THE SOMME (APRIL 1917)
Amiens was the one big town that could be reached easily from the
Somme front for dinner, so every night it was crowded with officers
and men who had come back in cars, motor-bikes, lorries or any old
thing in or on which they could get a lift. After dinner they would
stand near the station and hail anything passing, till they found
something that would drop them near their destination. As there was an
endless stream of traffic going out over the Albert and Péronne Roads
during that time (April 1917), it was easy.
Amiens is a dirty old town with its seven canals. The cathedral,
belfry and the theatre are, of course, wonderful, but there is little
else except the dirt.
I remember later lunching with John Sargent in Amiens, after which I
asked him if he would like to see the front of the theatre. He said he
would. When we were looking at it he said: "Yes, I suppose it is one
of the most perfect things in Europe. I've had a photograph of it
hanging over my bed for the last thirty years."
But Amiens was a danger trap for the young officer from the line, also
for the men. "Charlie's Bar" was always full of officers; mirth ran
high, also the bills for drinks--and the drink the Tommies got in the
little cafés was terrible stuff, and often doped.
Then, when darkness came on, strange women--the riff-raff from (p. 017)
Paris, the expelled from Rouen, in fact the badly diseased from all
parts of France--hovered about in the blackness with their electric
torches, and led the unknowing away to blackened side-streets and up
dim stairways--to what? Anyway, for an hour or so they were out of the
rain and mud, but afterwards? Often did I go with Freddie Fane, the
A.P.M., to these dens of filth to drag fine men away from disease.
[Illustration: IV. _A Tank. Pozières._]
The wise ones dined well--if not too well--at the "Godbert," with its
Madeleine, or the "Cathedral," with its Marguerite, who was the queen
of the British Army in Picardy, or, not so expensively, at the "Hôtel
de la Paix." Some months later the club started, a well-run place. I
remember a Major who used to have his bath there once a week at 4 p.m.
It was prepared for him, with a large whisky-and-soda by its side.
What more comfort could one wish? Then there were dinners at the
Allied Press, after which the Major would give a discourse amid heavy
silence; then music. The favourite song at that time was:--
"Jackie Boy!
Master?
Singie well?
Very well.
Hey down,
Ho down,
Derry, Derry down,
All among the leaves so green, O.
"With my Hey down, down,
With my Ho down, down,
Hey down,
Ho down,
Derry, Derry down,
All among the leaves so green, O."
Later, perhaps, if the night was fine, the Major would retire to the (p. 018)
garden and play the flute. This was a serious moment--a great hush was
felt, nobody dared to move; but he really didn't play badly. And old
Hale would tell stories which no one could understand, and de Maratray
would play ping-pong with extraordinary agility. It would all have
been great fun if people had not been killing each other so near. Why,
during that time, the Boche did not bomb Amiens, I cannot understand,
it was thick every week-end with the British Army. One could hardly
jamb oneself through the crowd in the Place Gambetta or up the Rue des
Trois Cailloux. It was a struggling mass of khaki, bumping over the
uneven cobblestones. What streets they were! I remember walking back
from dinner one night with a Major, the agricultural expert of the
Somme, and he said, "Don't you think the pavement is very hostile
to-night?"
I shall never forget my first sight of the Somme battlefields. It
was snowing fast, but the ground was not covered, and there was this
endless waste of mud, holes and water. Nothing but mud, water, crosses
and broken Tanks; miles and miles of it, horrible and terrible, but
with a noble dignity of its own, and, running through it, the great
artery, the Albert-Bapaume Road, with its endless stream of men, guns,
food lorries, mules and cars, all pressing along with apparently
unceasing energy towards the front. Past all the little crosses where
their comrades had fallen, nothing daunted, they pressed on towards
the Hell that awaited them on the far side of Bapaume. The mud, the
cold, the noise, the misery, and perhaps death;--on they went,
plodding through the mud, those wonderful men, perhaps singing one of
their cheer-making songs, such as:--
"I want to go home. (p. 019)
I want to go home.
I don't want to go to the trenches no more,
Where the Whizz-bangs and Johnsons do rattle and roar.
Take me right over the sea,
Where the Allemande can't bayonet me.
Oh, my!
I don't want to die,
I want to go home."
[Illustration: V. _Warwickshires entering Péronne._]
How did they do it? "I want to go home."--Does anyone realise what
those words must have meant to them then? I believe I do now--a little
bit. Even I, from my back, looking-on position, sometimes felt the
terrible fear, the longing to get away. What must they have felt?
"From battle, murder and sudden death, Good Lord, deliver us."
On up the hill past the mines to Pozières. An Army railway was then
running through Pozières, and the station was marked by a big wooden
sign painted black and white, like you see at any country station in
England, with POZIÈRES in large Roman letters, but that's all there
was of Pozières except a little red in the mud. I remember later, at
the R.F.C. H.Q., Maurice Baring showed me a series of air-photographs
of Pozières as it was in 1914, with its peaceful little streets and
rows of trees. What a contrast to the Pozières as it was in 1917--MUD.
Further on, the Butte stood out on the right, a heap of chalky mud,
not a blade of grass round it then--nothing but mud, with a white
cross on the top. On the left, the Crown Prince's dug-out and
Gibraltar--I suppose these have gone now--and Le Sars and Grévillers,
at that time General Birdwood's H.Q., where the church had been
knocked into a fine shape. I tried to draw it, but was much put off by
air fighting. It seemed a favourite spot for this.
Bapaume must always have been a dismal place, like Albert, but (p. 020)
Péronne must have been lovely, looking up from the water; and the
main _Place_ must have been most imposing, but then it was very sad.
The Boche had only left it about three weeks, and it had not been
"cleaned up." But the real terribleness of the Somme was not in the
towns or on the roads. One felt it as one wandered over the old
battlefields of La Boisselle, Courcelette, Thiepval, Grandcourt,
Miraumont, Beaumont-Hamel, Bazentin-le-Grand and Bazentin-le-Petit--the
whole country practically untouched since the great day when the Boche
was pushed back and it was left in peace once more.
A hand lying on the duckboards; a Boche and a Highlander locked in a
deadly embrace at the edge of Highwood; the "Cough-drop" with the
stench coming from its watery bottom; the shell-holes with the shapes
of bodies faintly showing through the putrid water--all these things
made one think terribly of what human beings had been through, and
were going through a bit further on, and would be going through for
perhaps years more--who knew how many?
I remember an officer saying to me, "Paint the Somme? I could do it
from memory--just a flat horizon-line and mud-holes and water, with
the stumps of a few battered trees," but one could not paint the
smell.
Early one morning in Amiens I got a message from Colonel John Buchan
asking me to breakfast at the "Hôtel du Rhin." While we were having
breakfast, there was a great noise outside--an English voice was
cursing someone else hard and telling him to get on and not make an
ass of himself. Then a Flying Pilot was pushed in by an Observer. The
Pilot's hand and arm were temporarily bound up, but blood was (p. 021)
dropping through. The Observer had his face badly scratched and one of
his legs was not quite right. They sat at a table, and the waiter
brought them eggs and coffee, which they took with relish, but the
Pilot was constantly drooping towards his left, and the drooping
always continued, till he went crack on the floor. Then the Observer
would curse him soundly and put him back in his chair, where he would
eat again till the next fall. When they had finished, the waiter put a
cigarette in each of their mouths and lit them. After a few minutes
four men walked in with two stretchers, put the two breakfasters on
the stretchers, and walked out with them--not a word was spoken.
[Illustration: VI. _No Man's Land._]
I found out afterwards that the Pilot had been hit in the wrist over
the lines early that morning and missed the direction back to his
aerodrome. Getting very weak, he landed, not very well, outside
Amiens. He got his wrist bound up and had asked someone to telephone
to the aerodrome to tell them that they were going to the "Rhin" for
breakfast, and would they send for them there?
After I had been in Amiens for about a fortnight, going out to the
Somme battlefields early in the morning and coming back when it got
dark, I received a message one evening from the Press "Major" to go to
his château and ring up the "Colonel" at Rollencourt, which I did. The
following was the conversation as far as I remember:--
"Is that Orpen?"
"Yes, sir."
"What do you mean by behaving this way?"
"What way, please, sir?"
"By not reporting to me."
"I'm sorry, sir, but I do not understand." (p. 022)
"Don't you know you must report to me, and show me
what work you have been doing?"
"I've practically done nothing yet, sir."
"What have you been doing?"
"Looking round, sir."
"Are you aware you are being paid for your services?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, report to me and show me your work regularly.--Tell
the Major to speak to me."
The Major spoke, and I clearly heard him say my behaviour was
damnable.
This wonderful Colonel expected me to work all day, and apparently, in
the evening, to take what I had done and show it to him--the distance
by motor to him and back was something like 110 miles!
I saw there was nothing for it, if I wanted to do my work, but to
fight, so I decided to lay my views of people and things before those
who were above the Colonel. This I did, and had comparative peace, but
the seed of hostility was sown in the Colonel's Intelligence (F)
Section, G.H.Q., as I think it was then called, and they made me
suffer as much as was in their power.
* * * * *
"BEAUMONT-HAMEL" (p. 023)
A MEMORY OF THE SOMME (SPRING 1917)
A fair spring morning--not a living soul is near,
Far, far away there is the faint grumble of the guns;
The battle has passed long since--
All is Peace.
At times there is the faint drone of aeroplanes as
They pass overhead, amber specks, high up in the blue;
Occasionally there is the movement of a rat in the
Old battered trench on which I sit, still in the
Confusion in which it was hurriedly left.
The sun is baking hot.
Strange odours come from the door of a dug-out
With its endless steps running down into blackness.
The land is white--dazzling.
The distance is all shimmering in heat.
A few little spring flowers have forced their way
Through the chalk.
He lies a few yards in front of the trench.
We are quite alone.
He makes me feel very awed, very small, very ashamed.
He has been there a long, long time--
Hundreds of eyes have seen him,
Hundreds of bodies have felt faint and sick
Because of him.
Then this place was Hell,
But now all is Peace.
And the sun has made him Holy and Pure--
He and his garments are bleached white and clean.
A daffodil is by his head, and his curly, golden (p. 024)
Hair is moving in the slight breeze.
He, the man who died in "No Man's Land," doing
Some great act of bravery for his comrades and
Country--
Here he lies, Pure and Holy, his face upward turned;
No earth between him and his Maker.
I have no right to be so near.
[Illustration: VII. _Three Weeks in France. Shell shock._]