PEACE AND WAR
You'll see from the La Bassée Road, on any summer day,
The children herding nanny goats, the women making hay.
You'll see the soldiers, khaki clad, in column and platoon,
Come swinging up La Bassée Road from billets in Bethune.
There's hay to save and corn to cut, but harder work by far
Awaits the soldier boys who reap the harvest fields of war.
You'll see them swinging up the road where women work at hay,
The long, straight road, La Bassée Road, on any summer day.
The farmhouse stood in the centre of the village; the village rested
on the banks of a sleepy canal on which the barges carried the wounded
down from the slaughter line to the hospital at Bethune. The village
was shelled daily. When shelling began a whistle was blown warning all
soldiers to seek cover immediately in the dug-outs roofed with sandbags,
which were constructed by the military authorities in nearly every garden
in the place. When the housewifes heard the shells bursting they ran
out and brought in their washing from the lines where it was hung out
to dry; then they sat down and knitted stockings or sewed garments (p. 217)
to send to their menfolk at the war. In the village they said: "When
the shells come the men run in for their lives, and the women run out
for their washing."
The village was not badly battered by shell fire. Our barn got touched
once and a large splinter of a concussion shell which fell there was
used as a weight for a wag-of-the-wall clock in the farmhouse. The
village was crowded with troops, new men, who wore clean shirts, neat
puttees and creased trousers. They had not been in the trenches yet,
but were going up presently.
Bill and I were sitting in an _estaminet_ when two of these youngsters
came in and sat opposite.
"New 'ere?" asked Bill.
"Came to Boulogne six days ago and marched all the way here," said one
of them, a red-haired youth with bushy eyebrows. "Long over?" he
asked.
"Just about nine months," said Bill.
"You've been through it then."
"Through it," said Bill, lying splendidly, "I think we 'ave. At Mons
we went in eight 'undred strong. We're the only two as is left."
"Gracious! And you never got a scratch?"
"Never a pin prick," said Bill, "And I saw the shells so thick (p. 218)
comin' over us that you couldn't see the sky. They was like crows up
above."
"They were?"
"We were in the trenches then," Bill said. "The orficer comes up and
sez: 'Things are getting despirate! We've got to charge. 'Ool foller
me?' 'I'm with you!' I sez, and up I jumps on the parapet pulling a
machine gun with me."
"A machine gun!" said the red-haired man.
"A machine gun," Bill went on. "When one is risen 'e can do anything.
I could 'ave lifted a 'ole battery on my shoulders because I was mad.
I 'ad a look to my front to get the position then I goes forward.
'Come back, cried the orficer as 'e fell----"
"Fell!"
"'E got a bullet through his bread basket and 'e flopped. But there
was no 'oldin' o' me. 'Twas death or glory, neck 'an nothin', 'ell for
leather at that moment. The London Irish blood was up; one of the
Chelsea Cherubs was out for red blood 'olesale and retail. I slung the
machine gun on my shoulder, sharpened my bayonet with a piece of
sand-paper, took the first line o' barbed wire entanglements at (p. 219)
a jump and got caught on the second. It gored me like a bull. I got
six days C.B. for 'avin' the rear of my trousers torn when we came out
o' the trenches."
"Tell me something I can believe," said the red-haired youth.
"Am I not tellin' you something," asked Bill. "Nark it, matey, nark
it. I tell Gospel-stories and you'll not believe me."
"But it's all tommy rot."
"Is it? The Germans did'nt think so when I charged plunk into the
middle of 'em. Yer should 'ave been there to see it. They were all
round me and two taubes over 'ead watching my movements. Swish! and my
bayonet went through the man in front and stabbed the identity disc of
another. When I drew the bayonet out the butt of my 'ipe[3] would 'it
a man behind me in the tummy. Ugh! 'e would say and flop bringing a
mate down with 'im may be. The dead was all round me and I built a
parapet of their bodies, puttin' the legs criss-cross and makin' loop
'oles. Then they began to bomb me from the other side. 'Twas gettin'
'ot I tell you and I began to think of my 'ome; the dug-out in (p. 220)
the trench. What was I to do? If I crossed the open they'd bring me
down with a bullet. There was only one thing to be done. I had my
boots on me for three 'ole weeks of 'ot weather, 'otter than this and
beer not so near as it is now----"
[Footnote 3: Rifle.]
"Have another drink, Bill?" I asked.
"Glad yer took the 'int," said my mate. "Story tellin's a dry fatigue.
Well as I was sayin' my socks 'ad been on for a 'ole month----"
"Three weeks," I corrected.
"Three weeks," Bill repeated and continued. "I took orf my boots.
'Respirators!' the Germans yelled the minute my socks were bare, and
off they went leavin' me there with my 'ome-made trench. When I came
back I got a dose of C.B. as I've told you before."
We went back to our billet. In the farmyard the pigs were busy on the
midden, and they looked at us with curious expressive eyes that peered
roguishly out from under their heavy hanging cabbage-leaves of ears.
In one corner was the field-cooker. The cooks were busy making dixies
of bully beef stew. Their clothes were dirty and greasy, so were their
arms, bare from the shoulders almost, and taut with muscles. (p. 221)
Through a path that wound amongst a medley of agricultural instruments,
ploughs harrows and grubbers, the farmer's daughter came striding like
a ploughman, two children hanging on to her apron strings. A stretcher
leant against our water-cart, and dried clots of blood were on its
shafts. The farmer's dog lay panting on the midden, his red tongue
hanging out and saliva dropping on the dung, overhead the swallows
were swooping and flying in under the eaves where now and again they
nested for a moment before getting up to resume their exhilirating
flight. A dirty barefooted boy came in through the large entrance-gate
leading a pair of sleepy cows with heavy udders which shook backwards
and forwards as they walked. The horns of one cow were twisted, the
end of one pointed up, the end of the other pointed down.
One of Section 4's boys was looking at the cow.
"The ole geeser's 'andlebars is twisted," said Bill, addressing nobody
in particular and alluding to the cow.
"It's 'orns, yer fool!" said Section 4.
"Yer fool, yerself!" said Bill. "I'm not as big a fool as I look----"
"Git! Your no more brains than a 'en." (p. 222)
"Nor 'ave you either," said Bill.
"I've twice as many brains, as you," said Section 4.
"So 'ave I," was the answer made by Bill; then getting pugilistic he
thundered out: "I'll give yer one on the moosh."
"Will yer?" said Section 4.
"Straight I will. Give you one across your ugly phiz! It looks as if
it had been out all night and some one dancing on it."
Bill took off his cap and flung it on the ground as if it were the
gauntlet of a knight of old. His hair, short and wiry, stood up on
end. Section 4 looked at it.
"Your hair looks like furze in a fit," said Section 4.
"You're lookin' for one on the jor," said Bill closing and opening his
fist. "And I'll give yer one."
"Will yer? Two can play at that gyme!"
Goliath massive and monumental came along at that moment. He looked at
Bill.
"Looking for trouble, mate?" he asked.
"Section 4's shouting the odds, as usual," Bill replied.
"Come along to the Canal and have a bath; it will cool your (p. 223)
temper."
"Will it?" said Bill as he came along with us somewhat reluctantly
towards the Canal banks.
"What does shouting the odds mean?" I asked him.
"Chewin' the rag," he answered.
"And that means----"
"Kicking up a row and lettin' every one round you know," said Bill.
"That's what shoutin' the blurry odds means."
"What's the difference between shouting the odds and shouting the
blurry odds?" I asked.
"It's like this, Pat," Bill began to explain, a blush rising on his
cheeks. Bill often blushed. "Shoutin' the odds isn't strong enough,
but shoutin' the blurry odds has ginger in it. It makes a bloke listen
to you."
Stoner was sitting on the bank of La Bassée canal, his bare feet
touching the water, his body deep in a cluster of wild iris. I sat
down beside him and took off my boots.
I pulled a wild iris and explained to Stoner how in Donegal we made
boats from the iris and placed them by the brookside at night. When
we went to bed the fairies crossed the streams on the boats which (p. 224)
we made.
"Did they cross on the boats?" asked Stoner.
"Of course they did," I answered. "We never found a boat left in the
morning."
"The stream washed them away," said Stoner.
"You civilised abomination," I said and proceeded to fashion a boat,
when it was made I placed it on the stream and watched it circle round
on an eddy near the bank.
"Here's something," said Stoner, getting hold of a little frog with
his hand and placing it on the boat. For a moment the iris bark swayed
unsteadily, the frog's little glistening eyes wobbled in its head then
it dived in to the water, overturning the boat as it hopped off it.
An impudent-looking little boy with keen, inquisitive eyes, came along
the canal side wheeling a very big barrow on which was heaped a number
of large loaves. His coat a torn, ragged fringe, hung over the hips,
he wore a Balaclava helmet (thousands of which have been flung away by
our boys in the hot weather) and khaki puttees.
The boy came to a stop opposite, laid down his barrow and wiped (p. 225)
the sweat from his brow with a dirty hand.
"Bonjour!" said the boy.
"Bonjour, petit garçon," Stoner replied, proud of his French which is
limited to some twenty words.
The boy asked for a cigarette; a souvenir. We told him to proceed on
his journey, we were weary of souvenir hunters. The barrow moved on,
the wheel creaking rustily and the boy whistled a light-hearted tune.
That his request had not been granted did not seem to trouble him.
Two barges, coupled and laden with coal rounded a corner of the canal.
They were drawn by five persons, a woman with a very white sunbonnet
in front. She was followed by a barefooted youth in khaki tunic, a
hunch-backed man with heavy projecting jowl and a hare-lipped youth of
seventeen or eighteen. Last on the tug rope was an oldish man with a
long white beard parted in the middle and rusty coloured at the tips.
A graceful slip of a girl, lithe as a marsh sapling, worked the tiller
of the rear barge and she took no notice of the soldiers on the shore
or in the water.
"Going to bathe, Stoner?" I asked. (p. 226)
"When the barges go by," he answered and I twitted him on his modesty.
Goliath, six foot three of magnificent bone and muscle was in the
canal. Swanking his trudgeon stroke he surged through the dirty water
like an excited whale, puffing and blowing. Bill, losing in every
stroke, tried to race him, but retired beaten and very happy. The cold
water rectified his temper, he was now in a most amiable humour. Pryor
was away down the canal on the barge, when he came to the bridge he
would dive off and race some of Section 4 boys back to the spot where
I was sitting. There is an eternal and friendly rivalry between
Sections 3 and 4.
"Stoner, going in?" I asked my comrade, who was standing stark on the
bank.
"In a minute," he answered.
"Now," I said.
"Get in yourself ----"
"Presently," I replied, "but you go in now, unless you want to get
shoved in."
He dived gracefully and came up near the other bank spluttering and
shaking the water off his hair. Bill challenged him to a race and both
struck off down the stream, as they swam passing jokes with their (p. 227)
comrades on the bank. In the course of ten minutes they returned,
perched proudly on the stern of a barge and making ready to dive. At
that moment I undressed and went in.
My swim was a very short one; shorter than usual, and I am not much of
a swimmer. A searching shell sped over from the German lines hit the
ground a few hundred yards to rear of the Canal and whirled a shower
of dust into the water, which speedily delivered several hundred nude
fighters to the clothes-littered bank. A second and third shell
dropping nearer drove all modest thoughts from our minds for the
moment (unclothed, a man feels helplessly defenceless), and we hurried
into our warrens through throngs of women rushing out to take in their
washing.
One of the shells hit the artillery horse lines on the left of the
village and seven horses were killed.