There are gathered there most of the officers of two regiments--base
battalions, with permanent training staffs. In the five seats of honour
recline nonchalantly two majors, one captain, and two subalterns. (O.C.
Lewis gun school, O.C. nothing in particular, Assistant O.C. Lewis
gun school, Assistant Assistant Lewis gun school, Deputy Assistant
Adjutant.) They are smoking large, fat cigars, and consuming many
drinks. Are they not the heroes of the hour? When the sun rises well
into the heavens to-morrow they will set forth on a desperate journey.
They are going on a Cook’s tour of two weeks’ duration to the trenches!
(So that they can have the medal!) In the morning, with bad headaches,
they depart. In Boulogne they spend twelve hours of riotous life.
(“Let us eat and drink,” says the O.C. nothing in particular, “for
to-morrow, dont-cher-know!”) They arrive in due course at Battalion
battle H.Q. The majors have the best time, as they stay with the C.O.,
drink his Scotch, and do the bombing officer and the M.G.O. out of a
bed.
The rest of them are right up among the companies, where they are an
infernal nuisance. About 11 “pip emma” Fritz starts fire-works, and
finishes up with a bombing attack on the left flank. The O.C. nothing
in particular stops at B.H.Q. The O.C. Lewis gun school mistakes the
first general head-quarters line (one kilometre in rear) for the front
line, and goes back with shell-shock, having been in the centre of
a barrage caused by one 5.9 two hundred yards north. The Assistant
Assistant gets into the main bomb store in the front line, and stops
there, and the Assistant O.C. Lewis gun school remains in Coy. H.Q. and
looks after the batmen. The Deputy Assistant Adjutant gets out into
the trench, finds some bombers doing nothing, gets hold of a couple of
bombs, makes for the worst noise, and carries on as a soldier should.
After the show the O.C. nothing in particular tells the Colonel all
_his_ theories on counter-attack, and goes sick in the morning for
the remaining period of his tour; the other twain stand easy, and the
Deputy Assistant Adjutant makes an application for transfer to the
Battalion. Incidentally he is recommended for the military cross.
When the four previously mentioned return to England they all of them
apply for better soft jobs, on the strength of recent experiences at
the front. The one man who threw up his soft job to become junior
subaltern in a fighting regiment is killed in the next “show” before
his recommendation for a decoration has been finally approved.
_Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum._
“GROUSE”
We aren’t happy; our clothes don’t fit, and we ain’t got no friends!
Rations are not up yet--confound the Transport Officer--it’s raining
like the dickens, as dark as pitch, and we’ve only got one bit of
candle. Some one has pinched a jar of rum, that idiot batman of mine
can’t find a brazier, and young John has lost his raincoat. In fact
it’s a rotten war.
We had lobster for lunch; it has never let us forget we had it! The
Johnny we “took over” from _said_ there were 7698 million bombs in the
Battalion grenade store, and there are only 6051. The Adjutant has
just sent a “please explain,” which shows what you get for believing a
fellow.
The little round fat chap has left his gumboots (thigh) “Somewhere in
France,” and fell into the trench tramway trying to wear an odd six on
the right foot, and an odd nine on the left. George has busted the D
string of the mandoline, and A. P. has lost the only pack of cards we
had to play poker with.
It’s a simply _rotten_ war!
John has a working-party out of sixty “other ranks” and says they are
spread in two’s and three’s over a divisional frontage. He has made two
trips to locate them, and meditates a third. His language is positively
hair-raising. If he falls into any more shell-holes no one will let him
in the dug-out.
Those confounded brigade machine gunners are firing every other second
just in front of the dug-out. Heaven knows what they are firing at, or
where, but how a man could be expected to sleep through the noise only
a siege artillery man could tell you.
George went out on a “reconnaissance” recently. George is great on
doing reconnaissances and drawing maps. This time the reconnaissance
did _him_, and the only map he’s yet produced is mud tracings on his
person. Incidentally he says that _all_ the communication trenches are
impassable, and that no one but a cat could go over the top and keep on
his feet for more than thirty seconds. (N.B.--George fell into the main
support line and had to be pulled out by some of John’s working-party.)
George says that if the Germans come over it’s all up. Cheerful sort
of beggar, George.
My new smoke-helmet--the one you wear round your neck all the time,
even in your dreams--is lost again. This is the third time in the
course of six hours. The gas N.C.O. has calculated that with the wind
at its present velocity we should be gassed in one and three-quarter
seconds, not counting the recurring decimal.
John has just told a story about a bayonet. It would be funny at any
other time. Now, it simply sticks!
The cook has just come in to say our rations have been left behind by
mistake. Troubles never come singly. May heaven protect the man who
is responsible if we get him! John has told another story, about an
Engineer. It can’t be true, for he says this chap was out in No Man’s
Land digging a trench. No one ever knew a Canadian Engineer do anything
but tell the infantry how to work. It’s a rotten story, anyhow.
Just look at this dug-out; a bottle of rum on the table--empty. The odd
steel helmet, some dirty old newspapers, and a cup or two (empty!),
and a pile of strafes from the Adjutant six inches thick. My bed has
a hole in it as big as a “Johnson ’ole,” and there are rats. Also the
place is inhabited by what the men call “crumbs.” Poetic version of a
painful fact.
John says this is the d--est outfit he has ever been in. John is right.
My gumboots were worn by the Lance-Corporal in No. 2 platoon, and they
are wet, beastly wet. Also my batman has forgotten to put any extra
socks in my kit-bag. Also he’s lost my German rifle--the third I’ve
bought for twenty francs and lost.
This is a _deuce_ of a war!
The mail has just arrived. George got five, the little round fat fellow
_nine_, A. P. two, and John and me shake hands with a duck’s-egg. Still
the second mentioned has his troubles. One of his many inamoratas has
written to him in French. He knows French just about as well as he
knows how to sing! Nuff said!
John has “parti’d” to his triple-starred working-party. The men have
not got any letters either. You should hear them! The most expert
“curser” of the Billingsgate fishmarket would turn heliotrope with
envy. George is feeling badly too. He lent his flash-light to dish out
rations with. That is to say, to illuminate what the best writers of
nondescript fiction call the “Cimmerian gloom!”
A. P. has had letters from his wife. Lucky dog! She takes up four pages
telling him how she adores him.
This is a _beastly_ rotten war.
Fritz is a rotter too. My dug-out is two hundred yards north by
nor’-east. Every time I have to make the trip he never fails to keep
the Cimmerian gloom strictly “Cim.” And the bath-mats are broken in two
places, and I’ve found both of them every time.
Another strafe from the Adjutant. May jackals defile his grave, but
he’ll never have one in France, anyhow. “Please render an account
to Orderly Room of the number of men in your unit who are qualified
plumbers.”
We haven’t any.
If we had we should have mended the hole in the roof, which leaks on
John’s bed. It has only just begun to leak. It will be fun to hear
what John says when he comes back. Only he may be speechless.
The little round fat fellow is still reading letters, and A. P. is
hunting in his nether garments. “Kinder scratterin’ aroun’!” So far the
bag numbers five killed and two badly winged, but still on the run.
Somebody has turned out the guard. Yells of fire. After due inspection
proves to be the C.O.’s tunic. It was a new one! May his batman
preserve himself in one piece.
More yells of “Guard turn out!” Support my tottering footsteps!
Our--that is to say _my_ dug-out is on fire.... Confusion.... Calm....
I have no dug-out, no anything.... This is, pardonnez-moi, a Hell of a
war!
PANSIES
There are some pansies on my table, arranged in a broken glass one of
the men has picked up among the rubble and débris of this shattered
town. Dark mauve and yellow pansies, pretty, innocent looking little
things. “Pansies--that’s for thoughts.”
Transport is rattling up and down the street--guns, limbers, G.S.
wagons, water-carts, God knows what, and there are men marching along,
mud-caked, weary, straggling, clinging fast to some German souvenir as
they come one way; jaunty, swinging, clean, with bands a-blowing as
they go the other. It is a dull grey day. There is “something doing” up
the line. I can hear the artillery, that ceaseless artillery, pounding
and hammering, and watch the scout aeroplanes, dim grey hawks in the
distance, from the windows of the room above--the broken-down room with
the plasterless ceiling, and the clothes scattered all over the floor.
“Pansies--that’s for thoughts.”
The regiment is up yonder--the finest regiment God ever made. They
are wallowing in the wet, sticky mud of the trenches they have dug
themselves into, what is left of them. They are watching and waiting,
always watching and waiting for the enemy to attack.
And they are being bombarded steadily, pitilessly, without cessation.
Some will be leaning against the parapet, sleeping the sleep of
exhaustion, some will be watching, some smoking, if they have got any
smokes left. I know them. Until the spirit leaves their bodies they
will grin and fight, fight and grin, but always “Carry On.”
Last night they went up to relieve the --th, after they had just come
out of the line, and were themselves due to be relieved. Overdue, in
fact, but the General knew that he could rely on them, knew that THEY
would never give way, while there was a man left to fire a rifle. So
he used them--as they have always been used, and as they always will
be--to hold the line in adversity, to take the line when no one else
could take it.
We have been almost wiped out five times, but the old spirit still
lives, the Spirit of our mighty dead. There are always enough “old
men” left, even though they number but a score, with whom to leaven
the lump of raw, green rookies that come to us, and to turn them into
soldiers worthy of the Regiment.
Dark mauve pansies.
I knew all the old soldiers of the Brigade, I have fought with them,
shaken hands with them afterwards--those who survived--mourned with
them our pals who were gone--buried many a one of them.
This time I am out of it. Alone with the pansies ... and my thoughts.
Thomson was killed last night; Greaves, Nicholson, Townley, between
then and now. Nearly all the rest are wounded. Those who come back will
talk of this fight, they will speak of hours and events of which I
shall know nothing. For the first time I shall be on the outer fringe,
mute ... with only ears to hear, and no heart to speak.
Perhaps they will come out to-morrow night. Or, early, very early the
following morning. They will be tired--so tired they are past feeling
it--unshaven, unwashed, and covered with mud from their steel helmets
down to the soles of their boots. But they will be fairly cheerful.
They will try to sing on the long, long march back here, as I have
heard them so many times before. When they reach the edge of the town
they will try to square their weary shoulders, and to keep step--and
they will do it, too, heaven only knows _how_, but they will do it.
Their leader will feel very proud of them, which is only right and
proper. He will call them “boys,” encourage the weak, inwardly admire
and bless the strong. And he will be proud of the mud and dirt, proud
of his six days’ growth of beard. Satisfied; because he has just done
one more little bit, and the Good Lord has pulled him through it.
When they get to their billets they will cheer; discordantly, but cheer
none the less. They will crowd into the place, and drop their kits
and themselves on top of them, to sleep the sleep of the just--the
well-earned sleep of utter fatigue.
In the morning they will feel better, and they will glance at you with
an almost affectionate look in their eyes, for they know--as the men
always know--whether you have proved yourself, whether you have made
good--or failed.
“Pansies ... that’s for thoughts....”
And I am out of it--out of it _ALL_ ... preparing “To re-organise what
is left of the regiment.”
For God’s sake, Holman, take away those flowers!
GOING BACK
A large crowd packed the wide platform, hemmed in on one side by
a barrier, on the other by a line of soldiers two paces apart.
The boat-train was leaving in five minutes. That a feeling of
tension permeated the crowd was evident, from the forced smiles and
laughter, and the painful endeavours of the departing ones to look
preternaturally cheerful. In each little group there were sudden
silences.
Almost at the last moment a tall, lean officer pressed through the
crowd, made for a smoking-carriage, and got in. He surveyed the scene
with a rather compassionate interest, while occasionally a wistful look
passed over his face as he watched for a moment an officer talking with
a very pretty girl, almost a child, who now and then mopped her eyes
defiantly with a diminutive handkerchief.
“All aboard.”
The pretty girl lifted up her face, and the lonely one averted his
eyes, pulled a newspaper hastily from his overcoat pocket, and
proceeded to read it upside down!
As the train pulled out of the station a cheer went up and
handkerchiefs fluttered. The sole other occupant of the carriage, a
young--very young--subaltern who had just said good-bye to his mother,
muttered to himself and blinked hard out of the window. The Lonely
One shrugged himself more deeply into his seat, and abstractedly
reversed the newspaper. A paragraph caught his eye: “Artillery activity
developed yesterday in the sector south of Leuville St. Vaast. An enemy
attempt to raid our trenches at this point was foiled.” He smiled a
trifle, and putting down the paper fell to thinking. Unable to contain
himself any longer, the boy in the corner spoke.
“Rotten job, this going back show,” he said. The other assented
gravely, and they fell to talking, spasmodically, of the Front. Pure,
undiluted shop, but very comforting.
Finally the train arrived at the port of embarkation. A crowd of
officers of all ranks surged along the platform, glanced at the
telegram board, and passed on towards the boat. The Lonely One
stopped, however, for his name in white chalk stared at him. He got the
telegram eventually and opened it. It contained only two words and no
signature: “Good luck.” Flushing a trifle he walked down to the waiting
mail-boat, and getting his disembarkation card passed up the gangway.
An air of impenetrable gloom hung over the dirty decks. Here and there
a few men chatted together, but for the most part the passengers kept
to themselves. The lonely man found the young lieutenant waiting for
him, and together they mounted to the upper deck, and secured two
chairs aft, hanging their life-belts on to them.
A little later the boat cast off, and they watched the land fade from
sight as many others were watching with them. “Ave atque Vale.”
“I wonder ...” said the youngster, and then bit his lips.
“Come below and have some grub,” the other said cheerily. They ate,
paid for it through the nose, and felt better. Half an hour later they
were in Boulogne.
As they waited outside the M.L.O.’s office for their turn, the younger
asked:
“I say, what Army are you?”
“First.”
“So’m I,” joyfully, “p’raps we’ll go up together.”
“I hope so, but we shall have to stop here the night, I expect.”
Even as he said so a notice was hung outside the little wooden office:
“Officers of the First Army returning from leave will report to the
R.T.O., Gare Centrale, at 10.00 A.M. to-morrow, Saturday, 17th instant.”
“That settles it,” said the elder man, “come along, and we’ll go to the
Officers’ Club and bag a couple of beds.”
“Nineteen hours,” wailed the other, “in this beastly place! What on
earth shall we find to do?”
“Don’t worry about that--there is usually some one to whom one can
write.” It was both a hint and a question.
“Yes--ra--_ther_!”
They had tea, and afterwards the boy wrote a long letter, in which he
said a great deal more to the mother who received it than was actually
written on the paper. The Lonely One sat for some time in front of the
fire, and finally scribbled a card. It was addressed to some place in
the wilds of Scotland, and it bore the one word “Thanks.”
After dinner they sat and smoked awhile. The Lonely One knew much of
the life-history of the other by now. It had burst from the boy, and
the Lonely One had listened sympathetically and with little comment,
and had liked to hear it. It is good to hear a boy talk about his
mother.
“What shall we do now?”
“We might go to the cinema show; it used to be fairly good.”
“Right-oh! I say”--a little diffidently--“last time I was on
leave, the first time too, I came back with some fellows who were
pretty--well--pretty hot stuff. They wanted me to go to a--to a place
up in the town, and I didn’t go. I think they thought I was an awful
blighter, don’t-you-know, but----”
“What that kind of chap thinks doesn’t matter in the least, old man,”
interposed the other. “You were at Cambridge, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you may have heard the old tag? Besides, I don’t think--some
one--somebody ...” he hesitated and stopped. The youngster flushed.
“Yes, I know,” he said softly.
They boarded the train together, and shared the discomforts of the
long tedious journey. Every hour, or less, the train stopped, for many
minutes, and then with a creak and a groan wandered on again like an
ancient snail. Rain beat on the window-panes, and the compartment was
as drafty as a sieve.
It was not until the small hours that they reached their destination, a
cold, bleak, storm-swept platform.
“This is where we say good-bye,” the youngster began regretfully,
“thanks awf’ly for----”
“Rot,” broke in the other brusquely, taking the proffered hand in his
big brown one. “Best of luck, old man, and don’t forget to drop me a
card.”
“A nice boy, a _very_ nice boy,” he mused, as he climbed into the
military bus, and was rattled off, back to the mud and slush and
dreariness of it all.
“Have a good time?” asked the Transport Officer the next morning,
as the Lonely One struggled into his fighting kit, preparatory to
rejoining the battalion in the trenches.
“Yes, thanks. By the way, any mail for me?”
“One letter. Here you are.”
He took it, looked an instant at the handwriting, and thrust it inside
his tunic. The postmark was the same as that of the wire he had
received at the port of embarkation.
THREE RED ROSES
In the distance rose the spires of Ypres, and the water-tower, useless
now for the purpose for which it was built, but still erect on its
foundations. The silvery mist of early April hung very lightly over
the flat surrounding land, hiding one corner of Vlamertinghe from
sight, where the spire of the church still raised its head, as yet
unvanquished. A red sun was rising in the East, and beyond Ypres a
battle still raged, though nothing to the battle of a few short days
before. Hidden batteries spoke now and then, and the roads were a cloud
of dust, as men, transport, guns, and many ambulances passed along
them. Overhead aeroplanes droned, and now and again shells whistled
almost lazily overhead, to fall with a thunderous “crrumph” in Brielen
and Vlamertinghe.
By the canal there was a dressing-station. The little white flag with
its red cross hung listless in the still air. Motor ambulances drove up
at speed and departed with their burdens. Inside the dressing-station
men worked ceaselessly, as they had been working for days. Sometimes
shells fell near by. No one heeded them.
Beyond the dressing-station, down the road, the banks of which were
filled with little niches hollowed out with entrenching tools, hurried
a figure. He was but one of many, but there was that about him which
commanded the attention of all who saw him. His spurs and boots were
dirty, his uniform covered with stains and dust, his face unshaven. He
walked like a man in a dream, yet as of set purpose. Pale and haggard,
he strode along, mechanically acknowledging salutes.
Arrived at the dressing-station, without pausing he entered, and went
up to one of the doctors who was bandaging the remnants of an arm.
“Have they come yet?” he asked.
The other looked at him gravely with a certain respect and pity, and
with the eye also of a medical man.
“Not yet, Colonel,” he answered. “You had better sit down and rest, you
are all in.”
The Colonel passed a weary hand over his forehead.
“No,” he said. “No, Campbell; I shall go back and look for the party.
They may have lost their way, and--they were three of my best officers,
three of my boys.... I--I----”
“Here, sir! Take this.”
It was more of a command than a request. The Colonel drained what was
given him, and went out without a word.
Back he trudged, along the shell-pitted road, even now swept by
occasional salvos of shrapnel. He took no notice of anything, but
continued feverishly on his way, his eyes ever searching the distance.
At last he gave vent to an exclamation. Down the road was coming a
stretcher party. They had but one stretcher, and on it lay three
blanketed bundles.
The Colonel met them, and with bowed head accompanied them back to the
dressing-station.
“You found them--all?” It was his only question.
“Yes, sir, all that was left.”
The stretcher was taken to a little empty dug-out, and with his own
hands the C.O. laid the Union Jack over it.
“When will the--the graves be ready?” he asked the doctor.
“By five o’clock, sir.”
“I will be back at 4.30.”
“You must take some rest, Colonel, or you’ll break down.”
“Thank you, Campbell, I can look after myself!”
“Very good, sir.”
As he went away Captain Campbell looked after him rather anxiously.
“Never would have thought _he could_ be so upset,” he mused. “He’ll be
in hospital, if----”
Straight back to Brielen the Colonel walked, and there he met his
orderly with the horses. He mounted without a word, and rode on,
through Vlamertinghe, until he reached Popheringe. There he dismounted.
“I shall be some time,” he said to the orderly.
He went through the square, up the noisy street leading to the
Vehrenstraat, and along it, until he reached a little shop, in which
were still a few flowers. He entered, and a frightened-looking woman
came to serve him.
“I want three red roses,” he said.
It took the saleswoman several minutes to understand, but finally she
showed him what she had. The roses were not in their first bloom,
but they were large and red. The Colonel had them done up, and left
carrying them carefully. The rest of his time he spent in repairing as
well as might be the ravages of battle on his clothes and person. At
4.20 he was again at the dressing-station.
A quiet-voiced padre awaited him there, a tall, ascetic-looking man,
with the eyes of a seer.
They carried the bundles on the stretcher to the graves, three among
many, just behind the dressing-station.
“Almighty God, as it has pleased Thee to take the souls of these, our
dear brothers ...” the sonorous voice read on, while the C.O. stood,
bare-headed, at the head of the graves, holding in his hand the three
red roses. The short burial service came to an end.
The Colonel walked to the foot of each grave in turn, and gently threw
on each poor shattered remnant a red rose. Straightening himself, he
stood long at the salute, and then, with a stern, set face, he strode
away, to where the Padre awaited him, not caring that his eyes were
wet. The Padre said nothing, but took his hand and gripped it.
“Padre,” said the Colonel, “those three were more to me than any other
of my officers; I thought of them as my children.”
ADJUTANTS
If Fate cherishes an especial grievance against you, you will be made
an Adjutant.