BEHIND THE LINES.
I had intended to write down a full description of the country
immediately behind our present line. The Skipper, for fear we should
become stale, allowed us plenty of leave. We would make little
expeditions to Béthune for the baths, spend an afternoon riding round
Armentières, or run over to Poperinghe for a chop. We even arranged for
a visit to the Belgian lines, but that excursion was forbidden by a new
order. Right through the winter we had "unrivalled opportunities"--as
the journalists would say--of becoming intimate with that strip of
Flanders which extends from Ypres to Béthune. Whether I can or may
describe it is a matter for care. A too affectionate description of the
neighbourhood of Wulverghem, for instance, would be unwise. But I see no
reason why I should not state as a fact that a most excellent dry
Martini could be obtained in Ypres up to the evening of April 22.
Wretched Ypres has been badly over-written. Before the war it was a
pleasant city, little visited by travellers because it lay on a badly
served branch line. The inhabitants tell me it was never much troubled
with tourists. One burgher explained the situation to me with a comical
mixture of sentiment and reason.
"You see, sir, that our Cathedral is shattered and the Cloth Hall a
ruin. May those devils, the dirty Germans, roast in Hell! But after the
war we shall be the richest city in Belgium. All England will flock to
Ypres. Is it not a monstrous cemetery? Are there not woods and villages
and farms at which the brave English have fought like lions to earn for
themselves eternal fame, and for the city an added glory? The good God
gives His compensations after great wars. There will be many to buy our
lace and fill our restaurants."
Mr John Buchan and Mr Valentine Williams and others have "written up"
Ypres. The exact state of the Cloth Hall at any given moment is the
object of solicitude. The shattered Belgian homes have been described
over and over again. The important things about Ypres have been left
unsaid.
Near the station there was a man who really could mix cocktails. He was
no blundering amateur, but an expert with the subtlest touch. And in the
Rue de Lille a fashionable dressmaker turned her _atelier_ into a
tea-room. She used to provide coffee or chocolate, or even tea, and the
most delicious little cakes. Of an afternoon you would sit on
comfortable chairs at a neat table covered with a fair cloth and talk to
your hostess. A few hats daintily remained on stands, but, as she said,
they were last year's hats, unworthy of our notice.
A pleasant afternoon could be spent on the old ramparts. We were there,
as a matter of fact, to do a little building-up and clearing-away when
the German itch for destruction proved too strong for their more
gentlemanly feelings. We lay on the grass in the sun and smoked our
pipes, looking across the placid moat to Zillebeke Vyver, Verbranden
Molen, and the slight curve of Hill 60. The landscape was full of
interest. Here was shrapnel bursting over entirely empty fields. There
was a sapper repairing a line. The Germans were shelling the town, and
it was a matter of skill to decide when the lumbersome old shell was
heard exactly where it would fall. Then we would walk back into the town
for tea and look in at that particularly enterprising grocer's in the
Square to see his latest novelties in tinned goods.
From Ypres the best road in Flanders runs by Vlamertinghe to Poperinghe.
It is a good macadam road, made, doubtless by perfidious Albion's money,
just before the war.
Poperinghe has been an age-long rival of Ypres. Even to-day its
inhabitants delight to tell you the old municipal scandals of the larger
town, and the burghers of Ypres, if they see a citizen of Poperinghe in
their streets, believe he has come to gloat over their misfortunes.
Ypres is an Edinburgh and Poperinghe a Glasgow. Ypres was
self-consciously "old world" and loved its buildings. Poperinghe is
modern, and perpetrated a few years ago the most terrible of town halls.
There are no cocktails in Poperinghe, but there is good whisky and most
excellent beer.
I shall never forget my feelings when one morning in a certain
wine-merchant's cellar I saw several eighteen-gallon casks of Bass's
Pale Ale. I left Poperinghe in a motor-ambulance, and the Germans
shelled it next day, but my latest advices state that the ale is still
intact.
Across the road from the wine-merchant's is a delectable tea-shop. There
is a tea-shop at Bailleul, the "Allies Tea-Rooms." It was started early
in March. It is full of bad blue china and inordinately expensive. Of
the tea-shop at Poperinghe I cannot speak too highly. There is a vast
variety of the most delicious cakes. The proprietress is pleasant and
her maids are obliging. It is also cheap. I have only one fault to find
with it--the room is small. Infantry officers walk miles into Poperinghe
for their tea and then find the room crowded with those young subalterns
who supply us with our bully. They bring in bulldogs and stay a long
time.
Dickebusch used to be a favourite Sunday afternoon's ride for the
Poperinghe wheelers. They would have tea at the restaurant on the north
of Dickebusch Vyver, and afterwards go for a row in the little
flat-bottomed boats, accompanied, no doubt, by some nice dark Flemish
girls. The village, never very pleasant, is now the worse for wear. I
remember it with no kindly feelings, because, having spent a night there
with the French, I left them in the morning too early to obtain a
satisfactory meal, and arrived at Headquarters too late for any
breakfast.
Not far from Dickebusch is the Desolate Chateau. Before the war it was a
handsome place, built by a rich coal-merchant from Lille. I visited it
on a sunny morning. At the southern gate there was a little black and
shapeless heap fluttering a rag in the wind. I saluted and passed on,
sick at heart. The grounds were pitted with shell-holes: the
cucumber-frames were shattered. Just behind the chateau was a wee
village of dug-outs. Now they are slowly falling in. And the chateau
itself?
It had been so proud of its finery, its pseudo-Greek columns, and its
rich furnishings. Battered and confused--there is not a room of it which
is not open to the wind from the sea. The pictures lie prostrate on the
floor before their ravisher. The curtains are torn and faded. The papers
of its master are scattered over the carpet and on the rifled desk. In
the bedroom of its mistress her linen has been thrown about wildly; yet
her two silver brushes still lie on the dressing-table. Even the
children's room had been pillaged, and the books, torn and defaced, lay
in a rough heap.
All was still. At the foot of the garden there was a little village half
hidden by trees. Not a sound came from it. Away on the ridge miserable
Wytschaete stood hard against the sky, a mass of trembling ruins. Then
two soldiers came, and finding a boat rowed noisily round the tiny lake,
and the shells murmured harshly as they flew across to Ypres. Some ruins
are dead stones, but the broken houses of Flanders are pitifully
alive--like the wounded men who lie between the trenches and cannot be
saved....
Half a mile south from Dickebusch are cross-roads, and the sign-post
tells you that the road to the left is the road to Wytschaete--but
Wytschaete faces Kemmel and Messines faces Wulverghem.
I was once walking over the hills above Witzenhausen,--the cherries by
the roadside were wonderful that year,--and coming into a valley we
asked a man how we might best strike a path into the next valley over
the shoulder of the hill. He said he did not know, because he had never
been over the hill. The people of the next valley were strangers to him.
When first I came to a sign-post that told me how to get to a village I
could not reach with my life, I thought of those hills above
Witzenhausen. From Wulverghem to Messines is exactly two kilometres. It
is ludicrous.
Again, one afternoon I was riding over the pass between Mont Noir and
Mont Vidaigne. I looked to the east and saw in the distance the smoke of
a train, just as from Harrow you might see the Scottish Express on the
North-Western main line. For a moment I did not realise that the train
was German, that the purpose of its journey was to kill me and my
fellow-men. But it is too easy to sentimentalise, to labour the stark
fact that war is a grotesque, irrational absurdity....
Following the main road south from Dickebusch you cross the frontier and
come to Bailleul, a town of which we were heartily sick before the
winter was far gone. In peace it would be once seen and never
remembered. It has no character, though I suppose the "Faucon" is as
well known to Englishmen now as any hotel in Europe. There are better
shops in Béthune and better cafés in Poperinghe. Of the "Allies
Tea-Rooms" I have already written.
Bailleul is famous for one thing alone--its baths. Just outside the town
is a large and modern asylum that contains a good plunge-bath for the
men and gorgeous hot baths for officers. There are none better behind
the line. Tuesdays and Fridays were days of undiluted joy.
Armentières is sprawling and ugly and full of dirt--a correct and
middle-class town that reminded me of Bristol. In front of it are those
trenches, of which many tales wandered up and down the line. Here the
Christmas truce is said to have been prolonged for three weeks or more.
Here the men are supposed to prefer their comfortable trenches to their
billets, though when they "come out" they are cheered by the Follies and
the Fancies. On this section of the line is the notorious Plugstreet
Wood, that show-place to which all distinguished but valuable visitors
are taken. Other corps have sighed for the gentle delights of this
section of the line....
South-west from Armentières the country is as level as it can be. It is
indeed possible to ride from Ypres to Béthune without meeting any hill
except the slight ascent from La Clytte. Steenwerck, Erquinghem, Croix
du Bac, and, farther west, Merris and Vieux Berquin, have no virtue
whatsoever. There is little country flatter and uglier than the country
between Bailleul and Béthune.
One morning Huggie, Cecil, and I obtained leave to visit Béthune and the
La Bassée district. It was in the middle of January, three months after
we had left Beuvry. We tore into Bailleul and bumped along the first
mile of the Armentières road. That mile is without any doubt the most
excruciatingly painful _pavé_ in the world. We crossed the railway and
raced south. The roads were good and there was little traffic, but the
sudden apparition of a motor-lorry round a sharp corner sent that other
despatch rider into the ditch. Estaires, as always, produced much
grease. It began to rain, but we held on by La Gorgue and Lestrem,
halting only once for the necessary café-cognac.
We were stopped for our passes at the bridge into Béthune by a private
of the London Scottish. I rejoiced exceedingly, and finding Alec, took
him off to a bath and then to the restaurant where I had breakfasted
when first we came to Béthune. The meal was as good as it had been three
months before, and the flapper as charming.[29] After lunch we had our
hair cut. Then Cecil took us to the little blue-and-white café for tea.
She did play the piano, but two subalterns of the less combatant type
came in and put us to flight. A corporal is sometimes at such a
disadvantage.
We rode along the canal bank to Beuvry Station, and found that our
filthy old quarters had been cleaned up and turned into an Indian
dressing-station. We went on past the cross-roads at Gorre, where an
Indian battalion was waiting miserably under the dripping trees. The sun
was just setting behind some grey clouds. The fields were flooded with
ochreous water. Since last I had been along the road the country had
been "searched" too thoroughly. One wall of 1910 farm remained. Chickens
pecked feebly among the rest of it.
Coming into Festubert I felt that something was wrong. The village had
been damnably shelled--that I had expected--and there was not a soul to
be seen. I thought of the father and mother and daughter who, returning
to their home while we were there in October, had wept because a fuse
had gone through the door and the fireplace and all their glass had been
broken. Their house was now a heap of nothing in particular. The mirror
I had used lay broken on the top of about quarter of a wall. Still
something was wrong, and Huggie, who had been smiling at my puzzled
face, said gently in an off-hand way--
"Seen the church?"
That was it! The church had simply disappeared. In the old days riding
up from Gorre the fine tower of the church rose above the houses at the
end of the street. The tower had been shelled and had fallen crashing
through the roof.
We met a sapper coming out of a cottage. He was rather amused at our
sentimental journey, and warned us that the trenches were considerably
nearer the village than they had been in our time. We determined to push
on as it was now dusk, but my engine jibbed, and we worked on it in the
gloom among the dark and broken houses. The men in the trenches roused
themselves to a sleepless night, and intermittent rifle-shots rang out
in the damp air.
We rode north to the Estaminet de l'Epinette, passing a road which
forking to the right led to a German barricade. The estaminet still
lived, but farther down the road the old house which had sheltered a
field ambulance was a pile of rubbish. On we rode by La Couture to
Estaires, where we dined, and so to St Jans Cappel....
Do you know what the Line means? When first we came to Landrecies the
thought of the Frontier as something strong and stark had thrilled us
again and again, but the Frontier was feeble and is nothing. A man of
Poperinghe told me his brother was professor, his son was serving, his
wife and children were "over there." He pointed to the German lines. Of
his wife and children he has heard nothing for four months. Some of us
are fighting to free "German" Flanders, the country where life is dark
and bitter. Those behind our line, however confident they may be, live
in fear, for if the line were to retire a little some of them would be
cast into the bitter country. A day will come "when the whole line will
advance," and the welcome we shall receive then from those who have come
out of servitude!... There are men and women in France who live only for
that day, just as there are those in this country who would welcome the
day of death, so that they might see again those they love....
* * * * *
You may have gathered from my former letters that no friction took
place between the professional and amateur soldiers of the Signal
Company. I have tried all through my letters to give you a very truthful
idea of our life, and my account would not be complete without some
description of the Signal Company and its domestic affairs.
Think for a moment of what happened at the beginning of August. More
than a dozen 'Varsity men were thrown like Daniels into a den of
mercenaries. We were awkwardly privileged persons--full corporals with a
few days' service. Motor-cycling gave superlative opportunities of
freedom. Our duties were "flashy," and brought us into familiar contact
with officers of rank. We were highly paid, and thought to have much
money of our own. In short, we who were soldiers of no standing
possessed the privileges that a professional soldier could win only
after many years' hard work.
Again, it did not help matters that our Corps was a Corps of intelligent
experts who looked down on the ordinary "Tommy," that our Company had
deservedly the reputation of being one of the best Signal Companies in
the Army--a reputation which has been enhanced and duly rewarded in the
present war. These motor-cyclists were not only experimental
interlopers. They might even "let down" the Company.
We expected jealousy and unpleasantness, which we hoped to overcome by
hard work. We found a tactful kindness that was always smoothing the
rough way, helping us amusedly, and giving us more than our due, and a
thorough respect where respect was deserved. It was astonishing, but
then we did not know the professional soldier. During the winter there
was a trifle of friction over cooking, the work of the Signal Office,
and the use and abuse of motor-cycles. It would have been a
poor-spirited company if there had been none. But the friction was
transitory, and left no acid feeling.
I should like to pay my compliments to a certain commanding officer, but
six months' work under him has convinced me that he does not like
compliments. Still, there remains that dinner at the end of the war, and
then...!
The Sergeant-Major frightened us badly at first. He looked so much like
a Sergeant-Major, and a Sergeant-Major is more to be feared than the
C.O., or the General, or the A.P.M., or anybody else in this
disciplinary world. He can make life Hell or Heaven or a judicious
compromise. Our Sergeant-Major believed in the judicious compromise with
a tendency towards Heaven. When any question arose between professional
and amateur, he dealt with it impartially. At other times he was
inclined to let us work out our own salvation. I have always had a
mighty respect for the Sergeant-Major, but have never dared tell him so.
Perhaps he will read this.
The "Quarter-Bloke"[30] was a jewel. He was suddenly called upon to keep
us supplied with things of which he had never even heard the names. He
rose to the occasion like a hero or Mr Selfridge's buyer. Never did he
pass by an unconsidered trifle. One day a rumour went round that we
might get side-cars. That was enough for the Quarter-Bloke. He picked up
every large-sized tyre he thought might come in useful. The side-cars
came. There was a rush for tyres. The Quarter-Bloke did not rush. He
only smiled.
His great triumph was the affair of the leather jackets. A maternal
Government thought to send us out leather jackets. After tea the Q.-B.
bustled in with them. We rode out with them the next morning. The 2nd
Corps had not yet received theirs. We were the first motor-cyclists in
our part of the world to appear in flaring chrome. The Q.-B. smiled
again.
I always think the Quarter-Bloke is wasted. He ought to be put in charge
of the Looting Department of a large invading army. Do not
misunderstand me. The Q.-B. never "looted." He never stepped a
hair's-breadth outside those regulations that hedge round the
Quartermaster. He was just a man with a prophetic instinct, who, while
others passed blindly by, picked up things because they might come in
useful some day--and they always did. Finally, the Q.-B. was
companionable. He could tell a good story, and make merry decorously, as
befitted a Company Quartermaster-Sergeant.
Of the other sergeants I will make no individual mention. We took some
for better, and some for worse, but they were all good men, who knew
their job.
Then there was "Ginger," the cook. I dare not describe his personal
appearance lest I should meet him again--and I want to--but it was
remarkable. So was his language. One of us had a fair gift that way, and
duels were frequent, but "Ginger" always had the last word. He would
keep in reserve a monstrously crude sulphurous phrase with a sting of
humour in its tail, and, when our fellow had concluded triumphantly with
an exotic reference to Ginger's hereditary characteristics, Ginger would
hesitate a moment, as if thinking, and then out with _it_. Obviously
there was no more to be said.
I have ever so much more to tell about the Signal Company in detail and
dialogue. Perhaps some day I shall have the courage to say it, but I
shall be careful to hide about whom I am writing....
* * * * *
The "commission fever," which we had caught on the Aisne and, more
strongly, at Beuvry, swept over us late in January. Moulders, who had
lost his own company and joined on to us during the Retreat, had retired
into the quietude of the A.S.C. Cecil was selected to go home and train
the despatch riders of the New Armies.
There were points in being "an officer and a gentleman." Dirt and
discomfort were all very well when there was plenty of work to do, and
we all decided that every officer should have been in the ranks, but
despatch-riding had lost its savour. We had become postmen. Thoughts of
the days when we had dashed round picking-up brigades, had put
battalions on the right road, and generally made ourselves conspicuous,
if not useful, discontented us. So we talked it over.
Directing the operations of a very large gun seemed a good job. There
would not be much moving to do, because monster guns were notoriously
immobile. Hours are regular; the food is good, and can generally be
eaten in comparative safety. If the gun had a very long range it would
be quite difficult to hit. Unfortunately gunnery is a very technical
job, and requires some acquaintance with Algebra. So we gave up the
idea.
We did not dote on the cavalry, for many reasons. First, when cavalry is
not in action it does nothing but clean its stables and exercise its
horses. Second, if ever we broke through the German lines the cavalry
would probably go ahead of anybody else. Third, we could not ride very
well, and the thought of falling off in front of our men when they were
charging daunted us.
The sappers required brains, and we had too great an admiration for the
infantry to attempt commanding them. Besides, they walked and lived in
trenches.
Two of us struck upon a corps which combined the advantages of every
branch of the service. We drew up a list of each other's qualifications
to throw a sop to modesty, sent in our applications, and waited. At the
same time we adopted a slight tone of hauteur towards those who were not
potential officers.
One night after tea "Ginger" brought in the orders. I had become a
gentleman, and, saying good-bye, I walked down into the village and
reported myself to the officer commanding the Divisional Cyclists. I was
no longer a despatch rider but a very junior subaltern.
I had worked with the others for nearly seven months--with Huggie, who
liked to be frightened; with George the arch scrounger; with Spuggy, who
could sing the rarest songs; with Sadders, who is as brave as any man
alive; with N'Soon, the dashing, of the tender skin; with Fat Boy, who
loves "sustaining" food and dislikes frost; with Grimers and Cecil, best
of artificers; with Potters and Orr and Moulders and the Flapper.
I cannot pay them a more sufficient tribute than the tribute of the
Commander-in-Chief:--
"Carrying despatches and messages at all hours of the day and night, in
every kind of weather, and often traversing bad roads blocked with
transport, they have been conspicuously successful in maintaining an
extraordinary degree of efficiency in the service of communications....
No amount of difficulty or danger has ever checked the energy and ardour
which has distinguished their corps throughout the operations."
FINIS.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] I cannot remember the name of the restaurant. Go to the north-east
corner of the Square and turn down a lane to your right. It is the
fourth or fifth house on your right. In Béthune there is also, of
course, the big hotel where generals lunch. If you find the company of
generals a little trying go to the flapper's restaurant.
[30] Company Quartermaster-Sergeant, now a Sergeant-Major.
[Transcriber's Notes:
page 56: Comma changed to period in "La Cateau. A good many"
page 71: "off" changed to "of". "a great meal of lunch"
page 109: "reopend" to "reopened". "reopened with cheers."
page 166: changed "BASSEE" to "BASSÉE"
page 207: "that" changed to "than". "worse of surface than the main"
page 213: word "for" inserted into text. "go for walks"
page 246: period added after "Port."
page 261: "distinguised" changed to "distinguished". "to which all
distinguished"]
End of Project Gutenberg's Adventures of a Despatch Rider, by W. H. L. Watson