But first the Germans "searched" the village. Now to search a village
means to start at one end of the village and place shells at discreet
intervals until the other end of the village is reached. It is an
unpleasant process for those in the middle of the village, even though
they be standing, as we were, in comparatively good shelter.
We heard the Germans start at the other end of the village street. The
crashes came nearer and nearer, until a shell burst with a scream and
a thunderous roar just on our right. We puffed away at our cigarettes
for a second, and a certain despatch rider wished he were anywhere but
in the cursed village of Festubert by Béthune. There was another scream
and overwhelming relief. The next shell burst three houses away on our
left. I knocked my pipe out and filled another.
The Germans finished their little evening shoot. We marched back very
slowly in the darkness to 1910 Farm.
This farm was neither savoury nor safe. It was built round a courtyard
which consisted of a gigantic hole crammed with manure in all stages
of unpleasant putrefaction. One side is a barn; two sides consist of
stables, and the third is the house inhabited not only by us but by an
incredibly filthy and stinking old woman who was continually troubling
the general because some months ago a French cuirassier took one of her
chickens. The day after we arrived at this farm I had few despatches
to take, so I wrote to Robert. Here is some of the letter and bits of
other letters I wrote during the following days. They will give you an
idea of our state of mind:
If you want something of the dramatic--I am writing in a farm under
shrapnel fire, smoking a pipe that was broken by a shell. For true
effect I suppose I should not tell you that the shrapnel is bursting
about fifty yards the other side of the house, that I am in a room
lying on the floor, and consequently that, so long as they go on firing
shrapnel, I am perfectly safe.
It's the dismallest of places. Two miles farther back the heavies are
banging away over our heads. There are a couple of batteries near the
farm. Two miles along the road the four battalions of our brigade are
holding on for dear life in their trenches.
The country is open plough, with little clumps of trees, sparse hedges,
and isolated cottages giving a precarious cover. It's all very damp and
miserable, for it was raining hard last night and the day before.
I am in a little bare room with the floor covered with straw. Two
telegraph operators are making that infernal jerky clicking sound I
have begun so to hate. Half a dozen men of the signal staff are lying
about the floor looking at week-old papers. In the next room I can
hear the general, seated at a table and intent on his map, talking to
an officer that has just come from the firing line. Outside the window
a gun is making a fiendish row, shaking the whole house. Occasionaly
there is a bit of a rattle--that's shrapnel bullets falling on the
tiles of an outhouse.
If you came out you might probably find this exhilarating. I have
just had a talk with our mutual friend Cadell, the Signal Officer of
this brigade, and we have decided that we are fed up with it. For one
thing--after two months' experience of shell fire the sound of a shell
bursting within measurable distance makes you start and shiver for a
moment--reflex action of the nerves. That is annoying. We both decided
we would willingly change places with you and take a turn at defending
your doubtless excellently executed trenches at Liberton.
The line to the ----[8] has just gone. It's almost certain death to
relay it in the daytime. Cadell and his men are discussing the chances
while somebody else has started a musical-box. A man has gone out; I
wonder if he will come back. The rest of the men have gone to sleep
again. That gun outside the window is getting on my nerves. Well, well!
The shrapnel fire appears to have stopped for the present. No, there's
a couple together. If they fire over this farm I hope they don't send
me back to D.H.Q.
Do you know what I long for more than anything else? A clean, unhurried
breakfast with spotless napery and shining silver and porridge and
kippers. I don't think these long, lazy after-breakfast hours at Oxford
were wasted. They are a memory and a hope out here. The shrapnel is
getting nearer and more frequent. We are all hoping it will kill some
chickens in the courtyard. The laws against looting are so strict.
What an excellent musical-box, playing quite a good imitation of
_Cavalleria Rusticana_. I guess we shall have to move soon. Too many
shells. Too dark to write any more----