Boulogne!
Like Folkestone, Boulogne, in happier times, had been a watering
place, less fashionable than some on the French coast, but the
pleasant resort of many in search of health and pleasure. And like
Folkestone it had suffered the blight of war. The war had laid its
heavy hand upon the port. It ruled everything; it was omnipresent.
From the moment when we came into full view of the harbor it was
impossible to think of anything else.
Folkestone had made me think of the mouth of a great funnel, into
which all broad Britain had been pouring men and guns and all the
manifold supplies and stores of modern war. And the trip across the
narrow, well guarded lane in the Channel had been like the pouring of
water through the neck of that same funnel. Here in Boulogne was the
opening. Here the stream of men and sup-plies spread out to begin its
orderly, irresistible flow to the front. All of northern France and
Belgium lay before that stream; it had to cover all the great length
of the British front. Not from Boulogne alone, of course; I knew of
Dunkirk and Calais, and guessed at other ports. There were other
funnels, and into all of them, day after day, Britain was pouring her
tribute; through all of them she was offering her sacrifice, to be
laid upon the altar of strife.
Here, much more than at Folkestone, as it chanced, I saw at once
another thing. There was a double funnel. The stream ran both ways.
For, as we steamed into Boulogne, a ship was coming out--a ship with
a grim and tragic burden. She was one of our hospital ships. But she
was guarded as carefully by destroyers and aircraft as our transport
had been. The Red Cross meant nothing to the Hun--except, perhaps, a
shining target. Ship after ship that bore that symbol of mercy and of
pain had been sunk. No longer did our navy dare to trust the Red
Cross. It took every precaution it could take to protect the poor
fellows who were going home to Blighty.
As we made our way slowly in, through the crowded harbor, full of
transports, of ammunition ships, of food carriers, of destroyers and
small naval craft of all sorts, I began to be able to see more and
more of what was afoot ashore. It was near noon; the day that had
been chosen for my arrival in France was one of brilliant sunshine
and a cloudless sky. And my eyes were drawn to other hospital ships
that were waiting at the docks. Motor ambulances came dashing up, one
after the other, in what seemed to me to be an endless stream. The
pity of that sight! It was as if I could peer through the intervening
space and see the bandaged heads, the places where limbs had been,
the steadfast gaze of the boys who were being carried up in
stretchers. They had done their task, a great number of them; they
had given all that God would let them give to King and country. Life
was left to them, to be sure; most of these boys were sure to live.
But to what maimed and incomplete lives were they doomed! The
thousands who would be cripples always--blind, some of them, and
helpless, dependent upon what others might choose or be able to do
for them. It was then, in that moment, that an idea was born,
vaguely, in my mind, of which I shall have much more to say later.
There was beauty in that harbor of Boulogne. The sun gleamed against
the chalk cliffs. It caught the wings of airplanes, flying high above
us. But there was little of beauty in my mind's eye. That could see
through the surface beauty of the scene and of the day to the grim,
stark ugliness of war that lay beneath.
I saw the ordered piles of boxes and supplies, the bright guns, with
the sun reflected from their barrels, dulled though these were to
prevent that very thing. And I thought of the waste that was
involved--of how all this vast product of industry was destined to be
destroyed, as swiftly as might be, bringing no useful accomplishment
with its destruction--save, of course, that accomplishment which must
be completed before any useful thing may be done again in this world.
Then we went ashore, and I could scarcely believe that we were indeed
in France, that land which, friends though our nations are, is at
heart and in spirit so different from my own country. Boulogne had
ceased to be French, indeed. The port was like a bit of Britain
picked up, carried across the Channel and transplanted successfully
to a new resting-place.
English was spoken everywhere--and much of it was the English of the
cockney, innocent of the aitch, and redolent of that strange tongue.
But it is no for me, a Scot, to speak of how any other man uses the
King's English! Well I ken it! It was good to hear it--had there been
a thought in my mind of being homesick, it would quickly have been
dispelled. The streets rang to the tread of British soldiers; our
uniform was everywhere. There were Frenchmen, too; they were
attached, many of them, for one reason and another, to the British
forces. But most of them spoke English too.
I had most care about the unloading of my cigarettes. It was a point
of honor with me, by now, after the way my friends had joked me about
them, to see that every last one of the "fags" I had brought with me
reached a British Tommy. So to them I gave my first care. Then I saw
to the unloading of my wee piano, and, having done so, was free to go
with the other members of the Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour to
the small hotel that was to be headquarters for all of us in
Boulogne.
Arrangements had to be made for my debut in France, and I can tell
you that no professional engagement I have ever filled ever gave me
half so much concern as this one! I have sung before many strange
audiences, in all parts of the world, or nearly all. I have sung for
folk who had no idea of what to expect from me, and have known that I
must be at work from the moment of my first appearance on the stage
to win them. But these audiences that I was to face here in France
gave me more thought than any of them. I had so great a reason for
wanting to suceed with them!
And here, ye ken, I faced conditions that were harder than had ever
fallen to my lot. I was not to have, most of the time, even the
military theaters that had, in some cases, been built for the men
behind the lines, where many actors and, indeed, whole companies,
from home had been appearing. I could make no changes of costume. I
would have no orchestra. Part of the time I would have my wee piano,
but I reckoned on going to places where even that sma' thing could no
follow me.
But I had a good manager--the British army, no less! It was the army
that had arranged my booking. We were not left alone, not for a
minute. I would not have you think that we were left to go around on
our own, and as we pleased. Far from it! No sooner had we landed than
Captain Roberts, D.S.O., told me, in a brief, soldierly way, that was
also extremely businesslike, what sort of plans had been made for us.
"We have a number of big hospitals here," he said. "This is one of
the important British bases, as you know, and it is one of those
where many of our men are treated before they are sent home. So,
since you are here, we thought you would want to give your first
concerts to the wounded men here."
So I learned that the opening of what you might call my engagement in
the trenches was to be in hospitals. That was not new to me, and yet
I was to find that there was a difference between a base hospital in
France and the sort of hospitals I had seen so often at home.
Nothing, indeed, was left to us. After Captain Roberts had explained
matters, we met Captain Godfrey, who was to travel with us, and be
our guide, our military mentor and our ruler. We understood that we
must place ourselves under him, and under military discipline. No
Tommy, indeed, was more under discipline than we had to be. But we
did not chafe, civilians though we were. When you see the British
army at work nothing is further from your thoughts than to criticize
or to offer any suggestions. It knows its business, and does it,
quietly and without fuss. But even Fritz has learned to be chary of
getting in the way when the British army has made up its mind--and
that is what he is there for, though I've no doubt that Fritz himself
would give a pretty penny to be at home again, with peace declared.
Captain Godfrey, absolute though his power over us was--he could have
ordered us all home at a moment's notice--turned out to be a
delightful young officer, who did everything in his power to make our
way smooth and pleasant, and who was certainly as good a manager as I
ever had or ever expect to have. He entered into the spirit of our
tour, and it was plain to see that it would be a success from start
to finish if it were within his power to make it so. He liked to call
himself my manager, and took a great delight, indeed, in the whole
experience. Well, it was a change for him, no doubt!
I had brought a piano with me, but no accompanist. That was not an
oversight; it was a matter of deliberate choice. I had been told,
before I left home, that I would have no difficulty in finding some
one among the soldiers to accompany me. And that was true, as I soon
found. In fact, as I was to learn later, I could have recruited a
full orchestra among the Tommies, and I would have had in my band,
too, musicians of fame and great ability, far above the average
theater orchestra. Oh, you must go to France to learn how every art
and craft in Britain has done its part!
Aye, every sort of artist and artisan, men of every profession and
trade, can be found in the British army. It has taken them all, like
some great melting pot, and made them soldiers. I think, indeed,
there is no calling that you could name that would not yield you a
master hand from the ranks of the British army. And I am not talking
of the officers alone, but of the great mass of Tommies. And so when
I told Captain Godfrey I would be needing a good pianist to play my
accompaniments, he just smiled.
"Right you are!" he said. "We'll turn one up for you in no time!"
He had no doubts at all, and he was right. They found a lad called
Johnson, a Yorkshireman, in a convalescent ward of one of the big
hospitals. He was recovering from an illness he had incurred in the
trenches, and was not quite ready to go back to active duty. But he
was well enough to play for me, and delighted when he heard he might
get the assignment. He was nervous lest he should not please me, and
feared I might ask for another man. But when I ran over with him the
songs I meant to sing I found he played the piano very well indeed,
and had a knack for accompanying, too. There are good pianists,
soloists, who are not good accompanists; it takes more than just the
ability to play the piano to work with a singer, and especially with
a singer like me. It is no straight ahead singing I do always, as you
ken, perhaps.
But I saw at once that Johnson and I would get along fine together,
so everyone was pleased, and I went on and made my preparations with
him for my first concert. That was to be in the Boulogne Casino--
center of the gayety of the resort in the old days, but now, for a
long time, turned into a base hospital.
They had played for high stakes there in the old days before the war.
Thousands of dollars had changed hands in an hour there. But they
were playing for higher stakes now! They were playing for the lives
and the health of men, and the hearts of the women at home in Britain
who were bound up with them. In the old days men had staked their
money against the turn of a card or the roll of the wheel. But now it
was with Death they staked--and it was a mightier game than those old
walls had ever seen before.
The largest ward of the hospital was in what had been the Baccarat
room, and it was there I held my first concert of the trench
engagement. When I appeared it was packed full. There were men on
cots, lying still and helpless, bandaged to their very eyes. Some
came limping in on their crutches; some were rolled in in chairs. It
was a sad scene and an impressive one, and it went to my heart when I
thought that my own poor laddie must have lain in just such a room--
in this very one, perhaps. He had suffered as these men were
suffering, and he had died--as some of these men for whom I was to
sing would die. For there were men here who would be patched up,
presently, and would go back. And for them there might be a next
time--a next time when they would need no hospital.
There was one thing about the place I liked. It was so clean and
white and spotless. All the garish display, the paint and tawdry
finery, of the old gambling days, had gone. It was restful, now, and
though there was the hospital smell, it was a clean smell. And the
men looked as though they had wonderful care. Indeed, I knew they had
that; I knew that everything that could be done to ease their state
was being done. And every face I saw was brave and cheerful, though
the skin of many and many a lad was stretched tight over his bones
with the pain he had known, and there was a look in their eyes, a
look with no repining in it, or complaint, but with the evidences of
a terrible pain, bravely suffered, that sent the tears starting to my
eyes more than once.
It was much as it had been in the many hospitals I had visited in
Britain, and yet it was different, too. I felt that I was really at
the front. Later I came to realize how far from the real front I
actually was at Boulogne, but then I knew no better.
I had chosen my programme carefully. It was made up of songs
altogether. I had had enough experience in hospitals and camps by now
to have learned what soldiers liked best, and I had no doubt at all
that it was just songs. And best of all they liked the old love
songs, and the old songs of Scotland--tender, crooning melodies, that
would help to carry them back, in memory, to their hames and, if they
had them, to the lassies of their dreams. It was no sad, lugubrious
songs they wanted. But a note of wistful tenderness they liked. That
was true of sick and wounded, and of the hale and hearty too--and it
showed that, though they were soldiers, they were just humans like
the rest of us, for all the great and super-human things they ha'
done out there in France.
Not every actor and artist who has tried to help in the hospitals has
fully understood the men he or she wanted to please. They meant well,
every one, but some were a wee bit unfortunate in the way they went
to work. There is a story that is told of one of our really great
serious actors. He is serious minded, always, on the stage and off,
and very, very dignified. But some folk went to him and asked him
would he no do his bit to cheer up the puir laddies in a hospital?
He never thought of refusing--and I would no have you think I am
sneering at the man! His intentions were of the best.
"Of course, I do not sing or dance," he said, drawing down his lip.
And the look in his eyes showed what he thought of such of us as had
descended to such low ways of pleasing the public that paid to see us
and to hear us: "But I shall very gladly do something to bring a
little diversion into the sad lives of the poor boys in the
hospitals."
It was a stretcher audience that he had. That means a lot of boys who
had to lie in bed to hear him. They needed cheering. And that great
actor, with all his good intentions could think of nothing more
fitting than to stand up before them and begin to recite, in a sad,
elocutionary tone, Longfellow's "The Wreck of the Hesperus!"
He went on, and his voice gained power. He had come to the third
stanza, or the fourth, maybe, when a command rang out through the
ward. It was one that had been heard many and many a time in France,
along the trenches. It came from one of the beds.
"To cover, men!" came the order.
It rang out through the ward, in a hoarse voice. And on the word
every man's head popped under the bedclothes! And the great actor,
astonished beyond measure, was left there, reciting away to shaking
mounds of bedclothes that entrenched his hearers from the sound of
his voice!
Well, I had heard yon tale. I do no think I should ever have risked a
similar fate by making the same sort of mistake, but I profited by
hearing it, and I always remembered it. And there was another thing.
I never thought, when I was going to sing for soldiers, that I was
doing something for them that should make them glad to listen to me,
no matter what I chose to sing for them.
I always thought, instead, that here was an audience that had paid to
hear me in the dearest coin in all the world--their legs and arms,
their health and happiness. Oh, they had paid! They had not come in
on free passes! Their tickets had cost them dear--dearer than tickets
for the theater had ever cost before. I owed them more than I could
ever pay--my own future, and my freedom, and the right and the chance
to go on living in my own country free from the threat and the menace
of the Hun. It was for me to please those boys when I sang for them,
and to make such an effort as no ordinary audience had ever heard
from me.
They had made a little platform to serve as a stage for me. There was
room for me and for Johnson, and for the wee piano. And so I sang for
them, and they showed me from the start that they were pleased. Those
who could, clapped, and all cheered, and after each song there was a
great pounding of crutches on the floor. It was an inspiring sound
and a great sight, sad though it was to see and to hear.
When I had done I went aboot amang the men, shaking hands with such
as could gie me their hands, and saying a word or two to all of them.
Directly in front of the platform there lay a wounded Scots soldier,
and all through my concert he watched me most intently; he never took
his eyes off me. When I had sung my last song he beckoned to me
feebly, and I went to him, and bent over to listen to him.
"Eh, Harry, man," he said, "will ye be doin' me a favor?"
"Aye, that I will, if I can," I told him.
"It's to ask the doctor will I no be gettin' better soon. Because,
Harry, mon, I've but the one desire left--and that's to be in at the
finish of yon fight!"
I was to give one more concert in Boulogne, that night. That was more
cheerful, and it was different, again, from anything I had done or
known before. There was a convalescent camp, about two miles from
town, high up on the chalk cliffs. And this time my theater was a
Y.M.C.A. hut. But do not let the name hut deceive ye! I had an
audience of two thousand men that nicht! It was all the "hut" would
hold, with tight squeezing. And what a roaring, wild crowd that was,
to be sure! They sang with me, and they cheered and clapped until I
thought that hut would be needing a new roof!
I had to give over at last, for I was tired, and needed sleep. We had
our orders. The Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour was to start for
Vimy Ridge at six o'clock next morning!