ST JANS CAPPEL.
Soon after our return there were rumours of a grand attack. Headquarters
positively sizzled with the most expensive preparations. At a given word
the Staff were to dash out in motor-cars to a disreputable tavern, so
that they could see the shells bursting. A couple of despatch riders
were to keep with them in order to fetch their cars when the day's work
was over. A mobile reserve of motor-cyclists was to be established in a
farm under cover.
The whole scheme was perfect. There was good rabbit-shooting near the
tavern. The atmosphere inside was so thick that it actually induced
slumber. The landlady possessed an excellent stove, upon which the
Staff's lunch, prepared with quiet genius at St Jans, might be heated
up. The place was dirty enough to give all those in authority, who might
come round to see that the British Army was really doing something, a
vivid conception of the horrors of war. And, as I have said, there was a
slope behind the road from which lots and lots of shells could be seen
bursting.
The word came. We arrived at the tavern before dawn. The Staff sauntered
about outside in delicious anticipation. We all looked at our watches.
Punctually at six the show began. Guns of all shapes and sizes had been
concentrated. They made an overwhelming noise. Over the German trenches
on the near slope of the Messines ridge flashed multitudinous points of
flame. The Germans were being furiously shelled. The dawn came up while
the Staff were drinking their matutinal tea. The Staff set itself
sternly to work. Messages describing events at La Bassée poured in. They
were conscientiously read and rushed over the wires to our brigades. The
guns were making more noise than they had ever made before. The Germans
were cowering in their trenches. It was all our officers could do to
hold back their men, who were straining like hounds in a leash to get at
the hated foe. A shell fell among some of the gunners' transport and
wounded a man and two horses. That stiffened us. The news was flashed
over the wire to G.H.Q. The transport was moved rapidly, but in good
order, to a safer place. The guns fired more furiously than ever.
As soon as there was sufficient light, the General's A.D.C., crammed
full of the lust for blood, went out and shot some rabbits and some
indescribable birds, who by this time were petrified with fear. They had
never heard such a noise before. That other despatch rider sat
comfortably in a car, finished at his leisure the second volume of
'Sinister Street,' and wrote a lurid description of a modern battle.
Before the visitors came, the scene was improved by the construction of
a large dug-out near the tavern. It is true that if the Staff had taken
to the dug-out they would most certainly have been drowned. That did not
matter. Every well-behaved Divisional Staff must have a dug-out near its
Advanced Headquarters. It is always "done."
Never was a Division so lucky in its visitors. A certain young prince of
high lineage arrived. Everybody saluted at the same time. He was, I
think, duly impressed by the atmosphere of the tavern, the sight of the
Staff's maps, the inundated dug-outs, the noise of the guns and the
funny balls of smoke that the shells made when they exploded over the
German lines.
What gave this battle a humorous twist for all time was the delectable
visit of a Cabinet Minister. He came in a car and brought with him his
own knife and fork and a loaf of bread as his contribution to the
Divisional Lunch. When he entered the tavern he smelt among other smells
the delicious odour of rabbit-pie. With hurried but charming
condescension he left his loaf on the stove, where it dried for a day or
two until the landlady had the temerity to appropriate it. He was fed,
so far as I remember on--
Soup.
Fish.
Rabbit-pie. Potatoes. Cabbage.
Apple-tart.
Fruit. Coffee. Liqueurs.
and after lunch, I am told, showed a marked disinclination to ascend the
hill and watch the shells bursting. He was only a "civvy."[25]
The battle lasted about ten days. Each morning the Staff, like lazy men
who are "something in the city," arrived a little later at the tavern.
Each afternoon they departed a little earlier. The rabbits decreased in
number, and finally, when two days running the A.D.C. had been able to
shoot nothing at all, the Division returned for good to the Chateau at
St Jans Cappel.
For this mercy the despatch riders were truly grateful. Sitting the
whole day in the tavern, we had all contracted bad headaches. Even
chess, the 'Red Magazine,' and the writing of letters, could do nothing
to dissipate our unutterable boredom. Never did we pass that tavern
afterwards without a shudder of disgust. With joyous content we heard a
month or two later that it had been closed for providing drinks after
hours.
Officially the grand attack had taken this course. The French to the
north had been held up by the unexpected strength of the German defence.
The 3rd Division on our immediate left had advanced a trifle, for the
Gordons had made a perilous charge into the Petit Bois, a wood at the
bottom of the Wytschaete Heights. And the Royal Scots had put in some
magnificent work, for which they were afterwards very properly
congratulated. The Germans in front of our Division were so cowed by our
magniloquent display of gunnery that they have remained moderately quiet
ever since.
After these December manoeuvres nothing of importance happened on our
front until the spring, when the Germans, whom we had tickled with
intermittent gunnery right through the winter, began to retaliate with
a certain energy.
The Division that has no history is not necessarily happy. There were
portions of the line, it is true, which provided a great deal of comfort
and very little danger. Fine dug-outs were constructed--you have
probably seen them in the illustrated papers. The men were more at home
in such trenches than in the ramshackle farms behind the lines. These
show trenches were emphatically the exception. The average trench on the
line during last winter was neither comfortable nor safe. Yellow clay,
six inches to four feet or more of stinking water, many corpses behind
the trenches buried just underneath the surface-crust, and in front of
the trenches not buried at all, inveterate sniping from a slightly
superior position--these are not pleasant bedfellows. The old Division
(or rather the new Division--the infantrymen of the old Division were
now pitifully few) worked right hard through the winter. When the early
spring came and the trenches were dry, the Division was sent north to
bear a hand in the two bloodiest actions of the war. So far as I know,
in the whole history of British participation in this war there has
never been a more murderous fight than one of these two actions--and
the Division, with slight outside help, managed the whole affair.
Twice in the winter there was an attempted _rapprochement_ between the
Germans and ourselves. The more famous gave the Division a mention by
"Eyewitness," so we all became swollen with pride.
On the Kaiser's birthday one-and-twenty large shells were dropped
accurately into a farm suspected of being a battalion or brigade
headquarters. The farm promptly acknowledged the compliment by blowing
up, and all round it little explosions followed. Nothing pleases a
gunner more than to strike a magazine. He always swears he knew it was
there the whole time, and, as gunners are dangerous people to quarrel
with, we always pretended to believe the tale.
There are many people in England still who cannot stomach the story of
the Christmas truce. "Out there," we cannot understand why. Good
fighting men respect good fighting men. On our front, and on the fronts
of other divisions, the Germans had behaved throughout the winter with a
passable gentlemanliness. Besides, neither the British nor the German
soldier--with the possible exception of the Prussians--has been able to
stoke up that virulent hate which devastates so many German and British
homes. A certain lance-corporal puts the matter thus:[26]--
"We're fightin' for somethink what we've got. Those poor beggars is
fightin' cos they've got to. An' old Bill Kayser's fightin' for
somethin' what 'e'll never get. But 'e will get somethink, and that's a
good 'iding!"[27]
We even had a sneaking regard for that "cunning old bird, Kayser Bill."
Our treatment of prisoners explains the Christmas Truce. The British
soldier, except when he is smarting under some dirty trick, suffering
under terrible loss, or maddened by fighting or fatigue, treats his
prisoners with a tolerant, rather contemptuous kindness. May God in His
mercy help any poor German who falls into the hands of a British soldier
when the said German has "done the dirty" or has "turned nasty"! There
is no judge so remorseless, no executioner so ingenious in making the
punishment fit the crime.
This is what I wrote home a day or two after Christmas: From six on
Christmas Eve to six in the evening on Christmas Day there was a truce
between two regiments of our Division and the Germans opposite them.
Heads popped up and were not sniped. Greetings were called across. One
venturesome, enthusiastic German got out of his trench and stood waving
a branch of Christmas Tree. Soon there was a fine pow-wow going on.
Cigars were exchanged for tobacco. Friendship was pledged in socks. The
Germans brought out some beer and the English some rum. Finally, on
Christmas Day, there was a great concert and dance. The Germans were
spruce, elderly men, keen and well fed, with buttons cleaned for the
occasion. They appeared to have plenty of supplies, and were fully
equipped with everything necessary for a winter campaign. A third
battalion, wisely but churlishly, refused these seasonable advances, and
shot four men who appeared with a large cask of what was later
discovered to be beer....
"The Div." were billeted in a chateau on the slope of a hill
three-quarters of a mile above St Jans Cappel. This desirable residence
stands in two acres of garden, just off the road. At the gate was a
lodge. Throughout the winter we despatch riders lived in two small rooms
of this lodge. We averaged fourteen in number. Two were out with the
brigades, leaving twelve to live, eat, and sleep in two rooms, each
about 15 ft. by 8 ft. We were distinctly cramped, and cursed the day
that had brought us to St Jans. It was a cruel stroke that gave us for
our winter quarters the worst billets we had ever suffered.
As we became inclined to breakfast late, nine o'clock parade was
instituted. Breakfast took place before or after, as the spirit listed.
Bacon, tea, and bread came from the cook. We added porridge and
occasionally eggs. The porridge we half-cooked the night before.
After breakfast we began to clean our bicycles, no light task, and the
artificers started on repairs. The cleaning process was usually broken
into by the arrival of the post and the papers of the day before.
Cleaning the bicycles, sweeping out the rooms, reading and writing
letters, brought us to dinner at 1.
This consisted of bully or fresh meat stew with vegetables (or
occasionally roast or fried meat), bread and jam. As we became more
luxurious we would provide for ourselves Yorkshire pudding, which we
discovered trying to make pancakes, and pancakes, which we discovered
trying to make Yorkshire pudding. Worcester Sauce and the invaluable
curry powder were never wanting. After dinner we smoked a lethargic
pipe.
In the afternoon it was customary to take some exercise. To reduce the
strain on our back tyres we used to trudge manfully down into the
village, or, if we were feeling energetic, to the ammunition column a
couple of miles away. Any distance over two miles we covered on
motor-cycles. Their use demoralised us. Our legs shrunk away.
Sometimes two or three of us would ride to a sand-pit on Mont Noir and
blaze away with our revolvers. Incidentally, not one of us had fired a
shot in anger since the war began. We treated our revolvers as
unnecessary luggage. In time we became skilled in their use, and
thereafter learnt to keep them moderately clean. We had been served out
with revolvers at Chatham, but had never practised with them--except at
Carlow for a morning, and then we were suffering from the effects of
inoculation. They may be useful when we get to Germany.
Shopping in Bailleul was less strenuous. We were always buying something
for supper--a kilo of liver, some onions, a few sausages--anything that
could be cooked by the unskilled on a paraffin-stove. Then after
shopping there were cafés we could drop into, sure of a welcome. It was
impossible to live from November to March "within easy reach of town"
and not make friends.
Milk for tea came from the farm in which No. 1 Section of the Signal
Company was billeted. When first we were quartered at St Jans this
section wallowed in some mud a little above the chateau.
Because I had managed to make myself understood to some German
prisoners, I was looked upon as a great linguist, and vulgarly credited
with a knowledge of all the European languages. So I was sent, together
with the Quartermaster-Sergeant and the Sergeant-Major, on billeting
expeditions. Arranging for quarters at the farm, I made great friends
with the farmer. He was a tall, thin, lithe old man, with a crumpled
wife and prodigiously large family. He was a man of affairs, too, for
once a month in peace time he would drive into Hazebrouck. While his
wife got me the milk, we used to sit by the fire and smoke our pipes and
discuss the terrible war and the newspapers. One of the most
embarrassing moments I have ever experienced was when he bade me tell
the sergeants that he regarded them as brothers, and loved them all. I
said it first in French, that he might hear, and then in English. The
sergeants blushed, while the old man beamed.
We loved the Flemish, and, for the most part, they loved us. When
British soldiers arrived in a village the men became clean, the women
smart, and the boys inevitably procured putties and wore them with
pride. The British soldier is certainly not insular. He tries hard to
understand the words and ways of his neighbours. He has a rough tact, a
crude courtesy, and a great-hearted generosity. In theory no task could
be more difficult than the administration of the British Area. Even a
friendly military occupation is an uncomfortable burden. Yet never have
I known any case of real ill-feeling. Personally, during my nine months
at the Front, I have always received from the French and the Belgians
amazing kindness and consideration. As an officer I came into contact
with village and town officials over questions of billets and
requisitions. In any difficulty I received courteous assistance. No
trouble was too great; no time was too valuable....
After tea of cakes and rolls the bridge-players settled down to a quiet
game, with pipes to hand and whisky and siphons on the sideboard. We
took it in turns to cook some delicacy for supper at 8--sausages,
curried sardines, liver and bacon, or--rarely but joyously--fish. At one
time or another we feasted on all the luxuries, but fish was rarer than
rubies. When we had it we did not care if we stank out the whole lodge
with odours of its frying. We would lie down to sleep content in a
thick fishy, paraffin-y, dripping-y atmosphere. When I came home I could
not think what the delicious smell was in a certain street. Then my
imagination struck out a picture--Grimers laboriously frying a dab over
a smoky paraffin-stove.
On occasions after supper we would brew a large jorum of good rum-punch,
sing songs with roaring choruses, and finish up the evening with a good
old scrap over somebody else's bed. The word went round to "mobilise,"
and we would all stand ready, each on his bed, to repel boarders. If the
sanctity of your bed were violated, the intruder would be cast
vigorously into outer darkness. Another song, another drink, a final
pipe, and to bed.
Our Christmas would have been a grand day if it had not been away from
home.
At eight o'clock there was breakfast of porridge, bacon and eggs, and
bloaters--everybody in the best of spirits. About nine the Skipper
presented us with cards from the King and Queen. Then the mail came in,
but it was poor. By the time we had tidied up our places and done a
special Christmas shave and wash, we were called upon to go down to the
cookhouse and sign for Princess Mary's Christmas gift--a good pipe, and
in a pleasant little brass box lay a Christmas card, a photograph, a
packet of cigarettes, and another of excellent tobacco.
It was now lunch-time--steak and potatoes.
The afternoon was spent on preparations for our great and unexampled
dinner. Grimers printed the menu, and while I made some cold curried
sardines, the rest went down into the village to stimulate the landlady
of the inn where we were going to dine.
In the village a brigade was billeted, and that brigade was, of course,
"on the wire." It was arranged that the despatch riders next on the list
should take their motor-cycles down and be summoned over the wire if
they were needed. An order had come round that unimportant messages were
to be kept until the morning.
We dined in the large kitchen of the _Maison Commune Estaminet_, at a
long table decorated with mistletoe and holly. The dinner--the result of
two days' "scrounging" under the direction of George--was too good to be
true. We toasted each other and sang all the songs we knew. Two of the
Staff clerks wandered in and told us we were the best of all possible
despatch riders. We drank to them uproariously. Then a Scotsman turned
up with a noisy recitation. Finally, we all strolled home up the hill
singing loudly and pleasantly, very exhilarated, in sure and certain
belief we had spent the best of all possible evenings.
In the dwelling of the Staff there was noise of revelry. Respectable
captains with false noses peered out of windows. Our Fat Boy declaimed
in the signal office on the iniquities of the artillery telegraphists.
Sadders sent gentle messages of greeting over the wires. He was still a
little piqued at his failure to secure the piper of the K.O.S.B., who
had been commandeered by the Staff. Sadders waited for him until early
morning and then steered him to our lodge, but the piper was by then too
tired to play.
Here is our bill of fare:--
CHRISTMAS, 1914.
DINNER
OF THE
TEN SURVIVING MOTOR-CYCLISTS OF THE
FAMOUS FIFTH DIVISION.
Sardins très Moutard.
Potage.
Dindon Rôti-Saucisses. Oise Rôti.
Petits Choux de Bruxelles.
Pommes de Terre.
Pouding de Noël Rhum.
Dessert. Café. Liqueurs.
_Vins._--Champagne. Moselle. Port.
Benedictine. Whisky.
On the reverse page we put our battle-honours--Mons, Le Cateau,
Crêpy-en-Valois, the Marne, the Aisne, La Bassée, the Defence of
Ypres.[28]
We beat the Staff on the sprouts, but the Staff countered by
appropriating the piper.
Work dwindled until it became a farce. One run for each despatch rider
every third day was the average. St Jans was not the place we should
have chosen for a winter resort. Life became monotonous, and we all with
one accord began applying for commissions. Various means were used to
break the monotony. Grimers, under the Skipper's instructions, began to
plant vegetables for the spring, but I do not think he ever got much
beyond mustard and cress. On particularly unpleasant days we were told
off to make fascines. N'Soon assisted the Quartermaster-Sergeant. Cecil
did vague things with the motor-lorry. I was called upon to write the
Company's War Diary. Even the Staff became restless and took to
night-walks behind the trenches. If it had not been for the generous
supply of "days off" that the Skipper allowed us, we should by February
have begun to gibber.
Despatches were of two kinds--ordinary and priority. "Priority"
despatches could only be sent by the more important members of the
Staff. They were supposed to be important, were marked "priority" in the
corner, and taken at once in a hurry. Ordinary despatches went by the
morning and evening posts. During the winter a regular system of
motor-cyclist posts was organised right through the British Area. A
message could be sent from Neuve Eglise to Chartres in about two days.
Our posts formed the first or last stage of the journey. The morning
post left at 7.30 A.M., and the evening at 3.30 P.M. All the units of
the division were visited.
If the roads were moderately good and no great movements of troops were
proceeding, the post took about 1-1/4 hours; so the miserable postman
was late either for breakfast or for tea. It was routine work pure and
simple. After six weeks we knew every stone in the roads. The postman
never came under fire. He passed through one village which was
occasionally shelled, but, while I was with the Signal Company, the
postman and the shells never arrived at the village at the same time.
There was far more danger from lorries and motor ambulances than from
shells.
As for the long line of "postmen" that stretched back into the dim
interior of France--it was rarely that they even heard the guns. When
they did hear them, they would, I am afraid, pluck a racing helmet from
their pockets, draw the ear-flaps well down over their ears, bend down
over their racing handle-bars, and sprint for dear life. Returning
safely to Abbéville, they would write hair-raising accounts of the
dangers they had passed through to the motor-cycling papers. It is only
right that I should here once and for all confess--there is no finer
teller of tall stories than the motor-cyclist despatch rider....
From December to February the only time I was under shell fire was late
in December, when the Grand Attack was in full train. A certain brigade
headquarters had taken refuge inconsiderately in advanced dug-outs. As I
passed along the road to them some shrapnel was bursting a quarter of a
mile away. So long was it since I had been under fire that the noise of
our own guns disturbed me. In the spring, after I had left the Signal
Company, the roads were not so healthy. George experienced the delights
of a broken chain on a road upon which the Germans were registering
accurately with shrapnel. Church, a fine fellow, and quite the most
promising of our recruits, was killed in his billet by a shell when
attached to a brigade.
Taking the post rarely meant just a pleasant spin, because it rained in
Flanders from September to January.
One day I started out from D.H.Q. at 3.30 P.M. with the afternoon post,
and reached the First Brigade well up to time. Then it began to rain, at
first slightly, and then very heavily indeed, with a bagful of wind. On
a particularly open stretch of road--the rain was stinging sharply--the
engine stopped. With a heroic effort I tugged the bicycle through some
mud to the side of a shed, in the hope that when the wind changed--it
did not--I might be under cover. I could not see. I could not grip--and
of course I could not find out what the matter was.
After I had been working for about half an hour the two artillery
motor-cyclists came along. I stopped them to give me a hand and to do as
much work as I could possibly avoid doing myself while preserving an
appearance of omniscience.
We worked for an hour or more. It was now so dark that I could not
distinguish one motor-cyclist from another. The rain rained faster than
it had ever rained before, and the gale was so violent that we could
scarcely keep our feet. Finally, we diagnosed a complaint that could not
be cured by the roadside. So we stopped working, to curse and admire
the German rockets.
There was an estaminet close by. It had appeared shut, but when we began
to curse a light shone in one of the windows. So I went in and settled
to take one of the artillery motor-cycles and deliver the rest of my
quite unimportant despatches. It would not start. We worked for twenty
minutes in the rain vainly, then a motor-cyclist turned up from the
nearest brigade to see what had become of me,--the progress of the post
is checked over the wire. We arranged matters--but then neither his
motor-cycle nor the motor-cycle of the second artillery motor-cyclist
would start. It was laughable. Eventually we got the brigade despatch
rider started with my report.
A fifth motor-cyclist, who discreetly did not stop his engine, took my
despatches back to "the Div." The second artillery motor-cycle we
started after quarter of an hour's prodigious labour. The first and mine
were still obstinate, so he and I retired to the inn, drank brandy and
hot water, and conversed amiably with madame.
Madame, who together with innumerable old men and children inhabited the
inn, was young and pretty and intelligent--black hair, sallow and
symmetrical face, expressive mouth, slim and graceful limbs. Talking
the language, we endeavoured to make our forced company pleasant. That
other despatch rider, still steaming from the stove, sat beside a
charming Flemish woman, and endeavoured, amid shrieks of laughter, to
translate the jokes in an old number of 'London Opinion.'
A Welsh lad came in--a perfect Celt of nineteen, dark and lithe, with a
momentary smile and a wild desire to see India. Then some Cheshires
arrived. They were soaked and very weary. One old reservist staggered to
a chair. We gave him some brandy and hot water. He chattered
unintelligibly for a moment about his wife and children. He began to
doze, so his companion took him out, and they tottered along after their
company.
A dog of no possible breed belonged to the estaminet. Madame called him
"Automobile Anglais," because he was always rushing about for no
conceivable reason.
We were sorry when at 9.50 the lorry came for the bicycles. Our second
driver was an ex-London cabby, with a crude wit expressed in impossible
French that our hostess delightfully parried. On the way back he told me
how he had given up the three taxis he had owned to do "his bit," how
the other men had laughed at him because he was so old, how he had met
a prisoner who used to whistle for the taxis in Russell Square. We
talked also of the men in the trenches, of fright, and of the end of the
war. We reached D.H.Q. about 10.30, and after a large bowl of porridge I
turned in.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] The soldier's contemptuous expression for the inhabitants of the
civilian world.
[26] I retired with some haste from Flanders the night after the Germans
first began to use gas. Militant chemistry may have altered the British
soldier's convictions.
[27] I have left out the usual monotonous epithet. Any soldier can
supply it.
[28] To these may now be added--St Eloi, Hill 60, the Second Battle of
Ypres.