THE DEPARTURE
We are already drawn up in the barrack-yard in service kit. We have
stacked our rifles and have fallen out. No one thinks of kit inspection
or anything of that kind today. Everything is now being pushed on at
racing pace.
"Fall in!"
"Stand by your packs!"
How heavy the full knapsack weighs in one's hands, and yet as soon as it
is settled in the small of your back you do not notice it so very much.
"Stand by arms!"
"Slope arms!"
As if we were marching out for parade, the Captain's orders sound as
crisp as that. We shoulder arms as smartly as if we were moving out on
parade.
"Form sections! Right about turn! Quick march!"
And we swing round smartly in four at the command.
"Fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth company!" shouts the Major, who has
pulled up in the middle of the yard.
We are the eighth company, and are following on the heels of the
seventh. The gates of the barrack-yard are open. We are marching out.
Our legs mark time on the pavement of the street in the goose-step of
grand parade.
"March at ease!"
And the muscles of our legs relax and advance at more natural gait.
The streets are full of people. They are lining the pavement on both
sides and watching us march past. Though it is still quite an early hour
of the morning, yet the whole town is up and about. They weren't able to
stay abed. They wanted to see the soldiers march out.
And they welcome us with their eyes and wave their hands to us.
A fifteen-year-old lad is running along beside us. His brother is
marching in our file.
"Mother sends you her love; she says she is feeling better again--but
she wasn't well enough to get up yet, else she'd have come with me this
morning--but I was to give you this from her."
And the lad stretches his open hand out to his brother, and tries to
hand him something wrapped up in paper--money! But the elder brother
waves it aside.
"Put it away. Tell her I said she was to spend it on herself, and to
look after herself properly, and be well and fit when we come back
again."
Reluctantly the lad puts the money in his pocket.
A little ahead of us a young woman is tripping alongside. We have set a
pretty smart pace, and she has to break into a run to keep up. But
though her feet may stumble over the uneven pavement she never turns her
eyes from her husband. What they may have to say to each other at the
very last moment we can't catch. But we catch the expression of her
face, and her comically touching devotion.
And now the crowds accompanying their soldiers through the streets
become denser and denser. A few folk who are seeing members of their
family off are running beside every section. White-haired fathers and
mothers, with anxious looks, sisters, sweethearts, wives.
There is one among them of whom you can tell at a glance that she is
about to become a mother. Well, she will be brought to bed lonely and
desolate.
The man marching on my right, a taciturn yokel, who until now has been
staring gloomily straight ahead of him, half turns to me.
"How many kids are there under way that'll never come to see their
dads?"
And then he thaws, and begins to talk about his brother, who had to
leave with the Army Service Corps two days before, and he was called on
the Colors the very same day his wife was brought to bed, so that he had
to leave her before she was out of the wood.
"Almost make you think us wasn't human beings."
The drums and fifes strike up briskly, and play a merry march.
Some one or other, somewhere in the crowd, sets up a loud, crowing sort
of cheer.
"Hip! hip! hooray!"
And the others join in. It spreads all down the whole length of the
street, and does not die down again. But it leaves my yokel unmoved.
"What's the good of that how-d'ye-do? Folks are fair crazed. There is no
sense in it."
I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. He is impenetrably rapt in
his own gloomy reflections. Then he begins again.
"Ah've left a wife and three kids to home. They're to get a few pence a
day, the lot, and nought more. And that's what four people have got to
live on."
Some one tries to cheer him up.
"Then some one else'll turn up who'll look after 'em!"
"What others?" comes the answer in a deep growl. "They'll have their
hands full looking after theirselves. By the time I get home they'll
have kicked the bucket, the whole lot of 'em. The best thing'd be never
to come home no more."
Then the big drum breaks into his com-plaint. A dull reverberating
throb. It is to usher in the regimental band, and orders the drums and
the fifes to desist.
And then again, deep and monitory.
Boom!
The pipers begin to play the regimental march.
And now--the regimental band strikes up. You may kick against it as you
will. The martial strain infects the excited streets, trumpets back from
a wall of houses, stirs the blood so joyously, and exorcises the
spectres of the night from your brain. Your muscles stiffen, you throw
your head up, and your legs strut along proudly to keep step and time.
And the rhythm of step and time infects the whole crowd. The effect on
the crowd is electric. They are waving their hands from the pavements;
they are waving their hands from the windows; they are waving their
hands from the balconies. The air is white with pocket-handkerchiefs.
And now some one in front begins to sing. They are shouting and singing
against one another. The tune gains strength until it has fought its way
through, and swirls above our heads like the wind before a storm.
The National Anthem!
The whole street is taking it up.
The regimental band has capitulated to the song that carries every one
away with it. And then it solemnly joins in.
The crowds bare their heads. We can see nothing except glowing faces,
figures marching under a spell, a nation afire and kindled to
enthusiasm.
We march through the town singing ecstatically until we reach the
station, until we at length come to a standstill on the platform
reserved for us. The train is already standing there.
The bridge, beyond, leading over the rails is black with people shouting
and waving down to us.
We are already told off.
Eight men to the compartment.
"Tara, tata!" The bugle calls us to entrain, and the doors are thrown
open. We have scarcely stacked our packs and rifles, and donned our caps
when the engine starts, and amid thunderous cheers we slide out of the
station, and leave behind us a distant, fading roar, a dying hum--the
town shouting her last farewell to her soldiers.
We make ourselves comfortable. We are sitting and smoking our pipes.
Three, unable to change all at once, have already started a game of
cards. Two more are sitting in the corner and putting their heads
together. The yokel is by himself, and shows no interest in anything.
I am looking out of the window, watching the landscape fly past my eyes.
The rejoicings are still hot in my blood. I have lived to see a great
day. Wherever the bulk of the people rises above the dust of every day
it becomes irresistible, and carries away with it even the man who would
fain stand aloof, and keep his head cool.
And we hurry past forests and rivers, past meadows whose extent I cannot
see, past hills that fade away into the blue of distance, past an
immeasurably rich country that stands golden in its ears of corn.
And over it all shines the sun of one's native land.
And I would fain spread out my arms.
Yes, our native land is fair and great, and worthy that a man should
shed his blood for it.