of active
service.
I had always imagined that trenches were only approached by night, and
then by crawling on one's belly along narrow communication passages.
But we set off in broad daylight, at eight in the morning, to go up to
our trench. The reason we were able to do this was because the trenches
on the Aisne were along the edges of woods, and it was possible to move
through the trees right up to within two hundred yards of the enemy
without being observed.
The advanced trench which Goyle was holding with his company lay in a
small wood, rather in advance of the main line of trenches. The path
which led to it twisted and twined and branched off into other paths
so confusedly that I wondered how the Adjutant could find his way. The
actual trench itself consisted in a bank along the edge of the wood
in which a chain of dug-outs had been excavated. We found Goyle in a
dug-out in the centre, which was distinguished from the others by some
straw and a couple of water-proof sheets; there was also a wooden box
without a lid, in which the officers' rations were kept. Goyle was
sitting in the dug-out with Evans, his remaining subaltern, and having
taken me thus far, the Adjutant returned to the C.O.
Evans was an old friend of mine and fellow-subaltern. We talked
together for a while and then he showed me cautiously how to creep
up to the top of the parapet and look through some long grass at
the enemy's trenches 200 yards away, and he told me the story of
the fight for the position we now held and where so-and-so, and
so-and-so--brother officers whom I'd seen leave England a month before
with a cheery wave of the hand for me and a joke about meeting "out
there" soon--had been killed the day before.
At nine o'clock we rummaged in our ration-box and made breakfast off
jam and biscuits and cheese. It was quite pleasant in the dug-out and
there was no sound of war. As we were making our breakfast a shot rang
out and there was a piercing yell.
"Hullo! they must have got one of the fellows I put on sentry at the
edge of the wood," said Goyle, helping himself to more jam.
"Is that one of our fellows?" he called to the sergeant.
"Yessir--hit in the buttocks, sir"; the sergeant slapped the portly
part of himself on which he sat.
We all laughed.
The yell gave way to groans--loud, long, and terrible.
I looked as unconcerned as possible and dipped my own biscuit into
the pot. "Tell that fellow to stop making such a noise," said Captain
Jones, angrily putting his head round the dug-out.
I felt myself that it was a pity the Germans should know the good
result of their shooting and that the fellow ought not to make such
a fuss. However, the groaning went on as loudly as ever, and at last
Jones got up exasperated to go and see what was the matter.
He came back with a grave face.
"Only hit in his 'sit-upon,' wasn't he?" My fellow-subaltern looked up
smiling.
"H'm, it's worse--went through and has lodged somewhere in his
intestines," and murmuring "in agony, poor fellow!" Captain Jones
looked to see if we had emptied the jam-pot while he was away.