We were up next morning before daybreak. But I did not feel as if I
were getting up early. Indeed, it was quite the reverse. All about us
was a scene of such activity that I felt as if I had been lying in
bed unconsciously long--as if I were the laziest man in all that busy
town. Troops were setting out, boarding military trains. Cheery,
jovial fellows they were--the same lads, some of them, who had
crossed the Channel with me, and many others who had come in later.
Oh, it is a steady stream of men and supplies, indeed, that goes
across the narrow sea to France!
Motor trucks--they were calling them camions, after the French
fashion, because it was a shorter and a simpler word--fairly swarmed
in the streets. Guns rolled ponderously along. It was not military
pomp we saw. Indeed, I saw little enough of that in France. It was
only the uniforms and the guns that made me realize that this was
war. The activity was more that of a busy, bustling factory town. It
was not English, and it was not French. I think it made me think more
of an American city. War, I cannot tell you often enough, is a great
business, a vast industry, in these days. Someone said, and he was
right, that they did not win victories any more--that they
manufactured them, as all sorts of goods are manufactured. Digging,
and building--that is the great work of modern war.
Our preparations, being in the hands of Captain Godfrey and the
British army, were few and easily made. Two great, fast army motor
cars had been put at the disposal of the Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P.,
Tour, and when we went out to get into them and make our start it was
just a problem of stowing away all we had to carry with us.
The first car was a passenger car. Each motor had a soldier as
chauffeur. I and the Reverend George Adam rode in the tonneau of the
leading car, and Captain Godfrey, our manager and guide, sat with the
driver, in front. That was where he belonged, and where, being a
British officer, he naturally wanted to be. They have called our
officers reckless, and said that they risked their lives too freely.
Weel--I dinna ken! I am no soldier. But I know what a glorious
tradition the British officer has--and I know, too, how his men
follow him. They know, do the laddies in the ranks, that their
officers will never ask them to go anywhere or do anything they would
shirk themselves--and that makes for a spirit that you could not
esteem too highly.
It was the second car that was our problem. We put Johnson, my
accompanist, in the tonneau first, and then we covered him with
cigarettes. It was a problem to get them stowed away, and when we had
accomplished the task, finally, there was not much of Johnson to be
seen! He was covered and surrounded with cigarettes, but he was snug,
and he looked happy and comfortable, as he grinned at us--his face
was about all of him that we could see. Hogge rode in front with the
driver of that car, and had more room, so, than he would have had in
the tonneau, where, as a passenger and a guest, he really belonged.
The wee bit piano was lashed to the grid of the second car. And I
give you my word it looked like a gypsy's wagon more than like one of
the neat cars of the British army!
Weel, all was ready in due time, and it was just six o'clock when we
set off. There was a thing I noted again and again. The army did
things on time in France. If we were to start at a certain time we
always did. Nothing ever happened to make us unpunctual.
It was a glorious morning! We went roaring out of Boulogne on a road
that was as hard and smooth as a paved street in London despite all
the terrific traffic it had borne since the war made Boulogne a
British base. And there were no speed limits here. So soon as the
cars were tuned up we went along at the highest speed of which the
cars were capable. Our soldier drivers knew their business; only the
picked men were assigned to the driving of these cars, and speed was
one of the things that was wanted of them. Much may hang on the speed
of a motor car in France.
But, fast as we traveled, we did not go too fast for me to enjoy the
drive and the sights and sounds that were all about us. They were
oddly mixed. Some were homely and familiar, and some were so strange
that I could not give over wondering at them. The motors made a great
noise, but it was not too loud for me to hear larks singing in the
early morning. All the world was green with the early sun upon it,
lighting up every detail of a strange countryside. There was a soft
wind, a gentle, caressing wind, that stirred the leaves of the trees
along the road.
But not for long could we escape the touch of war. That grim etcher
was at work upon the road and the whole countryside. As we went on we
were bound to move more slowly, because of the congestion of the
traffic. Never was Piccadilly or Fifth Avenue more crowded with
motors at the busiest hour of the day than was that road. As we
passed through villages or came to cross roads we saw military
police, directing traffic, precisely as they do at busy intersections
of crowded streets in London or New York.
But the traffic along that road was not the traffic of the cities.
Here were no ladies, gorgeously clad, reclining in their luxurious,
deeply upholstered cars. Here were no footmen and chauffeurs in
livery. Ah, they wore a livery--aye! But it was the livery of glory--
the khaki of the King! Generals and high officers passed us, bowling
along, lolling in their cars, taking their few brief minutes or half
hours of ease, smoking and talking. They corresponded to the
limousines and landaulets of the cities. And there were wagons from
the shops--great trucks, carrying supplies, going along at a pace
that racked their engines and their bodies, and that boded disaster
to whoever got in their way. But no one did--there was no real
confusion here, despite the seeming madness of the welter of traffic
that we saw.
What a traffic that was! And it was all the traffic of the carnage we
were nearing. It was a marvelous and an impressive panorama of force
and of destruction that we saw it was being constantly unrolled
before my wondering eyes as we traveled along the road out of old
Boulogne.
At first all the traffic was going our way. Sometimes there came a
warning shriek from behind, and everything drew to one side to make
room for a dispatch rider on a motor cycle. These had the right of
way. Sir Douglas Haig himself, were he driving along, would see his
driver turn out to make way for one of those shrieking motor bikes!
The rule is absolute--everything makes way for them.
But it was not long before a tide of traffic began to meet us,
flowing back toward Boulogne. There was a double stream then, and I
wondered how collisions and traffic jams of all sorts could be
avoided. I do not know yet; I only know that there is no trouble.
Here were empty trucks, speeding back for new loads. And some there
were that carried all sorts of wreckage--the flotsam and jetsam cast
up on the safe shores behind the front by the red tide of war.
Nothing is thrown away out there; nothing is wasted. Great piles of
discarded shoes are brought back to be made over. They are as good as
new when they come back from the factories where they are worked
over. Indeed, the men told me they were better than new, because they
were less trying to their feet, and did not need so much breaking in.
Men go about, behind the front, and after a battle, picking up
everything that has been thrown away. Everything is sorted and gone
over with the utmost care. Rifles that have been thrown away or
dropped when men were wounded or killed, bits of uniforms, bayonets--
everything is saved. Reclamation is the order of the day. There is
waste enough in war that cannot be avoided; the British army sees to
it that there is none that is avoidable.
But it was not only that sort of wreckage, that sort of driftwood
that was being carried back to be made over. Presently we began to
see great motor ambulances coming along, each with a Red Cross
painted glaringly on its side--though that paint was wasted or worse,
for there is no target the Hun loves better, it would seem, than the
great red cross of mercy. And in them, as we knew, there was the most
pitiful wreckage of all--the human wreckage of the war.
In the wee sma' hours of the morn they bear the men back who have
been hit the day before and during the night. They go back to the
field dressing stations and the hospitals just behind the front, to
be sorted like the other wreckage. Some there are who cannot be moved
further, at first, but must he cared for under fire, lest they die on
the way. But all whose wounds are such that they can safely be moved
go back in the ambulances, first to the great base hospitals, and
then, when possible, on the hospital ships to England.
Sometimes, but not often, we passed troops marching along the road.
They swung along. They marched easily, with the stride that could
carry them furthest with the least effort. They did not look much
like the troops I used to see in London. They did not have the snap
of the Coldstream Guards, marching through Green Park in the old
days. But they looked like business and like war. They looked like
men who had a job of work to do and meant to see it through.
They had discipline, those laddies, but it was not the old, stiff
discipline of the old army. That is a thing of a day that is dead and
gone. Now, as we passed along the side of the road that marching
troops always leave clear, there was always a series of hails for me.
"Hello, Harry!" I would hear.
And I would look back, and see grinning Tommies waving their hands to
me. It was a flattering experience, I can tell you, to be recognized
like that along that road. It was like running into old friends in a
strange town where you have come thinking you know no one at all.
We were about thirty miles out of Boulogne when there was a sudden
explosion underneath the car, followed by a sibilant sound that I
knew only too well.
"Hello--a puncture!" said Godfrey, and smiled as he turned around. We
drew up to the side of the road, and both chauffeurs jumped out and
went to work on the recalcitrant tire. The rest of us sat still, and
gazed around us at the fields. I was glad to have a chance to look
quietly about. The fields stretched out, all emerald green, in all
directions to the distant horizon, sapphire blue that glorious
morning. And in the fields, here and there, were the bent, stooped
figures of old men and women. They were carrying on, quietly.
Husbands and sons and brothers had gone to war; all the young men of
France had gone. These were left, and they were seeing to the
performance of the endless cycle of duty. France would survive; the
Hun could not crush her. Here was a spirit made manifest--a spirit
different in degree but not in kind from the spirit of my ain
Britain. It brought a lump into my throat to see them, the old men
and the women, going so patiently and quietly about their tasks.
It was very quiet. Faint sounds came to us; there was a distant
rumbling, like the muttering of thunder on a summer's night, when the
day has been hot and there are low, black clouds lying against the
horizon, with the flashes of the lightning playing through them. But
that I had come already not to heed, though I knew full well, by now,
what it was and what it meant. For a little space the busy road had
become clear; there was a long break in the traffic.
I turned to Adam and to Captain Godfrey.
"I'm thinking here's a fine chance for a bit of a rehearsal in the
open air," I said. "I'm not used to singing so--mayhap it would be
well to try my voice and see will it carry as it should."
"Right oh!" said Godfrey.
And so we dug Johnson out from his snug barricade of cigarettes, that
hid him as an emplacement hides a gun, and we unstrapped my wee piano,
and set it up in the road. Johnson tried the piano, and then we began.
I think I never sang with less restraint in all my life than I did
that quiet morning on the Boulogne road. I raised my voice and let it
have its will. And I felt my spirits rising with the lilt of the
melody. My voice rang out, full and free, and it must have carried
far and wide across the fields.
My audience was small at first--Captain Godfrey, Hogge, Adam, and the
two chauffeurs, working away, and having more trouble with the tire
than they had thought at first they would--which is the way of tires,
as every man knows who owns a car. But as they heard my songs the old
men and women in the fields straightened up to listen. They stood
wondering, at first, and then, slowly, they gave over their work for
a space, and came to gather round me and to listen.
It must have seemed strange to them! Indeed, it must have seemed
strange to anyone had they seen and heard me! There I was, with
Johnson at my piano, like some wayside tinker setting up his cart and
working at his trade! But I did not care for appearances--not a whit.
For the moment I was care free, a wandering minstrel, like some
troubadour of old, care free and happy in my song. I forgot the black
shadow under which we all lay in that smiling land, the black shadow
of war in which I sang.
It delighted me to see those old peasants and to study their faces,
and to try to win them with my song. They could not understand a word
I sang, and yet I saw the smiles breaking out over their wrinkled
faces, and it made me proud and happy. For it was plain that I was
reaching them--that I was able to throw a bridge over the gap of a
strange tongue and an alien race. When I had done and it was plain I
meant to sing no more they clapped me.
"There's a hand for you, Harry," said Adam. "Aye--and I'm proud of
it!" I told him for reply.
I was almost sorry when I saw that the two chauffeurs had finished
their repairs and were ready to go on. But I told them to lash the
piano back in its place, and Johnson prepared to climb gingerly back
among his cigarettes. But just then something happened that I had not
expected.
There was a turn in the road just beyond us that hid its continuation
from us. And around the bend now there came a company of soldiers.
Not neat and well-appointed soldiers these. Ah, no! They were fresh
from the trenches, on their way back to rest. The mud and grime of
the trenches were upon them. They were tired and weary, and they
carried all their accoutrements and packs with them. Their boots were
heavy with mud. And they looked bad, and many of them shaky. Most of
these men, Godfrey told me after a glance at them, had been ordered
back to hospital for minor ailments. They were able to march, but not
much more.
They were the first men I had seen in such a case, They looked bad
enough, but Godfrey said they were happy enough. Some of them would
get leave for Blighty, and be home, in a few days, to see their
families and their girls. And they came swinging along in fine style,
sick and tired as they were, for the thought of where they were going
cheered them and helped to keep them going.
A British soldier, equipped for the trenches, on his way in or out,
has quite a load to carry. He has his pack, and his emergency ration,
and his entrenching tools, and extra clothing that he needs in bad
weather in the trenches, to say nothing of his ever-present rifle.
And the sight of them made me realize for the first time the truth
that lay behind the jest in a story that is one of Tommy's favorites.
A child saw a soldier in heavy marching order. She gazed at him in
wide-eyed wonder. He was not her idea of what a soldier should look
like.
"Mother," she asked, "what is a soldier for?"
The mother gazed at the man. And then she smiled.
"A soldier," she answered, "is to hang things on."
They eyed me very curiously as they came along, those sick laddies.
They couldn't seem to understand what I was doing there, but their
discipline held them. They were in charge of a young lieutenant with
one star--a second lieutenant. I learned later that he was a long way
from being a well man himself. So I stopped him. "Would your men like
to hear a few songs, lieutenant?" I asked him.
He hesitated. He didn't quite understand, and he wasn't a bit sure
what his duty was in the circumstances. He glanced at Godfrey, and
Godfrey smiled at him as if in encouragement.
"It's very good of you, I'm sure," he said, slowly. "Fall out!"
So the men fell out, and squatted there, along the wayside. At once
discipline was relaxed. Their faces were a study as the wee piano was
set up again, and Johnson, in uniform, of course sat down and trued a
chord or two. And then suddenly something happened that broke the
ice. Just as I stood up to sing a loud voice broke the silence.
"Lor' love us!" one of the men cried, "if it ain't old 'Arry Lauder!"
There was a stir of interest at once. I spotted the owner of the
voice. It was a shriveled up little chap, with a weazened face that
looked like a sun-dried apple. He was showing all his teeth in a grin
at me, and he was a typical little cockney of the sort all Londoners
know well.
"Go it, 'Arry!" he shouted, shrilly. "Many's the time h' I've 'eard
you at the old Shoreditch!"
So I went it as well as I could, and I never did have a more
appreciative audience. My little cockney friend seemed to take a
particular personal pride in me. I think he thought he had found me,
and that he was, in an odd way, responsible for my success with his
mates. And so he was especially glad when they cheered me and thanked
me as they did.
My concert didn't last long, for we had to be getting on, and the
company of sick men had just so much time, too, to reach their
destination--Boulogne, whence we had set out. When it was over I said
good-by to the men, and shook hands with particular warmth with the
little cockney. It wasn't every day I was likely to meet a man who
had often heard me at the old Shoreditch! After we had stowed Johnson
and the piano away again, with a few less cigarettes, now, to get in
Johnson's way, we started, and as long as we were in sight the little
cockney and I were waving to one another.
I took some of the cigarettes into the car I was in now. And as we
sped along we were again in the thick of the great British war
machine. Motor trucks and ambulances were more frequent than ever,
and it was a common occurrence now to pass soldiers, marching in both
directions--to the front and away from it. There was always some-one
to recognize me and start a volley of "Hello, Harrys" coming my way,
and I answered every greeting, you may be sure, and threw cigarettes
to go with my "Hellos."
Aye, I was glad I had brought the cigarettes! They seemed to be even
more welcome than I had hoped they would be, and I only wondered how
long the supply would hold out, and if I would be able to get more if
it did not. So Johnson, little by little, was getting more room, as I
called for more and more of the cigarettes that walled him in in his
tonneau.
About noon, as we drove through a little town, I saw, for the first
time, a whole flock of airplanes riding the sky. They were swooping
about like lazy hawks, and a bonnie sight they were. I drew a long
breath when I saw them, and turned to my friend Adam.
"Well," I said, "I think we're coming to it, now!"
I meant the front--the real, British front.
Suddenly, at a sharp order from Captain Godfrey, our cars stopped. He
turned around to us, and grinned, very cheerfully.
"Gentlemen," he said, very calmly, "we'll stop here long enough to
put on our steel helmets."
He said it just as he might have said: "Well, here's where we will
stop for tea."
It meant no more than that to him. But for me it meant many things.
It meant that at last I was really to be under fire; that I was going
into danger. I was not really frightened yet; you have to see danger,
and know just what it is, and appreciate exactly its character,
before you can be frightened. But I had imagination enough to know
what that order meant, and to have a queer feeling as I donned the
steel helmet. It was less uncomfortable than I had expected it to
be--lighter, and easier to wear. The British trench helmets are
beautifully made, now; as in every other phase of the war and its
work they represent a constant study for improvement, lightening.
But, even had it not been for the warning that was implied in Captain
Godfrey's order, I should soon have understood that we had come into
a new region. For a long time now the noise of the guns had been
different. Instead of being like distant thunder it was a much nearer
and louder sound. It was a steady, throbbing roar now.
And, at intervals, there came a different sound; a sound more
individual, that stood out from the steady roar. It was as if the air
were being cracked apart by the blow of some giant hammer. I knew
what it was. Aye, I knew. You need no man to tell you what it is--the
explosion of a great shell not so far from you!
Nor was it our ears alone that told us what was going on. Ever and
anon, now, ahead of us, as we looked at the fields, we saw a cloud of
dirt rise up. That was where a shell struck. And in the fields about
us, now, we could see holes, full of water, as a rule, and mounds of
dirt that did not look as if shovels and picks had raised them.
It surprised me to see that the peasants were still at work. I spoke
to Godfrey about that.
"The French peasants don't seem to know what it is to be afraid of
shell-fire," he said. "They go only when we make them. It is the same
on the French front. They will cling to a farmhouse in the zone of
fire until they are ordered out, no matter how heavily it may be
shelled. They are splendid folk! The Germans can never beat a race
that has such folk as that behind its battle line."
I could well believe him. I have seen no sight along the whole front
more quietly impressive than the calm, impassive courage of those
French peasants. They know they are right! It is no Kaiser, no war
lord, who gives them courage. It is the knowledge and the
consciousness that they are suffering in a holy cause, and that, in
the end, the right and the truth must prevail. Their own fate,
whatever may befall them, does not matter. France must go on and
shall, and they do their humble part to see that she does and shall.
Solemn thoughts moved me as we drove on. Here there had been real war
and fighting. Now I saw a country blasted by shell-fire and wrecked
by the contention of great armies. And I knew that I was coming to
soil watered by British blood; to rows of British graves; to soil
that shall be forever sacred to the memory of the Britons, from
Britain and from over the seas, who died and fought upon it to redeem
it from the Hun.
I had no mind to talk, to ask questions. For the time I was content
to be with my own thoughts, that were evoked by the historic ground
through which we passed. My heart was heavy with grief and with the
memories of my boy that came flooding it, but it was lightened, too,
by other thoughts.
And always, as we sped on, there was the thunder of the guns. Always
there were the bursting shells, and the old bent peasants paying no
heed to them. Always there were the circling airplanes, far above us,
like hawks against the deep blue of the sky. And always we came
nearer and nearer to Vimy Ridge--that deathless name in the history
of Britain.