Tom discovered presently that his destination was the Ypres salient,
one of the most "unhealthy" places, to use the term in favour among the
soldiers, in the whole of the English battle line. Here the most
tremendous battle ever fought in our British Army took place--indeed
one of the most tremendous battles in the history of the world. A
sergeant who was in a garrulous mood described it to Tom with a great
deal of spirit.
"Yes," he said, "you have come to an unhealthy spot; still it may be
good for you. The blessed Huns thought they were going to break
through here about last September when the battle of Wipers was fought.
They had six hundred thousand men to our hundred and fifty thousand.
Then that blooming Kaiser made up his mind that he would break through
our lines, and get to Calais. Yes, it was a touch and go with us.
Fancy four to one, and they had all the advantage in big guns and
ammunition. You think _those_ big guns? Wait till you have heard Jack
Johnson and Black Maria. Talk about hell! Hell was never as bad as
the battle of Wipers. I thought we were licked once. I was in the
part where our line was the thinnest, and we saw 'em coming towards us
in crowds; there seemed to be millions of 'em; we had to rake out every
cook and bottle-washer on the show. Lots of our men were fresh to the
job, too, and had never smelt powder, or felt the touch of steel. But,
by gosh, we let 'em know! Four to one, my boy, and we licked 'em, in
spite of their big guns and their boasting. Aren't you proud of being
a British Tommy?"
Tom listened with wide, staring eyes and compressed lips. There within
a mile or two of the battle line he could picture all of which the
sergeant spoke. As he looked he could see the brown line of earth away
in the distance, and could discern too, here and there, dotted along
this brown line, clouds of black smoke. All around him our guns were
booming, while the distant sounds of the German guns reached him.
"Ay, it's a bit unhealthy," went on the sergeant, "but you will get
used to it after a bit. There, hear that?"
Tom listened and heard the screaming of a shell in the air; the note it
made was at first low, but it rose higher and higher and then dropped
again.
"When the note gets to about B flat," said the sergeant, "you may know
it's soon going to fall, and as soon as it has touched the ground the
shell bursts and tears a big hole up."
"Are many killed?" asked Tom.
"Ay, there's a good lot of casualties every day, but not so much as
there was at the second battle of Wipers. That was fair terrible. You
see, the Germans could not drive us back nor break our lines. That was
why they started bombarding the city. I was here and saw it. Man, you
should have heard the women screaming, and seen the people flying for
their lives. Whole streets of houses were burning, and all the time
shells were falling and bursting. How many people were killed here God
only knows, but there must have been hundreds of women and children.
But what did those dirty swine of Germans care! They could not break
our lines, and they had lost a hundred and fifty thousand men, so they
turned their big guns upon the city. 'We can kill Belgian women and
children, anyhow,' they said, 'and we can smash up the old town.' Are
you a bit jumpy?"
"No n-n-no;--that is, a little bit," said Tom.
"Oh, it's quite quiet now," replied the sergeant. "I will walk through
with you if you like and show you round. This is the great square; one
of the biggest in the world. I saw it before it was bombarded; the
Cathedral and the Cloth Hall were just wonderful; see what they are
now! knocked into smithereens. See the trees around, how they are
twisted and burnt? That house there I saw shelled myself. I had got a
bit used to the shelling by that time, but I tell you it gave me a
turn. It was the biggest house in the Square, and a great bomb caught
it fair in the face; it seemed as though the whole world was shaking,
and the noise fair deafened you. The house went down as though it were
cardboard, and other houses around fell as though to keep it company,
while others caught fire. Ay, they're sweet creatures, are those
German swine."
"Doan't you hate 'em?" asked Tom.
"Hate 'em?" said the sergeant; "well, I don't know. Mind you, they are
fine soldiers, and brave men too, or at least they seem brave; but it's
discipline does it. They are just like machinery. Once when I was
right in the middle of it, they attacked in close formation, and we
turned our machine-guns on 'em. Ever seen a mowing machine in a wheat
field? ever seen the wheat fall before the knives? Well, that's how
they fell. Hundreds upon hundreds; but still they came on. Just as
fast as one lot was killed, the others, knowing that they were going to
certain death, came on, thinking they would wear us down by sheer
numbers."
"Did they?" asked Tom.
"No, that time they didn't," replied the sergeant, "but another scrap I
was in they did. That is their plan, you know; it is terribly costly,
but when it succeeds it works havoc."
"Have you been wounded at all?" asked Tom.
"Yes, I have stopped two bullets, one in the foot and another in the
shoulder, but I quickly got over it. I have been wonderfully lucky.
You will get used to it after a bit; you seem a plucky chap; you don't
look like the sort that runs away. Although, mind you, I have seen
plucky chaps hook it."
"No, I'm not plucky," said Tom; "but I don't think I would run away."
"Wait till the shrapnel is falling around you; wait till great pieces
of jagged shell mow men down on your right and on your left. Still we
have stuck so far, and we must stick to the end. Still, from a
military standpoint," and here the sergeant spoke judicially, "our
holding Wipers is a bad policy. You see, it's a salient and the
Germans guns are all around us; but if we made a straight line we
should give them Wipers, and that would have a bad effect. Just look
in here," and he pointed to a house, the front of which was completely
blown away, but the rest of which remained comparatively intact.
"There's the room just as those poor blighters of Belgians left it,"
continued the sergeant. "See the baby's shoes, and the kiddy's dress?
There are one or two pictures on the wall, not of much value, or those
blooming souvenir-hunters would have got 'em."
"Do you think we shall lick 'em?" asked Tom.
"Lick 'em! Of course we shall," said the sergeant, who had served
nearly twenty years in the Army. "Mind you, it will be no easy job.
Up to now they have had the upper hand of us, both in men and
munitions; but we are gaining on 'em now. What I can't stand is those
blooming swipes, those shirkers who sit at home and who call themselves
men. I tell you I'm for conscription out and out. This is no job to
be played with; if we don't put forth our strength we can't beat 'em.
But just think of those swine, who read the papers and talk about
beating the Germans, who strut about with their patent-leather boots
and fine clothes, and try to make out that they are gentlemen, but who
won't face the music; that's what sickens me. Who are we fighting for,
I should like to know? We are fighting for them, and for our women,
and for the old country. They think they can stop at home and
criticise, and then when we have done the work, share the benefits.
Great God!"--and here the sergeant indulged in some unprintable
language--"I would like to get hold of them."
"Isn't it dangerous here?" asked Tom, as another shrieking shell passed
over their heads.
"Not just now," replied the other; "their shells are falling on the
other side of the town. Of course," he added casually, "they may fall
here any moment."
"I asked you just now," said Tom, "whether you hated the Germans?"
"Yes, you did," replied the sergeant, "and I went off on another tack.
Hate 'em? Well, it's this way. At the beginning I don't know that I
hated 'em so much. Yes, what you call Belgian atrocities were hellish;
but 'twasn't that, and as long as they fought fair that was all I cared
about. But when they got using that poisonous gas they came it a bit
too strong. No, lad, I never hated 'em till then. But when they used
that stuff and laughed about it, ay, and laughed to see our poor chaps
writhing in agony, I felt I must kill every German I saw. Of course,
we've got over it now a bit, and we're all supplied with helmets, but
when they used it first we had simply nothing to defend us. Yes, I
have done some rough bits of work in my time, but I never met with
anything like that. When you see your own pals getting bluer and bluer
in the face, and coughing and gasping, oh, I tell you it made us mad!
We didn't feel like showing any mercy after that. Besides, they have
no sense of fair play, the swipes. I was in a scrap once, and after a
hard tussle, and after losing lots of men, a lot of Germans held up
their hands and shouted, 'We surrender.' Our officer, a young chap new
to the job, and knowing nothing of their tricks, instead of telling
them to come to us, told us to go to them, they holding up their hands
all the time; but no sooner did we get near them than they up with
their pistols and shot two of our chaps. They thought our officer was
going to take it lying down, and when they were taken prisoners they
laughed and said everything was fair in war; but our young officer saw
red, and he said 'No, my lads, you are going to kingdom come.' 'What!'
shrieked those German swine, 'will you kill men after they have
surrendered?' 'You are not men,' said the lieutenant; 'men don't shoot
after they've surrendered--only Germans do that."
"And then?" asked Tom, "then----"
"Ah well," replied the sergeant grimly, "there were no questions asked
in the morning."
"Great God!" said Tom, "what a ghastly thing war is!"
"Wait till you have seen it, my lad," replied the sergeant.
For some weeks Tom was in the neighbourhood of Ypres without taking any
part in the righting. During that time he got accustomed to the
constant booming of the guns, and to the fact that any moment a shell
might fall near him and blow him into eternity. On more than one
occasion, too, he roamed around the ruins of Ypres; and while he could
not be called an imaginative lad he could not help being impressed by
the ghastly desolation of this one-time beautiful city. In many of the
streets not one stone was left upon another, not one of the inhabitants
who had formerly lived there remained; all had fled; it was indeed a
city of the dead. To Tom the ruins of the great Cloth Hall and the
Cathedral were not the most terrible; what appealed to him most were
the empty houses in which things were left by the panic-stricken
people. Bedsteads twisted into shapeless masses; clothes half burnt;
remnants of pieces of cloth which tradesmen had been in the act of
cutting and stitching; children's toys, and thousands of other things
which suggested to the boy the life the people had been living. Not a
bird sang, not even a street dog roamed amidst the shapeless
desolation; the ghastly horror of it all possessed him. Great gaping
holes in the old ramparts of the city; trees torn up by their roots and
scorched by deadly fire: this was Ypres, not destroyed by the
necessities of war, but by pure devilry.
At last Tom's turn came to go up to the front trenches. It was with a
strange feeling at heart that he, with others, crept along the pave
road towards the communication trench. They had to be very careful,
because this road was constantly swept by the German machine guns.
Presently, when they came to a house used as a first dressing station
close to the beginning of the communication trench, Tom felt his heart
grow cold. Still, with set teeth, and a hard look in his eyes, he
groped his way along the trench, through Piccadilly, and Haymarket, and
Bond Street, and Whitehall (for in this manner do the soldiers name the
various parts of the zigzag cuttings through the clay): while all the
time he could hear the pep, pep, pep, pep of the machine guns, and the
shrieking of the shells.
There was no romance in war now, it was a grim, ghastly reality. After
following the lines of the trenches for well-nigh an hour he was
informed that he had now reached the front line and was within a
hundred or a hundred and fifty yards of the Huns. For the moment there
was a comparative quiet, only occasionally did he hear the sound of a
gun, while the shrieking of the shells was less frequent. Danger
seemed very far away; he was in a deep hole in the ground, and above
the earthworks were great heaps of sand-bags. How could he be hurt?
The men whom his company was sent to relieve seemed in high good
spirits too, they laughed and talked and bandied jokes. "There seems
no danger here," thought Tom. An hour passed and still all was
comparatively quiet.
"I would like to see those blooming German trenches," said a Lancashire
lad, "and I will too."
He lifted his head above the sand-bags and looked towards the brown
heaps of earth perhaps a hundred yards away.
"Dost'a see any Germans?" some one asked.
"I'm not sure," replied the lad, "but I believe I see the top of a
German helmet."
"Duck down quickly," said another, "thou'st been holding thy head there
too long."
"Nay, there's no danger," replied the lad, "it's all as quiet as----"
But he did not finish the sentence; at that moment there was a crack of
a rifle and a bullet passed through the poor boy's brain.
"That will be a warning for you fellows," said an officer who came up
just then. "You must play no tricks; there have been hundreds of lads
killed here who would never have been touched if they hadn't been
careless and foolish. Let's have no more of your Hampstead Heath Bank
Holiday skylarking."
Tom did duty at the front trench on several occasions, but nothing of
importance took place. The Huns seemed comparatively quiet, and while
there was severe artillery work on both sides, Tom did not receive a
scratch.
The fourth time he went to the front lines, however, he felt that there
was a change in the atmosphere, and he saw by the strained looks and
the compressed lips of the men that something desperate was expected.
The officers gave their orders with more sternness than usual; every
one was alert.
Tom thought he knew what intense artillery work meant, but he realised
that day that hitherto he had seen and heard nothing. Such a tornado
of shells burst around him that it was like hell let loose. Hour after
hour the Germans bombarded our trenches, tearing great holes in the
ground, and undoing the work of months. It seemed to Tom that no man
could escape.
"Oh," cried the boy, "if they would be quiet for only a minute! If one
could only stop to take breath!"
But there was no cessation; it seemed as though the Germans were
determined to make a final and overwhelming attack; as though all the
explosives in the world were concentrated on those few miles.
The sights were horrible; he saw shells falling on groups of men,
tearing them to pieces, while all around him were the shrieks and cries
of the wounded. Some of the men who were yet untouched yelled as
though they were mad, others laughed, but their laughter was not
natural; it was frenzied, wild, just as though they were madmen.
"We can't stand it! We can't stand it!" cried the boy. "We shall all
be blown into eternity. Why do we stay here like this?"
He spoke to the sergeant who had given him a description of the first
battle of Ypres some time before. The sergeant was comparatively cool;
he had been through it before.
"It's nothing to you whether we are doing anything or not," replied the
sergeant, "besides, don't be a fool; our guns are giving them as hot a
time as their guns are giving us. Don't lose your head."
"I wouldn't mind if I could do something," said the poor boy, trembling.
"Do! Unless I'm mistaken there will be enough for us all to do very
soon. There! firing has ceased! Look out!"
It was as the sergeant said; almost suddenly there was a calm, and a
few seconds later Tom heard a command which made his knees knock
together.
What happened after that Tom could never describe; even if he could, he
would not have done so. As he has said to me more than once, "It was
not something to talk about, it was a matter of bayonet work; it was
fighting face to face, steel to steel."
Tom didn't feel fear now; all that was gone. His muscles were hard,
his thoughts were tense, he saw red! Presently he had a conviction
that we were gaining ground, and he suddenly became aware of the fact
that we had gained the better of the situation and had returned to our
trenches. A number of the enemy had been taken prisoners, and the plot
which the Germans had hatched had come to nothing. Immediately
afterwards something happened which Tom never forgot. A German officer
lay wounded some little distance from the trench which the English had
taken, and piteously cried for help.
"Which of you chaps will volunteer to go and fetch him in?" cried a
young officer whose bravery that day had been the talk of all the men.
Each looked to the other as if for response; they were dazed and
bewildered by all they had gone through.
"I say," said another officer, "you can't expect any of the chaps to do
that. Directly the Huns see any one going to him they will shoot him.
Besides, he may be nearly dead; better put an end to him."
"But hear how he groans!" cried the young fellow. "There, I'll do it."
He leapt from the trench and rushed along the intervening space for
perhaps about fifty yards; then lifting the German officer bodily, he
brought him back to safety.
"I am parched--parched!" cried the German, as if in agony, "give me
water." The young Englishman got a cup of water and held it to the
German's lips, but even as he did so the German drew his revolver and
shot him through the heart.[1]
What happened to the German after that I will not try to relate. Why
am I describing this, and why have I mentioned this incident? Only
that our people at home may realise what heroes our lads are; what they
have to face in order to save our country, and what kind of an enemy
they have to deal with. I am describing it to try if possible to raise
a blush of shame on the faces of those shirkers at home who are a
disgrace to the name of Englishman.
Tom passed through this ordeal without a scratch, and by and by when
his company was relieved, and he returned to a place of safety, the
whole episode seemed but a ghastly dream. And yet it caused a great
change to Tom's life. If he had been asked to describe it he would not
have been able to do so; it was something subtle, elusive; but the
change was there. He felt as though he had a new conception of life;
and he realised its tremendousness as he had never realised it before.
He was by no means given to philosophising, but two things impressed
him. One was the tremendous amount of heroism that lay latent in the
commonplace lads who had come out with him. He knew many of them
before they joined the Army; knew them just as they were. Humdrum
workaday boys who did not seem capable of anything like heroism; but
the war had brought out new qualities, fine qualities. He saw how
those men were willing to sacrifice themselves for others; saw them
doing all sorts of glorious deeds. One fellow impressed him
tremendously. He himself was wounded, but not badly, for he could
easily have crawled to a place of safety; and yet he remained with a
comrade, holding his head on his knees and ministering to him as
tenderly as a woman, in a spot where life could not be valued at a
pin's purchase. Deeds like that are common at the Front.
The other thing which impressed him was the tremendous power of
religion. Before he went up to the firing line he had heard one
officer say to another, "I wish the chaplains could be allowed to go up
to the front line of trenches. You see, when men have no religion to
support them, the constant bombardment and danger make them jumpy."
Tom realised what this meant after the action I have just described.
He himself felt that he needed a Power greater than his own, to steady
him.
Tom had just heard that he was to go on duty at the front trench again,
when passing along by the canal towards one of the officers' dug-outs
he saw a staff officer talking with the major of his own battalion.
Tom lifted his hand to salute, when the staff officer turned and spoke
to him.
"Ah, is that you, Pollard?"
"Yes, Mr. Waterman--that is, yes, sir," stammered Tom.
"I hope you are doing well," said Waterman.
"I am still alive, thank you, sir," and then he passed on.
"He's got a safe job anyhow," thought Tom, "he'll be at the Divisional
Headquarters I expect; well, he's a clever fellow."
That night when Tom returned to the first line he was put on sentry
duty. It was one of those silent, windless, starless nights, when
under ordinary circumstances a solemn hush prevails. Even the trenches
were silent that night. On both sides the guns had ceased booming; it
seemed as though a truce had been agreed upon, and yet the air was
tense with doom.
Tom could not help feeling it as he traversed that part of the trench
in which his especial duty lay. Unimaginative as he was, his mind
worked freely. He called to mind the engagement of a few days before,
remembered what he had seen and heard.
Again and again he traversed the cutting in the earth; his rifle on his
shoulder, and bayonet fixed. How silent it was! Not a man's voice was
to be heard. He knew that sentries were all around him, but he could
not hear a footstep; he knew, too, that many of the soldiers lay in
their dug-outs, sleeping as peacefully as though they were at home.
And yet he felt all alone. "Where's Jim Bates now, I wonder, and
Arthur Wadge, and Bill Perkins, and George Wilson? they were killed,
but are they really dead?" he said to himself. He had known these lads
well; in fact, they had been pals of his, and he wondered what had
become of them. Were they still alive? What had they felt like when
they had to cross the deep, dark valley? What was death?
He thought of his old Sunday-schooldays, thought of his old beliefs.
"Ay," cried Tom aloud, "if I could only feel that Christ was wi' me now
I shouldn't care a bit; but I gave Him up months ago. Alice Lister
believed in Him, ay, she did an' all. I wonder where Alice is now?
Does she ever think about me, I wonder? does she pray for me as she
said?"
He thought of what the man had said in the Y.M.C.A. hut on the night
before they set sail for France. He had told the soldiers that they
needed a personal Saviour, and that that Saviour was ever waiting, ever
watching, to give them help; that He would be near all those who
stretched out their lame hands of faith towards Him, and help them,
strengthen them, comfort them. It was very unreal, it seemed a long
way off too. And yet was it? Was Christ there just as the man had
said?
"Boom!" The sound came from an enemy's gun, but he heard no shell
screeching its way through space, saw no light of explosion. It was
not repeated, although he waited, listening tensely. Minute after
minute passed, still there was silence; evidently the English gunners
were instructed not to reply.
What was the meaning of it? The silence became so tense that it seemed
to make a noise; the air was laden with gloom.
"I wonder what it means," said the boy, and a great fear possessed him;
he felt as though he were on the brink of a fathomless chasm, a chasm
which was as black as ink.
Minute after minute he waited, and still no sound broke the silence.
He tried to comfort himself by remembering pleasant things that
happened at Brunford, but in vain. It seemed to him as though he was
surrounded by something fierce and terrible; was it a premonition of
death, he wondered?
Again he called to mind what the Y.M.C.A. man had said on the night
before they started for the Front. He had advised them to pray, and to
put their trust in a loving God who had been revealed to them through
Jesus Christ.
He still tramped the bit of trench which it was his duty to guard,
looking eagerly into the darkness as if to discern the outline of an
approaching enemy. "If I only could pray!" thought Tom, "if I only
could!"
But he had not prayed for years, the very thought of prayer had gone
out of his mind and heart; but oh! how he longed for something to
comfort and steady him!
Well, why should he not pray? It could do no harm, it might even do
him good.
Lifting his eyes towards the inky-black sky, he tried to formulate a
prayer, but he could not, his thoughts could not shape themselves, his
mind refused to work; he opened his lips and cried, "O God!"
That was all; he could think of nothing else to say, but he repeated
the words again and again:
"O God!--O God!--O God!"
That was all. He had asked for nothing, he had indeed hardly thought
of anything. Nevertheless he was comforted; the words he had uttered
meant infinite things, for at the back of his mind he had a confused
belief that God saw, that God listened, that God understood, and the
thought changed everything.
"I wonder what Alice Lister is doing now," thought the boy presently.
He did not know why it was, but somehow God seemed more real when he
thought of the girl who had promised to pray for him.
[1] This incident was described to me as having actually taken place as
I have set it down here.