particular I remember when I had gone out with Mulligan to explore a
village on the hill above us. The village was built of grey stone hewn
from a quarry in the hillside. Most of the inhabitants had stayed in
their homes although the Germans had at one time been through their
village. They told us how the Uhlans had ridden through in a great
hurry, snatching what they wanted, but happily unable to stay to carry
out coarse threats, and how the British cavalry had followed hot on
their heels. But all this had been some while ago, and for the past
weeks the village had been in peace. The church had some beautiful
stained-glass windows which were all shivered by the explosion of
shells, but the building itself stood intact, and Mulligan and I went
inside and stepped softly up the aisle, unswept since war began, and
littered with fragments of plaster from the ceiling. There was a great
sense of calm and dignity about the little church, which had remained
so near the battlefield a quiet place of refuge for its people. The old
priest came across from his cottage and, bowing to us ceremoniously,
offered us each a pear. We walked with him through the village till we
came to a point beyond, from which we could see right down into the
valley where the two armies lay facing each other. The sun was just
setting at the further end of the valley and the evening mists were
curling low over the meadows and river. Somewhere away behind a bell
tolled for a service. For a few minutes as we stood there all was peace
and quiet, then from the hill opposite our guns opened fire. The shells
went screaming across the valley tearing their way through the soft
evening air. We watched, wondering what was their target. Then suddenly
flames broke out from a village lying across the valley within the
enemy's lines. Looking through our glasses we could see the flames came
from some stacks near a farm. _Crash--Crash--Crash!_ Shell after shell
fell among the cottages. Slowly the flames spread as one building after
another was set aflame. The sun had sunk now and the sky was darkening.
The whole village seemed one crackling bonfire. Still our guns hurled
shells into the flames. Their fire seemed merciless as they lashed the
little village with round after round. Suddenly the firing stopped. It
had grown dark. The village was blazing now fiercely, and the whole sky
was red. The work of the guns was done. We stood a moment watching the
lurid, glowing mass. Mulligan wondered if we had caught a nest full of
German troops. The old priest said nothing: it was war. Gradually the
flames grew less, and only here and there bright red patches reflected
themselves against heavy clouds of smoke. Saying good-night to the
priest we made our way slowly back to billets.
V. THE MOVE UP (1)
We had been in our billets in the village behind the Aisne a week
when the order came to move. It came suddenly one evening at seven
o'clock, as orders do at the Front, and by seven-thirty we were on the
march. Where to, why, or for how long no one had any idea. Perhaps we
were moving to a threatened point of the line, perhaps troops were
being concentrated for an attack, perhaps the whole division, which
had suffered heavily since the outbreak of war, was being replaced
by a fresh division and was being sent back to the base to refit,
reorganize, and fill its gaps.
As we marched along we attempted to make deductions from the direction
we were taking. One thing was plain, the road led directly back from
the line of the river and the enemy. It might be, of course, that
after going a mile or two we should swing right-handed and move along
parallel to the enemy but out of reach of their guns till we came
behind some point where we were wanted, and then be moved up again.
We climbed up out of the valley and crossed a high plateau of waste
land. Goyle told me that the German rearguard of horse artillery and
cavalry had dashed pell-mell across this plateau in their retreat from
the Marne, hotly pursued by our cavalry and guns, pausing at intervals
to exchange shots with their pursuers, crashing on down the valley and
across the Aisne, where they had made the stand they had maintained
ever since. It must have been a fine sight to have seen the pursuer and
pursued crossing the plateau.
Four or five miles back we passed some troops bivouacking by a farm.
"What are you?" called Goyle.
"The ----s," came a rather sullen answer.
It was the ---- Regiment--all that was left of it--perhaps a hundred
men. They had been badly cut up a few days before, and, no longer
existing as a regiment, had been withdrawn from the firing-line.
A mile or two further on we came to the end of our journey for that
day--a village where we were to billet. Our billeting officer had gone
ahead, and we had not long to wait in the road before he came to show
the company their billeting area. In the darkness it took a little time
to get the men settled. They naturally resented being put in pigsties,
which Edwards, who had no sense of smell and only felt the straw with
his feet, tried to do with his platoon. Then Mulligan, who was always a
bit hot on these occasions, annexed a barn, which was just within our
boundary, for A Company, and, successful in this, attempted to take
over a kitchen right in the heart of our area for the use of A Company
officers.
When I went to eject him from this he adopted the tone, "We must all
share in on service," and as I still preserved a stony countenance,
obtruded the nose of a bottle of rum from his haversack and said we
would have some hot toddy when all was quiet, whereupon, on striking
a bargain that I should have the bed and he a mattress from it on the
floor, I let him remain.
Some electric torches we had had sent out from England were of the
greatest use at times like this, as they enabled us to flash them into
the interior of barns and get the men properly settled in places where
there was room for them and where they could sleep in comfort. Also, as
we were well away from the firing-line, we could have "Black Maria,"
our mess van, with us, and hot meals when we got in and before we
started in the morning.
We remained in the village all the next day, moving off just before
nightfall the following evening. During the day I went to pay a visit
to some of the other units of the brigade. The Westshires were billeted
further down the village, and had passed the night as comfortably
as ourselves, but the Dorchesters had not been so fortunate, and
had had to sleep in a field, as there had been no billeting space
left for them. Greatly conscious of the warm bed I had just left, I
surveyed with a sympathy which they did not seem to appreciate the
little "boovey-hutches" and lairs of straw which they had made for
themselves. The artillery, too, had had to sleep out, to be near their
guns and horses, and were in a bad temper. One young artillery officer
was very sarcastic about the mystery which was being made of our
movements--the marching by night and hiding by day with no hint as to
destination--and said several unflattering things about red tape, brass
hat rims, and other insignia of staff. He was an amusing fellow with
his wit sharpened to the point of acidity by the cold cheerless night
he had spent in the open, and I stood listening to him for some time. I
could imagine him standing between his section of guns directing their
fire in the early days of the retreat, when the enemy pressed on us in
their masses and every gun had to fire while there was a man left to
work it. He would probably have been very witty and deliberate about
the objective of the last shell.
Our second night march was longer than the first, and we covered
eighteen miles. We appeared still to be going farther and farther away
from the enemy, but at one point, nearing the end of the march, we
heard faintly the sound of guns. They were the French guns, we were
told, so we gathered that we were somewhere behind the French lines.
A long climb down took us to a bridge over a river, guarded by a very
bored-looking French reservist who looked at us suspiciously, and was,
I felt sure, longing for the excuse for a row with somebody, just to
relieve the monotony of life. Crossing the bridge we left the main road
short of the town--to the keen disappointment of the men--and turned
up what looked like a private drive through woods. After going about a
mile and a half we came on a group of buildings which proved to be our
destination for the night. It was dark and not easy to see much, and
we accepted placidly a staff officer's information that the regiment's
billeting area lay on the right side of a small stream. "You will
find a farm--it was all I could do for you, but I expect you will all
be able to get into it," he said. Tired and footsore as we were, we
felt certain we should be able to fix ourselves up anywhere. The farm
comprised three cottages, a large building and a huge haystack with
a corrugated iron roof. We got most of the men on the hay under the
corrugated iron roof. Of course, as soon as they lay down they pulled
out cigarettes and pipes for a satisfying smoke after the long march.
This made Goyle dance with fury, and he sent me up on top of the stack
to have all the cigarettes put out. It seemed hard on the men, but he
was quite right, as they would certainly have set the stack on fire.
Having got the men settled I went off to find the officers' quarters.
These proved to be the two lower rooms of an empty house. There was no
furniture in the house at all, simply a thick layer of straw on the
floor. However, it had been a long march, and the straw looked inviting
enough. I got my valise off the transport, unrolled it in a corner,
took off my boots and coat and slid into my sleeping-bag. Others did
the same in different corners of the room. The room was not very well
lighted, and one or two late comers, who stepped on people's faces or
feet in their efforts to find a corner for themselves, came in for a
good deal of abuse. In a quarter of an hour we were all sound asleep.
When we woke in the morning we took stock of our quarters, and found
they were not so sumptuous as tired limbs and thankfulness to be able
to stretch ourselves out rolled up in blankets had led us to suppose.
For by daylight we could see by inscriptions scratched on the walls
that the last occupants of the place had been a company of the --th
Regiment of Turcos. We had been sleeping in what for a time had been
a barracks for native troops. On going outside the building and taking
a stroll we discovered a pretty little château which the officers of
another regiment had annexed for their use. They had all slept in beds,
washed in comfort, and were having breakfast on a smooth green lawn,
surrounded by flowers. We had nowhere to have breakfast except by the
side of a wall outside the Turcos' house, and we felt we had done badly
over our billets. However, the etiquette of billeting gave the château
to the other regiment who had first taken it, and we had to put up with
what we had got.
The next night we set out on the march again. The march was twenty
miles, and proved a severe task for the men after their long spell in
the trenches, coming as it did on top of the eighteen-mile march of
the night before. It is always the second or third march which tells
most on men, and after the first dozen of our twenty miles they began
to fall out, till there was a long string of stragglers behind the
brigade. In vain the company officers tried to keep their companies
together, nothing could make the weary, footsore men keep their fours.
Tired as some of the officers were themselves, it was a heavy strain
passing up and down the company, stopping to issue "falling out"
tickets and running on to catch up the column again. The hardest task
of all fell to the subaltern who was detailed to bring up the rear
party, and who was not allowed to come into billets until the last man
was in. To this unfortunate officer fell the task of trudging along at
half a mile an hour behind a group of dead-tired, limping, footsore
men. He got into billets four hours after everybody else.
The officers' billets on this occasion were better than those of the
night before, for we found a house which had been used by German
officers when the town was in the enemy's hands. The house was large
and comfortable, and belonged to the mayor of the town. It had been
cleared of all valuables, but whether the mayor had done this himself
before his departure, or the German officers had looted the place, I
cannot say. From the look of things I should imagine that the mayor
had taken away all he could and the Germans anything that was left.
They had evidently broken open a writing-desk and some drawers, and
scattered the contents all over the place. I was guilty of a little
looting on my own account, as I found a tattered paper-covered copy of
"Madame Bovary," and not having finished it when it was time to leave,
slipped it in my haversack.
We again spent the day around the billets, and as we had a mail with a
sack of parcels sent up with the ration convoy we had plenty to occupy
ourselves. On active service washing is not necessarily done before
breakfast. It is too elaborate a ceremony to be done in a hurry. First
a complete outfit has to be got together; one may have a razor but no
shaving-brush, or a piece of soap but no towel, or a hairbrush but no
comb; possibly one has nothing at all, in which case one is treated as
a general nuisance, and borrows from others with difficulty. But, as
a rule, with a depleted cleaning outfit of, say, a razor, a comb and
a bit of sponge, the rest can be collected and spread out on a towel.
The toilet is then a leisurely process, after which, feeling very clean
and fresh and superior, one strolls across to the mess van in one's
shirtsleeves for a glass of vermouth and a cigarette. After washing
there were the letters brought in by the mail to answer, and then lunch
and a couple of hours' sleep.
At dusk we moved off again, this time for a very short march, for four
miles brought us to our destination, and we were only moved on a little
way in order to make room for other troops following on behind.
A night in the village and off we started once more. At one point we
passed our Divisional General. From the cheery greeting one of his
staff officers gave me I surmised something was on foot, and this
conjecture proved right, for on reaching a town ten miles distant our
billeting orders were suddenly cancelled, and we were told to go on
another four miles and entrain. The remainder of the way led through
the forest of Compiègne. It was a bright moonlight night, and the
forest by night was incomparably lovely. With moonlight playing quietly
through the branches it was hard to believe that the forest had ever
held troops creeping from tree-trunk to tree-trunk seeking to take
each other's lives. In the earlier days of the war we could imagine
rival cavalry patrols stealing quietly towards each other along the
grass-turfed, shady side of the broad white road, and many a small,
bloody encounter must those old trees have seen.
We came on the siding where we were to entrain in a piece of open
common. It took some manipulation to get forty men into each truck, but
at last we all settled in, a bugle was blown, and we stole away towards
the north.
VI. THE MOVE UP (2)
Our train journey did not promise to be a comfortable one. We
were three aside on the seats of the first-class carriage and the
disposition of legs was not easy. However, we all slept without much
difficulty, and for six hours the train rumbled through the night to
the accompaniment of snores and grunts. The day broke gloriously, and
when we looked out of the windows we found ourselves going through a
lovely bit of France. Breakfast was the next question; we had in our
ration-box a tin of jam, a loaf and a half of bread, and two tins of
sardines, also a packet of cocoa. This last possession did not look
as though it was going to be particularly useful, as we had nothing
but cold water in our bottles. We ate the sardines and bread and jam
and took one or two unappetizing sips from our water-bottles. Then
the train stopped, and looking out of the window I saw one or two men
standing beside the engine with canteens in their hands. They handed
up their tins to the driver, who filled them with boiling water from
an exhaust pipe and they proceeded to make tea. Borrowing a couple of
canteens from the next carriage I took the packet of cocoa and followed
the men's example, so our breakfast was complete.
About noon we reached our destination, a pretty cathedral town in
Northern France. After waiting a little while in a siding we detrained
and marched off. The town was evidently not one of those which the
Germans had entered, for it looked prosperous and well filled. The
same sense of security pervaded the country through which we marched;
we were, in fact, outside the zone of war. After following a straight
white road out of the town for some four miles, we came to a village
where we were to billet for the night. The village priest came forward
to assist us in billeting, and the squire of the place sent over a
present of wine for the officers and put up the Colonel and Adjutant in
his house.
The next morning I borrowed a horse and rode in to ----, the town
at which we had detrained. I had got from the mess president a list
of things wanted for the officers' mess and proceeded to shop. Two
dozen eggs were among the items on the list, and I had an opportunity
of buying these from a farm cart in one of the streets leading to
the town. A passer-by happened to overhear me making the bargain and
upbraided the good woman selling me the eggs for charging too high a
price. I could not quite follow the conversation, which took place
in animated French, but I gathered that to ask a British soldier
so much for eggs was no way for an ally to behave to a guest and
brother-in-arms, and that the farmer's wife thought that passers-by
should mind their own business.
This sense of hospitality which the passer-by had shown pervaded all my
shopping transactions; the tradespeople were all cordial, obliging, and
most moderate in their charges.
I lunched at the main hotel of the town, which was filled with all
the nondescript and various personages who follow an army; there were
gentlemen chauffeurs, Red Cross workers, interpreters, and one or two
staff officials. At my table there was a clean-shaven, shrewd-looking
man wearing the red tabs of staff, who spoke with a strong cockney
accent, and did not give the impression of having been a soldier
all his life. He said he was attached to general headquarters as
spy officer, that is to say, he was responsible for discovering any
espionage which went on in our lines. In civil life he looked as
though he might be one of those private inquiry agents who advertise
in the columns of the Press that they are ready to undertake divorce,
financial, and other investigations of a confidential nature. I dare
say this is what he was, and I am sure he was a very capable man for
the position he held.
After lunch I had my hair cut and shampooed. It was delightful to
sit in a hairdresser's chair again and taste some of the luxuries
of civilization. I could not help envying the barber his peaceful
occupation, which I dare say he is still pursuing and which I knew he
would be doing long after I was out of reach of a machine brush and
hair oil; and I thought, too, how much pleasanter it would be to be
attached to headquarters staff as an espionage officer and have one's
lunch in the restaurant of a hotel instead of eating bully and biscuits
and dodging shells in a ditch. However, it was no good reflecting
and becoming discontented with one's lot, and after completing my
purchases I rode back to the village where the regiment was billeted.
Our last march was the longest of all, as we marched all through the
night and did not get into the billets where we were to sleep till dawn
the next morning. Evans and I shared a room in a cottage, and after
eating some breakfast with some delicious coffee, which the woman the
cottage belonged to made us, we flung ourselves down on mattresses on
the floor and slept. It was past two when I woke, and I hurried off
to the headquarters mess to see if there was any lunch left. Luckily
the mess sergeant had kept some of the stew he had made for lunch and
heated it up for me. After putting down this and half a bottle of wine,
I made my way back to the cottage. A stretch of mossy grass under a
shady tree looked inviting, and flinging myself down I was soon asleep
again.
Some providence must have been watching over me that day, for I woke
just ten minutes before the regiment marched off. No one had been able
to find me when the order came to move, and they had decided to go off
without me. I was glad I had just woken in time, for an officer does
not look at his best chasing after a regiment by himself down a road
because he has been asleep.
I joined up the group of officers who were sitting by the mess van
making a hasty tea and stuffing their haversacks with biscuits.
"I should advise you to take some food," said the Adjutant to me, "this
may be your last chance. We are going to march five miles, load up on
motor-buses, and the transport is to be left behind."
"_The transport to be left behind?_" some one echoed.
"Yes," the Adjutant answered a little grimly. "We're for it again."
When a regiment parts with its transport it generally means it is going
to fight. We had been with our transport for so many days now that it
came as quite a thrill to hear we were to leave it behind. A feeling
half of relief that we were going on with the business and half of
apprehension came over me.
We marched for an hour or so; at seven o'clock we reached the point
of rendezvous for the motor-buses, a long straight stretch of road
running through open country just beyond a village. Just before we got
to the point of rendezvous the regiment was divided up into parties
of thirty men, and a gap of twenty yards left between each party. We
did this on the march so that no time was lost in sorting out the
different parties. When the last division had been made and all the
proper distances between parties obtained, the leading party halted and
the others halted behind. The men were then cleared to the right side
of the road so that the fleet of motor-buses could come and each halt
opposite its party, load up, and move off again with the whole regiment
stowed away in no longer time than it took to load thirty men.
When we got to the rendezvous there were no motor-buses and we had
to wait. The nights were turning cold; however, not knowing when the
next chance might come, most of the men prepared to sleep. In the rush
to get off at the start, I had left my greatcoat with the transport
and had only a Burberry and a woollen waistcoat with me. I undid my
Burberry, unrolled it, pulled out the waistcoat and put both on. Then
I lay down by the side of the road, taking care to have a stout tree
between myself and any possible motor-cars--a very wise precaution if
one is sleeping by the roadside anywhere near the Front--slipped my
haversack under my head and went to sleep. A haversack makes quite a
good pillow, and when one is tired any piece of ground, which enables
one to lie on one's back and take the weight off one's feet, seems
soft, and I was soon asleep. Not for long though, as after half an hour
I woke with icy feet. I stamped about to warm them, but the thought of
going to sleep again and waking up in another half-hour for the same
reason was tiresome, so I cast my eye round in the night for some means
of keeping warm. I saw what looked like a stack and going up found it
was so. While I was busy pulling hay out of the side to make a bed, the
motor-buses arrived, and we proceeded to embark. Having got all the
men into my bus I was climbing up by the driver on his seat when he
shook his head and pointed to the interior of the vehicle, which was
a seething mass of Tommies. I shook my head over this and it looked
like an _impasse_, as the other officers were all being made to get
inside by the different drivers. However, a knowledge of French and
of the ready response of the Frenchman to geniality saved me. For,
while pretending to agree to go inside I stood talking with him while
we waited to start, offered him a cigarette, and asked him about his
wife and family, with the result that when we did set off he said,
"_Montez, monsieur_," and made room for me on the seat beside him. He
said that every night he was driving troops from one part of the line
or another--French troops generally, and it was interesting to hear
the way in which the French troops used the motor-buses. The warmth of
the engine having reached my feet I fell asleep and nodded and lurched
beside him on the seat blissfully unconscious for I don't know how many
hours and miles. Once on the journey we halted for a quarter of an
hour in a small village. The driver got off the bus and disappeared.
Presently he came back and beckoned to me to come with him. I followed
him into a cottage where he and several other drivers had had prepared
against their arrival hot coffee and rolls of bread and butter. It was
extremely kind of the man to have let me in for this feast, which was
quite a private affair, and I have seldom enjoyed a cup of coffee
more. On we went again and off I went to sleep once more. At last, as
day broke, we came to the village where we were to halt, climbed off
the buses, and sat down by the roadside watching them roll away the way
we had come to get more troops.
As we sat by the roadside we soon saw we were nearing more lively
parts, for streams of refugees poured by all the time, flying in front
of the advancing Germans who were pouring down in strength after the
fall of Antwerp. We sat watching the refugees in silence. So this,
then, was the reason for our leaving the Aisne and our long secretive
seven days move.
VII. NEARING THE FIRING-LINE
"We shall have a scrap to-day," said the Staff Captain.
"What makes you think so--heard anything?" I asked.
"No, but it is a Sunday, and a fresh batch of officers has arrived," he
answered.
Up till then the worst fights in which the regiment had been engaged
had always been on a Sunday or just after fresh officers had arrived
with reinforcements. The regiment was, at the moment when the Staff
Captain spoke to me, leading the brigade in column of route along a
road which we knew ran in the direction of Germany. More than that we
knew nothing. We had been on the move for the last few days. Where to
or for what purpose we had no idea. All we knew was that in the middle
of one night we had been roused from our billets where we were resting,
and marched off in a northerly direction. We had marched by night and
rested by day in different villages. Never once was any definite
information given us as to what was on foot.