THAT LEAVE TRAIN--MY OLD PAL--LONDON
AND HOME--THE CALL OF THE WILD
One wants to have been at the front, in the nasty parts, to appreciate
fully what getting seven days' leave feels like. We used to have to be
out at the front for three consecutive months before being entitled to
this privilege. I had passed this necessary apprenticeship, and now had
actually got my leave.
[Illustration: Leave!!!]
The morning after getting my instructions I rose early, and packed the
few things I was going to take with me. Very few things they were, too.
Only a pack and a haversack, and both contained nothing but souvenirs. I
decided to go to the station via the orderly room, so that I could do
both in one journey. I had about two miles to go from my billets to the
orderly room in the village, and about a mile on from there to the
station. Some one suggested my riding--no fear; I was running no risks
now. I started off early with my servant. We took it in shifts with my
heavy bags of souvenirs. One package (the pack) had four "Little Willie"
cases inside, in other words, the cast-iron shell cases for the German
equivalent of our 18-pounders. The haversack was filled with aluminium
fuse tops and one large piece of a "Jack Johnson" shell case. My
pockets--and I had a good number, as I was wearing my greatcoat--were
filled with a variety of objects. A pair of little clogs found in a roof
at St. Yvon, several clips of German bullets removed from equipment
found on Christmas Day, and a collection of bullets which I had picked
out with my pocket knife from the walls of our house in St. Yvon. The
only additional luggage to this inventory I have given was my usual
copious supply of Gold Flake cigarettes, of which, during my life in
France, I must have consumed several army corps.
It was a glorious day--bright, sunny, and a faint fresh wind. Everything
seemed bright and rosy. I felt I should have liked to skip along the
road like a young bay tree--no, that's wrong--like a ram, only I didn't
think it would be quite the thing with my servant there (King's
Regulations: Chapter 158, paragraph 96, line 4); besides, he wasn't
going on leave, so it would have been rather a dirty trick after all.
[Illustration]
We got to the village with aching arms and souvenirs intact. I got my
pass, and together with another officer we set out for the station. It
was a leave train. Officers from all sorts of different battalions were
either in it or going to get in, either here or at the next stop.
Having no wish to get that station into trouble, or myself either, by
mentioning its name, I will call it Crême de Menthe. It was the same
rotten little place I had arrived at. It is only because I am trying to
sell the "station-master" a copy of this book that I call the place a
station at all. It really is a decomposing collection of half-hearted
buildings and moss-grown rails, with an apology for a platform at one
side.
We caught the train with an hour to spare. You can't miss trains in
France: there's too much margin allowed on the time-table. The 10.15
leaves at 11.30, the 11.45 at 2.20, and so on; besides, if you did miss
your train, you could always catch it up about two fields away, so
there's nothing to worry about.
We started. I don't know what time it was.
If you turn up the word "locomotion" in a dictionary, you will find it
means "the act or power of moving from place to place"; from _locus_, a
place, and _motion_, the act of moving. Our engine had got the _locus_
part all right, but was rather weak about the _motion_. We creaked and
squeaked about up the moss-grown track, and groaned our way back into
the station time after time, in order to tie on something else behind
the train, or to get on to a siding to let a trainload of trench
floorboards and plum and apple jangle past up the line. When at last we
really started, it was about at the speed of the "Rocket" on its trial
trip.
Our enthusiastic "going on leave" ardour was severely tested, and nearly
broke down before we reached Boulogne, which we did late that night. But
getting there, and mingling with the leave-going crowd which thronged
the buffet, made up for all travelling shortcomings. Every variety of
officer and army official was represented there. There were colonels,
majors, captains, lieutenants, quantities of private soldiers, sergeants
and corporals, hospital nurses and various other people employed in some
war capacity or other. Representatives from every branch of the Army, in
fact, whose turn for leave had come.
I left the buffet for a moment to go across to the Transport Office, and
walking along through the throng ran into my greatest friend. A most
extraordinary chance this! I had not the least idea whereabouts in
France he was, or when he might be likely to get leave. His job was in
quite a different part, many miles from the Douve. I have known him for
many years; we were at school together, and have always seemed to have
the lucky knack of bobbing up to the surface simultaneously without
prior arrangement. This meeting sent my spirits up higher than ever. We
both adjourned to the buffet, and talked away about our various
experiences to the accompaniment of cold chicken and ham. A merry scene
truly, that buffet--every one filled with thoughts of England. Nearly
every one there must have stepped out of the same sort of mud and danger
bath that I had. And, my word! it is a first-class feeling: sitting
about waiting for the boat when you feel you've earned this seven days'
leave. You hear men on all sides getting the last ounce of appreciation
out of the unique sensation by saying such things as, "Fancy those poor
blighters, sitting in the mud up there; they'll be just about getting
near 'Stand to' now."
You rapidly dismiss a momentary flash in your mind of what it's going to
be like in that buffet on the return journey.
Early in the morning, and while it was still dark, we left the harbour
and ploughed out into the darkness and the sea towards England.
I claim the honoured position of the world's worst sailor. I have
covered several thousand miles on the sea, "brooked the briny" as far as
India and Canada. I have been hurtled about on the largest Atlantic
waves; yet I am, and always will remain, absolutely impossible at sea.
Looking at the docks out of the hotel window nearly sends me to bed;
there's something about a ship that takes the stuffing out of me
completely. Whether it's that horrible pale varnished woodwork, mingled
with the smell of stuffy upholstery, or whether it's that nauseating
whiff from the open hatch of the engine-room, I don't know; but once on
a ship I am as naught ... not nautical.
Of course the Channel was going to be rough. I could see that at a
glance. I know exactly what to do about the sea now. I go straight to a
bunk, and hope for the best; if no bunk--bribe the steward until there
is one.
I got a bunk, deserted my friend in a cheerless way, and retired till
the crossing was over. It _was_ very rough....
In the cold grey hours we glided into Dover or Folkestone (I was too
anaemic to care which) and fastened up alongside the wharf. I had a dim
recollection of getting my pal to hold my pack as we left Boulogne, and
now I could see neither him nor the pack. Fearful crush struggling up
the gangway. I had to scramble for a seat in the London train, so
couldn't waste time looking for my friend. I had my haversack--he had
my pack.
The train moved off, and now here we all were back in clean, fresh,
luxurious England, gliding along in an English train towards London.
It's worth doing months and months of trenches to get that buoyant,
electrical sensation of passing along through English country on one's
way to London on leave.
I spent the train journey thinking over what I should do during my seven
days. Time after time I mentally conjured up the forthcoming performance
of catching the train at Paddington and gliding out of the shadows of
the huge station into the sunlit country beyond--the rapid express
journey down home, the drive out from the station, back in my own land
again!
We got into London in pretty quick time, and I rapidly converted my
dreams into facts.
Still in the same old trench clothes, with a goodly quantity of Flanders
mud attached, I walked into Paddington station, and collared a seat in
the train on Number 1 platform. Then, collecting a quantity of papers
and magazines from the bookstalls, I prepared myself for enjoying to the
full the two hours' journey down home.
I spent a gorgeous week in Warwickshire, during which time my friend
came along down to stay a couple of days with me, bringing my missing
pack along with him. He had had the joy of carrying it laden with shell
cases across London, and taking it down with him to somewhere near
Aldershot, and finally bringing it to me without having kept any of the
contents ... Such is a true friend.
As this book deals with my wanderings in France I will not go into
details of my happy seven days' leave. I now resume at the point where I
was due to return to France. In spite of the joys of England as opposed
to life in Flanders, yet a curious phenomenon presented itself at the
end of my leave. I was anxious to get back. Strange, but true. Somehow
one felt that slogging away out in the dismal fields of war was the real
thing to do. If some one had offered me a nice, safe, comfortable job in
England, I wouldn't have taken it. I claim no credit for this feeling of
mine. I know every one has the same. That buccaneering, rough and tumble
life out there has its attractions. The spirit of adventure is in most
people, and the desire and will to biff the Boches is in every one, so
there you are.
I drifted back via London, Dover and Boulogne, and thence up the same
old stagnant line to Crême de Menthe. Once more back in the land of mud,
bullets, billets, and star shells.
It was the greyest of grey days when I arrived at my one-horse terminus.
I got out at the "station," and had a solitary walk along the empty,
muddy lanes, back to the Transport Farm.
Plodding along in the thin rain that was falling I thought of home,
London, England, and then of the job before me. Another three months at
least before any further chance of leave could come my way again.
Evening was coming on. Across the flat, sombre country I could see the
tall, swaying poplar trees standing near the farm. Beyond lay the rough
and rugged road which led to the Douve trenches.
How nice that leave had been! To-morrow night I should be going along
back to the trenches before Wulverghem.