NEARING THE END (OCTOBER 1918)
The Boche were now nearly on the run. I remember one day I went out
with General Stuart and Colonel Angus McDonnell--the General was the
railway expert, and was out to ascertain what amount of damage the
Boche had done to the lines, permanent way, etc. General Stuart was a
quaint little man. He seldom spoke, but when he did it was very much
to the point and full of dry humour. The Hon. Angus McDonnell, a true
Irishman, was a most attractive person, full of charm. He'd kissed
more than the Blarney Stone, and had received all the good effects,
and we had some most interesting days together. On the particular one
I mention, we went away beyond Cambrai to a place called Caudry, where
the General inspected the station and the general damage to the metals
and permanent way, after which we left and lunched by the side of a
road which ran through fields. All was peace, not a sound from the
guns--when suddenly shrapnel started bursting over these fields. No
one was in sight; a few Englishmen on horseback galloped past,
apparently for exercise. The Boche, I presume, couldn't see, but just
let off on chance. It was better than leaving the shells there for us.
After lunch we motored down to St. Quentin, and on the way stopped and
explored the great tunnel in the Canal du Nord. What a stronghold! It
seemed impossible that the Boche could have been driven out of it. (p. 091)
On the way down we travelled along a road _pavé_ in the middle,
with mud on each side and the usual rows of trees, then a dip down to
the fields. These fields were full of dead Boche and horses. The road
had evidently been under observation a very little while back, as the
Labour Corps were hard at work filling in shell-holes, and the traffic
was held up a lot. In one spot in the mud at the side of the road lay
two British Tommies who had evidently just been killed. They had been
laid out ready for something to take them away. Standing beside them
were three French girls, all dressed up, silk stockings and crimped
hair. There they were, standing over the dead Tommies, asking if you
would not like "a little love." What a place to choose! Death all
round, and they themselves might be blown into eternity at any moment.
Death and the dead had become as nothing to the young generation. They
had lived through four years of hell with the enemy, and now they were
free. Another day I went to Douai, and there I saw the mad woman. Her
son told us she had been quite well until two days before the Boche
left, then they had done such things to her that she had lost her
reason. There she sat, silent and motionless, except for one thumb
which constantly twitched. But if one of us in uniform passed close to
her, she would give a convulsive shudder. It was sad, this woman with
her beautiful, curly-headed son. Later she was moved to Amiens, where
she had relatives. After about six months she became quite normal
again, and does not remember anything about it. The last time I saw
her she was cleaning the upstairs rooms at "Josephine's," the little
oyster-shop off the Street of the Three Pebbles.
[Illustration: XXXVIII. _The Mad Woman of Douai._]
One night at the "Hôtel de la Paix" a weird thing happened. One (p. 092)
often hears strange stories of the powers different men and women have
over individuals of the opposite sex. As a rule, one hears, one
smiles, or one is rather disgusted; but seldom do we admit to
ourselves that these stories may be absolutely true--we nearly always
smile and think we are clever, and say to ourselves: "Ah! there's
something behind that." Rasputin, for instance, what was he? Had he
power? We wonder a little and dismiss the thought.
On this night, at about 9 o'clock, the early diners had gone, but
there were about thirty of us left who would testify to the truth of
this tale. A man walked in and sat down at a large empty table. He was
a French civilian, dressed in black, tall and slim, with an enormous
brown beard--a "Landru." Marie Louise, one of the serving-girls, asked
him what he required, and he said: "A glass of Porto." This she
brought him, but as she was placing it on the table, he put out his
hand and touched her arm, and let his fingers run very gently up and
down it. He never spoke a word. She retired and returned with another
glass of port, and sat down beside him and commenced to drink it; no
word was uttered. Again he raised his hand, beckoned to another
serving-girl; the same act was gone through, and she sat down with her
port. This continued without a word of conversation until he had all
the serving-girls, about eight of them, sitting round in silence. We
all sat and looked on in amazement for a while, but after about ten
minutes hunger got the better of us, and we started calling them for
our food. They took not the slightest notice of us, but in the end we
made so much noise that Monsieur Dyé, the manager of the hotel, came
in. He was a hot-tempered man, who never treated the girls under him
kindly, and when he saw and heard his customers shouting for food, and
saw all his serving-girls sitting down drinking port, his face went (p. 093)
black with rage, and he rushed over to their table and cursed them all
roundly, but they took not the slightest notice. Then he turned on the
man with the beard and ordered him out of the hotel. He never
answered, but got up slowly, put on his hat and left. As soon as he
rose from the table all the girls went back to their work as if
nothing had happened, and we continued our dinner. It was a strange
affair--not one of those girls remembered anything about it
afterwards.
[Illustration: XXXIX. _Field-Marshal Lord Plumer of Messines, G.C.B.,
etc._]
Again I went to Cassel, to paint General Plumer. I arrived there one
evening, and had dinner with Major-General Sir Bryan Mahon, who was on
his way to Lille. I woke up in the morning, got out of bed and
collapsed on the floor. "'Flu!" After three days the M.O. said I must
go to hospital. I said: "Hospital be damned! I'm going to paint
to-morrow." So I wrote and told General Plumer I would work the next
morning if he could spare the time to sit. He replied he could. So on
a very cold morning I made my way rather giddily up the stone steps to
the Casino and on to his little château. There I was met by the
General's grand old batman. He stopped me and said: "Have you come to
paint the Governor's portrait, sir?" "Yes," said I. "Well," said he,
"let me have a look at you. You're feeling a bit cheap, ain't you? The
Governor told me you've been having the 'flu'." "Yes," I said, "I'm
not feeling up to much." "Well, now," said he, "the Governor is busy
for the moment, but he told me to look after you and fix up what room
you would like to work in, but first I want to get you a bit more up
to scratch. Just come along and have a glass of port." So he brought
me off and gave me an excellent glass. Then I chose the General's
bedroom to work in, and we fixed everything up. Then he said: "Now (p. 094)
I'll go and fetch the old man." Off he went and back he came, and with
a wink, said: "He's coming," and in walked the General. A strange man
with a small head, and a large, though not fat, body, and a great
brain full of humour. He also was very calm, and made things very easy
for me, but his batman was not so easy to please. When I got the
General the way I wanted him, the batman leant over my shoulder, and
said: "Is the Governor right now?" "Perfectly," I replied. "No, he
ain't," said he, "not by a long chalk." And he went over to the
General and started pulling out creases in his tunic and said: "'Ere,
you just sit up proper--not all 'unched up the way you are. What would
Her Ladyship say if I let you be painted that way?" At last we got him
satisfied, and he departed. When the door was shut, the General said:
"Well, that's over," and settled down in comfort.
After I had worked for about an hour and a half there was a knock at
the door and in the batman came. He took no notice of the General, but
laid his hand on my shoulder and said: "Look up at me." I obeyed.
"Won't do," said he. "You wants keeping up to the mark," and retired,
and came back with an enormous glass of port. When the sitting was
finished, I went back to bed at the "Sauvage," very giddy and slightly
muzzed.
The next morning the batman again arranged the General "to Her
Ladyship's liking," and left. As soon as he had gone, the General
said: "We've got him on toast. He's worried to death because you
haven't painted the gold leaves on my red tab. Don't do it till the
very last thing." It worked splendidly. The old chap was really upset.
Every hour he used to come in and tap me on the shoulder, point to the
red tab, and say: "What about it? If you don't get them gold leaves (p. 095)
proper, I'll get it from Her Ladyship." He was a great servant of the
true old class, one of those who never lose their place, no matter how
freely they are treated, and was ready to die for his master at any
minute.
[Illustration: XL. _Armistice Night. Amiens._]
Soon after this the General and his staff moved forward, and Cassel
became a dead little place as far as the Army was concerned. Things
were going very quickly, and scarcely a day passed that one could not
mark a new front line on one's map.
I went out to see the damage done to Bailleul. In a few days British
artillery had flattened it out as badly as Ypres. One could hardly
find out where the main _Place_ had been. Now one could wander all
over the Ypres salient. Was there ever a more ghastly place? Even the
Somme was outdone. Mud, water, battered tanks, hundreds of them,
battered pillboxes, everything battered and torn, with Ypres like a
skeleton. The Menin Road, the Zonnebeke Road, what sights were
there--mangled remains of superhuman effort!
I remember one day in the summer being down at Lord Beaverbrook's when
news came in that Locre had fallen. I had no knowledge of Locre, but
Lord Beaverbrook, I could see, felt that the loss of it was a very
serious thing. So I went to see Locre--a ghastly place!--the fighting
must have been terrific. Shell-holes full of dead Germans. Everything
smashed to pulp. I should imagine, before Hell visited it, Locre must
have been a very pretty little place. It is on a hill which looks down
into a valley, with Mont Kemmel rising up the other side.
Suddenly my blood poisoning came on again badly, so I returned to
Amiens on November 10. When we had just passed Doullens we got the (p. 096)
news that the Kaiser had abdicated. Great excitement prevailed
everywhere. The next day, at 11 a.m., I was working in my room and
heard guns, so I went to the window and saw the shells bursting over
the town, but I could not see the Boche 'plane. It must be very high,
I thought. About ten minutes afterwards there was a sound of cheering,
so I knew the fighting was over. I went again to the window and looked
down into the courtyard. It was empty, except for one serving-girl,
Marthe, who had her apron to her face and was sobbing bitterly.
Presently, Marie-Louise came up to my room and told me the news, and
we had a drink together in honour of the great event. Said I: "What
has happened to poor Marthe? It is sad that she should be so upset on
this great day. What is the matter?" "Ah!" said Marie-Louise, "it is
the day that has upset her." "The day?" said I. "Yes," replied
Marie-Louise, "you see, her husband will come out of the trenches now
and will come back to her. C'est la Guerre!"
Later, Maude came in, and I asked him what on earth a Boche was doing
over Amiens just at the moment the fighting ceased. "Oh," said Maude,
"there wasn't any Boche, but the anti-aircraft chap got orders to fire
off his guns for ten minutes when the Armistice was signed, but, as he
had nothing but live shells, he thought he had better stop after two."
But why he burst his shells right over the centre of the town was
never explained.
Yet, on this day, looked forward to for years, I must admit that,
studying people, I found something wrong--perhaps, like all great
moments expected, something is sure to fall short of expectations.
Peace was too great a thing to think about, the longing for it was too
real, too intense. For four years the fighting men had thought of (p. 097)
nothing except that great moment of achievement: now it had come, the
great thing had ceased, the war was won and over. The fighting
man--that marvellous thing that I had worshipped all the time I had
been in France--had ceased actively to exist. I realised then, almost
as much as I do now, that he was lost, forgotten. "Greater love hath
no man"--they had given up their all for the sake of the people at
home, gone through Hell, misery and terror of sudden death. Could one
doubt that those at home would not reward them? Alas, yes! and the
doubt has come true. It made me very depressed. The one thing these
wonderful super-men gave me to think that evening was: "What shall we
do? Will they do as they promised for us? I gave up all my life and
work at home and came out here to kill and be killed. Here I am
stranded--I cannot kill anyone any more, and nobody wants to kill me.
What am I to do? Surely they will give me some job: I have done my
bit, they can't just let me starve." "When you come back home
again"--yes, that crossed their minds and mine for them. Wending my
way home through the blackened streets that night, I met a Tommy who
threatened to kill me because of his misery. I talked him down and
brought him to my room, and told him I really believed he would have a
great time in the future. I doubted what I said, but he believed me,
and went off to his billet happy for that one night.
[Illustration: XLI. _The Official Entry of the Kaiser._]
Could anyone forecast the tragedy that has happened to so many of
these men since? That great human Field-Marshal, Lord Haig, the man
who knows, works for them still, and asks--but who answers? Great God!
it makes one think, remember, think and wonder, what impossibly
thankless people human beings are. It is sad, but very, very true!