G.H.Q. AT PLAY.
The walks on the Ramparts--The "Monks" of Montreuil had little time for
sport--Precautions against "joy-riding"--The jolly Officers'
Club--Watching the Map--Ladies at G.H.Q.?
There was precious little play-time at G.H.Q. But there was some. It was
spent very innocently; not to say stodgily. A walk on the Ramparts was
the chief recreation of the great majority of the officers.
What a boon those Ramparts were! Within a minute from the Ecole
Militaire one could get on the broad walk which crowned the old walls
and could follow it round the whole circuit of the town for a mile or
more. From every point there was a rich and ample prospect; southward
over the swelling downs and little copses towards the forest of Crécy;
westward over a richer and more luxuriant plain towards the sea;
northward across the woods and marshes of the Canche; eastward along the
valley of the river and its bordering hills. On a fine day at the coming
up and the going down of the sun, and every hour between, there was a
constant festival of light and colour. Stormy and rainy skies gave
another beauty to the wide prospect. To see a storm march up in grand
procession and pass with its sombre pomp was a fearful joy; and there
was a wild beauty, too, in looking out from the walls on the beating of
the obstinate rains against hill and plain. Painters from all over the
world used to come to Montreuil to attempt to put on canvas the glow of
its summer scenes, the wild grandeur of its winters. No day was without
its special beauty, and the beauty was ever renewed afresh.
In the early spring the chinks and crannies of the old walls burst into
bloom of gillyflowers which hung them with tapestries of gold and red
and brown, contrasting gaily with the bright green foliage of the trees
growing at the base of the Ramparts and throwing their branches up to
their very top. As the season advanced the birds came to build in the
trees, and you might peep down into their nests and hear their indignant
chirrups at being so closely overlooked. With summer and autumn came new
colours, but always splendour and glow and movement. The country around
carried that wide variety of crops in which the French peasant's thrifty
and careful culture delights. There were beans and oats and wheat and
corn and flax and mustard and bits of pasturage, and of fodder crops,
weaving their many colours into a delightful carpet pattern which
changed with every day of the year and almost with every hour of the
day.
[Illustration: THE RAMPARTS]
Had it not been for those Rampart walks the toilsome life of G.H.Q. at
Montreuil would have been hardly possible. The road from anywhere to
anywhere, if time allowed, was by the Ramparts. Going from the Ecole
Militaire to the Officers' Club was three minutes by the street, seven
minutes by the Ramparts, and most went by the Ramparts unless work was
hideously pressing. For those with a little more time to spare there
were enchanting rambles around the base of the Ramparts along the Canche
valley or in the old fosses of the fortifications.
Riding was not a common exercise. Horses were scarce. Very few officers
had their own chargers; and those who had could not find time to
exercise them properly. So most of the horses at G.H.Q. were pooled, and
an officer having time and inclination took what horse was available.
There were many pleasant rides, the favourite one being a shady stretch
along the bank of the river.
At one point of the fortifications an old fosse had been converted into
hard tennis courts, and these were used a little, but not much. It seems
tiresome to be always repeating the same fact but really there was not
time to follow tennis or any other sport. At the Officers' Club there
was not such a thing as a billiard table; and I never saw a game of
cards played there. In some of the private messes there was a feeble
attempt to keep up a Bridge or a Poker circle. But to begin to play at
cards at 11 p.m. with the knowledge that the office is calling for a
clear rested brain by nine the next morning, needs far more than
ordinary enthusiasm. I can remember playing cards only three nights
during all my time at Montreuil.
There was a theatre at Montreuil, usually given up to cinema shows but
occasionally visited by the variety companies which were organised for
the amusement of the troops and occasionally also converted into a
lecture hall. It was well patronised on special occasions, but in the
course of a year made little total demand on officers' time. When, as
was usually the case, the theatre was given up to "the pictures" it was
filled by "other ranks." The non-commissioned officers and privates who
were clerks in the various departments had generally just as little
leisure as their officers, but some of the military population had more
time to spare; what section I do not know, for even the grooms and the
batmen had not easy places. Officers junior to the rank of
lieutenant-colonel were not allowed a batman to themselves, but one
soldier acted for two or three officers and had various fatigue duties
in addition.
[Illustration: THE THEATRE]
Just outside the town, G.H.Q. Recreation Ground provided a lumpy
football ground and a still more lumpy cricket ground. Both our national
games languished, however, for the stock reason--want of time. There
were teams, and occasional matches, and sometimes an enthusiastic
sportsman would send an urgent whip round to call attention to our
deplorable neglect of the games that made England great. He would get a
few half-hearted promises of reform, but there was no hope in fighting
against the great obstacle. It was like a college in which every one was
a "swotter."
So the 300 or so Monks of Montreuil lived their laborious lives. The
balance of G.H.Q. staff, some 250, scattered about the environs of
Montreuil with their offices at Paris Plage or Le Touquet or the Forest
of Crécy, could follow a somewhat milder discipline. They were "Second
Echelon" mostly. Current operations had not much concern for them and it
was possible to take horse-back exercise, to keep up football and
cricket and even tennis and golf. At Le Touquet, which was a well-known
pleasure centre before the war, there were good golf links and some
excellent tennis courts. On occasions the Commander-in-Chief decided to
think out his problems over a round of golf, and a little bungalow was
maintained at Le Touquet for his convenience.
Paris Plage was a splendid beach, but so far as G.H.Q. officers were
concerned its attractions were wasted. Occasionally an officer having
business at one of the Directorates near by would spare an hour for a
swim, but it was not possible on a hot Saturday or Sunday to suspend the
battle, or the preparation for the battle, in progress and adjourn as a
body to the seaside. Not only time but transport was lacking. The only
means of getting down to the beach--a distance of about twelve
miles--was by motor-car, and regulations against "joy-riding" were
strict. Not only were there regulations; there were also precautions to
see that the regulations were kept. A car could go out from G.H.Q.
garage only on an order from the officer in charge of cars, and it was
his business to get a chit as to what was the reason for the journey.
Occasionally police patrols would be stationed on the roads with
instructions to stop every car and examine its papers. This was excused
as a precaution against espionage. It was designed more to be a
precaution against waste of petrol or "joy-riding," as a few officers
found to their cost.
So the life of the Montreuil officer resolved itself ordinarily into
this simple routine: he worked and he walked on the Ramparts. But there
was one fine relief to tedium for the majority--a dinner-party every
night. The big generals, because they had to, and a few unwise souls,
because they chose to, favoured private messes and confronted at dinner
at night the same men as they met in the office all day; and, without a
doubt, found it rather monotonous. The majority of the officers messed
at the Officers' Club, which had a couple of hundred members and could
rival the old reputation of the House of Commons as "the finest Club in
Europe."
The qualification for joining the Officers' Club was to be an officer of
the British Army or of an Allied Army stationed at Montreuil. The
subscription was five francs per month, and for that and a ridiculously
small sum per day the Club gave members three square meals a day and
afternoon tea. The Club kept up a good cellar, and to the very last,
when good wine was almost unprocurable in London or Paris except at
exorbitant prices, the Officers' Club, Montreuil, could sell a vintage
claret or burgundy at nine francs a bottle, a decent wine at five francs
a bottle, and champagne at fifteen francs a bottle. The Expeditionary
Force Canteens were the caterers, and aimed at only a nominal profit.
Once a week there was a fixed guest night and a band, but members could
bring guests at any time. Waiting was done by Q.M.A.A.C.s, neat deft
little ladies who brought a hint of home to the exiles.
Custom was against forming coteries. So there were constantly differing
dinner-parties, and the conversation was rich in variety and interest.
The backbone of the Mess were the Regular Army officers, the majority of
them colonels, with a sprinkling of brigadiers, a few majors and a few
captains. The majority in the Mess, however, were temporary officers, a
few of senior rank, mostly staff captains or attached officers. There
were always some visitors, a politician or some other personage from
home, staff officers from the War Office or from the various Armies,
regimental officers having business at G.H.Q., guests from the various
private messes at Montreuil.
Talk ranged from the most serious shop to the most airy nothings. There
were experts there in almost every department of human knowledge, men
who had seen many cities and known the minds of many men. The
representatives of the Allied nations gave an extra note of variety. You
might sit at the same table with an American one night, an Italian
another, or a Frenchman or Belgian or Portuguese. The majority of men
present were distinguished men either in the Service or in some civil
profession or business. Travel, science, art and literature, were all
well represented.
[Illustration: IN THE OFFICERS' CLUB]
Smoking was prohibited in the Officers' Club until a certain hour, and
the Q.M.A.A.C. waitresses had no difficulty in seeing that the rule was
kept by all ranks. At an earlier date, when a sergeant-major with men
orderlies had charge of the waiting, discipline on this point was not
so easily maintained. Any junior officer lighting up before the hour was
promptly checked. But a sergeant-major found it difficult to take
"disciplinary action" against an officer of General rank. One evening a
very lofty general indeed, a visitor to the Mess, started a huge cigar
at 8 o'clock. Smoking was not allowed until 8.20. The sergeant-major was
a man of resource. Bringing in a ladder, he mounted to the Mess clock
and solemnly set it on to 8.20. A General was smoking, therefore it must
be 8.20.
As I have said, they fed us very well at the Mess. But of course we
grumbled at the food and found one point of criticism in the fish.
Montreuil being practically a seaside town, the fish was naturally not
good, authority having transferred to this English colony in France the
invariable tradition of British seaside resorts to send all the fresh
fish away and consume the refuse. Our fish was always plaice, and it was
often plaice that had known better days. One wag spoke of it as the
"vintage plaice," professed to know that it had been "laid down" the
year the war started, and that the "bins" would not be exhausted until
the war ended.
But the plaice was never a really serious grievance. It gave
opportunity, but not valid cause, to grumble, and discussion of it died
away after an officer one night quoted mock heroically:
Ah, friend--had this indubitable fact
Haply occurred to poor Leonidas
How had he turned tail on Thermopulai!
It cannot be that even his few wits
Were addled to the point that, so advised,
Preposterous he had answered--"Cakes are prime,
Hearth-sides are snug, sleek dancing-girls have worth,
And yet for country's sake, to save our gods
Their temples, save our ancestors their tombs,
Save wife and child and home and liberty,--I
would chew sliced-salt-fish, bear snow--nay, starve
If need were--and by much prefer the choice!"
After dinner the routine was to go and look at the map before settling
down again to work. Military Intelligence, in one of its rooms, kept
up-to-date hour-by-hour a map of the fighting front, and after dinner we
would crowd to this room to see the latest official news put up on the
map and to hear the latest unofficial stories which embroidered the
news. One evening, as a great advance on our part was marked up on the
map, the clerk, moving the flag-pins, announced:
"They say the enemy cleared out so quickly that they left the hospitals
behind, and the Australian corps has captured 50 German nurses. They
report that they are looking well after them."
A titter went round the group of officers. It happened to be the night
after the story had circulated--a story which President Wilson has since
adopted among his family of anecdotes--that the Australians, having the
Americans to co-operate with, had had to remonstrate with them for their
undue rudeness to the Germans. The Australians had a reputation for
being quite direct enough in their method of teaching the Boche not to
be a Boche.
The titter, perhaps, had an injurious inference to some ears, for a
General officer remarked, a little sternly:
"Gentlemen, the Australians are a gallant race. The German--er--ladies
will be quite safe with them."
So, of course, it proved. It was fiction that any Colonial troops showed
an undue sternness to prisoners. The average German knew that he was
quite safe in the hands of any British unit--whether it was from
Australia, Canada, or the Motherland.
The after-dinner peep at the map was a great finish to dinner. When the
Armistice was signed officers were disconsolate for the loss of their
ten minutes in the M.I. room. "I miss," said one, "our pleasant daily
habit of advancing ten kilomètres on a front of fifty kilomètres."
No, life at G.H.Q. was sober and strenuous, but it was not dull or
tedious. If a man has good work to do, lovely aspects of Nature to look
upon, interesting company at his meals, he has all the real essentials
of contentment; well, most of them.
* * * * *
Ladies at G.H.Q.? An almost accurate chapter might be written on this
point on the lines adopted in that exhaustive and conscientious book on
Iceland, which had a brief chapter:
_The Snakes of Iceland._
There are no snakes in Iceland.
There were no ladies at G.H.Q., not at any rate in the sense that would
be in the mind of the average inquirer. On the too rare occasions when I
was able to get a leave from G.H.Q., or was sent over to London on a
task, the civilians I encountered in London exhibited a considerable
interest in the ladies that were thought to haunt G.H.Q.
This was by no manner of means an entirely or indeed a mainly feminine
curiosity. Many people have an ineradicable idea that an Army on a
campaign ravages the hearts of all the female population of the occupied
territory, as well as drawing on the beauty of its own land to recruit
charming camp followers. I can recall, on returning from a small war
some time before 1914, attending a dinner-party in London and being
tremendously flattered at the fact that as soon as the ladies went
upstairs all the men (some of them very distinguished men) crowded
round me in a spirit of inquiry. With all the resources at my disposal I
framed in my mind a brief and vivid appreciation of the campaign.
But--they did not want to know why the Turkish Army failed or the
Serbian Army succeeded. Someone rather well known in London had got into
a scrape in the course of the campaign, and there were some very
scandalous details alleged. My eager inquirers wanted to know all those
scandalous details, and were obviously disappointed to learn that there
was no reasonable foundation for them, and at once lost all interest in
the campaign. My "appreciation" had not the chance to be uttered.
Probably they concluded I was rather an unintelligent person not to have
discovered all the horrid details. Certainly those to whom I told the
truth about the ladies and G.H.Q. thought I was either very sly or very
unobservant. Indeed one very hearty old gentleman, with a great passion
for horrid details, patted me on the back publicly.
"That's right, that's right. I admire you for sticking to your friends.
But of course we do not believe you."
Categorically, it is _not_ a fact that "beautiful leaders of British
society" constantly graced G.H.Q. with their presence. In the very early
stages of the war some of the "Smart Set" considered it rather the
thing to get over to the battlefields and make a week-end sensation of a
glimpse at the Calvary of Civilisation. They usually got over through
the influence of political friends, and most often by way of the Belgian
section of the Front, which was not so sternly guarded as the British or
French sections. Military authority discountenanced these
visits--however "fashionable" and beautiful the visitors--and soon put a
stop to them. After 1914, except nurses and Q.M.A.A.C.s it was very rare
for a woman to enter British Army areas. Those few who did come had very
definite business and were expected to attend very strictly to that
business and then to move off.
There was a suspicion that some few, a very few, "workers" were in
France not so much for work as because they found it amusing. These got
no further than the Base ports as a rule, and were not officially
encouraged. The vast majority of the women workers in France were there
for patriotism's sake, attended strictly to their business, and had no
time (or inclination, presumably) for frivolity.
All this is very disappointing, I am aware. But it is true. The life we
lived at G.H.Q. was truly monastic. We never saw an English woman unless
she were a nurse or Q.M.A.A.C. or some other uniformed fellow-officer or
fellow-soldier.
[Illustration: THE PLACE GAMBETTA]
Nor was there any idle local feminine society to take the thoughts of
officers from the stern tasks of war. Montreuil was very, very prim and
dull even for a small French provincial town. There may still be some
people whose ideas of French social life are based on those quarters of
Paris whose theatres, books, newspapers, restaurants, manners are shaped
by the wishes (or fancied wishes) of the floating population of visitors
and of a small section of idle and worthless French. But I fancy that in
these days such people are few; and most people know that the average of
French life is not at all like Montmartre or the Latin Quarter, which
are less typical of France than, say, Piccadilly Circus is of England.
For thorough straight-laced respectability there is nothing to beat a
small French provincial town.
Montreuil was the most respectable place one could imagine before the
war. It sheltered a small colony of artists in the summer, attracted by
the wonderful panoramas from the ramparts; but they came to work, and
did not bring with them what is supposed to be the atmosphere of the
Latin Quarter. The local population was exceedingly decorous and rather
inclined to be clerical in sympathy, for Montreuil was a great centre
for schools.
During our occupation of the town as the home of G.H.Q. there might be
noted occasionally the arrival from Paris, or elsewhere, of some gay
young lady or couple of ladies who, having heard that the British Army
had its headquarters there, had decided, from motives of patriotism, of
_camaraderie_, or from less admirable motives, to come and enliven the
dullness of the place. Departure would follow with ungallant
promptitude. The same day, or the next, the lady would move away, with a
gendarme to see that she did not miss her train.
The monastic severity of life at G.H.Q. relaxed a little, I think, when
the immediate environs of Montreuil were passed. Then you had got out of
the area of First Echelon G.H.Q. and were in that of the Second Echelon,
which was largely made of subsidiary services not so directly concerned
with the administration of the fighting Army. Life was a little less
strenuous, and perhaps Aphrodite was not altogether neglected for Ares.
Here conditions reflected the average attitude of the British Army
administration in the matter of morals, which was practically that of
British civilian life, with somewhat more precaution and guardianship
but no grandmotherly supervision. The female personnel of the Army was
very carefully safeguarded. The male personnel, if it were absolutely
bent on it, could find opportunities for mischief in some of the Base
towns. G.H.Q. itself--partly perhaps because of the necessity of extreme
safeguards against espionage--was expected to lead a strictly single
life; to conform to the perfect standard that was supposed to rule in
the Provost Marshal's branch. That rigour, of course, was dictated not
by an exceptional prudery in the P.M. authorities but by military
convenience. Ordinarily, outside of G.H.Q. and the Provost Marshal's
branch, there was a margin allowed for human error.
Paris Plage, the jolly beach at the mouth of the Canche near Montreuil,
was for a long time "out-of-bounds" to all British troops. Paris Plage
had, in pre-war days, rather a "Montmartre" reputation in Paris. It was
the beach for the cheap tripper. It was the beach to which the
hardworking _bourgeois_ of the city who had to stick to his bureau
during the summer sent his wife, and came down to see her on Sundays. It
was also the beach for the Don Juan of modest means to visit with his
temporary Juanita. Not this Paris reputation reacting on the traditional
British hypocrisy caused the long-standing ban on Paris Plage, but
practical sanitary reasons. It had not then a good reputation from the
point of view of health. But as the size and the activities of G.H.Q.
increased and it was necessary to find places for new departments near
Montreuil, Paris Plage had to be utilised. After being subjected to a
drastic sanitary inquisition it was thrown open to the troops and became
the headquarters of several minor departments.
But of course the old gay life did not return. It was no longer a suburb
of Montmartre. Still it preserved a certain air of rakishness. Going
through there in a car one day with another staff officer we noticed a
little shop in the windows of which were displayed very coquettishly two
or three filmy articles of feminine _dessous_. A lightning glance
through the door showed that there was quite a bevy of fair shop
assistants--about three assistants to each item of merchandise. In the
window there was this simple device, in English:
CHEQUES CASHED.
We dared not investigate further. A G.H.Q. car is so clearly
recognisable as such that it could not stop outside, and the subterfuge
of drawing up at the Directorate of Inkstands and making a
reconnaissance on foot we felt to be _infra dig_. It was only possible
to pass the shop slowly on the return journey, and to look out for it
the next month when going that way again. It was still open, still bore
its artless device. It was a little bit of the old life of Paris Plage
that had escaped the shocks of war.
In very truth we were a dull lot from one point of view. Even the
conversation at meals was ordinarily wanting in that type of anecdote
which--as Walpole said when he was asked why it was rife at his table,
where sat the greatest men of Europe, who should have had something
better to talk about--is popular "because every man understands it."
Perhaps the propriety of our conversation was partly due to the fact
that there was nearly always a padre within earshot. Perhaps I may dare
the explanation of the general absence of "sex interest" in our lives,
that here were gathered together a band of men with very exacting and
very important work to do, and that they simply had not time nor
inclination to bother about what is usually an amusement of idle lives.