NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE
[Illustration: J B P Adams]
NOTHING
OF IMPORTANCE
A RECORD OF EIGHT MONTHS AT THE
FRONT WITH A WELSH BATTALION
OCTOBER, 1915, TO JUNE, 1916
BY
BERNARD ADAMS
WITH A PORTRAIT AND THREE MAPS
METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1917_
TO
T. R. G.
WHO TAUGHT ME HOW TO THINK
_IN MEMORIAM_
BERNARD ADAMS
John Bernard Pye Adams was born on November 15th, 1890, at Beckenham,
Kent. From his first school at Clare House, Beckenham, he obtained an
entrance scholarship to Malvern, where he gained many Classical and
English prizes and became House Prefect. In December, 1908, he won
an open Classical scholarship at St John’s College, Cambridge, where
he went into residence in October, 1909. He was awarded in 1911 Sir
William Browne’s gold medals (open to the University) for a Greek
epigram and a Latin ode, and in 1912 he won the medal for the Greek
epigram again, and graduated with a First Class in the Classical
Tripos. In his fourth year he read Economics.
On leaving Cambridge he was appointed by the India Office to be Warden
and Assistant Educational Adviser at the Hostel for Indian Students
at Cromwell Road, South Kensington. “He threw himself,” writes Dr. T.
W. Arnold, C.I.E., Secretary of Indian Students, “with the enthusiasm
of his ardent nature into the various activities connected with 21
Cromwell Road, and endeared himself both to the Indian students and to
his colleagues.” Adams was always a quiet man, but his high abilities,
despite his unobtrusiveness, could not be altogether hidden; and in
London, as in Cambridge, his intellect and his gift for friendship had
their natural outcome. Mr. E. W. Mallet, of the India Office, bears
testimony to “the very high value which we all set on his work. He had
great gifts of sympathy and character, strength as well as kindliness,
influence as well as understanding; and these qualities won him--in the
rather difficult work in which he helped so loyally and well--a rare
and noticeable measure of esteem.” On his side, he felt that the choice
had been a right one; he liked his work, and he learned a great deal
from it.
His ultimate purpose was missionary work in India, and the London
experience brought him into close touch with Indians from every part of
India and of every religion.
In November, 1914, he joined up as lieutenant in the Welsh regiment
with which these pages deal, and he obtained a temporary captaincy in
the following spring. When he went out to the front in October, 1915,
he resumed his lieutenancy, but was very shortly given charge of a
company, a position which he retained until he was wounded in June,
1916, when he returned to England. He only went out to the front again
on January 31st of this year. In the afternoon of February 26th he was
wounded while leading his men in an attack and died the following day
in the field hospital.
* * * * *
These few sentences record the bare landmarks of a career which, in the
judgment of his friends, would have been noteworthy had it not been
so prematurely cut short. For instance, here is what his friend, T.
R. Glover, of St John’s, wrote in _The Eagle_ (the St John’s College
magazine) and elsewhere:
“Bernard Adams was my pupil during his Classical days at St John’s, and
we were brought into very close relations. He remains in my mind as
one of the very best men I have ever had to teach--best every way, in
mind and soul and all his nature. He had a natural gift for writing--a
natural habit of style; he wrote without artifice, and achieved the
expression of what he thought and what he felt in language that was
simple and direct and pleasing. (A College Prize Essay of his of those
days was printed in _The Eagle_ (vol. xxvii, 47-60)--on Wordsworth’s
_Prelude_.) He was a man of the quiet and reserved kind, who did not
talk much, for whom, perhaps, writing was a more obvious form of
utterance than speech.
It was clear to those who knew him that he put conscience into his
thinking--he was serious, above all about religion, and he was honest
with himself. Other people will take religion at secondhand; he was
of another type. He thought things out quietly and clearly, and then
decided. His choice of Economics as a second subject at Cambridge was
dictated by the feeling that it would prepare him for his life’s work
in the Christian ministry. There was little hope in it of much academic
distinction--but that was not his object. A man who had thought more
of himself would have gone on with Classics, in the hope (a very
reasonable one) of a Fellowship. Adams was not working for his own
advancement. The quiet simple way in which, without referring to it, he
dismissed academic distinction, gives the measure of the man--clear,
definite, unselfish, and devoted. His ideal was service, and he
prepared for it--at Cambridge, and with his Indian students in London.
When the war came he had difficulties of decision as to the course he
should pursue. Like others who had no gust for war, and no animosity
against the enemy, he took a commission, not so much to fight _against_
as to fight _for_; the principles at stake appealed to him, and with an
inner reluctance against the whole business he went into it--once again
the quiet, thought-out sacrifice.”
* * * * *
In this phase of his career his characteristic conscientiousness was
shown by the thoroughness and success with which he performed his
military duties “He is a real loss to the regiment,” wrote a senior
officer; “everybody who knew him had a very high opinion of his
military efficiency.”
As is so often the case, a quiet and reserved manner hid a brave heart.
When it came to personal danger he impressed men as being unconscious
of it. “I never met a man who displayed coolly more utter disregard for
danger.” And in this spirit he led his men against the enemy--and fell.
From the last message that he gave the nurse for his people, “Tell them
I’m all right,” it is clear that he died with as quiet a mind and as
surrendered a will as he lived.
“What we have lost who knew him,” writes Mr. Glover, “these lines may
hint--I do not think we really know the extent of our loss. But we keep
a great deal, a very great deal--_quidquid ex illo amavimus, quidquid
mirati sumus, manet mansurumque est_. Yes, that is true; and from the
first my sorrow (it may seem an odd confession) was for those who were
not to know him, whose chance was lost, for the work he was not to do.
For himself, if ever a man lived his life, it was he; twenty-five or
twenty-six years is not much, perhaps, as a rule, but here it was life
and it was lived to some purpose; it told and it is not lost.”
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PREFACE xv
I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS 1
II. CUINCHY AND GIVENCHY 19
III. WORKING-PARTIES 42
IV. REST 64
V. ON THE MARCH 87
VI. THE BOIS FRANÇAIS TRENCHES 96
VII. MORE FIRST IMPRESSIONS 117
VIII. SNIPING 133
IX. ON PATROL 154
X. “WHOM THE GODS LOVE” 163
XI. “WHOM THE GODS LOVE”--(_continued_). 181
XII. OFFICERS’ SERVANTS 195
XIII. MINES 212
XIV. BILLETS 229
XV. “A CERTAIN MAN DREW A BOW AT A VENTURE” 256
XVI. WOUNDED 268
XVII. CONCLUSION 294
MAPS
FACING PAGE
I. BÉTHUNE AND LA BASSÉE, NEIGHBOURHOOD OF 9
II. FRICOURT AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 97
III. THE TRENCHES NEAR FRICOURT 103
ILLUSTRATION
PORTRAIT OF AUTHOR Frontispiece
PREFACE
“Then,” said my friend, “what _is_ this war like? I ask you if it is
this, or that; and you shake your head. But you will not satisfy me
with negatives. I want to know the truth; what _is_ it like?”
There was a long silence.
“Express that silence; that is what we want to hear.”
“The mask of glory,” I said, “has been stripped from the face of war.”
“And we are fighting the better for that,” continued my friend.
“You see that?” I exclaimed. “But of course you do. We know it, and you
at home know it. And you want to know the truth?”
“Of course,” was the reply.
“I do not say that what you have read is not true,” said I; “but I do
say that I have read nothing that gives a complete or proportioned
picture. I have not yet found a perfect simile for this war, but the
nearest I can think of is that of a pack of cards. Life in this war
is a series of events so utterly different and disconnected, that the
effect upon the actor in the midst of them is like receiving a hand
of cards from an invisible dealer. There are four suits in the pack.
Spades represent the dullness, mud, weariness, and sordidness. Clubs
stand for another side, the humour, the cheerfulness, the jollity,
and good-fellowship. In diamonds I see the glitter of excitement and
adventure. Hearts are a tragic suit of agony, horror, and death. And to
each man the invisible dealer gives a succession of cards; sometimes
they seem all black; sometimes they are red and black alternately; and
at times they come red, red, red; and at the end is the ace of hearts.”
“I understand,” said my friend. “And now tell me your hand.”
“It was a long hand,” I replied; “I think I had better try and write it
down in a book. I have never written a book. I wonder how it would pan
out? At first my hand was chiefly black with a sprinkling of diamonds;
later I received more diamonds, but the hearts began to come as well;
at last the hearts seemed to be squeezing out the clubs and diamonds.
There were always plenty of spades.”
There was another silence.
“There was one phrase,” I resumed, “in the daily communiqués that used
to strike us rather out there;” it was, “Nothing of importance to
record on the rest of the front.” I believe that a hundred years hence
this phrase will be repeated in the history books. There will be a
passage like this: “Save for the gigantic effort of Germany to break
through the French lines at Verdun, nothing of importance occurred
on the western front between September, 1915, and the opening of the
Somme offensive on the 1st of July, 1916.” And this will be believed,
unless men have learnt to read history aright by then. For the river of
history is full of waterfalls that attract the day excursionist--such
as battles, and laws, and the deaths of kings; whereas the spirit of
the river is not in the waterfalls. There are men who were wounded in
the Somme battle, who had only seen a few weeks of war. I have yet to
see a waterfall; but I have learned something of the spirit of the deep
river in eight months of “nothing of importance.”
This, then, is the book that I have written. It is the spirit of the
war as it came to me, first in big incoherent impressions, later as a
more intelligible whole. Perhaps it will seem that the first chapters
are somewhat light in tone and inclined to gloss over the terrible
side of War. But that is just what happens; at first, the interest and
adventure are paramount, and it is only after a time, only after all
the novelty has worn away, that one gets the real proportion. If the
first chapters do not bite deep, remember that this was my experience.
This book does not claim to be always sensational or thrilling. One
claim only I make for it: from end to end it is the truth.
The events recorded are real and true in every detail. I have nowhere
exaggerated; for in this war there is nothing more terrible than the
truth.
All the persons mentioned are also real, though I have thought it
better to give them pseudonyms.
_January, 1917._
NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE
NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE
CHAPTER I
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
“Good-bye!”
“Good-bye. Don’t forget to send me that Hun helmet!”
“All right! Good-bye!”
* * * * *
The train had long ago recovered from the shock of its initial jerk;
a long steady grinding noise came up from the carriage wheels, as
though they had recovered breath and were getting into their stride
for Folkestone, regardless of the growing clatter of the South-Eastern
rhythm;--if, indeed, so noble a word may be used for the noise made by
the wheels as they passed over the rail-joints of this distinguished
line.
“Don’t believe it’s a good thing having one’s people to see you off,”
said Terry, whose people had accompanied him in large numbers to
Charing Cross.
“They _will_ come, though,” remarked Crowley very wisely.
“I tried to persuade my people not to come,” said I; “but they think
you like it, I suppose. I would certainly rather say good-bye at home,
and have no one come to the station.”
And so I started off my experience of “the great adventure” with a “lie
direct”: but it does not weigh very heavily upon my conscience.
Six of us sat in a first-class carriage on the morning of the 5th of
October, 1915: for months we had been together in a reserve battalion
waiting to go out to the front, and now at last we had received
marching orders, and were bound for Folkestone, and thence for France.
For which battalion of our regiment any or all of us twelve officers
were destined, we had no knowledge whatever; but even the most
uncongenial pair of us would, I am sure, have preferred each other’s
company to that of complete strangers. I, at any rate, have never in
my life felt more shy and self-conscious and full of stupid qualms:
unless, indeed, it was on the occasion, ten months before, when I had
stood shaking in front of a platoon of twenty men!
The last few days I had gone about feeling as though the news that I
was going to the front were printed in large letters round my cap.
I felt that people in the railway carriages, and in the streets,
were looking at me with an electric interest; and the necessary (and
unnecessary!) purchases, as well as the good-byes, were of the kind to
make one feel placed upon a pedestal of importance! Now, in company
with five other officers in like predicament, I felt already that I had
climbed down a step from that pedestal; in fact, the whole experience
of the first few days was one of a steady reduction from all-importance
to complete insignificance!
As soon as we had recovered from the silence that followed my remarks
upon the disadvantages of prolonged valedictions, we commenced a
critical survey of our various properties and accoutrements. Revolvers
leapt from brand new holsters; feet were held up to show the ideal
trench-nails; flash lamps and torches, compasses, map-cases, pocket
medicine-cases, all were shown with an easy confidence of manner that
screened a sinking dread of disapprobation. The prismatic compass was
regarded rather as a joke by some of us; its use in trench warfare was
a doubtful quantity; yet there were some of us who in the depths of
our martial wisdom were half expecting that the Battle of Loos was the
prelude of an autumn campaign of open-country warfare. There was only
one man whose word we took for law in anything, and that was Barrett.
He had spent five days in the trenches last December; he had then
received his commission in our battalion. He was the “man from the
front.” And I noticed with secret misgivings that he had not removed
the badges of rank from his arm, or sewed his two stars upon his
shoulder-straps; he had not removed his bright buttons, and substituted
for them leather ones such as are worn on golfing-jackets; and in his
valise, he told us, he had his Sam Browne belt.
“But you never wear Sam Brownes out there,” I said: “all officers now
dress as much as possible like the men.”
That was so, we were informed; but officers used to wear them in
billets, when they were out of the firing-line.
“Well,” said Crowley, “we could get them sent out, I expect.”
“Yes,” said I; “I expect they would arrive safely.”
But this infantile conversation is not worthy of record! Suffice to say
we knew nothing about war, and were just beginning to learn that fact!
The first check to our enthusiasm was at Folkestone. We reported to
the railway transport officer, whom we then regarded as a little
demi-god; he told us to report in time for the boat at a certain hour.
This we did, signed our names with a feeling of doing some awful and
irrevocable deed, and then were told to wait another three hours: there
was no room for us on this boat! We retired to an hotel with a feeling
that perhaps after all there was no such imperious shouting for our
help over in France, such as we had all, I think (save only Barrett,
who was cynical and pessimistic!) secretly imagined.
Darkness came ere we started. The crossing did not seem long, and I
stood up on deck with Barrett most of the time. Two destroyers followed
a little astern, one on either side; and there were lights right
across the Channel. We were picked out by searchlights more than once,
although all lights were forbidden on board. I felt that I was now fair
game for the Germans; and it was exciting to think that they would give
anything to sink me! At last I was in for “the great adventure.”
At Boulogne we had to wait a long time on a dismal quay and in a
drizzling rain to interview an irritated and sleepy railway transport
officer. After a long, long queue had been safely negociated we were
given tickets to ----; and then again we had to wait quite an hour on
the platform. Some of our party were excited at their first visit to a
foreign soil; but their enthusiasm abated when at the buffet they were
charged exorbitant prices and their English money was rejected as “dam
fool money.”
Then there came a long jerky journey through the night in a crowded
carriage. (As I am out for confessions, I will here state that I did
not think this could be an ordinary passenger train, and I wondered
vaguely who these men and women were who got in and out of other
carriages!) At Étaples there was a still longer wait, and a still
longer queue; but, fortunately, my signature had not lengthened. I
remember sitting tired and dazed on the top of a valise, and asking
Barrett what the time was.
“Three forty-five!”
“What a time to arrive!” I replied. But in war three forty-five is as
good a time as any other, I was soon to discover.
We walked to a camp a mile distant from the station; our arrival seemed
quite unlooked for, and a quartermaster-sergeant had to be procured,
by the officer who was our guide, in order to gain access to the tent
that contained the blanket stores. Wearily, at close on five o’clock,
we fell asleep on the boarded bottom of a bell-tent.
It must have been about 10 a.m. on the 6th when we turned out and found
ourselves in a sandy country; behind us was a small ridge, crowned by
a belt of fir trees; the sun was well up and shone warm on the face as
we washed and shaved in the open. The feeling of camp was exhilarating,
and I was in good spirits.
But two blows immediately damped my ardour most effectively. When
I learned that I was posted to our first battalion, and I alone of
all of us twelve, the thought of my arrival among the regulars, with
no experience, and not even an acquaintance, far less a friend, was
distinctly chilling! To add to my discomfiture there befell a second
misfortune: my valise was nowhere to be seen!
Indeed, the rest of the day was chiefly occupied in searching for my
valise, but to no purpose whatever. I did not see it until ten days
later, when by some miracle it appeared again! I can hardly convey the
sense of depression these two facts cast over me the next few days;
the interest and novelty of my experiences made me forget for short
periods, but always there would return the thought of my arrival alone
into a line regiment, and with the humiliating necessity of borrowing
at once. Unknown and inexperienced I could not help being; but as
a fool who lost all his property the first day, I should not cut a
brilliant figure!
We obtained breakfast at an _estaminet_ by the station; omelettes,
rolls and butter, and _café noir_. I bought a French newspaper, and
thought how finely my French would improve under this daily necessity;
but I soon found that one could get the Paris edition of the _Daily
Mail_, and my French is still as sketchy as ever! I remember watching
the French children and the French women at the doors of the houses,
and wondering what they thought of this war on their own soil; I knew
that the wild enthusiasms of a year ago had died down; I did not expect
the shouting and singing, the souvenir-hunting, and the generous
impulses that greeted our troops a year ago; but I felt so vividly
myself the fact that between me and the Germans lay only a living wall
of my own countrymen, that I could not help thinking these urchins and
women must feel it too! The very way in which they swept the doorsteps
seemed to me worth noting at the moment.
In the course of my wild peregrinations over the camp in search of my
valise, I came upon a group of Tommies undergoing instruction in the
machine-gun. Arrested by a familiar voice, I recognised as instructor
a man I had known very well at Cambridge! He recognised me at the same
moment, and in a few seconds we parted, after an invitation from him to
dinner that evening; he was on “lines of communication” work, he told
me.
Sitting in his tent after Mess, I was amazed at the apparent permanence
of his abode; shelves, made out of boxes; novels, an army list,
magazines, maps; bed, washstand, candlesticks, a chair; baccy, and
whisky and soda! It was all so snug and comfortable. I was soon to
find myself accumulating a very similar collection in billets six
miles behind the firing-line, and taking most of it into the trenches!
I remember being impressed by the statement that the cannonade had
been heard day after day since the 25th, and still more impressed by
references to “the plans of the Staff!”
I left Étaples early on the morning of the 7th, after receiving
instructions, and a railway warrant for “Chocques,” from a one-armed
major of the Gordons. Of our original twelve only Terry and Crowley
remained with me; with a young Scot, we had a grey-upholstered
first-class carriage to ourselves.
In the train I commenced my first letter home; and I should here like
to state that the reason for the inclusion in these first chapters of
a good many extracts from letters is that they do really represent my
first vague, rather disconnected, impressions, and are therefore truer
than any more coherent account I might now give. First impressions
of people, houses, places, are always interesting; I hope that the
reader will not find these without interest, even though he may find
them at times lacking in style.
[Illustration:
_To face page 9_
MAP I.]
“I am now in the train. We are passing level-crossings guarded by
horn-blowing women; the train is strolling leisurely along over
grass-grown tracks, and stopping at platformless stations. It is
very hot. At midday I shall be about ten miles from the firing-line,
and I expect the cannonade will be pretty audible. I feel strangely
indifferent to things now, though I have the feeling that all this will
be stamped indelibly on my memory.” How well I remember the thrill of
excitement when I found the name Chocques on my map, quite close to the
firing-fine! And as we got nearer, and saw R.A.M.C. and cavalry camps,
and talked to Tommies guarding the line, saw aeroplanes, and yes! a
captive balloon, excitement grew still greater! At last we reached
Chocques, and the railway transport officer calmly informed us that we
had another four miles to go. He brilliantly suggested walking. But an
A.S.C. lorry was there, and in we climbed, only to be ejected by the
corporal! Eventually we tramped to Béthune with _very_ full packs in a
hot sun.
Walking gave us opportunity for observation; and that road was worth
seeing to those who had not seen it before. There were convoys of
A.S.C. lorries, drawn up (or “parked”) in twenties or thirties
alongside the road, each with its mystical marking, a scarlet shell, a
green shamrock, etc., painted on its side; Red Cross ambulances passed,
impelling one to turn back and look in them, sometimes containing
stretcher-cases (feet only visible), or sitting cases with bandaged
head or arm in sling. Then there were motor-cars with Staff officers;
motor-cars with youthful officers in immaculate Sam Brownes and
“slacks”; and as we drew nearer Béthune, we saw canteens with Tommies
standing and lounging outside, small squads of men, English notices,
and boards with painted inscriptions,
+-------------+ +----------------+
| BILLETS. | | |
such as | Officers--2 | or | H.Q. |
| Men--30 | |117th Inf. Bde. |
+-------------+ +----------------+
and in the distance loomed the square tower of the cathedral, which I
thought then to be a decapitated spire.
And so we came into the bustle of a French city.
I had never heard of Béthune before. As the crow flies it is about five
to six miles from the front trenches. The shops were doing a roaring
trade, and I was amazed to see chemists flaunting auto-strop razors,
stationers offering “Tommy’s writing-pad,” and tailors showing English
officers’ uniforms in their windows, besides all the goods of a large
and populous town. We were very hungry and tired, and fate directed
us to the famous tea-shop, where, at dainty tables, amid crowds of
officers, we obtained an English tea! I was astounded; so were we
all. To think that I had treasured a toothbrush as a thing that I
might not be able to replace for months! Here was everything to hand.
Were we really within six miles of the Germans? Yet officers were
discussing “the hot time we had yesterday”; while “we only came out
this morning,” or “they whizz-banged us pretty badly last night,” were
remarks from officers redolent of bath and the hairdresser! Buttons
brilliantly polished, boots shining like advertisements, swagger-canes,
and immaculate collars, gave the strangest first impression of “active
service” to us, with our leather equipment, packs, leather buttons, and
trench boots!
“Old Barrett was right about the Sam Brownes,” I said to Terry, vainly
trying to look at my ease.
“Let’s look at your map,” he answered. Then, after a moment:
“Oh, we’re not far from the La Bassée Canal. I’ve heard of that often
enough!”
“So have I,” I replied. “Is La Bassée ours or theirs?”
“Ours, of course”; but he borrowed the map again to make sure!
Refreshed, but feeling strangely “out” of everything, we eventually
found our way to the town major. Here my letter continues:
“I was told an orderly was coming in the evening to conduct me to
the trenches, to my battalion! Suddenly, however, we were told to
go off--seven of us in the same division--to our brigades in a
motor-lorry. So we are packed off. I said good-bye to Crowley and
Terry. This was about 7 p.m. We went rattling along till within a short
distance of our front trenches. There was a lot of cannonading going
on around and behind us, and star-shells bursting continuously, with
Crystal-Palace-firework pops; we could hear rifles cracking too. At
length we got to where the lorry could go no further, and we halted for
a long time at a place where the houses were all ruins and the roofs
like spiders’-webs, with the white glare of the shells silhouetting
them against the sky. The houses had been shelled yesterday, but last
night no shells were coming our way at all. My feelings were exactly
like they are in a storm--the nearer and bigger the flashes and bangs
the more I hoped the next would be really big and really near.” Of
course, all this cannonade was _our_ artillery; at the time we were
quite muddled up as to what it all was! The snarling bangs were the
18-pounders quite close to us, about one thousand yards behind our
front line; the cracking bullets were spent bullets, though it sounded
to us as if they were from a trench about twenty yards in front of us!
Nothing is more confusing at first than the different sounds of the
different guns. I think several of us would have been ready to say
we had been under shell-fire that night! The “star-shells” should be
more accurately described as “flares” or “rockets.” But to continue my
letter:
“Well, the next few hours were a strange mixture of sensations. We
could nowhere find our brigades, and after _ten hours_ in the lorry we
landed here at a place sixteen miles back from the firing line; here
our division had been located by a signaller, whom we had consulted
when we stopped by the cross-roads! We were left by the lorry at
5.0 a.m. at a field ambulance station ‘close to H.Q.,’ where we
slept wearily till 8.0, to awake and find ourselves miles from our
division, which is really, I believe, quite near where we had been
in the firing-line! Now we are sitting in a big old château awaiting
a telephone-message; we are in a dining-room, walls peeling, and
arm-chairs reduced to legless deformities! It is a jolly day: sun, and
the smell of autumn.” I shall not forget that long ride. I was at the
back, and could see out; innumerable villages we passed; innumerable
mistakes we made; innumerable stops, innumerable enquiries! But always
there was the throbbing engine while we halted, and the bump and rattle
as we plunged through the night. Eight officers and seven valises,
I think we were; one or two were reduced to grumbling; several were
asleep; a few, like myself, were awake, but all absolutely tired out.
It was too uncomfortable to rest, cramped up among bulky valises and
all sorts of sprawling limbs! Once, at about four o’clock, we halted at
a house with a light in the window, and found a miner just going off
to work. An old woman brewed some very black coffee, and we hungrily
devoured bits of bread and butter, coffee, and cognac; while the old
woman, fat and smiling, gabbled incessantly at us! A strange weird
picture we must have made, some of us in kilts and bonnets, standing
half-awake in the flickering candle-light.
We were at the Château all the morning. “The R.A.M.C. fellows were
very decent to us; gave us breakfast (eggs, bread and butter, and
tinned jam) and also lunch (bully-beef, cheese, bread and butter,
and beer). These were eaten off the dining-room table in style. I
explored the Château during the morning; just a big ordinary empty
house inside; outside, it is white plaster, with steep slate roofs,
and a few ornamental turrets. The garden is mostly taken up with lines
of picketed horses; outside the orchards and enclosures the country is
bare and flat; it is a mining district, and pyramids of slag stand up
all over the plain.”
I cannot do better than continue quoting from these first letters of
mine; of course, I did not mention places by name:
“Well, at 2.0 p.m. the same old lorry and corporal turned up and took
us back to Béthune. I gather he got considerable ‘strafing’ for last
night’s performance, although I think he was not given clear enough
instructions. Then, with seven other officers, we were sent off again
in daylight, and dropped by twos and threes at our various Brigade
Headquarters. Our “Brigade H.Q.” was in one of the few houses left
standing. Here I reported, and was told that an orderly would take
me to my battalion transport. In half an hour the orderly arrived on
a bicycle, and by 6.0 p.m. I was only half a mile from our transport.
We were walking along, when suddenly there was a scream like a rocket,
followed by a big bang, and the sound of splinters falling all about. I
expected to see people jump into ditches; but they stood calmly in the
street, women and all, and watched, while several shells (whizz-bangs,
I believe)”--No, dear innocence, HIGH-EXPLOSIVE SHRAPNEL--“burst just
near the road about a hundred yards ahead. We were four miles back
from the firing-line. It was just the ‘evening hate,’ I expect. It
didn’t last long. Just near us was one of our own batteries firing
intermittently.”
This was my first experience of being under fire. I hadn’t the least
idea what to do. The textbooks, I believe, said “Throw yourself on
the ground.” I therefore looked at my orderly; but he was ducking
behind his bicycle, which I am sure is not recommended by any manual
of military training! I ducked behind nothing, copying him. This all
took place in the middle of the road. But when I saw women opening
the doors of their houses and standing calmly looking at the shells,
ducking seemed out of the question; so we both stood and watched the
bursting shells. Then the salvo ceased, and I, thinking I must show
some sort of a lead, suggested that we should proceed. But my orderly,
wiser by experience, suggested waiting to see if another salvo were
forthcoming. After ten minutes, however, it was clear that the Germans
had finished, and we resumed our journey in peace.
My letter continues: “At the transport I had a very comfortable billet.
The quartermaster and two other new officers and myself had supper in
an upstairs room. The quartermaster seemed very pessimistic, and told
us a lot about our losses. We turned in at ten o’clock, and I slept
well. It was ‘very quiet’; that is to say, only intermittent bangs
such as have continued ever since the beginning of the war, and will
continue to the end thereof!
“October 9th. This morning a cart took us at nine o’clock to within
about a mile of the firing-line, putting us down at the corner of a
street that has been renamed ‘H---- Street.’ The country was dead flat;
the houses everywhere in ruins, though some were untouched and still
inhabited. Thence an orderly conducted us to H.Q., where we reported to
the Adjutant and the C.O. (who is quite young by the way); they were
in the ground-floor room of a house, to which we came all the way from
H---- Street along a communication trench about seven feet deep. These
trenches were originally dug by the French, I believe. I was told I
was posted to ‘D’ Company, so another orderly took me back practically
to H---- Street, which must be six or seven hundred yards behind the
firing-line. ‘D’ is in reserve; I am attached to it for the present.
There are two other officers in it, Davidson and Symons. Both have only
just joined.”
So at last I was fairly lodged in my battalion. I had been directed,
dumped, shaken, and carried, in a kindly, yet to me most amazingly
haphazard, way to my destination, and there I found myself quite
unexpected, but immediately attached somewhere until I should sort
myself out a little and find my feet. I had a servant called Smith.
In the afternoon I went with Davidson to supervise a working party,
which was engaged in paving a communication trench with tiles from the
neighbouring houses. In the evening I set to and wrote letters. I will
close this chapter with yet one more quotation:
“Now I am in the ground-room of one of the few standing houses in
H---- Street. Next door is a big ‘École des filles,’ which I am quite
surprised to find empty! Really the way the people go about their
work here is amazing. Still, I suppose to carry on a girls’ school
half a mile from the Boche is just beyond the capacity of even their
indifference! I’ve already got quite used to the _noise_. There are two
guns just about forty yards away, that keep on firing with a terrific
bang! I can see the flashes just behind me. I think the noise would
worry you, if you heard these blaring bangs at the end of the back
garden, which is just about the distance this battery is from me! We
are messing here in this room; half a table has been propped up, and
three chairs discovered and patched up for us. All the windows facing
the enemy have been blocked up with sand-bags. I sleep here to-night.
If the house is shelled, I shall flee to the dug-out twenty yards away.
Orders have not yet come, but I believe we go back to billets to-morrow.
A free issue of ‘Glory Boys’ cigarettes has just arrived: two packets
for each officer and man. Please don’t forget to send my Sam Browne
belt.”