WE VISIT THE BRITISH ARMY
He was twenty-six and a major, but he was three years old in the big
war, and that is the only age which counts today in the British army.
The little major was the first man I ever met who professed a genuine
enthusiasm for war. It had found him a black sheep in the most remote
region of a big British colony and had tossed him into command of
himself and of others. Utterly useless in the pursuit of peace, war had
proved a sufficiently compelling schoolmaster to induce the study of
many complicated mechanical problems, of subtler ones of psychology, not
to mention two languages. It is true that his German was limited to
"Throw up your hands" and "Come out or we'll bomb you," but he could
carry on a friendly and fairly extensive conversation in French. The
tuition fee was two wounds.
He was a fine, fair sample of the slashing, swanking British army which
backs its boasts with battalions and makes its light words good with
heavy guns. We rode together in a train for several hours on the way to
the British front and when I told him I was a newspaper man he was eager
to tell me something of what the British army had done, was doing and
would do.
"If they'd cut out wire and trenches and machine guns and general
staffs," said the little major, "we'd win in two months." Without these
concessions he did not expect to see the end for at least a year.
However, he was concerned for the most part with more concrete things
than predictions, and I'd best let him wander on as he did that
afternoon with no interruption save an occasional question. He was
returning to the front after being wounded. There had been boating and
swimming and tennis and "a deuced pretty girl" down there at the resort
where he had been recuperating, and yet he was glad to be back.
"You see," the little major explained, "I have been in all the shows
from the beginning and I'd feel pretty rotten if they were to pull
anything off without me. The C.O. wants me back. I have a letter here
from him. He tells me to take all the time I need, but to get back as
soon as I can. The C.O. and I have been together from the beginning. It
isn't that the new fellow isn't all right. Quite likely he's a better
officer than I am, but the C.O. wants the old fellows that he's seen in
other shows and knows all about. That's why I want to get back. I want
to see what the new fellow's doing with my men."
He limped a little still, and I pressed him to tell me about his wound.
It seemed he got it in "the April show."
"There was a bit of luck about that," he said. "I happened to take my
Webley with me when we went over, as well as my cane. They've got a
silly rule now that officers mustn't carry canes in an attack and that
they must wear Tommies' tunics, so the Fritzies can't spot them. They
say we lose too many officers because they expose themselves. Nobody
pays much attention to that rule. You won't find many officers in
Tommies' tunics, but you will find 'em out in front with their canes.
"And there's sense to it. I've always said that I wouldn't ask my men to
go any place I wasn't willing to go and to go first. 'Come on,' that's
what we say in the British army. The Germans drive their men from
behind. Some of their officers are very brave, you know, but that's the
system. I remember in one show we were stuck at the third line of barbed
wire. The guns hadn't touched it, but it wasn't their fault. There was a
German officer there, and he stood up on the parapet, and directed the
machine gun fire. He'd point every place we were a little thick and then
they'd let us have it. We got him, though. I got a machine gunner on
him. Just peppered him. He was a mighty brave officer."
I reminded the little major that I wanted to hear about his wound.
"We were coming through a German trench that had been pretty well
cleaned out, but close up against the back there was a soldier hiding.
When I came by he cut at me with his bayonet. He only got me in the
fleshy part of my leg, and I turned and let him have it with my Webley.
Blew the top of his head right off. Silly ass, wasn't he? Must have
known he'd be killed."
I asked him if his wound hurt, and he said no, and that he was able to
walk back, and felt quite chipper until the last mile.
"The first thing a wounded man wants to do," he explained, "is to get
away. If he's been hit he gets a sudden crazy fear that he's going to
get it again. Most wounds don't hurt much, and as soon as a man's out of
fire and puts a cigarette in his mouth he cheers up. He's at his best if
it's a blighty hit."
Here I was forced to interrupt for information.
"A blighty hit! Don't you know what that is? It's from the song they
sing now, 'Carry Me Back to Blighty.' Blighty's England. I think it's a
Hindustani word that means home, but I won't be sure about that. Anyhow,
a blighty hit's not bad enough to keep you in France, but bad enough to
send you to England. Those are the slow injuries that aren't so very
dangerous.
"Next to getting to Blighty a fellow wants a cigarette. I never saw a
man hit so bad he couldn't smoke. I saw a British 'plane coming down one
day and the tail of it was red. The Germans fix up their machines like
that, but I knew this wasn't paint on a British plane. He made a tiptop
landing, and when he got out we saw part of his shoulder was shot away
and he had a hole in the top of his head. 'That was a close call,' he
said, and he took out a cigarette, lighted it and took two puffs. Then
he keeled over."
The little major and I got out to stretch our legs at a station
platform, and I noticed that salutes were punctiliously given and
returned. "I suppose," I said, quoting a bit of misinformation somebody
had supplied, "that out at the front all this saluting is cut out."
"No, sir," said the little major sternly. "Somebody told that to the
last batch of recruits that was sent over, but we taught 'em better
soon. They don't get the lay of it quite. It isn't me they salute; it's
the King's uniform. Of course, I don't expect a man to salute if I pass
him in a trench; but if he's smoking a cigarette I expect him to throw
it away and I expect him to straighten up.
"You've got to let up on some things, of course. There's shaving now. I
expect my men to shave every day when they're not in the line, but you
can't expect that in the trenches. Naturally, I shave myself every day
anyhow, but I'm lenient with the men. I don't insist on their shaving
more than every other day."
When I got to the château where the visiting correspondents stay I found
the officers at mess. There were four British officers, a Roumanian
general, a member of Parliament, a Dutch painter and an American
newspaperman. As at Verdun the conversation had swung around to
literature. It all began because somebody said something about Shaw
having put up at the château when he visited the front.
"Awful ass," said an English officer who had met the playwright out
there. "He was no end of nuisance for us. Why, when he got out here we
found he was a vegetarian, and we had to chase around and have
omelettes fixed up for him every day."
"I censored his stuff," said another. "I didn't think much of it, but I
made almost no changes. Some of it was a little subtle, but I let it get
by."
"I heard him out here," said a third officer, "and he talked no end of
rot. He said the Germans had made a botch of destroying towns. He said
he could have done more damage to Arras with a hammer than the Germans
did with their shells. Of course, he couldn't begin to do it with a
hammer, and, anyway, he wouldn't be let. I suppose he never thought of
that. Then he said that the Germans were doing us a great favor by their
air raids. He said they were smashing up things that were ugly and
unsanitary. That's silly. We could pull them down ourselves, you know,
and, anyhow, in the last raid they hit the postoffice."
"The old boy's got nerve, though," interrupted another officer. "I was
out at the front with him near Arras and there was some pretty lively
shelling going on around us. I told him to put on his tin hat, but he
wouldn't do it. I said, 'Those German shell splinters may get you,' and
he laughed and said if the Germans did anything to him they'd be mighty
ungrateful, after all he'd done for them. He don't know the Boche."
"He told me," added a British journalist, "'when I want to know about
war I talk to soldiers.' I asked him: 'Do you mean officers or Tommies?'
He said that he meant Tommies.
"Now you know how much reliance you can put in what a Tommy says. He'll
either say what he thinks you want him to say or what he thinks you
don't want him to say. I told Shaw that, but he paid no attention."
Here the first officer chimed in again. "Well, I stick to what I've said
right along. I don't see where Shaw's funny. I think he's silly."
The major who sat at the head of the table deftly turned the
conversation away from literary controversy. "What did you think of
Conan Doyle?" he said.
* * * * *
Bright and early next morning we started out to follow in the footsteps
of Shaw. We went through country which had been shocked and shaken by
both sides in their battles and then dynamited in addition by the
retreating Germans. I stood in Peronne which the Germans had dynamited
with the greatest care. They left the town for dead, but against a
shattered wall was a sign which read, "Regimental cinema tonight at the
Splinters--CHARLIE CHAPLIN IN SHANGHAIED." This was first aid. A frozen
man is rubbed with snow and a town which has suffered German
frightfulness is regaled with Charlie Chaplin.
Life will come back to that town in time and to others. After all life
is a rubber band and it will be just as it was only an instant after
they let go. We turned down the road to Arras and drove between fields
which had been burned to cinders and trodden into mud by men and guns
only a few weeks ago. Now the poppies were sweeping all before them.
Into the trenches they went and over. First line, second line, third
line, each fell in turn to the redcoats. They were so thick that the
earth seemed to bleed for its wounds.
Presently we were in Arras and our officer led us into the cathedral.
"We won't stay in here long," said the officer. "The Germans drop a
shell in here every now and then and the next one may bring the rest of
the walls down. People keep away from here." This indeed seemed a very
citadel of destruction and loneliness, but as we turned to go we heard a
mournful noise from an inner room. We investigated and found a Tommy
practicing on the cornet. He was playing a piece entitled, "Progressive
Exercises for the Cornet--Number One." He stood up and saluted.
"Have the Germans bombarded the town at all today?" the captain asked.
"Yes, sir," said the Tommy. "They bombarded the square out in front here
this morning."
"Did they get anybody?"
"No, sir, only a Frenchman, sir," replied the Tommy with stiff
formality.
"Was there any other activity?"
"Yes, sir, there were some aeroplanes over about an hour ago and they
dropped some bombs in there," said the Tommy indicating a street just
back of the cathedral.
"And what were we doing?" persisted the captain.
"We were trying out some new anti-aircraft ammunition," explained the
Tommy patiently, "but I don't think it was any good, sir, because most
of it came down and buried itself over there," and he indicated a spot
some fifteen or twenty feet from his music room.
The captain could think of no more inquiries just then and the soldier
quickly folded up his cornet and his music and after saluting with
decent haste left the cathedral. For the sake of his music he was
willing to endure shells and bombs and shrapnel fragments but questions
put him off his stride entirely. He fled, perhaps, to some shell hole
for solitude.
From the cathedral we went to the town hall. Here again one could not
but be impressed with the futility of destruction. The Germans have torn
the building cruelly with their shells and their dynamite, but beauty is
tough. Dynamite a bakeshop and you have only a mess. Shell a tailor's
and rubbish is left. But it is different when you begin to turn your
guns against cathedrals and town halls. If a structure is built
beautifully it will break beautifully. The dynamite has cut fine lines
in the jagged ruins of the Town Hall. The Germans have smashed
everything but the soul of the building. They didn't get that. It was
not for want of trying, but dynamite has its limitations.
We got up to the lines the next day and had a fine view of the opposing
trench systems for ten or twelve miles. Our box seat was on top of a
hill just back of Messines ridge. We saw a duel between two aeroplanes,
the explosion of a munitions dump, and no end of big gun firing but the
officer who conducted us said that it was a dull morning. Our day on the
hill was a clear one after three days of low clouds, and all the fliers
were out in force. Almost two dozen British 'planes were to be seen from
the hilltop, as well as several captive balloons. Although the English
'planes flew well over the German lines, they drew no fire, but
presently the sky began to grow woolly. Little round white patches
appeared, one against the other, cutting the sky into great flannel
figures. Then we saw above it all a 'plane so high as to be hardly
visible. Indeed, we should not have seen it but for the telltale
shrapnel. These were our guns, and this was no friend. Now it was almost
over our heads. It seemed intent upon attacking one of the British
captive balloons, which could only stand and wait. The guns were
snarling now. We were close enough to hear the anger in every shot. The
shrapnel broke behind, below, above and in front of the aeroplane, but
on it sailed, untouched, like a glass ball in a Buffalo Bill shooting
trick.
Yet here was no poor marksmanship, for at ten thousand feet the air
pilot has forty seconds to dodge each shell. He merely has to watch the
flash of the gun and then dive or rise or slide to right or left.
Sometimes, indeed, the shrapnel lays a finger on him, but he whirls away
out of its grip like a quarterback in a broken field. The guns stopped
firing, although the German was still above the British lines. Somebody
was up to tackle him at closer range. Where our 'plane came from we did
not know. The sky was filled all morning with English fliers, but each
appeared to have definite work in hand, and not one paid the slightest
attention to the German intruder. This was a special assignment. When we
caught sight of the English flier he had maneuvered into a position
behind his German adversary. We caught the flashes from the machine
guns, but we could hear no sound of the fight above us. The 'planes
darted forward and back. They were clever little bantams, these, and
neither was able to put in a finishing blow. Our stolid guiding officer
was up on his toes now and rooting as if it were some sporting event in
progress. Looking upward at his comrade, ten thousand feet aloft, he
cried: "Let him have it!"
The hostile attitude of the spectators or something else discouraged the
German and he turned and made for his own lines. The Englishman pursued
him for a time and then gave up the chase. The consensus of opinion was
that the Briton had won the decision on points.
"They've been making a dead set for our balloons all week," said an
English soldier after the German 'plane had been driven away.
"If they get the balloon does that mean that they get the observer?" I
asked in my ignorance.
"Lord bless you no," said the soldier. "No danger for 'im, sir. He just
jumps out with a parachute."
Next we turned our attention to the big gun firing. We could see the
flash of the guns of both sides and hear the whistle of the shells.
After the flash one might mark the result if he had a sharp eye. There
was no trouble in following the progress of one particular British shell
for an instant after the flash a high column of smoke arose above a town
which the Germans held. A minute or so later we had our own column for a
German shell hit one of the many munition dumps scattered about behind
the British front. Our own hill was pocked with shell holes and the
tower near which we stood was nibbled nigh to bits and we had a wakeful,
stimulating feeling that almost any minute something might drop on or
near us. The Tommy with whom we shared the view undeceived us.
"This hill!" he said. "Why there was a time when it was as much as your
life was worth to stand up here and now the place's nothing but a
bloomin' Cook's tour resort."
Our last day with the army was spent at the University of Death and
Destruction where the men from England take their final courses in
warfare. We began with a class which was having a lesson in defense
against bombs. A tin can exploded at the feet of a Scotchman and
peppered his bare legs. Five hundred soldiers roared with laughter, for
the man in the kilt had flunked his recitation in "Trench Raiding."
Officially the Scot was dead, for the tin can represented a German bomb.
They were cramming for war in the big training camp and they played
roughly. The imitation bombs carried a charge of powder generous enough
to insure wholesome respect. The Scot, indeed, had to retire to have a
dressing made.
The trench in which the class was hard at work was perfect in almost
every detail, save that it lacked a back wall. This was removed for the
sake of the audience. An instructor stood outside and every now and
again he would toss a bomb at his pupils. He played no favorites. The
good and the bad scholar each had his chance. In order to pass the
course the soldier had to show that he knew what to do to meet the bomb
attack. He might take shelter in the traverse; he might kick the bomb
far away; or, with a master's degree in view, he might pick up the
imitation bomb and hurl it far away before it could explode. Speed and
steady nerves were required for this trick. An explosion might easily
blow off a finger or two. Yet, after all, it was practice. Later there
might be other bombs designed for bigger game than fingers.
We followed the students from bombs to bayonets. The men with the cold
steel were charging into dummies marked with circles to represent spots
where hits were likely to be vital. It looked for all the world like
football practice and the men went after the dummies as the tacklers
used to do at Soldiers' Field of an afternoon when the coach had pinned
blue sweaters and white "Y's" on the straw men. There was the same
severely serious spirit. In a larger field a big class was having
instruction in attack. Before them were three lines of trenches
protected by barbed wire ankle high. At a signal they left their trench
and darted forward to the next one. Here they paused for a moment and
then set sail for the second trench. At another signal they were out of
that and into a third trench. From here they blazed away at some targets
on the hill representing Germans and consolidated their positions.
Instructors followed the charge along the road which bordered the
instruction field. They mingled praise and blame, but ever they shouted
for speed. "Make this go now," would be the cry, and to a luckless wight
who had been upset by barbed wire and sent sprawling: "What do you mean
by lying there, anyhow?"
It was a New Zealand company which I saw, and in the class were a number
of Maoris. These were fine, husky men of the type seen in the Hawaiian
Islands. All played the game hard, but none seemed so imaginatively
stirred by it as the Maoris. They were fairly carried away by the
enthusiasm of a charge, and left their trenches each time shouting at
top voice. The capture of the third trench by no means satisfied them.
They wanted to go on and on. If the officer had not called a halt
there's no telling but that they might have invaded the next field and
bayoneted the bombardiers. Over the hill there was a rattle of machine
guns and beyond that a more scattering volume of musketry. We stopped
and watched the men at their rifle practice.
"You wouldn't believe it," said the instructor, "but we've got to keep
hammering it home to men that rifles are meant to shoot with. For a time
you heard nothing but bayonets. A gun might have been nothing more than
a pike. Later everything was bombs, and sometimes soldiers just stood
and waited till the Boches got close, so that they could peg something
at 'em. But when these men go away they're going to know that the bombs
and the bayonet are the frill. It's the shooting that counts."
We saw a good deal of the British army during our trip but the thing
which gave me the clearest insight into the fundamental fighting,
sporting spirit of the army was a story which an officer told me of an
incident which occurred in the sector where he was stationed. An
enlisted man and an officer were trapped during a daylight patrol when a
mist lifted and they had to take shelter in a shell hole. They lay there
for some hours, and then the soldier endeavored to make a break back for
his own trenches. No sooner had his head and shoulders appeared above
the shell hole than a German machine gun pattered away at him. He was
hit and the officer started to climb up to his assistance.
"No, don't come," said the soldier. "They got me, sir." He put his hand
up and indicated a wound on the left hand side of his chest. "It was a
damn good shot," he said.