ON THE STAFF
But now rumour was getting busy in earnest--things were in the air.
There were talks of a great offensive--and although there be rumour in
England, though bucolic stationmasters have brushed the snow from the
steppes of Russia out of railway carriages, I have no hesitation in
saying that for quality and quantity the rumours that float round the
army in France have de Rougemont beat to a frazzle. In this case
expectations were fulfilled, and two or three days after the decease of
Panting Lizzie, Jim and his battalion shook the dust of the Ypres
district from their feet and moved away south.
It was then that our hero raised his third star. Shades of Wellington! A
captain in a year. But I make no comment. A sense of humour, invaluable
at all times, is indispensable in this war, if one wishes to preserve an
unimpaired digestion.
But another thing happened to him, too, about this time, for, owing to
the sudden sickness of a member of his General's Staff, he found himself
attached temporarily for duty. No longer did he flat foot it, but in a
large and commodious motor-car he viewed life from a different
standpoint. And, solely owing to this temporary appointment, he was able
to see the launching of the attack near Loos at the end of September. He
saw the wall of gas and smoke roll slowly forward towards the German
trenches over the wide space that separated the trenches in that part of
the line. Great belching explosions seemed to shatter the vapour
periodically, as German shells exploded in it, causing it to rise in
swirling eddies, as from some monstrous cauldron, only to sink sullenly
back and roll on. And behind it came the assaulting battalions, lines of
black pigmies charging forward.
And later he heard of the Scotsmen who chased the flying Huns like
terriers after rats, grunting, cursing, swearing, down the gentle slope
past Loos and up the other side; on to Hill 70, where they swayed
backwards and forwards over the top, while some with the lust of killing
on them fought their way into the town beyond--and did not return. He
heard of the battery that blazed over open sights at the Germans during
the morning, till, running out of ammunition, the guns ceased fire, a
mark to every German rifle. The battery remained there during the day,
for there was not cover for a terrier, let alone a team of horses, and
between the guns were many strange tableaux as Death claimed his toll.
They got them away that night, but not before the gunners had taken back
the breech-blocks--in case; for it was touch and go.
But this attack has already been described too often, and so I will say
no more. I would rather write of those things which happened to Jim
Denver himself, before he left the Land of Topsy Turvy for the second
time. Only I venture to think that when the full story comes to be
written--if ever--of that last week in September, or the surging forward
past Loos and the Lone Tree to Hulluch and the top of 70, of the cavalry
who waited for the chance that never came, and the German machine-guns
hidden in the slag-heaps, the reading will be interesting. What happened
would fill a book; what might have happened--a library.
It was a couple of days afterwards that he saw his first big batch of
German prisoners. Five or six miles behind the firing-line in a great
grass field, fenced in on all sides by barbed wire, was a batch of some
seven hundred--almost all of them Prussians and Jaegers. Munching food
contentedly, they sat in rows on the ground; their dirty grey uniforms
coated with dust and mud--unwashed, unshaven, and--well, if you are
contemplating German prisoners, get "up wind." All around the field
Tommies stood and gazed, now and again offering them cigarettes. A few
prisoners who could speak English got up and talked.
It struck Jim Denver then that he viewed these men with no antipathy; he
merely gazed at them curiously as one gazes at animals in a "Zoo." And
as we English are ever prone to such views, and as the Hymn of Hate and
like effusions are regarded, and rightly so, as occasions for mirth, it
was perhaps as well for Jim to realise the other point of view. There
are two sides to every question, and the Germans believe in their hate
just as we believe in our laughter. But when it is over, it will be
unfortunate if we forget the hate too quickly.
* * * * *
"What a nation we are!" said a voice beside Jim. He turned round and
found a doctor watching the scene with a peculiar look in his eyes.
"Suppose it had been the other way round! Suppose those were our men
while the Germans were the captors! Do you think the scene would be like
this?" His face twisted into a bitter smile. "There would have been
armed soldiers walking up and down the ranks, kicking men in the
stomach, hitting them on the head with rifle butts, tearing bandages off
wounds--just for the fun of the thing. Sharing food!"--he laughed
contemptuously--"why, they'd have been starving. Giving 'em
cigarettes!--why, they'd have taken away what they had already."
He turned and looked up the road. Walking down it were thirty or so
German officers. From the button in the centre of their jackets hung in
nearly every case the ribbon of the Iron Cross. Laughing, talking--one
or two sneering--they came along and halted by the gate into the field.
They had been questioned, and were waiting to be marched off with the
men. A hundred yards or so away the cavalry escort was forming up.
"Man," cried the doctor, suddenly gripping Jim's arm in a vice, "it's
wicked!" In his eyes there was an ugly look. "Look at those swine--all
toddling off to Donington Hall--happy as you like. And think of the
other side of the picture. Stuck with bayonets, hit, brutally treated,
half-starved, thrown into cattle trucks. Good Heaven! it's horrible."
"We're not the sort to go in for retribution," said Jim, after a moment.
"After all--oh! I don't know--but it's not quite cricket, is it? Just
because they're swine...?"
"Cricket!" the other snorted. "You make me tired. I tell you I'm sick to
death of our kid-glove methods. No retribution! I suppose if a buck
nigger hit your pal over the head with a club you'd give him a tract on
charity and meekness. What would our ranting pedagogues say if their
own sons had been crucified by the Germans as some of our wounded have
been? You think I'm bitter?" He looked at Jim. "I am. You see, I was a
prisoner myself until a few weeks ago." He turned and strolled away down
the road....
And now the escort was ready. An order shouted in the field, and the men
got up, falling in in some semblance of fours. Slowly they filed through
the gate and, with their own officers in front, the cortege started. Led
by an English cavalry subaltern, with troopers at four or five horses'
lengths alongside--some with swords drawn, the others with rifles--the
procession moved sullenly off. A throng of English soldiers gazed
curiously at them as they passed by; small urchins ran in impudently
making faces at them. And in the doors of the houses dark-haired,
grim-faced women watched them pass with lowering brows....
A mixture, those prisoners--a strange mixture. Some with the faces of
educated men, some with the faces of beasts; some men in the prime of
life, some mere boys; slouching, squelching through the mud with the
vacant eyes that the Prussian military system seems to give to its
soldiers. The look of a man who has no vestige of imagination or
initiative; the look of a stoical automaton; callous, boorish, sottish
as befits a man who willingly or unwillingly has sold himself body and
soul to a system.
And as they wind through the mining villages on their way to a railhead,
these same grim-faced French women watch them as they go by. They do not
see the offspring of a system; they only see a group of beast-men--the
men whose brothers have killed their husbands. After all, has not Madame
got in her house a refugee--her cousin--whose screams even now ring out
at night...?
* * * * *
For a few days more Jim stayed on with the general. Their feeding-place
was a little cafe on the main road to Lens. There each morning might our
hero have been found, in a filthy little back room, drinking coffee out
of a thick mug, with an omelette cooked to perfection on his plate.
Never was there such dirt in any room; never a household so prolific of
children. Every window was smashed; the back garden one huge shell hole;
but, absolutely unperturbed by such trifles, that stout, good-hearted
Frenchwoman pursued her sturdy way. She had had the Boches there--"mais
oui"--but what matter? They did not stay long. "Une omelette, monsieur;
du cafe? Certainement, monsieur. Toute de suite."
It might have been in a different world from Ypres and
Poperinghe--instead of only twenty miles to the south. Gone were the
flat, cultivated fields; great slag-heaps and smoking chimneys were
everywhere. And in spite of the fact that active operations were in
progress, there seemed to be no more gunning than the normal daily
contribution at Lizerne, Boesinge, and Jim's old friend and first love,
Hooge. Aeroplanes, too, seemed scarcer. True, one morning, standing in
the road outside the cafe, he saw for the first time a fleet of 'planes
starting out on a raid. Now one and then another would disappear behind
a fleecy white cloud, only to reappear a few moments later glinting in
the rays of the morning sun, until at length the whole fleet, in
dressing and order like a flight of geese, their wings tipped with fire,
moved over the blue vault of heaven. The drone of their engines came
faintly from a great height, until, as if at some spoken word from the
leader, the whole swung half-right and vanished into a bank of clouds.