asleep, at six o'clock this morning. An orderly came along with a blue
ticket and a big safety-pin, like those the Highlanders use in their
petticoats, and pinned his label on the bottom of my counterpane.
"Hallo!" says I; "what's this? Are they putting me up for sale?"
Mentally, I began to describe myself for the catalogue. (How strong
are the habits of civil life!) "One full-size, extra heavy Temporary
Officer and Gentleman; right arm and left leg slightly chipped, the
whole a little shop-worn, but otherwise as new. Will be sold absolutely
without reserve to make room for new stock." (They have to keep as many
beds as possible vacant in Clearing Stations, you know.)
The orderly just grinned and faded away like the Cheshire cat. A Sister
came along shortly afterwards, and I asked her the meaning of my blue
label.
"Oh! that," she said, very casually, "that's the evacuation card."
I am to be evacuated, like a pulverised trench, a redoubt that has
become useless or untenable. Jolly, isn't it? Seriously, I was a good
deal worried about this, until I had seen the M.O., because I had an
idea that once one was evacuated out of the Divisional area, one was
automatically struck off the strength of one's unit, in which case,
goodness knows when, if ever, I should see my own "A" Company again.
But the M.O. tells me it's all right, so long as one remains in France.
One is only struck off on leaving France, and when that happens one can
never be sure which Battalion of the Regiment one will return to. So
there's nothing to worry about. It's only that these Clearing Stations
have to keep plenty of vacant accommodation ready for cases fresh out
of the line; and so fellows like me, who are supposed to require a bit
more patching up than can be given in two or three days, have to be
evacuated to one or other of the base hospitals. Hence the label, which
makes of your Temporary Gentleman an "evacuation case."
It's uncertain when I shall be moved, or to which base, so I cannot
give you a new address for letters. The generosity, the kindness, the
skill, and the unwearying attentiveness and consideration shown one
in this place could not possibly be improved on; but their official
reticence in the matter of giving one any information regarding one's
insignificant self, future movements, and so on, can only be described
as godlike. I shall always associate it in my mind with a smile of
ineffable benevolence (also rather godlike), as who should say, with
inexhaustible patience, "There, there, my little man; there, there."
And that's all. Perhaps it's good for us, taken, as medicine must be,
with childlike trust and faith. We must hope so.
Come to think of it, there is a hint in the gentle air of this
place--never torn by shot or shell, or penetrated by even the faintest
odour of defunct Boches in No Man's Land--of a general conspiracy
of reticence. It has infected mine own hitherto trusted batman (who
presumes to chuckle as he writes these lines at my dictation),
whose professed ignorance, regarding most points upon which I have
this morning sought information, suggests that I have in the past
consistently overrated his intelligence and general competence. It is
clearly very desirable that I should get back to my Platoon as soon as
possible.
Lying here at mine ease, I think a great deal; but of the quality
of my thinking I fear there is little to be said that is favourable.
Perhaps the medicine I take so trustfully has contained some of the
soporific stuff of dreams, and that is why the pain in my leg has been
so trifling since the first day here. I feel my thoughts stirring in
my mind; but they move in a swaying, dreamy fashion, as though they
were floating in, say golden syrup, and were not really interested
in getting out of it. I wanted to tell you all about our push, but,
do you know, though it was not very many days ago, it seems already
extraordinarily remote, so far as the details are concerned, and I am
hazy as to what I have told you and what I have not told.
One thing stands out so clearly in my otherwise treacly mind that I
feel I never, never shall forget it; and that is the sensation of
the moment when the order reached us to advance. We had been a long
time waiting for it, even before our bombardment began, and when it
came-- But, although the sensation is very clear to me, I'm not at all
sure I can convey any idea of it to you. I've just asked Lawson what he
felt like when it came; but the conspiracy of reticence, or something,
leads him to say he doesn't know. I found myself muttering something at
the moment, and he says he did, too. That's something of a coincidence.
He believes the actual words he muttered were: "What ho!" But that's
not exactly illuminating, is it?
I believe my thought, as we scrambled over the parapet was that now,
at last, we were going to wipe Petticoat Lane off the map as a front
line. Good-bye to this hole! That was the idea, I think. We did so hate
that bit of line, with its quicksand craters in front, and the sodden
lowness that made it a sort of pocket for the receipt of every kind of
explosive the Boche liked to lob in on us.
The struggle through the craters, before we got to the first Boche
line, was pretty beastly, and, I am afraid, cost us rather dear,
although we got to the near lip of the craters before the punishment
began, thanks to a quick start and the fine accuracy of our gunners
in their curtain fire. You know the sort of thing that happens in
nightmares, when each of your feet weighs a ton and a half, at the
moment when speed is the only thing to save you from the most hideous
kind of spiflication. Getting through the craters was like that.
Our good time began when the craters were passed, and there was
nothing but Boche trenches in front of us. Then it was we began to
feel the jolly feelings you've read about; the glorious exhilaration
of the charge. And, really, it wouldn't be possible to exaggerate
about that. You can take it from me that the most highly coloured
chromo-lithographs can't overdo that, in the essential spirit of the
thing. Their detail is pretty groggy, of course--no waving plumes,
gay colours, flashing swords, and polished top-boots, you know. My
goodness, no! We were all the colour of the foul clay we'd come
from--all over. But the spirit of it! It's perfectly hopeless for me
to try to tell you, especially in a letter. They say they pump spirits
and drugs into the Boches before they leave their trenches. No drug
and no champagne, even of the choicest, could have given us any more
exhilaration, I fancy, than one felt in that dash from the craters to
the first Boche line. Heavens! but it was the real thing; real, real,
real; that's what it was, more than anything else. Made you feel you'd
never been really and fully alive till then. Seven-leagued boots, and
all that kind of thing, you know. The earth seemed to fly under your
feet. I can see the dirty, earth-smeared faces in that Boche trench
now. (They were scuffling and scrambling out from the dug-outs, where
they'd sheltered from our bombardment, to their fire-steps.) They
seemed of no more importance than so many Aunt Sallies or Dutch dolls.
Things like that to stop _us_! Absurd!
And how one whooped! I was fairly screaming "'A' Company!" at the very
top of my voice as we jumped into that trench. The man on my left was
Corporal Slade (Lance-Sergeant, I should say) and, as we reached their
parapet I could hear him yelling beside my ear, through all the roar of
the guns: "Hell! Give 'em hell! Give 'em hell, boys!" Most outrageous!
In the trench it was a sort of a football scrum glorified; oh! very
much glorified. Most curiously, the thing passing through my mind
then was "the Peacemaker's" old gag, apropos of the use of his trench
dagger, you know: "When you hear that cough, you can pass on to the
next Boche. Get him in the right place, and three inches of the steel
will do. Don't waste time over any more." Queer wasn't it?
Galloping across the next stretch--by the way, it was the very devil
getting out over the Boche parados, so high and shaly. A fellow grabbed
my right ankle when I was half-way up; the very thing I'd always
dreaded in dreams of the trenches, and, by Gad! if I didn't kick out
you must let me know about it. I'd sooner have had a bayonet thrust
any day than the ram of my field boot that chap got in his face. The
next stretch, to the Boche second line, yes! The champagney feeling was
stronger than ever then, because one felt that front line was smashed.
Sort of crossing the Rhine, you know. One was on German soil, so to
say. My hat, what scores to pay!
And mixed up with the splendid feeling of the charge itself--by long
odds the finest feel I ever had in my life--there was a queer, worrying
little thought, too. I knew some of our men were dropping, and-- "Damn
it, I ought to be doing something to save those chaps." That was
the thought. It kind of stung; sort of feeling I ought to have some
knowledge I had failed to acquire. They're your men, you ought to know.
That sort of feeling. But I don't think it slowed one's stride at all.
The champagne feeling was the main thing. I was absolutely certain we
were bringing it off all right. The Boche guns were real enough; but
their men didn't seem to me to count.
Queer thing about the wire in front of that second line. It wasn't
anything like so good or extensive as front-line wire, and I dare say
our guns had knocked a good deal of the stuffing out of it. Still,
there was a lot left, more than I expected for a second line. Do you
know, "A" Company went through it as though it had been paper. It was a
glorious thing that. You know how gingerly one approaches barbed wire
or anything like that; a thorn hedge, if you like. And you've seen how
fellows going into the sea to bathe, at low tide, will gallop through
the rows of little wavelets where the water's shallow; feet going high
and arms waving, the men themselves whooping for the fun of the thing.
That's exactly how our chaps went through that wire. I'll guarantee
nobody felt a scratch from it. And yet my breeches and tunic were in
ribbons from the waist down when I got to the field ambulance, and from
the waist to the knee I'll carry the pattern of that wire for some time
to come. Might have been swan's-down for all we knew about it.
And then, unfortunately, on the parapet of the second line I got my
little dose, and was laid out. Goodness knows, that shell certainly
laid out some Boches as well as me. I'll say this for 'em, they met us
on the parapet all right. But "A" Company's business was urgent. We
had scores to settle from Petticoat Lane and other choice spots; and
the Kaiser's got no one who could stop us. I do wish I could have seen
it through. I know they tried hard to counter us out of that line. But
they couldn't shift old "A," who did just as well when I dropped out
as before--the beggars! Lawson tells me I was yelling like a madman on
that parapet for some time before I went to sleep, you know: "I'll be
there in a minute!"--there in a minute! How absurd!
Next thing I knew I was being lifted out of a trench stretcher, right
away back at Battalion Headquarters in the old support line. Then
the good old Batt'n M.O. prodded around me for a bit, and gave me a
cigarette, I remember. I remember hearing him say: "Oh! well, _you're_
all right." And then I must have had another doze.
Next thing I remember I was lying in a right-hand lower stretcher
in a motor ambulance, and soon after that I was in bed in the Field
Ambulance at ----. The same night I came on here, the Field Ambulance
being pretty busy and full up. It's only a few miles off. I know there
was snow all round when I was being lifted out of the motor ambulance
into the hall here.
And then comfort, and cleanliness and quiet; most wonderful peace, and
English nursing sisters. My goodness, aren't English nursing sisters
lovely? English women, all of 'em, for that matter. And they say there
are still some men at home who don't want to join! Seems queer to me.
Well, Lawson is rapidly developing writer's cramp, and I don't wonder
at it.
And so I'm to move on somewhere else soon from here. In any case, you
understand, don't you, that I'm all right, wanting for nothing, and
most kindly looked after. I'll write again very soon, and whatever you
do, don't have the smallest feeling of anxiety about your
"_Temporary Gentleman_."
BLIGHTY
This is to be evacuation day. A dozen officers and nearly a hundred
other ranks are to leave this place to-day for one or other of the
bases. The life of a permanent official in one of these Clearing
Stations must be curious, handling as he does a never-ending stream
of the flotsam and jetsam of the great war. The war knocks chips off
us, and as we are broken we stream in through the hospitable portals
of this beautifully organised and managed place; are put in plaster of
Paris, so to say, and off we go again to another place to be further
doctored; the more newly chipped arriving by one gate, as we go
trickling out by another. And this process is continuous. Along the
British front alone a score or more of men are bowled over every hour.
In a place like this the process is brought home to one.
So, too, is the ordered precision and efficacy of the system of
dealing with the wreckage. It is wonderfully methodical and well
thought out. And over all, as I told you before, broods the spirit of
benevolent reticence, which makes one feel a little like a registered
parcel entrusted to a particularly efficient postal service. "When are
we going?" Benevolent smile. "Presently; presently." "What base are we
going to?" Benevolent smile. "You'll see by and by." "About how long
shall we be on the journey?" Benevolent smile. "Oh! you'll be made
quite comfortable on the journey. Don't worry about that." "Well, I'm
very much better this morning, don't you think?" Benevolent smile. "Do
you think I shall be able to sit up in a day or two?" Benevolent smile.
"We shall see."
So it is always. I dare say the thirst of patients for information
often becomes very trying to the authorities. But they never in any
circumstances show any impatience. They never omit the benevolent
smile. And they never, never, for one instant, relax the policy of
benevolent reticence; never. The man next to me is very keen about his
temperature; it is, I believe, the chief symptom of his particular
trouble. But the bland familiar smile is all the reply he can ever
get to his most crafty efforts to ascertain if it is higher or lower.
I haven't the slightest doubt it is all part of a carefully devised
policy making for our benefit; but I wouldn't mind betting the man in
the next bed sends his temperature up by means of his quite fruitless
efforts to ascertain that it has gone down.
* * * * *
_Later._
Here's another strange handwriting for you. The present writer is
Lieut. R----, whose left arm has had a lot more shrap. through it
than my right got, and who has kindly lent me the services of his
right. My left-handed writing is still, as you will have noted, a
bit too suggestive of a cryptogram in Chinese. We are lying opposite
one another in very comfortable bunks in the Red Cross train, making
from ---- to a base, we don't yet know which. There are nearly 500
"evacuation cases" on board this train. Its progress is leisurely, but
I believe we are to reach our destination round about breakfast time
to-morrow. We found books and magazines in the train when we came on
board. That's a kindly thought, isn't it? They bear the stamp of the
Camps Library. The doctors and nurses get round among us on the train
just as freely as in hospital. The whole thing is a triumph of good
management.
While we were lying in our stretchers waiting for the train, having
arrived at the station in motor ambulances from the Clearing Station,
we saw miles of trains pass laden with every conceivable sort of
thing for the French firing line; from troops to tin-tacks; a sort of
departmental store on wheels; an unending cinematograph film, which
took over an hour to roll past us, and showed no sign of ending then.
All the French troops, with their cigarettes and their chocolate, had
kindly, jovial greetings for the stretchered rows of our chaps as we
lay in our blankets on the platform waiting for our train, especially
the jolly, rollicking Zouaves. Good luck, and a pleasant rest; quick
recovery, and--as I understand it--return to the making of glory,
they wished us, and all with an obviously comradely sincerity and
play of facial expression, hands and shoulders, which made nothing of
difference of language. And our chaps, much more clumsily, but with
equal goodwill, did their level best to respond. I think the spirit
of their replies was understood. Yes, I feel sure of that. The war's
a devastating business, no doubt; but it has introduced a spirit of
comradeship between French and English such as peace could never give.
* * * * *
_Next morning._
You will forgive the left-handedness of the writing, won't you? My
friend opposite has had a good deal of pain during the night, and I
cannot ask him to write for me now. It was a strange night, and I don't
think I'll ever forget it, though there's really nothing to tell;
"Nothing to write home about," as the men say. I didn't sleep much,
but I had quite a comfortable night, all the same, and plenty to think
about. When the train lay still between stations, as it sometimes
did, I could hear snatches of talk from different parts of the train
itself--doctors, nurses, orderlies, patients, railway officials, and so
on. Then perhaps another train would rumble along and halt near us, and
there would be talk between people of the two trains: French, English,
and the queer jumble of a patois that the coming together of the twain
in war has evolved. Also, there was the English which remains English,
its speaker not having a word of any other tongue, but which yet, on
the face of it, somehow, tells one it is addressed to someone who must
understand it from its tone or not at all.
"Oh, that's it, is it? Cigarettes? You bet. Here, catch, old chap!
Bong, très bong Woodbine. What ho! Same to you, old chap, an' many
of 'em. Yes, yes; we'll soon be back again, an' then we'll give the
blighters what for, eh? Chocolate, eh? Oh, mercy, mercy! No, no; no
more; we got plenty grub; much pang, savvy. You're a brick, you are.
You bong, très bong; compree? Hallo! Off again! Well, so long, old
sport! Good luck! Bong charnce! See ye 'gain some time! Bong sworr!"
There's a poor chap in the bunk under mine who's been delirious most
of the night. He looks such a child. A second lieutenant of the ----s;
badly shaken up in a mine explosion, and bombed afterwards. The M.O.
says he'll get through all right. He's for Blighty, no doubt. Odd,
isn't it? This time to-morrow he may be in England, or mighty near it.
England--what an extraordinary long way off it seems to me. There have
been some happenings in my life since I was in England; and as for the
chap I was before the war, upon my word, I can hardly remember the
fellow. Pretty sloppy, wasn't he? Seems to me I must have been a good
deal of a slacker; hadn't had much to do with real things then.
We know at last where we're bound for; in fact, we're there. The train
has been backing and filling through the streets of the outskirts of
Havre for the last half-hour or more. But last evening, when I was
writing, we could only ascertain that we were going to ----. Benevolent
smiles, you know.
It's frightfully interesting to see the streets. I see them through the
little narrow flap at the top of my window that's meant to open. It
seems quite odd to see women walking to and fro; and row after row of
roofs and windows, all unbroken. No signs of shell-shock here. But on
the other side of the train, nearest the harbour, one sees acres and
acres of war material; I mean really acres and acres of rations, barbed
wire, stores of all kinds.
There's a sort of bustle going on in the train. I think we must be near
the end, so I'll put my notebook away.
* * * * *
10.45 A.M.
We are in what they call the Officers' Huts, on some quay or another.
It's a miniature hospital or clearing station, built of wood, and very
nicely fitted up. Sitting-room at one end, then beds, and then baths
and cooking-place and offices; all bright and shining and beautifully
clean, with Red Cross nurses, doctors, orderlies, and no end of
benevolent smiles. They've taken our temperatures and fixed us up very
comfortably, and somebody's started a gramophone, and I've just had a
cup of the glutinous, milky stuff I used to hate, you remember. I don't
hate such things nowadays; not really, you know; but I pretend I don't
care much about 'em for the sake of the virtuous glow it gives to take
'em.
Everyone has asked everyone else where we are going next, and everyone
has been given benevolent smiles and subsided into a Camps Library
magazine or book. The sitting-up cases are pottering about in the
sitting-room, where there are basket chairs and the gramophone. I can
see them through the open door. The nurses have fixed jolly little
curtains and things about, so that the place looks very homely. I
gather it's a sort of rest-house, or waiting-place, where cases can be
put, and stay put, till arrangements have been made for their admission
into the big hospitals, or wherever they are to go. We have all been
separately examined by the Medical Officer. My arm is so much better, I
think it must be practically well. I don't know about the leg. I asked
the M.O.--an awfully decent chap--to try to arrange things for me so
that I should not be cut adrift from my own Battalion, and he said he
thought that would be all right.
* * * * *
3.30 P.M.
I'm for Blighty. The M.O. came and sat on my bed just now and told
me. He certainly is a decent chap. He said the Medical Board had no
hesitation at all about my case, and that I was to cross to England
to-night. But he said I need not worry about my Battalion. He was
awfully good about it; and he's giving me a letter to a brother of his
in London. He thinks I shall be able to get back to my own Battalion
all right, and he thinks I shall be ready for duty much quicker by
going right through to Blighty than by waiting here. But what do you
think of it? Fancy going to Blighty; and to-night, mind you! I'd
never dreamt of it. And what about poor old "A" Company? It's a queer
feeling. We've all been sorted out now; the goats from the sheep. I
suppose it's a case of the worst-chipped crockery for Blighty, and the
rest for tinkering here. But I can't help thinking a week, or two, at
the outside, will put me right.... Here come Army Forms to be signed.
* * * * *
9.30 P.M.
In bed on board the Red Cross ship. All spotless white enamel and
electric light, and spotlessly-aproned nurses, just as in hospital.
I've just been dressed for the night; clean bandages and everything
comfortable. From the last benevolent smile I elicited I shouldn't
be surprised if we weighed anchor round about midnight; but I may be
quite wrong. Anyhow, I feel remarkably comfortable. I think there must
have been something specially comforting in the medicine I had when
my bandages were changed. I shall sleep like a top. I don't think
I've quite got the hang yet of the fact that I am actually bound for
Blighty. But there it is; I'm on the ship, and I suppose it's on the
cards I may see you before this scribble of mine can reach you by post.
In which case, it seems rather waste of time writing at all, doesn't
it? I think I'll go to sleep. I haven't slept since the night before
last. That boy I told you of who was bombed, after being in a mine
explosion, is sleeping like an infant in the next cot but one to mine.
Nice-looking chap. I'm glad he's sleeping; and I bet somebody will be
glad to see him in Blighty to-morrow. To-morrow! Just fancy that!
* * * * *
_Next day._
To-day's the day. When I woke this morning I had glimpses, as the ship
rose and fell, of a green shore showing through the portholes on the
far side of the deck. That was the Isle of Wight. Had a magnificent
sleep all night; only opened my eyes two or three times. We were rather
a long time getting in. Then came Medical Officers of the Home Service;
and with surprisingly few benevolent smiles--not that they lack
benevolence, at all--I learned that I was for London. It hardly seemed
worth while to write any more, and I could not get off the ship to send
a wire.