May, 1915
_May 2nd._ This morning we attended Church Parade at the veterinary
camp hard by. The chaplain, who had brought out a recently formed brass
band, conducted the service in a large sand-pit from which most of the
horses had been removed to the sides. A few tents were dotted about, a
few sick animals still rolled in the sand as the men came on parade,
whilst a narrow path winding up to the dark pine woods above made us
feel for all the world like part of a Wild West Buffalo Bill show.
How the French peasants stared, open-mouthed, as the service proceeded,
wondering at our madness as we stood there in the sand-pit, with a
misty rain enveloping everything, singing at the top of our voices.
Many of the men recognised nurses who had been at clearing stations,
as we wended our way amongst the sick and wounded horses, the foals,
the "prisoner" animals, and glanced at the well-equipped but
insufficiently stocked dispensary.
The now famous Pré Catalan farm supplied us with tea, and I could not
help recalling how just a year ago we had been lounging in a punt
on the Ranelagh lake listening to a band--under somewhat different
circumstances! No doubt, somewhere at home, people are still punting
on the river, or enjoying a Sunday afternoon nap under the trees, or,
being energetically inclined, a round of golf or game of tennis, in
surroundings very similar to these. Only as we wandered home past the
famous Hill 243, through woods blue with hyacinths, fragrant with wild
orchids, primroses, kingcups, violets and every perfect flower one
could desire or dream of, and every perfect woodland perfume one could
experience, and every perfect colour the eye could imagine, the sound
of guns booming heavily and not very far away greeted us ominously.
_May 4th._ In an erstwhile hotel facing the sea the Secunderabad
General Hospital is situated. Not only are the wards often overcrowded,
but rows and rows of beds in the spacious hall, neighbouring villas and
auxiliary tents help to cope with the numbers. An all-pervading smell
of "ghi," or melted butter, makes one think that Little Black Sambo and
all the tigers must have been put in the melting-pot.
Odd black figures, with unfathomable eyes and strange turbans, move
about their business stealthily, whilst in the little duty-room two
kindly theatre sisters dispense tea to any visitors who call on an
uneventful day between the fashionable hours of four and five.
Such is Hardelot. For, apart from the hospital, the Claims Commission,
the one shop, hotel and post office, every building is shut up and
barred.
A convoy of some fifty ambulances on the road tells its own tale.
Sauntering into the one and only shop, I secured the last bottle of ink
(which proved to be red), and betaking myself to the sand-dunes, set to
work on my diary. Across the vast, untrodden expanse of sand the sun
cast long shadows; little fishing boats, bathed in the glow, glided
slowly homewards.
Hardelot is said to be an inspiring place. Was not the "Tale of Two
Cities" penned here? Was not many an historical drama enacted, verse
inspired, music created?
[Illustration: HOSPITAL SHIPS IN THE HARBOUR]
Yet France in war-time to anyone incapacitated is wellnigh unbearable.
Again and again unpleasant scenes come up (and when humour flags is
life worth living?). The subaltern so unnerved by the sight of his
batman (only slightly hit) who was drowned in the mud, that he could
do nothing but reiterate, with staring eyes, "And, for all I know,
he is there still." Tales of healthy bits of land where, if you ask
your way to a certain reserve trench, the direction will be: "First on
the left, and past the dead Frenchman on the ant-heap," half-humorous
reminiscences of trench-digging where other things--no need to
specify--besides caps and boots are turned up, haunt one incessantly,
and Morpheus refuses to be wooed.
All day long one notes the veering wind with beating heart, conscious
that the prevailing west wind is all-propitious to the German's latest
invention of the Devil, the poison-gas; conscious of the long nights in
which one has lain awake as the sound of the receding sea was replaced
by the ghastly choking of the ward of gassed cases opposite (a sound
comparable only to a roomful of panting dogs), or the cough of the man
dying with a bullet through his lungs.
_May 14th._ At home there are strikes and rumours of strikes,
instigated, no doubt, by German emissaries, but none the less shameful
for that; and one and all, as the men come down from that "hell with
the lid off," where, inch by inch, the Germans are regaining that for
which so many lives were sacrificed, their cry is for ammunition.
"We could have held our lines but for the lack of ammunition of the
_right kind_," they say--for it seems that ordinary shells are useless
when pitted against high explosives and gas.
No one who has not heard that appeal direct from dying lips (for dying
men don't lie) can know how great is the longing to tell about it at
home--to let the slackers know that for each shell not forthcoming
ten valuable lives are lost, ten homes needlessly bereaved. It is
intolerably unjust that the man who refuses to do his duty out here is
promptly shot, whilst the man who strikes at home is merely bribed with
offers of higher wages.
After all, it is a war not only of men, but of arms and ammunition, and
it lies in the hands of those at home as much as those out here to see
the thing through.
_May 16th._ At a certain canteen recently a splendid, strapping fellow
has been much in evidence. A fine all-round sportsman of good breeding,
always ready to lend a hand where required, he made himself beloved by
men and canteen-workers alike. In particular he endeared himself to the
man in charge of the canteen, to whom he would talk of his wife and
children and sports prowess in days gone by.
Over his fighting experiences, however, a veil was drawn; and
seeing that even to hint a question about it was to bring a look of
unutterable terror, of trench-haunted madness into his eyes, the
subject was left in abeyance.
Being neither wounded nor sick, nor attached to the regiment at the
base, it was usually assumed that he was an officer's servant, which
assumption was corroborated by the amount of spare time on his hands,
for he seemed always at the canteen.
One day he came to the man in charge with the request that he should
find him some remunerative work. Amazed, the civilian asked, "Why?
Aren't you drawing your pay?" Then the truth leaked out. Months back,
during an infantry advance, in a fit of madness he had boarded a
passing ambulance and found himself at the base. In plain words, he
was a deserter. For weeks he had lived, evading the canny A.P.M.'s
minions by the skin of his teeth, sleeping one night in a barn, the
next in a railway truck, the third on the sands, and always feeding at
the canteen. A dozen times he had thought the game was up. The strain
was beginning to tell, and now that he was down to his last sou there
was nothing left for it but to give himself up or cut and run.
Well, for the sake of the wife he was going to risk it.
He did so. But the authorities who scrutinise those little seemingly
useless papers on the boat were too sharp for him, and he passed for
ever out of the life of the only civilian who knew his story--to be
exact, out of the lives of all his friends.
And is not slackness at home all the more reprehensible when one
realises the penalties to which men O.A.S. are liable? Is it to be
wondered at that we in France would gladly hear the death-sentence
passed on every one of those traitor strikers?
_May 17th._ Far, far out, the fisher-folk, their hair and faces white
with brine, are shrimping. So far out is the tide that they are mere
dark specks against the red glow. Farther along the coast a number
of A.V.C. officers from remount camps are enjoying a chukker of polo
on the firm sands. The sound of heavy firing that had been so audible
during the afternoon in the Dover-Calais direction has ceased. The
friends who had come out to visit the invalids have departed by the
last tram, on which a tall Sikh was busy teaching the French conductor
to talk English. The result may be better pictured than described. When
they set to work to do a little bartering, ransacking each other's
pockets for souvenirs, exchanging two pencils for a cigarette, a penny
for a halfpenny, it was interesting to note that the businesslike
Frenchman--the bargainer _par excellence_--had met his match at last.
And to-morrow a month's sick leave in Blighty! Baths unlimited! Beef
that is beef and not horse! Lamb that is lamb and not goat! Every fibre
aches for civilisation.
_May 23rd, London._ No doubt the waitress at the terminus was rather
amused by the arrival of three travel-stained creatures, one in mufti
and two in uniform, whose first demand was for glasses of clear, cold
water. But could she have known she would have been astonished to find
that, in spite of our bad crossing, our hunger, and the subsequent good
dishes she set before us, none of us remembered _anything_ half as good
as this first unboiled, unchlorinated, unsterilised draught.
It is impossible to blame anyone for failing to take war seriously at
home. Here, where "business as usual" is the motto, it is literally
inconceivable that anything extraordinary is going on in the world.
No wonder that a certain number of women were prating recently of
the forthcoming Peace Conference at The Hague. Even those who are
worst hit, who have lost their nearest and dearest, are so engrossed
in their little charities, their bandage-making and knitting and Red
Cross lectures, that they have little leisure to mope. London is as
gay or gayer than ever, not a bit purged, for every man home on leave
is busy making the best of time. How different from the Frenchman,
whose one idea on getting out of the trenches is to set his house in
order, to instruct the women who are doing his work how to manipulate
the latest agricultural implements, to help prepare for the harvest!
Aldershot and its vicinity, for all the many lives that have passed out
of it for ever, is the same. And here, in the big country houses one
visits, people have still leisure to indulge in nerve attacks at the
sight of their milliners' bills. Even the rise of that new species,
the very temporary gentleman officer, is less remarkable at home. The
only change one notices (bar a few dances and cricket matches that have
been skipped, maybe out of respect for those who will dance and play no
more) is the Continental atmosphere of the streets and theatres.
London is almost as Belgian as Boulogne is anglicised. Rotund Belgians
sit knitting in the stalls, their sombre day dresses contrasting
strangely with our erstwhile brilliant audiences.
"Evening dress optional but unfashionable," as one theatre announces.
A joy for ever is the element of free-and-easy good-humour brought over
by our Colonials. If the last ten months have done no other good, they
have at least knit together, in bonds that can never be riven, our
wonderful Empire.