GETTING NEARER----A LUGUBRIOUS PARTY--STILL
NEARER--BLAZING YPRES--ORDERS FOR ATTACK
[Illustration: A]
After about another twenty minutes' march we halted again. Something or
other was going on up the road in front, which prevented our moving. We
stood about in the lane, and watched the shells bursting in the town. We
were able to watch shells bursting closer before we had been there long.
With a screeching whistle a shell shot over our heads and exploded in
the field on our left. This was the signal, apparently, for shrapnel to
start bursting promiscuously about the fields in all directions, which
it did.
Altogether the lane was an unwholesome spot to stand about in. We were
there some time, wondering when one of the bursts of shrapnel would
strike the lane, but none did. Straggling, small groups of Belgian
civilians were now passing down the lane, driven out no doubt from some
cottage or other that until now they had managed to persist in living
in. Mournful little groups would pass, wheeling their total worldly
possessions on a barrow.
Suddenly we were moved on again, and as suddenly halted a few yards
further on. Without a doubt, strenuous operations and complications were
taking place ahead. A few of the officers collected together by a gate
at the side of the lane and had a smoke and a chat. "I wonder how much
longer we're going to stick about here" some one said. "What about going
into that house over there and see if there's a fire?" He indicated a
tumbled down cottage of a fair size, which stood nearly opposite us on
the far side of the lane. It was almost dark by now, and the wind made
it pretty cold work, standing and sitting about in the lane. Four of us
crossed the roadway and entered the yard of the cottage. We knocked at
the door, and asked if we might come in and sit by the fire for a bit.
We asked in French, and found that it was a useless extravagance on our
part, as they only spoke Flemish, and what a terrible language that is!
These were Flemish people--the real goods; we hadn't struck any before.
They seemed to understand the signs we made; at all events they let us
into the place. There was a dairy alongside the house belonging to them,
and in here our men were streaming, one after another, paying a few
coppers for a drink of milk. The woman serving it out with a ladle into
their mess tins was keeping up a flow of comment all the time in
Flemish. Nobody except herself understood a word of what she was saying.
Hardy people, those dwellers in that cottage. Shrapnel was dropping
about here and there in the fields near by, and at any moment might come
into the roof of their cottage, or through the flimsy walls.
We four went inside, and into their main room--the kitchen. It was in
the same old style which we knew so well. A large square, dark, and
dingy room, with one of their popular long stoves sticking out from one
wall. Round this stove, drawn up in a wide crescent formation, was a row
of chairs with high backs. On each chair sat a man or a woman, dressed
in either black or very dark clothes. Nobody spoke, but all were staring
into the stove. I wished, momentarily, I had stayed in the lane. It was
like breaking in on some weird sect--"Stove Worshippers." One wouldn't
have been surprised if, suddenly, one member of the party had removed
the lid of the stove and thrown in a "grey powder," or something of the
sort. This to be followed by flames leaping high into the air, whilst
low-toned monotonous chanting would break out from the assembly. Feast
in honour of their god "Shrapnel," who was "angry." I suppose I
shouldn't make fun of these people though. It was enough to make them
silent and lugubrious, to have all their country and their homes
destroyed. We sat around the stove with them, and offered them
cigarettes. We talked to each other in English; they sat silently
listening and understanding nothing. I am sure they looked upon all
armies and soldiers, irrespective of nationality, as a confounded
nuisance. I am sure they wished we'd go and fight the matter out
somewhere else. And no wonder.
We sat in there for a short time, and stepped out into the road again
just in time to hear the order to advance. We hadn't far to go now. It
was quite dark as we turned into a very large flat field at the back of
Ypres, right close up against the outskirts of the town. Just the field,
I felt sure, that a circus would choose, if visiting that
neighbourhood.
The battalion spread itself out over the field and came to the
conclusion that this was where it would have to stay for the night. It
was all very cold and dark now. We sat about on the great field in our
greatcoats and waited for the field kitchens and rations to arrive. As
we sat there, just at the back of Ypres, we could hear and see the
shells bursting in the city in the darkness. The shelling was getting
worse, fires were breaking out in the deserted town, and bright yellow
flames shot out here and there against the blackened sky. On the arrival
of the field kitchens we all managed to get some tea in our mess tins;
and the rum ration being issued we were a little more fortified against
the cold. We sat for the most part in greatcoats and silence, watching
the shelling of Ypres. Suddenly a huge fire broke out in the centre of
the town. The sky was a whirling and twisting mass of red and yellow
flames, and enormous volumes of black smoke. A truly grand and awful
spectacle. The tall ruins of the Cloth Hall and Cathedral were
alternately silhouetted or brightly illuminated in the yellow glare of
flames. And now it started to rain. Down it came, hard and fast. We
huddled together on the cold field and prepared ourselves to expect
anything that might come along now. Shells and rain were both falling in
the field. I think a few shells, meant for Ypres, had rather overshot
the mark and had come into our field in consequence.
I leant up as one of a tripod of three of us, my face towards the
burning city. The two others were my old pal, the platoon commander at
St. Yvon, and a subaltern of one of the other companies. I sat and
watched the flames licking round the Cloth Hall. I remember asking a
couple of men in front to shift a bit so that I could get a better view.
It poured with rain, and we went sitting on in that horrible field,
wondering what the next move was to be.
At about eleven o'clock, an orderly came along the field with a
mackintosh ground-sheet over his head, and told me the Colonel wished to
see me. "Where is he?" I asked. "In that little cottage place at the far
corner of the field, near the road, sir." I rose up and thus spoilt our
human tripod. "Where are you going 'B.B.'?" asked my St. Yvon friend.
"Colonel's sent for me," I replied. "Well, come back as soon as you
can." I left, and never saw him again. He was killed early the next
morning; one of the best chaps I ever knew.
I went down the field to the cottage at the corner, and, entering, found
all the company commanders, the second in command, the Adjutant and the
Colonel. "We shall attack at 4 a.m. to-morrow," he was saying. This was
the moment at which I got my _Fragment_ idea, "The push, by one who's
been pushed!" "We shall attack at dawn!"
The Colonel went on to explain the plans. We stood around in the
semi-darkness, the only light being a small candle, whose flame was
being blown about by the draught from the broken window.
"We shall move off from here at midnight, or soon after," he concluded,
"and go up the road to St. Julien."
We all dispersed to our various commands. I went and got my sergeant and
section commanders together. I explained the coming operations to them.
Sitting out in the field in the rain, the map on my knees being
occasionally brightly illuminated by the burning city, I looked out the
road to St. Julien.