_June 6, 1916._
Well, here we are in the slowest train that ever limped, and I've been
to sleep for seven hours. The first good sleep since leaving England.
And now, as we've got twenty-eight hours to go still, there's time to
write a letter. The last three days' postcards have been scrappy and
unintelligible, but we departed without warning and with the most
Sherlock Holmes secrecy. Not a word about which ports we were sailing
from or to.
However, I'll tell you what I can without disclosing any names of
places.
After moving off at midnight from among the Hampshire pine-trees, we
eventually reached our port of departure. Great fun detraining the
horses and getting them on board. The men were in the highest spirits.
But how disgusting those cold rank smells of a dock are.
We sailed the following evening. Hideously rough, and it took seventeen
and a half hours. The men very quiet indeed and packed like sardines.
It was wonderful to think of all those eager souls in all those ships
making for France together over the black deep water. Some had gone
before, and some came after. But the majority went over that night. I
felt decidedly ill. And it was nervous work going round seeing after the
horses and men when a "crisis" might have occurred at any moment!
Luckily, however, dignity was preserved. Land at last "hove in sight" as
the grey morning grew paler and clearer. What busy-looking quays! More
clatter of disembarkation. No time to think or look about.
Then, all being ready, we mounted and trekked off to a so-called "rest
camp" near the town, most uneasy and hectic. But food late that evening
restored our hilarity. A few hours' sleep and we moved off once more
into the night, the horses' feet sounding loud and harsh on the unending
French cobbles. By 8 a.m. we were all packed into this train. Now we are
passing by lovely, almost English, wooded hills. Here a well-known town
with its cathedral looks most enticing. I long to explore. Such singing
from the men's carriages! Being farmers mostly, they are interested in
the unhedged fields and the acres of cloches. They go into hysterics of
laughter when the French people assail them with smiles, broken
English-French, and long loaves of bread. They think the long loaves
_very_ humorous! There are Y.M.C.A. canteens at most stations, so we are
well fed. The horses are miserable, of course. They were unhappy on
board ship. A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to. And
now they are wretched in their trucks, Rinaldo and Swallow are, of
course, terrified, while Jezebel, having rapidly thought out the
situation, takes it all very quietly. She has just eaten an enormous
lunch. Poor Rinaldo wouldn't touch his, and Swallow only ate a very
little.
[Sidenote: FRANCE AT LAST]
In this carriage Jorrocks is snoring like thunder. Edward is eating
chocolate. Sir John is trying to plough through one of "these Frenchy
newspapers--damned nonsense, you know! they don't know what it all means
themselves." And Julian is scrutinizing a map of our area.
Everyone is so glad to be going up right into it now. That pottering
about at home was most irritating. Just spit and polish, spit and polish
all the time since August, 1914.
We are all getting cramp, and have to stand up occasionally. Toby has
smoked his fourteenth pipe.
Oh, look! What a lovely rainbow! Treble. And under it a village with an
estaminet, a dozen slate-roofed houses, and a very new château, hideous
with scarlet bricks and chocolate draw-bridge and pepper-pot turrets.
Poplars and more poplars. Still we rumble along through symmetrical
France.
_June 7._
We are in one of the most lovely old French châteaux I have ever
imagined. Half château, half farm, fifteen miles behind the line. We
remain here for two or three days. Arrived late last night, tired and
grubby. But, O ye gods, when dawn began to reveal this old courtyard
with its hens and chickens and pigeons! On one side the old house with
its faded shutters. On the other side the old gateway with a square
tower and a pigeon-cote above. Along the other sides old barns. The
country round we have hardly seen, but it looks exquisite. There are
several most attractive foals in a field close by.
And inside the château funny old-fashioned things--old beds with frowsty
canopies, and old wall-papers with large designs in ferns and
cornucopias. Imitation marble in the hall. Gilded tassels. Alas! my kit
has not yet arrived. It's awful. And the anxiety to draw these things is
feverish. We go so soon.
When you look out of the rooms into the courtyard, you see our waggons
and draft-horses, and the men eating bully-beef like wolves. Some of
them (including Sergeant Cart) are shaving and washing stripped to the
waist. The others just tear at the bread and beef and munch without
speaking. Corporal Nutley and Corporal Field are pointing with their
tea-mugs to the old gateway and the ducks and things. They all evidently
love it. They sleep in the barns amongst the hay. The sun is warm and
sleepy.
_June 8._
[Sidenote: THE CHATEAU-FARM]
Still at this lovely château-farm, and Life seems to have gone into a
trance. I wake up and look out into the courtyard and the sunlight, on
geese, Muscovy ducks, pigs, and pigeons, and it all feels like a
half-forgotten story. There are traces of the Huns, but all that seems
unreal. You hear the boom! boom! boom! of the guns all day, and more so
at night; but nothing can disturb the extraordinary remote peace of this
château. The very stones in the courtyard look more friendly and more
countrified than ordinary stones, as if some ancient fairy lived here.
There's no doubt at all that the men feel it. Several of them have said
how they like the place. They think it's a little bit like ----shire. I
think I know what they mean.
After the war perhaps we may visit the place together: I should love
showing it to you. I'm not at all sure that it's really very beautiful.
The architecture isn't good when you consider it. But somehow....
_June 10._
The same château. We are living a simple and brainless life. No
field-days, of course, and for this relief much thanks. We don't know in
the least what is happening. Troops come and troops go, and guns go by
during the night, and Red Cross waggons go hither and thither, and the
old turkey gobbles.
Yesterday I was out with my troop, quite uninteresting. But what do you
think? Something exploded not 100 yards away from Rinaldo. I was much
farther off, dismounted. He didn't turn a hair, but only looked round
and watched the smoke. Whereas, as you know, a little bit of paper blown
across the road sends him into paroxysms of terror.
[Illustration: A CONFERENCE IN THE CHATEAU DE FEBVIN-PALFART
There are many of these old chateaux-farms in Northern France. The beds
are under great frowsy canopies and all the curtains are looped up with
heavy tassels.]
_June 11._
I went into an old church in a large town ten miles from here to-day
with Sergeant Hodge. There were the usual tinsel things and red baize
and sham flowers. Sergeant Hodge much impressed. He said after we
emerged: "You know, sir, it's very fine indeed. It puts me in mind of
a bazaar." This was in all good faith, and was intended as a great
compliment to the church! We are having lots of rain, which is bad for
the horses, who are picketed in the open. And thunder. It's often
extremely difficult to tell whether, when the thunder is far away, it is
thunder or guns. Quite a novel experience, and quite pleasant after the
long period of make-believe in England. Discipline. So salutary and so
irksome. Now for the battle. I own I long to get into the thick of it
soon. We see infantry returning and going up, and we feel sick, somehow,
to be still safe.
This country is very charming, but a bit monotonous. Every road and
every field exactly like every other.
_June 13._
[Sidenote: A SERVICE FOR KITCHENER]
A service to-day for Kitchener. And we had to ride fifteen miles there
in pouring rain. Then we stood in deep mud for about an hour, the rain
gradually trickling down our necks.
To-day delicious rumours of a German defeat at Verdun. Lots of
prisoners, including the Crown Prince!
Goodness me, such rain. Jezebel bit Swallow above the eye merely to show
what her feelings were. He now has one eye enormously swollen and
almost closed up. It is dressed with iodine, so he looks most
remarkable. His beauty much damaged. But it will only be temporary.
Hunt tells me that Swallow is so frightened of Jezebel he daren't lie
down at night. But then, Hunt thinks Jezebel a sort of Bucephalus, and
the more horses she kicks or bites the more pride he takes in her. He
has no love for Swallow, unfortunately.
There's a distant cannonade going on to-day. We all eye each other.
_June 17._
In the small-hours of to-night we leave this wonderful place. Why we
were ever sent here or why moved away is one of those mysteries only
known to a few staff officials.
But how we have loved it. At least I have. Some of the others--Jorrocks
for instance--have been bored. But, then, they couldn't draw, poor
dears. Do you know I have done three pictures. That's a lot in this
military life. One of the courtyard, with cocks and hens and things, and
in the distance men cleaning their saddles. Another of the vestibule,
with Julian and Edward consulting over some map or other at a table.
Another of a "fosse" or coal-pit about a mile away. A coal-pit sounds
repulsive, but not so in Northern France. They are away from all houses
and surrounded by corn-fields. The coal refuse is the curious part of
it. Up it comes from the main shaft and is piled up into a series of
large pyramids, visible for miles around. Many of the famous "redoubts"
are coal-refuse pyramids really. And such nice little chimneys.
Rinaldo--gone! Isn't it heartbreaking! An important person comes nosing
round, and asks for him. Sir John doesn't like to refuse. I am
powerless. Adieu, dear Rinaldo! One gets awfully fond of a horse.
Rinaldo was very naughty sometimes, but I loved him all the more for it.
And now his good looks have been disastrous. Oh that he had been uglier.
Isn't it maddening. Such a leaper, so fast, and such courage. Well,
perhaps I shall see him again.
_June 19._
[Sidenote: FEBVIN TO BAILLEUL]
At the last moment an order that we are not to go. Then late last night
an order to send on an advanced party of one officer and one sergeant
and two men immediately. So off I go with Sergeant Dobbin and Hunt and
Noad. We had to find billets and bivouacs for the squadron at a place
far from here. This we did, and the squadron has just arrived, and we
have had lunch and are feeling very fat indeed. We have just seen a
pretty aeroplane show. Six of them flew over our heads towards the
Boche, and presently puff, puff! went the little dark clouds of smoke
all amongst them. They then got too high and too far off for us to see,
but we still saw the Archie shells following them. First a flash in the
sky, then a very dark spot; then the spot grows larger and fluffier, and
becomes a dusky little cloud. So you see some flashes, some dark spots,
and some larger fluffy clouds--all on the wretched aeroplane's track.
Only two returned, alas! but they told us they had brought down three
Aviatiks.
We're moving with great rapidity up into colder climes. More anon.
_June 22._
I wrote a p.c. early this morning, as I thought I might get no other
chance. Things are all merry and bright. We have moved up like oiled
lightning from ---- to a rather famous place. Hedges and hop-fields.
Very interesting church--not hurt at all. We are suffering so (at least,
the poor men are) from thirst. There's no water anywhere. I long to gulp
down green pond water. However, that will be remedied shortly, I hope. I
went into the big town and bought a barrel of beer for the men. Tempting
Providence. But there's nothing else. The water isn't good even when
boiled. However, all will be well soon.
[Illustration: BAILLEUL
A peaceful place behind the battle.]
_June 23._
[Sidenote: MANY SMELLS AND NO WATER]
The most extraordinary things are happening. All very quiet and humdrum
on the surface. Only the aeroplanes are busy, and if the sun is between
you and them there are always the little black high Archie clouds
following them, like vultures appearing from nowhere.
Our quick bolt up here has had several pleasant results. First, the
country is very beautiful, more hilly in this immediate neighbourhood,
with great plains stretching away on all sides. The low hills all have
woods round them, and a windmill or a church on the top. Second, B
Squadron have already arrived, and our old Brigade-Major and lots of
other old friends. It was most joyous meeting them all again. We came
trotting down one road, covered with dust, and they came trotting down
another road even more covered with dust, having trekked all day.
Isn't it funny. One gets so quickly used to things that already we have
ceased to notice the smells, which at first made us wield bottles of
disinfectant wherever we went. But now, when the farms and outhouses and
other places where we live smell, we merely laugh, and "fatigues" are
all at work automatically before nightfall, and by next morning--well,
the smells have not gone, but the general feeling is that a good start
has been made.
The water problem is still unsolved, and we get very thirsty; but thirst
is a small fleabite, after all. "Which would you rather have," I asked a
discontented lance-corporal, "a bit of a thirst or a dentist drilling a
hole down a pet nerve?" And he owned he'd rather have a thirst. You
know, it's most awkward. They come to you when there's any difficulty
and seem to think you can put things right always. For instance, a man
came up the other day: "Please, sir, I've lost my haversack." "When did
you miss it first?" "Between ---- and ----, sir." "Now what do you want
me to do?" "I don't know, sir." "Do you want me to go back to ---- and
search the whole of the twenty odd miles to ---- on the off chance of
finding it?" "No, sir." "Do you want to do so yourself?" "No, sir." "And
even if I ordered you to go, do you think that, with so many troops
about, you would be likely to find it still there?" "No, sir."
The result is, of course, that I have to buy one for the unfortunate lad
in the nearest town. One must eat. And our haversacks are our larders.
Haversacks are supplied by the army, but it takes such a time to get
anything, that, if the matter is urgent, it has to be done without the
army. We (the bloomin' orficers) have a "mess-cart" for all our absurd
wines and tinned peaches and things, but the men often have nothing but
the contents of their haversacks.
_June 25._
[Sidenote: READY FOR THE PUSH]
We are in a funny state of waiting for something to happen. Rumours
flying about all the time. We live on them--a bite off one, a slice off
another, a merry-thought off another. And so we learn the news of the
world. Papers when we get a chance of going into some town, and then
only two days old, or else French, which are very scrappy. Often we get
no news at all for three or four days, except what some passing
ambulance will vouchsafe. And usually they don't really know much. So
when there's an extra heavy strafing or an extra quiet lull we learn
that the entire German staff has been captured, or Rheims evacuated, or
Holland sunk, or something else equally strange. The M.G.'s were
hammering away furiously last night, and the whole line was lovely with
star shells hanging like arc lights in the air, and then dropping slowly
to earth. They light up everything like immense moons.
_June 28._
Starting from the farm where the horses are hidden at nine o'clock last
night (twenty-one, as we call it out here), after a hot meal, we
marched through Bedfordshire-like country, along ascending paths, to the
bottom of a wooded hill where a motor lorry with picks and shovels met
us. Thence along a narrow muddy path through a wood. The path circles
round the hill. The east side of the hill faces the Boche front line. It
was still quite light. The undergrowth thick and dank. Our fellows very
merry. The Boches know this path, which is pitted with shell holes. They
shell the place by day, oddly enough, but hardly ever by night.
It was raining gently. Turtle-doves continually crossed our way. I felt
much intrigued. A very weird wood. The guns crashed lethargically,
intermittently.
When we got round to the east side of the hill, the R.E.'s, who were
acting as guides, comforters, and friends, showed us what we were to do:
to dig a line of trench 6 feet deep, and as narrow as might be, for some
cables that were to lead into a very important set of dug-outs for
certain pink and gold people.
The dug-outs are deep in the side of the hill. It's what is called an
advanced H.Q.--_i.e._, when the Push begins, the gilded ones will crawl
in and rap out messages to the various commanders, and watch the battle.
The R.E. officers showed us what was wanted, and each man put in his
pick or shovel to mark the line. This is the procedure: each pick or
shovel about 2 yards apart, and each man delves on that spot till he is
6 feet down. If it were not done like this, then (when it became too
dark to see) the line would be lost. This only applies fully, of course,
when you are in woods or other cover. Digging isn't really a cavalry
job. But what of that?
[Sidenote: TRENCH DIGGING]
Well, now we've started. It's about ten o'clock, and getting very dim.
Drizzle, drizzle, drizzle. Humphry and I creep up (neglectful of duty)
to the top of the hill. A tiny tower there, smashed to pieces, but
beautiful in the twilight. We creep about amongst shell craters.
Presently a strange sweet odour. Flowers? Impossible. We stare into the
dusk. An exquisite faint scent all around us. Surely, surely, thyme?
Yes, sweet-williams, thyme. Evidently there has been a cottage here, but
now only a mass of rubble and beams and glass to show where once it was.
Sweet-williams, thyme, and later some Canterbury bells. Another
dream-place, like that old château-farm.
What a view from here of the German lines and ours! As it gets darker,
the flashes of the guns and the Very lights' solemn brilliance
illuminate the whole show like a map. That tragic ruin of a town on our
left is being shelled as usual. Jim is there. In front of us the German
salient. All comparatively quiet. How lovely it is! The sounds of our
men digging in the wet soil mingle now with other small noises. Voices
underground. Listen. And a mouth-organ's cheery bray coming from the
bowels of the earth. It is pitch-dark. We stand up like Generals
surveying the battle-field. No danger. The Boche does not waste
ammunition.
The rain is very heavy. I have got a tuft of sweet-william to smell.
We return to the men. They are wet through, but quite happy and content.
Not a bullet, not a scrap of anything that goes pop. They work in a
warm, wet peace. That is one of the odd things you learn--that only
certain places are dangerous, and usually only at certain times.
The rain is coming down with tropical intensity. I am in a misty dream.
It's all so mysterious. Suddenly I fall over something--plonk into the
middle of some excavated earth, which the rain has made into semolina
pudding. Tiresome to be absent-minded. How it pours! Midnight.
The roots of the trees make it very difficult to dig tidily, but the men
use their "billucks" with the unerring skill of farmers, and their
spades and picks as you or I would use a pencil. Time goes on. The
trench must be done before 2.30 a.m. We have to be gone before dawn. It
is nearly done now. Half-past twelve. The rain is stopping. One o'clock.
No, it isn't. It's coming down again. Half-past one. The trench is
finished. We must cover up all signs of it with branches, lest the wily
Taube should see, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.
A quarter to two.
[Sidenote: A STRAFE]
Suddenly crash! bang! clash! boom! bang! We almost jump out of our
skins. Where the deuce were all those guns hidden? From all about us,
and far away behind and on either flank, our guns have begun strafing.
The most hideous and deafening din.
The ground seems to shake. Then an order comes that we are to clear out
at once. We do so. The Boches haven't answered yet, but they will. The
whole thing seems quite unreal. The men vastly entertained. I honestly
felt as if I were at some exciting melodrama. The least cessation of the
guns, and I found myself saying: "Don't stop! don't stop!" I shouted
into Corporal Nutley's car: "Can you hear what I'm saying?" and he
answered: "No, sir."
At last we got out into the little path, and had to double along through
the mud. Humphry was last man out, and he saw the one and only shell
the Boches sent over, exploding quite close to the aforementioned
dug-out.
Isn't it funny. The Boches don't apparently know of this dug-out, or of
the cable trenches, or they would, of course, smash it to pieces. And,
for some reason that I haven't yet grasped, they never reply to our guns
immediately. They wait for perhaps ten minutes, and _then_ they don't
always reply to the same spot we spoke from. As, for example, this wood.
Our guns were all in and round about the wood. The Boches apparently
strafed back at an unoffending village on the west side of the hill.
So, with our guns still behaving like things delirious, we eventually
reached the horses. Jezebel was quietly gorging herself with long
luscious grass beside the hedge. She told me she hadn't noticed anything
unusual. Poor Swallow was standing quite still, with his nostrils wide
open, breathing hard and trembling all over. A good many horses were
trembling, but the majority agreed with Jezebel: "It's only some silly
nonsense on the part of those Human Beings again. Don't listen."
Then we saddled up and rode back to a place well behind, where we could
exercise the beasties. They had been given no exercise for three days.
And so home again to this farm. The horses are all in a field surrounded
by trees, and couldn't be seen from above at all. I have seen lots
of other horse-lines of other units, though, much closer to the front
than this is--quite open to view. The fact is, I think, that Hun
aircraft very seldom indeed gets across into our preserves.
[Illustration: LE MONT DES CATS
Near YPRES
In the early days of the war spies used to signal from the monastery on
the top of this hill. The country round about is quite flat and
water-logged.]
_July 6._
[Sidenote: THE ROADS NEAR DRANONTRE]
Overnight it appears in orders that the roads from ---- to ---- via ----
are to be reported on with reference to their suitability for heavy
transport, guns, cavalry, infantry, etc.
So after an early breakfast Hunt comes round, with Swallow for me and
Jezebel for himself, haversack rations for us both, and feeds for the
horses. I feel very much on the qui-vive, as I haven't seen that
particular part before.
A grey warm day. Some miles to go due south before we get near our
destination. As we approach it we find, as usual, roads and railways
being made, and fatigue-parties repainting tents with blotches and
stripes. Then come notices, "No traffic along this road," or, "This road
liable to be shelled," with signboards at every corner, "To ----" or
some other place in the trenches. Sometimes the notices say
"Something-or-other Avenue" or "Burlington Arcade," etc.--nicknames, but
recognized officially. And all the time we are passing endless lorries
and Red Cross waggons and troops and dug-out camps. As we get closer the
signs of shelling get worse, and children are seen no longer. Old men,
though, occasionally observed working in a field quite unperturbed.
Rarely a French soldier or an interpreter with his sphinx badges. All
this quite lost on Hunt, who has "quite got used to abroad, thank you,
sir." He is eating chocolate or something, half a horse-length (the
correct distance) behind me.
Now on our left is a famous ridge, with a ruined village on the top.
Not, you understand, a ridge in the Swiss sense, but rather in the
Norfolk sense. I should like to go and see it, but it's too open to the
Boche's eye, and I don't want to dismount yet. So we curve round
right-handed a bit. Aha! "To ----." Nous voilà! Follow down this muddy
track under cover of the ridge, and we arrive at ----. A wood just
beyond the little town. Oh, mournful wood! "Bois épais, redouble ton
ombre." But they say the anemones and the primroses were as merry and
sweet as ever this spring. Bravo little wood!
The village is, of course, evacuated by all inhabitants. The houses all
in ruins. By now all the remaining windows have been boarded up and the
blown-out doors barred against prying eyes. Here we are at an old
estaminet called "Aux Coeurs joyeux." There's hardly anything but the
sign left. At the cross-roads in the centre of the town is the church,
so dismal. No roof, pillars broken and lying about the floor amongst
débris of broken images, chairs, and muddy rubble.
[Sidenote: PLOEGSTEERT]
As I am coming out I turn over the hand of an image, and underneath it
what the deuce is this? Why, a fragment of an old picture, torn and
decaying away. What shall I do? Leave it to rot? Give it to ... Yes,
exactly ... to whom? And would anyone thank me for it? Just a head of
St. John, very battered and faded. It's a fragment about a foot square,
and through all the mud one can see something like this: A head of St.
John in the corner; rays of light (two very thin small rays) shining on
him, and a look of great suffering on his face. The background a sort of
dull ochre. Evidently once a large composition. There are two books, one
with EVAN, and the other with, I think, BIBLIA SACRA,
written on it. It is quite worthless except from a sentimental point of
view.
The exposure and the heat of the explosions have sadly cracked and
peeled the paint, but it seems vaguely symbolical. Near here I picked up
some minute bits of green glass.
However, there was a notice: "It is dangerous to loiter here." So I tore
myself away, and we remounted. The Boche can't see into the town
because of the remaining buildings, but the whole place is utterly
empty--not a dog even.
Soon the road to the next village _is_ exposed to the Boche's view.
Therefore canvas screens about 20 feet high have been erected, so that,
if necessary, troops, and even lorries, can hurry by. It is most
curious. "But for that thin bit of canvas, my good Swallow, you would
get something into your tummy you wouldn't like," I remarked. At that
moment the sun came out. We were keeping to the side of the road where
it is soft going. Suddenly Swallow leaped like a stag into the middle of
the road all over the _pavé_. Panic terror. He had seen the shadow of a
starling flit across his path!
Jezebel was tittuping along behind, thinking only of her next feed. I
cannot get her to take any interest in these thrilling spots. Sometimes
a soldier or two would emerge from a cellar, the entrance to which would
be piled up with sand-bags. And once or twice bang! bang! goes a gun
quite close by.
Well, so we go through the next deserted and wrecked village, again out
of sight of the Boche, because of the ruins and a few trees. Then into a
very famous town indeed, and across a river three times by three
different bridges--not the old bridges, which are broken down, but
sapper-built bridges. Here is a party going into the trenches just on
the far side of the town. They look distinctly cheery, and are all of
the same ripe brown. Thence right-handed again and gradually back to
civilization, or, rather, to life first and civilization some way
behind. Eventually people strolling about and shops. I bought a pair of
those jolly French-tartan stockings for little Bun. With a grey dress
they will look most charming, I think.
[Sidenote: ARMENTIERES]
Again masses of soldiers with their field-kitchens in muddy fields from
which all traces of grass have been stamped long ago. And the
everlasting mule. There are mules everywhere out here.
Such attractive cottages, white with green shutters, and sometimes
little Dutch gardens. Many windmills, several pigeons always fluttering
round each. A lorry in a ditch. A roadside canteen, with perhaps an
A.S.C. camp near by. Fields and fields of corn and every other crop
under the sun. I long to sketch, but feel slightly nervous of so doing
so far from camp. I don't want to be arrested as a spy. We are
practically out of the danger area by now, but you never know. Some
boring A.P.M. might pounce on the sketch and create a botheration.
Meantime I have been laboriously making pretty maps to present to Sir
John, coloured maps showing where such and such a rise of ground could
be held, or where such and such a road offers difficulties to transport,
etc. But it's not easy to do, and we don't get back to camp till five
minutes before stables, having covered about thirty miles. Besides, we
had to stop and feed ourselves and the horses.
Then stables. Sergeant Hodge reprimanded for not having reported a bad
kick. Southcombe slacking a bit. Must keep an eagle eye on that young
man. At the end a whistle (no trumpets allowed). The horses all neigh
and toss their heads and paw. Nosebags are put on, and after touring
round to see that all is correct we slope off to tea, which Hale and Co.
have got all ready. Luxurious ménage as of yore. But good when you're
hungry, there's no doubt. We are moving again--probably to-morrow.
_July 10._
We have moved. The sixth time altogether. Not far though. A close view
of the sweet-william hill. It must be sketched.
I am sitting on some sacks of corn, wondering why Fritz doesn't lob over
a crump or two, just to wake us up. Jezebel is gorging herself close by.
Swallow eats a bit, and then suddenly looks up and sniffs nervously. I
suppose he has heard a beetle trotting by, or seen a twig fall off a
tree.
The horses are all picketed out in a field, and we are in bivvies. Hale
has made me a bed out of some poles and wire netting, as he says it is a
clay subsoil and I mustn't lie on the grass. I suppose he knows.
_July 12._
[Sidenote: THE HORSES]
I'm writing this in a queer dilapidated mud cottage, inhabited by an
ancient ex-soldier aged eighty-three. He is very difficult to
understand. His language is quite foreign to me. But he owns the
quaintest little doll-like image of the Virgin in a glass case, and
several Bristol balls! I nearly fell flat when I saw them. His
grandfather, I think he says, was in England once. The cottage is quite
close to our present camp, and we go in for meals when it's very wet.
The bed Hale made me is growing into a house. He has discovered various
old sacks, bits of tarred felt, and planks, and the place is becoming a
most attractive little abode.
Then you must imagine an old wild-cherry tree, and lots of young oaks
and elders, etc., all round. Jezebel and Swallow live close by. Jezebel
has acquired a new trick. You know she doesn't like having her tummy
groomed. Well, now (especially, of course, when it's very muddy) she
waits till Hunt has finished dressing her, and then, as soon as his back
is turned, she lies down and rolls. Hunt is in despair. He used to be
really fond of her. But now I believe he'd kill her if he could,
sometimes. All his labour entirely and ridiculously in vain. I'm
convinced that she does it on purpose, because she always chooses just
the moment when he has achieved a beautiful polish on her, and either
has to go off to breakfast or else to get the saddle or something. It's
as good as a play.
We are learning the "tactical" merits of all the roads and woods and
hills (such as they are) all along our sector of front, and as much as
we can, with field-glasses, of the other side. An offensive. What fun.
But exactly where are we going to offend? Rumours everywhere. If, we
say, that village or that ridge has to be taken from this or that
unexpected position, how shall we do it? Suppose we get Fritz on the
hop, as they have near Peronne. Where are the most covered approaches to
the slopes of that hill? Shall we carry the thing off as splendidly as
those squadrons did before Peronne, or shall we bungle the show? You'll
see.
We get so few papers here, and only two days old at that, but no one
seems much the worse for it.
[Sidenote: NEUVE EGLISE]
Only one solitary man with lice so far. The man has been sent away, and
is, I hear, to be given sulphur baths and scrubbed with a scrubbing
brush.
Oh, I was going to say just now--_re_ reconnoitring--that we were doing
all the ground about a village where there is a church even more smashed
than the St. John place. It is on a hill, and all the village is Sahara.
The church remains with the remnants of four outside walls and the
tower. Fritz does not destroy the tower, as it is a good spot for him to
range on to. And outside the tower, right up at the top, is the bronze
minute-hand of the old clock. The rest of the clock-face has been blown
into the middle of the church, and lies there nearly complete amidst a
crumbled heap of pillars and mortar and chair-legs and pulpit fragments.
One notice on a house amused me so, and the troop too. It says, "Do not
_touch_ this house." The reason being rather obvious. For if you did
touch the house, it would certainly fall on to your head. The next shell
will bring it down, even if it's a couple of hundred yards away, merely
by the vibration. We find shell holes so useful for watering the horses.
They seem to retain water in a most curious way.
_July 19._
On the move again. A four days' trek. Not more than twenty miles a day,
in order to keep the horses "in the pink." They are certainly very fit
now, and a gentle twenty miles a day just keeps them nicely exercised.
But twenty miles _at a walk_ is not overexciting. Still, it is
interesting to be covering the ground. We already know quite a lot of
the back of the front. Last night we arrived in a cool lull after
showers. From quiet and uneventful stretches of hedgeless corn-fields,
intersected by long straight roads, lined sometimes with poplars, but
more often with lopped wych-elms or willows, we descended rather
suddenly into a little wooded valley where a village sits by the trouty
stream. After watering the horses at the stream, we filed by squadrons
into various fields and picketed down for the night. Some of us in a
small but clean estaminet, others in barns.
A very peaceful trek, quite different from the dazzling swoop that was
threatened.
_July 20._
Am I telling you about the things you want to hear? Usually I think I've
talked mostly about our surroundings, doings, and only to a very small
extent about our thoughts. But, truth to relate, we think so little
that there is not much in that line to record. On this job you just
can't think. And a good thing too, perhaps.
[Sidenote: FLESSELLES]
However, here we are, and here I expect we shall remain for, say, a
week. The horses are all right out in the open. The men are in barns.
But we are in cottages--real, almost English-looking cottages. Edward
and I share a room in one, and the others are dotted about the village.
Now, this is the cottage:
From the high street (the only street) you turn into a little gate, and
then walk down a path of brick with a narrow flower border on either
side, and vegetables beyond. The cottage is white, with lace curtains
and brick floors, without carpets, like all French cottages. The walls
have endless pictures of saints and things, with occasional crucifixes
and school certificates and faded photographs of people in stiff dresses
and crimped hair.
Out at the back more kitchen-garden with some fruit-trees.
Altogether quite a charming little place. Dusty and rather flat open
country intersected by deepish valleys, not unlike the Cirencester road
if you removed all the woods, or nearly all. We don't, of course, know
what we are going to do now.
_July 23._
Things is curiouser and curiouser. In all haste we got ready to move. We
then moved like tortoises. I rode over to ---- yesterday. Cavalry all
over the place like locusts. And, lawks! what a din! Guns in a violent
paroxysm of rage. Aeroplanes wandering about in the sky, purring like
angry panthers, all yellow in the sunlight. And all day and night more
dusty men and dusty horses and dusty lorries and dusty guns coming and
going, coming and going.
The other squadron at last quite close to us. Long talks with Dennis.
He's had an exciting time, and was under orders for a most hair-raising
job, which didn't come off owing to Fritz's tiresome habit of doing the
unexpected. Horrors! The General has been trying Swallow. I fear he may
steal him. Of course he has every right to any horse in the regiment,
but it is quite difficult to smile. Swallow is, unfortunately, even more
showy than Rinaldo was; but he shied at a goat, bless him, and I think
that may just turn the scale. I shall now proceed to train Swallow to
shy at every blade of grass, every grain of sand. Long live that goat!
We are still "standing by." It is a wearing existence. I bathed
yesterday in a well-known river. So beautiful and willowy.
_July 28._
[Sidenote: A BATH]
Temperature 100,000°! And I am lying on a bed in a wee cottage, very,
very dusty and dirty. Hale, however, is going to bring some water from
the pump, and, oh Jerusalem, won't it be heavenly--a bath! All these
things off, and lovely clean things on, and lovely coffee to drink when
that's done. I wouldn't change the prospects of the next half-hour for
all the pearls and peacocks of Araby--no, not if you offered me the
Peace of Europe! Europe be blowed! I want my bath.
You see, it's like this: The corps H.Q. moved to a different area some
days ago, preceded by us. Everything in the area left in an utterly
unorganized, uncatalogued condition. We have to tear round and find out
where the various divisions can go.
And we have _got_ to find room for more divisions than have ever
occupied this area before. Useless to come back and report that such and
such villages have no water for men or horses. The water has got to be
found. Dig for it. Organize fatigue-parties and dig. Dam up little
trickles by the roadside until quite large ponds are formed. Get the
engineers and pioneers on to it. Labour battalions--anything. So I've
been riding madly about, and I'm like a treacle pudding in a
sand-storm.
The bath! Hale, you are a most excellent fellow. That'll do splendidly.
Have you got my towel?... INTERVAL.... And now, dear friends,
it is another man that you see before you. A man who has had a bath. A
man less like a bit of oily motor-waste, and more like Sir George
Alexander. This delicious coffee, too! A bowl of it, made by Mme.
Whatever-her-name-is. I take it up in both hands and quaff it. Here's to
You and to Home, and to Everybody--and (just to show there's no ill
feeling) here's to the poor old Boche!
_July 29._
In the same cottage.
It's very hot. Ammunition lorries go by in an endless string, making the
deuce of a dust. But we are far away from guns and gun food and noise. I
got leave to go up to ---- yesterday.
I do dislike noise so, don't you? The noise of a battery in action is
diabolical, and the very thought of it makes me shiver. There go the
senseless lorries, all packed with music for a more hellish orchestra
than you can remotely imagine. The first few bars are enough to drive
you nearly frantic. It's unholy. It seems to split your head and
tear your ears out of their sockets. Can you understand a noise that
hits you? Hits unbearably, and then again. Crashes on to you. Bangs your
bones out of your skin, till you feel dazed and sick.
Still the lorries go by.
[Illustration: FRICOURT CEMETERY
The moon and some signal lights over FRICOURT. LA
BOISELLE just over the hill. French crosses all bent and twisted.
The little chapel still standing.]
_August 3._
[Sidenote: GUNS AT FRICOURT]
I hear the General doesn't like Swallow, so there's a good chance of his
returning. When you get angry with Swallow, he loses control of his legs
altogether, and they all fly about in every direction. He is quite like
Rinaldo in character,--not so perpetually fidgety, but as nervous, and
more easily frightened. Jezebel is showing her worth now like a Trojan.
She knows she has to make up for the loss of Swallow (whom I think she
rather misses). She is behaving splendidly. She is blatantly well, and
obeys all orders like clockwork; never tired; always hungry--a model.
The other mare, Moonlight, a dark brown, seems to be somehow exhausted.
I think she has had a very hard time of it, and has been wounded in the
foot. Her foot is all right now, but she seems to have no life left in
her. The war has utterly beaten her. Hunt is grazing and grooming and
petting her all day. So she may pick up. At present she is somehow
rather pathetic. She was with the Indian cavalry before she got
wounded. And then she went to a veterinary hospital. She is well made,
and may possibly brighten up. Hunt declares that she has "lost all her
courage." I'm glad I'm not a horse.
_August 5._
This is such an amazing country and in such an amazing condition. I
could collect a Harrod's Stores in a day--interesting and useful things,
too. But it's impossible to carry things about. One daren't overload the
horses, and one daren't overload the transport. Both are so heavy laden,
as it is.
The signal job is quite interesting, really, and the Colonel gives me an
absolutely free hand.
Jezebel and Co. are driven distracted by the horse-flies. I took Jezebel
into a stream to-day, but she started to sit down! So the flies must
just bite, I fear. Large grey brutes.
Hunt made me laugh so last night. I was looking round the horses with
Edward. They were waiting to be fed with their evening hay. To my
surprise and pleasure, Moonlight suddenly neighed. "Evidently getting
her appetite back," I remarked. "Oh yes, sir," says Hunt; "several
times I've caught her _hollerin'_ for her meals lately!" Isn't that a
lovely expression?
[Sidenote: JEZEBEL IN ONE OF HER MOODS]
Hunt is such a good chap. He thinks nothing of "abroad," but a lot of
the "'osses," as he calls them. I found him what seemed to me a very
nice loft to sleep in when we got here. But no: "I'd rather sleep with
my 'osses, sir, thank you." And he sleeps practically under their noses.
"You see, sir, the mare might get one of her moods on."
He is getting very fond of Jezebel now, and whenever she errs, he
attributes the error to one of her moods.
She tore her nosebag to pieces the other day; whether because she was
hungry and it was empty, or because it amused her, or because she was
being bitten by a fly, I don't know. No one seems to have seen her do
it. "One of her moods," says Hunt; and that's all there is to be said
about the incident.
My dear, this country is most enchanting. Far away from nasty noises,
full of unexpected wooded valleys and willowy streams.
All the little shrines are, as usual, surrounded by half-clipped trees.
And the wild-flowers. Clear pale blue succory is the most charming of
all, and I am going to send you some plants as soon as they have ceased
flowering.
_August 6._
You can't think how difficult it is to take any interest in military
matters sometimes. The inclination to let things slide. The feeling that
an order is not so terrifying as it once was; that after all, who will
know or bother if one furtive subaltern creeps out one evening to
sketch?
_August 8._
Do you know, it's unintelligent, but I do so enjoy being here away from
the fevers of war. War is getting tedious, and the summer is all too
short.
Swallow is coming back. Isn't it splendid! The General finds him too
irritating and tiresome. Jezebel will be glad, for she doesn't like the
ghost-horse Moonlight, and she never really disliked Swallow. I can't
say she liked him, because she likes no one, dear lamb. But she used to
look on Swallow with rather less suspicion, somehow. And Swallow has a
habit of licking that she approves of. I have often seen her snap at him
even while he is licking her; but he always continues after a moment. I
think it soothes her when the flies are tiresome.
This place has a beautiful church, which I have drawn. It's quite an
unusually charming bit of the country.
_August 11._
[Sidenote: DOMART]
Jezebel did such an astonishing thing yesterday. I was out with the
signallers practising. We didn't want the bother of holding or picketing
the horses. So I ordered "off-saddle," and then put a guard over the
disused quarry where I had decided to leave them. The quarry had a
grassy floor, and walls of chalk that in one place were only about 7
foot high. Jezebel has been so good (for her) lately, that I determined
to leave her with the other horses. They were stripped of all bridles
and saddles and things, and had heaps of room to wander.
Meanwhile we were carrying on with our work.
Presently shouts from the guard. I went back to see what was the matter.
My dear, Jezebel had tried to jump out of the quarry!
She had tried twice, but the sides were too steep and high, and she had
slipped back. When I arrived, she was quietly grazing as if nothing had
happened. Ah, but wait. This is not all.
Later on in the morning another hooroosh. A loud squealing and sounds of
kicking. One of her moods again, I thought to myself grimly. That
well-known voice. I should recognize her squeal anywhere. As I was going
towards the quarry with Corporal Dutton to get her tied up or else
hobbled, lo and behold! the two guards had vanished. "What the
devil...." And all of a sudden out pour the horses careering downhill
like mad! It was so appalling that Corporal Dutton and I just stood and
shouted with laughter.
My dear, if there is anything in the whole world that goads a Major, a
Brigadier, or any other military man, to fury and madness, it is a loose
horse.
Imagine, then, forty-four horses all riderless, without saddles or
bridles (and therefore almost impossible to catch), stampeding straight
into a corps H.Q. village. This village is crawling with Generals!
Well, in the end we caught them all, and by some dazzling piece of luck,
for which Allah be praised, no General, no Colonel, nor anyone else,
seems to have got wind of the incident. Subalterns, yes, and I am
sumptuously ragged about it. But how all the Generals and things
happened to be out of sight and hearing at the time, I don't know. And
_still_ this is not the cream of the comedy.
After giving orders for rounding up the animals, I went on to the quarry
with Corporal Dutton. My dear, _There was Jezebel grazing, as cool as a
cucumber!_
She still further insulted me by coming up and trying to push her nose
into my pocket, where I sometimes keep an apple for her.
[Sidenote: ANOTHER MOVE NORTHWARDS]
The guards, you see, had instantly gone in to get her away from the
horse she was kicking, when we first heard the commotion. The other
horses had mooned out of the entrance gap, and then, I suppose,
something--a fly, perhaps--had frightened them, and off they had
galloped. While "the accursed female," as we sometimes call Jezebel, too
sensible to stampede, quietly continued feeding. I shall never be taken
in by her air of innocence again. Never. I don't a bit mind saying I was
decidedly alarmed. That mare might have been responsible for the death
of the Corps Commander.
O Jezebel, I wish I could get angry with you and give you a jolly good
hiding one day. But you know I can't, you dear old thing. I'm writing
this in the orchard, where the H.Q. horses live, and Jezebel is standing
sleepily in the shade of her tree. She looks intensely stupid. She
occasionally tries to flick away a fly with her short tail. Occasionally
she sighs deeply, with that blubbery, spluttery noise that all horses
make when they sigh.
_August 15._
On the move. This is our first day's trek, and we are at a place where
we have been before--but not the same billets. I am in a cottage with
an earth floor (which looks very odd with a hideous drab-coloured
wall-paper), and small children and hens, both dirty, wander in and out
of my room. It's too hot to keep the door latched. A swallow's nest in
the room next door; and the people say that, although the young have
flown, they still return at night.
_August 19._
The Adjutant is away, and won't be returning for some time; so I am
still acting. And this, together with signal work, etc., is somewhat
arduous. I live all day in the "office," a very small bivouac in a green
field. There I sit praying for inspiration, when letters come in marked
_Urgent_, beginning something like this:
"LP/3657042--G1.
"Ref. your memo HC/516342/L12 of 13/8/16, please find A.F. 361B for
completion and immediate return."
And I haven't the least idea what I said in my memo HC/516342/L12 of
13/8/16, and I can't find any record of it. And I can't for the life of
me make out how I am meant to fill in A.F. 361B, because I haven't the
least idea what it's all about.
_August 26._
[Sidenote: BEHIND KEMMEL]
Impossible to write yesterday, and only a brief scrawl to-day.
The regiment is being scattered over the face of the earth--an O.P.
here, an O.P. there; a digging-party here, a draining-party there, etc.,
etc., etc.; not to mention a few on duty as military police _pro tem._,
others guarding bomb shelters, others reconnoitring new areas for new
divisions, etc. Dennis is very badly wounded. He can't be moved yet.
Some bits of shell went into his thigh, up his back, and it's not
certain yet whether it entered his lungs or not. They are afraid so. He
was on his tummy at an O.P. A crump got him. Dear old Dennis! I hope
he'll pull round. Also Clive is very seriously wounded, I fear. Damn!
_August 27._
I am Acting Adjutant now. An Adjutant's job is a most hairy job, and I
sit with drops of perspiration dripping off my brow all day. Never see
the horses, never get any exercise except for a moment or two.
_August 29._
We are probably going to move again soon, and consequently the amount of
correspondence is vast. Clive is better, I think. Dennis about the
same. I suppose a thing can go into your lung and not kill you?
_September 2._
The Colonel seemed (from a telegram he sent yesterday morning) to be in
a great hurry for me to come down to the other squadron. So I decided to
go by train, and send Hunt with the horses. And this is the train
journey.
The station at ---- quite recovered and tidy after a feeble strafing the
other day. Even two or three civilians travelling. Not many of the
military--a hundred or so, perhaps, all waiting and smoking idly, each
armed with his "Movement Order." The dull boom of guns not excessive,
though there's a frequent "plom! plom! plom!" of the Archies, and the
sky is dotted with clusters of pretty little shrapnel clouds. Sometimes
the crack! crack! crack! crack! of machine guns high up in the blue. It
makes you feel slightly homesick. I don't quite know why. That sort of
thing isn't done at home.
[Sidenote: THROUGH HAZEBROUCK]
In comes the train. The French station officials all in a paroxysm of
excitement because one Tommy throws down a gas helmet for the train to
run over. Up we clamber. Hale heaves up valise and coat and so forth,
and retires to a "third," while I feel a beast lounging in this
luxurious "first." Off we go, and I look out at all the familiar
country.
There's one of those quaint French notices in the carriage:
TAISEZ-VOUS!
MÉFIEZ-VOUS!
LES OREILLES ENNEMIES VOUS ÉCOUTENT!
All too necessary, they tell me.
_Later._--It is getting dark. We stop at a large town that I know well.
Two hours to wait. I turn in to a Follies show. There is usually one
going on, run by this or that division, all soldiers, but looking very
odd in their paint and ruffles. But what a curious concert. The first
I've seen out here. The comic Scot vastly popular; but even more so are
hideously sentimental songs all about the last bugle and death and my
dead friends under the earth and eternal sleep. You know? However, they
love it, and the dismal piano beats a tinny accompaniment.
Staff officers even are here, and I recognize one Somerset; also Grey,
who was in the Gun section with Dennis and me, now a Captain. Delightful
talking over old times.
_Later._--Into the train again. On the platform beforehand I meet a
gunner subaltern. We talk. He's very well read, and interested in lots
of the things I love so much. We discuss the war. He knows a lot of the
billets I know. Evidently we have nearly met out here often before. What
is that book he is reading? Richard Jefferies? From Jefferies to
Maeterlinck. What has become of him? War so foreign to that mystic mind.
Yet his beautiful abbey in Flanders must be in the hands of Fritz, if it
still exists at all. We talk for about two hours. Then he gets out at
----. I don't know what his name is, and very likely I won't ever meet
him again. But out here one makes friends quickly. There are so many of
us all in the same boat. And one hardly expects ever to meet again. Then
(alone in the carriage) I doze. The electric light in full blaze, and no
curtains are down. Stations rather like bad dreams. Soldiers everywhere.
A great clanking of horse-trucks and gun-carriages. Vast stores of
timber for huts. Bookstalls open all night. These trains seem to hoot
and whistle most horribly. Far more noisy than English trains, surely.
That, combined with all the shouting and clatter of trollies, etc.,
rather racking in the small hours. At 5 a.m. we arrive at ----, where we
all change.
_Later._--No one allowed outside the station except officers and
sergeants. But, dash it all, I can't leave Hale here the whole day. Our
train leaves at 8.36 to-night. The R.T.O. will be here at 7 a.m. Let's
see what we can work. Meanwhile (5.30) the platformless station is full
of men, who have just dumped themselves and their kits down where they
stood. They haven't finished sleeping. It looks like a battle-field.
They lie in every attitude, officers among them. Hale is eating from his
bully-beef tin in silence. A few men stand round a Y.M.C.A. stall
drinking coffee or eating chocolate, cake, and stuff.
[Sidenote: ABBEVILLE]
_Later._--I got Hale out, and took him to see the cathedral. He said he
thought it must have cost a lot of money. Not a bad criticism, either.
Then I let him go his own way, and now it's 1.45 p.m. Had a charming
lunch--two oeufs à la coque, thé, and croissants. Now I'm sitting by
the side of the river--very peaceful. There's a white goat on the other
bank, and its reflection is dancing gently all the time.
Several French widows are talking together near the goat, their black
veils hanging funereally; and there's a small boy with socks and a
bowler hat, all black, too. Poor dears!
Good heavens alive! there's George! He has just flashed by in a car, red
cap and all. If only there had been time to hail him! Now for a sleep
till it's time for tea.
_September 5._
This is a part of the line I don't know at all, a most exciting area. I
have been up several times into what is by the way of being our front
line, but the whole thing is so chaotic that often the Huns come into
our trenches and we go into theirs quite by mistake.
I have several times gone right across the open, within full view of
Fritz (whom I could see), at a distance of 600 yards. I think they must
all be very confused, also, as there is very little rifle fire and very
little organized sniping. Nothing but shelling, with the result that for
miles and miles there's just tumbled earth.
The famous woods you read about are mere scratchy little collections of
a few tree-stumps splintered and wrecked beyond belief. Things lie
scattered everywhere in aimless profusion. Muddy rifles, coats, boots,
and every description of kit, both British and Hun. I have met lots of
men I know, and everyone is very cheery and hopeful. Fritz is
withdrawing his big guns--always a good sign. However, the myriads of
prisoners nearly all look a sound type of man still. They are put to
work a long way behind the line immediately, which is good.
_September 7._
[Sidenote: THE SOMME FRONT]
We have been for some time right up in parts quite destitute of houses
and villages and shops. All the remnants of villages here are ruins. And
messing is consequently more difficult. So may I have a large-sized cake
now and then?
The war isn't over yet, I fear. We live in the usual touch-and-go
condition.
_September 8._
Things hum. Troops like ants all over the ground. In tents, in bivvies,
in the open, everywhere. And the eternal chain of motor lorries bringing
up ammunition and supplies. These one sees all over France. But here
they block half the roads. Well, yesterday morning I rode out alone with
the Colonel and two orderlies. We went to some high ground from which
you can see it all, dismounted, and sent the horses back. In front of
us, in the valley, a wrecked town with the strangest thing on the
still-standing tower. I hope to make a picture of it if ever I can get
any time again.
Later in the day from one of our O.P.'s I began a sketch of the whole
panorama of the battle. Desolate ragged country, torn with shell wounds;
the poor scarecrow trees like arms stretched up to heaven for help.
Fields that once were golden with corn now grey and scarred with white
trenches that look like a network of pale worms lying where they died.
Now, from another O.P. I'm looking at the arid chaos below. Arid and
lonely-looking, but not silent. A strafe is on. Seems to be getting
louder and more continuous. We passed on our way here a great naval gun
crashing out death to the burrowing Huns. Swallow doesn't like naval
guns.
From flimsy net shelters flash the expensive guns, and the bombardment
gathers strength, gathers volume, until you'd think something must
burst--the world or the universe: either might split from end to end.
The dust and smoke are gradually making everything invisible. Crumps
come whistling and heaving up great clouds of heavy blackness. We look
at our watches. Zero hour in five minutes. The aeroplanes buzzing aloft,
and the sausages sitting among the low clouds, inert and so
vulnerable-looking. Can there be anything left? Can a single soul live?
[Illustration: TRENCHES BETWEEN FRICOURT AND LA BOISELLE
They don't look much like trenches, because they were battered to
pieces. A 'dump' on the near horizon was hit by a Boche shell. It blazed
and crackled and smouldered all night, a drifting column of dull pink
smoke.]
_September 9._
Surely we shall get through. Even in spite of the rain. The rain has
made the country into a quagmire.
Reconnoitred the front trenches to-day with the Colonel, in a particular
part where everything is at sixes and sevens, and no one quite
knows what we haven't or have got. Most odd. Shells of all calibres
bursting on every side--corpses, odours unspeakable.
[Sidenote: DELVILLE WOOD]
You see, things are expected to happen soon, and so I'm anxious to know
all about it. This part of the line is terrific.
Where we are, and for miles and miles around, myriads of troops,
cavalry, artillery, everything, all camped in the open--no concealment.
Mud? Why, everyone is mud, up to the eyes, and so are the horses. This
big movement has quite dislocated the ordinary trench warfare, and now
all over the dreary uplands are trenches hurriedly dug by the Hun and
then abandoned. Trenches that often barely shelter you above the knees.
Chaos, chaos. Rifles lying to rust in the mud, duds everywhere, men
sitting in dug-outs, not knowing what they are expected to do next.
Others in mere scratched-out shelters or in actual shell holes.
Sometimes they sing. Often they are asleep. Wreckage indescribable.
Shrapnel cracking into black clouds close by. Enormous and magnificent
H.E.'s hurling up black earth and red earth, and smoke that drifts
slowly and solidly away to limbo. Poor dead men lying about, and dead
horses, too. And in the trenches this limitless porridge of mud.
Cr-r-r-ump! go the crumps searching out a battery. But oh the
woods--the poor scarecrow woods. I was in a famous wood that looked
positively devilish in its sinister nakedness. And it's September, too,
when woods are so often at their loveliest. Not a leaf--not one single
leaf; and, instead of undergrowth, just tossed earth, fuses, a boot, a
coat, some wire, and above-ground dead men. Below-ground (or as far
below as they can get in the time) live men.
The Boche dug-outs are marvellous. They are really works of art. So
solidly, even beautifully built. I went into one that had wooden pillars
supporting the roof like some baronial hall, with neat little cupboards,
tables, beds, and everything complete. There were two of our M.M.G.
officers sleeping there, and we left them sleeping. But emerge out into
daylight, and ye gods! the confusion makes you feel awed. A village is
usually a heap of rubble, with here and there a bit of a gaudy enamelled
coffee-pot or something; a geranium from a window, still growing; a
china egg, a bit of a chair, a bit of an iron gateway. And as far as the
eye can see in this particular region, just undulating stretches of
tormented earth. All the old game of never showing above the parapet is
quite disregarded, for often there is no parapet. Time after time the
Huns could have seen us, and I saw lots of them running across gaps. You
see, no sniping or anything like that can be organized yet. Huns often
come into our lines by mistake, and we do likewise. And when you are not
actually in close view of them, you go across the open. If you get cut
off by a barrage you just wait till it's over.