THAT RATION FATIGUE----SKETCHES IN
REQUEST--BAILLEUL--BATHS AND
LUNATICS--HOW TO CONDUCT A WAR
[Illustration: T]
They seemed to me long, dark, dismal days, those days spent in the Douve
trenches; longer, darker and more dismal than the Plugstreet ones. Night
after night I crossed the dreary mud flat, passed the same old wretched
farms, and went on with the same old trench routine. We all considered
the trenches a pretty rotten outfit; but every one was fully prepared to
accept far rottener things than that. There was never the least sign of
flagging determination in any man there, and I am sure you could say the
same of the whole front.
And, really, some jobs on some nights wanted a lot of beating for
undesirability. Take the ration party's job, for instance. Think of the
rottenest, wettest, windiest winter's night you can remember, and add to
it this bleak, muddy, war-worn plain with its ruined farms and
shell-torn lonely road. Then think of men, leaving the trenches at dusk,
going back about a mile and a half, and bringing sundry large and heavy
boxes up to the trenches, pausing now and again for a rest, and ignoring
the intermittent crackling of rifle fire in the darkness, and the sharp
"_phit_" of bullets hitting the mud all around. Think of that as your
portion each night and every night. When you have finished this job, the
rest you get consists of coiling yourself up in a damp dug-out. Night
after night, week after week, month after month, this job is done by
thousands. As one sits in a brilliantly illuminated, comfortable, warm
theatre, having just come from a cosy and luxurious restaurant, just
think of some poor devil half-way along those corduroy boards struggling
with a crate of biscuits; the ration "dump" behind, the trenches on in
front. When he has finished he will step down into the muddy slush of a
trench, and take his place with the rest, who, if need be, will go on
doing that job for another ten years, without thinking of an
alternative. The Germans made a vast mistake when they thought they had
gauged the English temperament.
* * * * *
We went "in" and "out" of those trenches many times. During these
intervals of "out" I began to draw pictures more and more. It had become
known that I drew these trench pictures, not only in our battalion but
in several others, and at various headquarters I got requests for four
or five drawings at a time. About three weeks after I returned from
leave, I had to move my billeting quarters. I went to a farm called "La
petite Monque"; I don't know how it's really spelt, but that's what the
name sounded like. Here I lived with the officers of A Company, and a
jolly pleasant crew they were. We shared a mess together, and had one
big room and one small room between us. There were six of us altogether.
The Captain had the little room and the bed in it, whilst we all slept
round the table on the floor in the big room. Here, in the daytime, when
I was not out with the machine-gun sections, I drew several pictures.
The Brigadier-General of our brigade took a particular fancy to one
which he got from me. The divisional headquarters had half a dozen;
whilst I did two sets of four each for two officers in the regiment.
Sometimes we would go for walks around the country, and occasionally
made an excursion as far as Bailleul, about five miles away. Bailleul
held one special attraction for us. There were some wonderfully good
baths there. The fact that they were situated in the lunatic asylum
rather added to their interest.
The first time I went there, one of the subalterns in A Company was my
companion. We didn't particularly want to walk all the way, so we
decided to get down to the high road as soon as we could, and try and
get a lift in a car. With great luck we managed to stop a fairly empty
car, and got a lift. It was occupied by a couple of French soldiers who
willingly rolled us along into Bailleul. Once there, we walked through
the town and out to the asylum close by. I expect by now the lunatics
have been called up under the group system; but in those days they were
there, and pulled faces at us as we walked up the wide gravel drive to
the grand portals of the building. They do make nice asylums over there.
This was a sort of Chatsworth or Blenheim to look at. Inside it was
fitted up in very great style: long carpeted corridors opening out into
sort of domed winter gardens, something like the snake house at the Zoo.
We came at length to a particularly lofty, domed hall, from which opened
several large bathrooms. Splendid places. A row of large white enamelled
baths along one wall, cork mats on the floor, and one enormous central
water supply, hot and cold, which you diverted to whichever bath you
chose by means of a long flexible rubber pipe. Soap, sponges, towels,
_ad lib_. You can imagine what this palatial water grotto meant to us,
when, at other times, our best bath was of saucepan capacity, taken on
the cold stone floor of a farm room. We lay and boiled the trenches out
of our systems in that palatial asylum. Glorious! lying back in a long
white enamel bath in a warm foggy atmosphere of steam, watching one's
toes floating in front. When this was over, and we had been grimaced off
the premises by "inmates" at the windows, we went back into Bailleul
and made for the "Faucon d'Or," an old hotel that stands in the square.
Here we had a civilized meal. Tablecloth, knives, forks, spoons, waited
on, all that sort of thing. You could have quite a good dinner here if
you liked. A curious thought occurred to me then, and as it occurs again
to me now I write it down. Here it is: If the authorities gave one
permission, one could have rooms at the Faucon d'Or and go to the war
daily. It would be quite possible to, say, have an early dinner, table
d'hote (with, say, a half-bottle of Salmon and Gluckstein), get into
one's car and go to the trenches, spend the night sitting in a small
damp hole in the ground, or glaring over the parapet, and after "stand
to" in the morning, go back in the car in time for breakfast. Of course,
if there was an attack, the car would have to wait--that's all; and of
course you would come to an understanding with the hotel management that
the terms were for meals taken in the hotel, and that if you had to
remain in the trenches the terms must be reduced accordingly.
[Illustration: I hear you callin' me]
A curious war this; you _can_ be at a table d'hote dinner, a music-hall
entertainment afterwards, and within half an hour be enveloped in the
most uncomfortable, soul-destroying trench ever known. I said you can
be; I wish I could say you always are.
The last time I was at Bailleul, not many months ago, I heard that we
could no longer have baths at the asylum; I don't know why. I think some
one told me why, but I can't remember. Whether it was the baths had been
shelled, or whether the lunatics objected, it is impossible for me to
say; but there's the fact, anyway. "Na Pu" baths at Bailleul.