The Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters to Helen, by Keith Henderson
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Title: Letters to Helen
Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front
Author: Keith Henderson
Illustrator: Keith Henderson
Release Date: September 2, 2005 [EBook #16626]
Language: English
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LETTERS TO HELEN
[Illustration: CRUCIFIX CORNER
Between MONTAUBAN & HIGH WOOD
One of the hands was shot away, and the figure hangs there suspended
from the other.]
LETTERS TO HELEN
Impressions of an Artist
on the Western Front
By KEITH HENDERSON
Illustrated
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
MCMXVII
PREFACE
These letters were never intended for publication.
But when the pictures were brought back from France it was suggested
that they should be reproduced, and a book evolved.
Then a certain person (who shall be nameless) conceived the dastardly
idea of exposing private correspondence to the public eye. He proved
wilful in the matter, and this book came into the world.
ILLUSTRATIONS
CRUCIFIX CORNER _Frontispiece_
A CONFERENCE IN THE CHATEAU _To face page_ 6
BAILLEUL 10
LE MONT DES CATS 18
FRICOURT CEMETERY 32
TRENCHES BETWEEN FRICOURT AND LA BOISELLE 48
GIRD TRENCH 54
A HOUSE IN GEUDECOURT 60
A WOUNDED TANK 66
EXPLOSION OF AN AMMUNITION DUMP 78
THE BUTTE DE WARLENCOURT 92
PERONNE 106
LETTERS TO HELEN
_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.
I have been round all our M.G. positions and other Detachments.
_September 10._
[Sidenote: TOWARDS FLERS]
About 5 p.m. the mess cook came and said he had been unable to get
enough food in for the morrow, as the expected hampers from England had
not arrived, and the district was so packed with other troops. So we
decided to get some hares or partridges. But it's forbidden to shoot
game. Very well, we wouldn't shoot them. We'd ride them down. The
country behind is entirely open. No hedges. Just gently undulating
uplands. The crops are all cut. So three of us set out. The orderly-room
work had almost been finished, and the remainder could wait. Jezebel was
brought round for me, Chloe for Roger, and Minotaur for the Colonel. The
Colonel's orderly, Corporal Orchard, following on Shotover. We rode back
to the more open country where there are few troops, and then started
the drive. Jezebel on the right, Chloe next, Shotover next, and Minotaur
on the left, at intervals of 20 yards or so.
It had been decided that, if a hare got up, even while we were after
partridges, we must chase the hare.
Well, presently a covey got up, and away we galloped up a long slope.
Suddenly a wild tally-ho from Roger. A hare had got up and was lepping
across Jezebel's line. So Jezebel fairly flattened herself out to keep
the hare in. But the hare was across before she could get wide enough.
Then the hare doubled back and we swung round, so that now Minotaur was
on the right. Hooroosh down the hill. The hare was gaining. There was a
minute brick enclosure a quarter of a mile ahead. The hare was making
for that. And gained it. Check. We surrounded the enclosure and Corporal
Orchard dismounted and went in. After about ten minutes out popped the
hare on t'other side. Loud yells, and after her again. She made for some
high ground where there was a small wood. "Cut her off," signalled the
Colonel wildly.
Impossible to cut off the hare. She gained the wood, which we
surrounded. But, oh silly hare! she came out the other side. Minotaur
after her like an arrow.
Then she tried to get away across Jezebel's front. But Jezebel was too
quick, and Chloe came up in support.
Then the hare doubled again through Shotover and Minotaur, and we swung
about. The hare was getting tired. She had run about three miles. She
then doubled back again through Chloe and Jezebel.
[Sidenote: CHASING THE HARE]
But meanwhile the horses were all getting dark with sweat, and although
a low line of upland hid us, we knew we were approaching some reserve
wire. The hare must not gain that wire.
She was dead beat and going very slow, flopping along, and looked as if
she would tumble head over heels any second. We were close behind her.
She got into some long grass 20 yards away from the wire, and
disappeared from view. We had got her. Corporal Orchard dismounted and
began beating the grass for her. There! Just missed her. She flopped on
a few yards, and Corporal Orchard dashed after. Then he tripped and
fell. The hare came out of cover and lolloped towards the wire. Yells
from Roger and the Colonel.
_And the hare got there first!_
Inwardly I laughed with joy and relief. Thank goodness that little hare
got away. Corporal Orchard took over the horses, and we went in amongst
the wire, but we never found her. The weeds had grown tall, and were
perfect cover for the poor wee beastie. I sometimes say what I think,
but such views are naturally neither understood nor taken seriously.
And the Major, bless him! likes me to do this type of thing because he
thinks it is good for me. "We must really try and teach you to be more
of a sportsman, you know. Sporting instinct. What? Every Englishman
should have it!" This all very good-humouredly, and I answer, laughing:
"Aha, sir. You see I know better." Which merely stirs some jovial spirit
to stand up and propose: "Gentlemen, fox-hunting!" You see?
_September 12._
The next act will shortly begin. We are all very hopeful. Certain
signs.... Fritz very nervous. Of that there can be no doubt at all.
Prisoners betray it quite unwillingly. Poor Fritz! He comes to attention
when we go up to him and ask him if he is fairly happy, which he is
(with a smile) invariably. He talks good English, and wishes the war
would end.
Some of our machine gunners, including Clare, were done in the other
day, and they put up a biscuit tin, with their names pierced in with
nail holes, to mark the spot. This war is the quaintest, most
incongruous show.
[Illustration: GIRD TRENCH
Gird Trench was only won after repeated attacks. It was the main German
defence of GEUDECOURT. While this sketch was being made things
were comparatively quiet. And the innumerable people living underground
could get a little sleep.]
_September 15._
Zero hour has come and gone. The show is a peach. Fritz is scuttling
back with us on his tail. We are to creep up, and as soon as Fritz
is beyond his last line of trenches (which he jolly nearly is now) up
and through we hope to go.
_September 20._
[Sidenote: TOWARDS GEUDECOURT]
We are long past Fritz's first line; past his second line; at his third
line; and his fourth line he is wildly digging now--places for his
M.G.'s wire, etc. But he's very, very hard put to it. We have almost all
the high ground. Our guns are at it day and night. Trench warfare no
longer exists. A few hastily dug holes, a few short lines of trench,
mostly battered to pieces, and that's all. It's almost open fighting.
Even the infantry come up across the open. No communication trenches,
nothing of that sort. The crump holes are continuous. There's scarcely
an inch of ground that isn't a crump hole.
I was up in an interesting wood this morning with the Colonel. Now, this
will give you some idea of how dislocated and above-ground everything
is:
We wanted to go to a place the other side of the wood. When we reached
the middle of the wood, where a new O.P. of ours has been established,
Fritz put up a barrage on the edge of the wood. Very well, then. We just
waited at the O.P. till the barrage was over, and then calmly walked
out. The wood is only a few shattered stumps of trees, and the place
where undergrowth once was is one continuous sea of earth thrown about
in every conceivable shape, with dead Tommies and dead Fritzes lying
side by side. So the wood isn't much cover, you can imagine.
On the far side of the wood is beautiful rolling country, but not green.
It's all brown, just a mess of earth. It's pitted with holes just like
sand after a hailstorm. In the distance you can see real lovely trees,
but nothing grows where the strafing is. Overhead the martins flicker
and swoop, and starlings sail by in circling clouds, while the colossal
noises crash and boom away merrily.
Ought I, perhaps, not to talk of these things? Does it worry you to
think of crumps bursting and so on? But, really, it seems quite ordinary
and in the day's work here. Men talk of crumps as you would talk of
bread and butter. That is, perhaps, why letters from home that talk
about homely things--cows and lavender and the new chintz--are so
welcome.
Besides, good heavens! don't you know that there's not a man in France
but knows that the best-beloved ones at home are having a far worse time
than we are having here? Wet clothes? Mud? Shells a-bursting, guns
a-popping? Even a wound, perhaps? Pish! No one _thinks_ at all out
here. There isn't time. Most of the people out here are perfectly happy
and merry, really. The sort of "long-drawn-out-agony" touch is, I think,
rare.
I'm writing this in a jolly Boche dug-out, all panelled and cosy.
Jezebel and Swallow and a new pack mare I've got are in a valley that's
hardly ever touched, and in fine, all's well.
_September 24._
[Sidenote: TEAR SHELLS]
Tear shells or "lachrymatory shells." They haven't been putting many
over lately, apparently. But they put some over the other day, and they
are so amusing that I must describe them to you.
The Colonel and I were up trying to find a "working-party" from the
regiment. The regiment is sadly split up at present into various parties
doing various jobs in various places, all unpleasant. Better than
infantry work, but still unpleasant.
We rode up much closer than we have ridden before, and left the
Colonel's orderly and Hale in a bit of a valley with Minotaur, Jezebel,
Hob, and Tank. Tank is a new mare I've got. Hale was riding her, as I
never take Swallow closer than I can help.
We dismounted in this small valley, and the Colonel's orderly and Hale
were given orders to move if any shells were put over too near them.
Then the Colonel and I went up through a wood that is just a few
splintered stumps now.
We passed behind several batteries, and I thought to myself: "Dash it
all! I know my eyes can't be watering because of the noise. What the
deuce is the matter? I hope the Colonel won't notice."
However, on we waded and plodded. Suddenly the Colonel stopped, and
exclaimed: "Oh damnation! This is perfect nonsense." His eyes were like
tomatoes, and the tears were rolling down his cheeks!
By this time we could hardly see at all, and it dawned on us that we
must hastily put on our tear goggles, which we had never used before,
but always, of course, carry. They go in the satchel along with the two
gas helmets.
Presently we met some infantry coming back, all safely begoggled. The
Huns, they told us, were dropping tear shells just into that valley in
front, where our working-party was supposed to be. You can tell them
(the tear shells), they said, by the fluttering sound, and they knock up
no earth and make very little smoke.
Sure enough, as soon as we got over the brow there they were. They make
a foolish wobbly, wavy sound as they come over, and look most innocent.
So they are really if you get your goggles on in time. But if one bursts
close to you, and you haven't got goggles on, why, then you'll be as
blind as an owl, and you'll weep like a shower bath.
[Sidenote: BETWEEN HIGH WOOD AND FLERS]
Then the absurd thing was that we couldn't find the working-party.
Plenty of dead Huns, but nobody alive. Not a sign. Only crumps dropping
here and there and everywhere. So we found a bit of a trench that led
back round the side of the wood. The front line trenches were only very
lightly held, partly because they are almost completely blown in. And we
could get no information as to the working-party at all.
Presently we saw why. The Huns had put up a barrage across the valley
they were coming up. We knew they would come up this other valley, as
they had to report on their way to H.Q., ---- Division. So we got into a
hole and waited.
After about half an hour the barrage lifted and up came our
working-party none the worse. It is a most amazing war. People literally
dodge shells and things as you might dodge snow-balls.
When we arrived back at the place where we left our two men, they also
were not to be seen.
After some time and anxious inquiries for two men with four horses, we
at last discovered them nearly half a mile away. Fritz had put some
heavy stuff over fairly near, and they had moved.
"A very interesting bit of the line isn't it, Hale?" I said as we moved
off. "Yes, sir," he said, adding with a fierce frown, "but not very
_safe_, sir."
And then we all laughed. Hale does frown so when he makes one of his
oracular utterances.
[Illustration: A HOUSE IN GEUDECOURT
Here, as in many of these sketches, there are no people to be seen, for
the simple reason that they are all underground in dug-outs.]
_September 29._
It's up to us to reconnoitre carefully every time there is a move
forward, so as to see the new ground.
One of the most curious and interesting things is this: the Boche rarely
wastes. He only puts his crumps and pip-squeaks just where he thinks (or
knows) our batteries are, and our infantry want to be, and our horses
would be likely to be (if they weren't somewhere else). So that
gradually you begin to track out safe routes. Don't go near the edge of
---- Wood, but 200 yards inside the wood, on the north side, you're
pretty comfy. Don't go near the mangled remains of ---- village, but
keep to the right of it until you get to the wrecked aeroplane, and then
turn down the remains of ---- trench, and you probably won't be touched.
That sort of thing.
[Sidenote: BOCHE DUG-OUTS]
I've been sleeping in the most superb Boche dug-out. Very deep; I
should think 30 feet down. The inside is pillared rather like the
studio, and cretonned all over with maroon-coloured stuff instead of
wall-paper. There are lovely little cupboards everywhere, and doors and
window-frames just like a real house. The windows, of course, only look
out on to an air-shaft, so it's very dark, and you have to have candles
all the time. The windows have no glass, of course, as that would be
shattered to smithereens by the vibrations. Then there's an arch and
more steps down lower still, into the bedroom for two.
Yesterday, being rather misty, I thought as follows:
"It is too foggy to see what Fritz is doing. No attack is intended or
expected. The Colonel is at corps H.Q. Swallow and Jezebel and Tank are
safe in ---- valley. Roger is still here as Adjutant. Why not an
afternoon off?"
So picture a holiday-maker armed with a revolver, two gas helmets, tear
goggles, some sandwiches, and a large empty haversack. Now where to go?
What about ---- trench and all round ---- village, even, perhaps, a
lightning five minutes in the village itself? We have just taken the
village, but it's rather an unhealthy spot at present.
---- trench is a new trench that poor Fritz dug just before he was
driven out of it. I had seen lots of dead Fritzes there the day before.
Also there were reports of curious things flung out into the mud in and
round the village.
[Sidenote: TROPHIES]
So I set forth. And at ---- met another fellow I knew, and the affair
became neither more nor less than a search for souvenirs. Here is a
list:
1. A few buttons with double-tailed lions.
2. Four shoulder-straps with the figure 6 in red. This indicated a
division which has been opposite us for some time and is quite
exhausted, I think.
3. One haversack and one respirator haversack.
4. One rosary.
5. Five different sorts of bayonets from different regiments. These
I thought we might hang up.
6. Four tassels. They are worn by Fritz rather in the same sort of
way as lanyards are worn. Quite pretty, though rather soiled and
worn.
7. A bit of a wing of a crushed aeroplane that is lying on the
brown, feverish earth like a dead sea-gull.
8. A brass spring very beautifully made, that I am going to have
made into a bracelet for you. Also from the aeroplane.
9. A cardboard box for signal flares. _Signal Patronen_ they are
labelled. I threw the flares away, as they might go pop _en route_.
10. A jolly bit of gilded carving from a house in ----
11. Now then for No. 11! A bit of embroidery. I think it is a
vestment of sorts. It's white, and there's heavy gold embroidery at
the sides. It is a cloak of some description, but the top part,
where there should be a collar or something, is gone. Then
11A is a piece of black and silver embroidery. It was all
very muddy and riddled with shrapnel or bits of crump, so I just
cut off the only sound bit. Both these things are exceedingly
beautiful. They are probably vestments, because they were quite
near what must have been the church. I am sure it must have been
the church, although I hadn't a map--first, because I saw the
village in the distance some time ago, while the church was still
standing, and therefore I know the church's situation; and,
secondly, because I saw remains of large pillars, and a few bits of
what was once a font amongst the débris.
There now. Isn't that a good haul! It's not easy to get anything worth
sending home, because everything is so utterly smashed up.
_October 2._
Jezebel and Swallow and Tank have all been clipped trace high. I am
getting rather attached to Tank. She is so modest and unselfish--a
contrast to Jezebel. She never expects little treats, and seems quite
surprised when I give her anything. Swallow and Jezebel always neigh
when they see my electric torch coming towards them after dinner (while
we are back in these safe places). But Tank is very shy of the light,
and thinks it will bite her.
Swallow is getting much better, and really seems to understand that the
shells and guns and things probably won't hurt him. We have been most
extraordinarily lucky. The troop that got through nearly to ---- the
other day, hadn't a single casualty, although Dick's own mare was shot
under him and a great many other horses were wounded. The squadron of
---- were very badly scuppered, I fear. But, anyhow, we all feel that
Lloyd George is right. We are just beginning to win.
_October 5._
It is a glorious day. Such clouds. Swallow kicked up his heels and
played about like a kitten when Hunt took him to water this morning.
It's extraordinary how used the horses are getting to trenches and
wire, etc. At first they were rather afraid to jump these sudden deep
ditches, but now they pop across like rabbits.
_October 17._
[Sidenote: ARCHIE]
Yesterday some Hun aeroplanes got across and came right above this camp,
a comfortable way behind the front line. Heavily strafed by our Archies.
The blue sky was dotted all over with the pretty little white clouds of
shrapnel.
Sergeant Pritchard and I were standing close to Flannagan (one of the
men's horses), and the men were at stables. We were all looking up and
longing to see a Hun aeroplane hit, when suddenly "s-s-s-swish, plop!"
just behind me. It was one of the Archie shrapnel cases. It buried
itself deep in the ground 3 yards from where we were standing. We dug it
up, and I'll bring it home for you. If it isn't too tediously heavy.
Of course, Archie shrapnel cases all come down, and you see hundreds of
them lying about; but I've never had one so close before. They sometimes
fall broadside on, and sometimes end on, in which case they bury
themselves fairly deep. All the Hun aeroplanes got away, alas!
_October 26._
Once more I'm going up to the strange dead village of ----. In many ways
I shall be sorry to go back to comfort and billets, because the
material for pictures here is very wonderful. You shall see several
small things (the powers that be call it waste of time!), and it's
infuriating to think that more can't be done.
I tell you, if you were here, and if I could paint a bit every day, I
should be quite happy. The "subjects" are endless, and in particular I
long to do great big stretches of this bleak brown land. Well, it can't
be helped, so it's no good thinking about it.
_October 29._
We are moving to a "back area" to-morrow.
[Illustration: A WOUNDED TANK
This Tank got hit as it was walking over a house in FLERS. They
covered it up with tarpaulins to prevent the Hun aeroplanes from
obtaining too much information about it. The black stuff is shrapnel.
The pink clouds are sent up by crumps as they explode amongst the
remains of the brick houses.]
_November 1._
It's a superb day, and we are back at ----, one of our old billets,
right away from the beastliness. And although leave won't be for another
week or two, still, it will come soon. And Swallow is in tremendous
spirits.
Here is a drawing done surreptitiously of a tank in full view of Fritz.
You see those little stumps of trees? Well, I'll tell you what those are
called when we meet, and also what village is just on their left. You
may say it was stupid to sit in full view of Fritz, but it was the day
after an advance, and there's hardly ever anything doing then in
the way of sniping. The guns, of course, are all pooping off, but they
weren't shelling just there, so it was quite safe. This drawing gives
you some idea of the desolation, but none of the unevenness of the
ground. You can't walk in a bee-line for three yards without getting
into a hole. The last time I was in those parts, by the way, I came on a
rather jolly cottage wineglass that had been thrown out into some soft
mud, and was not even cracked.
_November 6._
[Sidenote: COCQUEREL]
An extraordinary change. Let me now give you an idea.
We are in a pretty little country village miles and miles away, and
(although one of Fritz's aeroplanes flew over the church as bold as
brass just before we got in) the quiet and peace of the place is very
refreshing. And, droll to relate, I'm writing this in bed, with a touch
of flu--such a bed, too, all soft and billowy. In ordinary life it would
be condemned as a "feather" bed, but now it is a bed for princes.
And the room. A rather dark old-fashioned paper, an old clock ticking,
an old shining chest of drawers with a marble top, and clothes hanging
on pegs. Hale has arranged the pistol, and ammunition, and maps, and
gas helmets, and steel helmet, and spare kit, with great elaboration,
all over the room. At the present moment he is "sweeping out" with the
appropriate hissing noises. The dust will, I hope, subside during the
course of the day.
Hunt has got Jezebel, Swallow, and Tank into a disused barn, where they
will be warm and happy.
Out of the window I can see hens pecking in an orchard, and an old grey
pony browsing. The leaves are yellow, and there's no wind.
The old man and the old lady to whom the cottage belong have brought me
in some little "remèdes," which Tim refuses to let me have. One is what
the old man (an ex-chemist) calls "salicite de métal," and the other is
what the old lady calls a "remède de bonne femme." You rub yourself with
it all over every two hours!
Tick, tick, tick, tick. Lovely! The old clock is rumbling. It is about
to strike twelve.
It has struck twelve--no, not struck twelve, rather it has buzzed
twelve, like some old happy bee.
The hens are still pecking about in the orchard, and the grey pony is
rubbing himself against a tree.
All so cosy and delicious. Now for a doze.
_November 7._
[Sidenote: DOZING]
Here's a poem. It's called
HENS.
At the end of the war
(Ring, bells, merry bells!)
We intend
To keep hens,
Me and Helen.
(Ring, bells!)
Such hens!
(Merry bells!)
And though all our hens' eggs be surrounded by shells,
We shall laugh and not care;
For there won't be no war,
And no hell any more,
While Helen is there
With the hens.
I've just made that up, and the inspiration of so profound an epic has
made me want to doze again. Such a lot of dozing!
_November 12._
In to-day's letter I enclose a couple of field post-cards which I found
on a Boche dug-out bed-hole.
I've been so busy these last days, up till late hours, and writing has
been "na-poo." Leave? Yes, leave will come in time. Probably the first
half of December.
How maddening it is for poor old Tom! It's most damnable hard luck being
kept there without leave such a long time. And I expect that he also
has rather lost interest. At first the men were a great source of
interest, and the horses and everything. Then France and the front were
very interesting. Lastly, being under fire was very interesting. But now
that we are back in Rest, I begin to feel I shall be rather sorry to go
through it again. And Tom has had so much of it. Yes, he ought to come
home.
The cottage people here have those lovely pale salmon winter
chrysanthemums in their gardens. Don't you like them?
Since we arrived in this wee village a week ago, I haven't been on a
horse once, and have never seen anything outside the village itself,
which consists of one street and a side-lane.
_November 14._
I wasn't able to write yesterday, and there may be several blank days to
come.
Roger is temporarily away, and I am in charge. The thing that's
happening is this: A and B are coming down to us, and others are going
to relieve them. So the arrangements and correspondence are vast. All
the billeting of this town is pushed on to my hands, too; and though
it's only a small village, there's a good lot to do. I can't collect any
thoughts to write to you. You understand, I know, and so I needn't say
more. I'll write again at length when things settle down. This sounds
muddled. But I count on your understanding that I've got more work to do
than I can manage.
_November 16._
[Sidenote: THE OTHER SQUADRONS ARRIVE]
To-day, by some amazing fluke, there's a lull. One squadron has gone.
Sir John is on his way down. Julian starts early next week, and Gerald a
few days later. So within a fortnight we shall all be together. Which
will be good.
Some infantry came in from the line to-day. Oh ye gods! the British
infantry! No rewards, honours, no fame, can ever be enough for them. We
have not yet gone through what they have to go through, but we have been
in and out amongst them all the time, and we know. Thank goodness this
spell of dry weather seems to have come for a few days at least. Cold at
night is nothing. It's wet at night that just kills men right and left.
Alan died yesterday morning. Died of exposure. He caught a chill while
we were up in front, and then got much worse, and it finally developed
into peritonitis and pneumonia. And now he, too, is dead. We were all
very fond of Alan.
Death is such a little thing. A change of air--no more. Death is the
last day of Term, the last day of the Year. Regret? That's because we
don't understand, quite.
_November 17._
I sent you off another beastly little scrap of paper to-day, because it
was impossible to write more. Here (7 p.m.) is another moment, so I
snatch it.
Listen. Of course it is true that leave has been cancelled, but we hear
(Rumour) that this is only for a few days owing to submarines. _If_
leave reopens again, as seems likely therefore, I go next. I shall have
to hand over Orderly Room and all current correspondence, etc. That
means, with luck, I leave here on the 2nd. Don't, of course, count on
this; but let's toy with the idea.
_November 23._
I am sitting in the sun, having read your letter. The valley of the ----
is below me, a mile wide, all reed-beds and half submerged willows, with
the main stream lying like a blue snake amongst pale acres of sedge.
Damn! I was going to write a long and cosy letter, but was called back.
I had escaped for an hour from Orderly Room with your letter and a
sketchbook, and was caught in the act. No time now.
_November 25._
[Sidenote: THE SOMME VALLEY]
A few more moments with you before you go to bed.
Yes, isn't it funny how we seem to be talking face to face! And to every
question of mine you reply in three days' time and _vice versa_. It
always sounds to me like this, rather:
QUESTION. ANSWER.
_Mon._ Isn't it cold? None.
_Tues._ Have you seen mother? None.
_Wed._ Are you happy? None.
_Thurs._ How are you all? Freezing.
_Fri._ When did I see you last? Only yesterday.
_Sat._ May I have a cake! Yes, very.
_Sun._ How is Queen Anne? Much better.
_Mon._ None. Last April.
_Tues._ None. I'll send one.
_Wed._ None. Dead.
Don't you find it's a bit like that? What question can I have asked a
week ago to which the answer is a rabbit? So tiresome when we want to
talk at very close range.
As to leave--well let's not talk about that. Every dog has his day.
You know the dog who has been shut up in a kennel for a long time? Or
the dog who has been locked up in an empty house for a long time? It'll
be a mixture of these.
Well, the day will come.
_November 27._
Can't write properly because it's very cold and I've been riding, and
that makes one's fingers like pink bananas. They don't seem to answer to
the bridle. There's an awful noise of hissing going on. Hale and Hunt
are busy on the horses.
_November 28._
A box will arrive containing another Bristol ball, which I discovered in
a cottage here, and bought for 1fr. 50c. Rather a jolly green one,
biggish. Also I am enclosing the wineglass from Geudecourt, which I
mentioned some time ago. There can't be any harm in mentioning this
name, as we have left that area some time now. I have got several
sketches of other places round about there, which I hope you will like.
Won't it be fun, when the time comes, looking at them. To-day Hunt came
round in a great state about the horses. Jezebel had pulled up her
shackle, and was in "one of her moods," as Hunt always describes it. She
had been kicking both Tank and Swallow with great violence. He had left
Hale trying to get her quiet, and rushed up to report.
She was quiet again when I got down, and Hale had tied her up
successfully.
[Sidenote: THE PRUDENT SERGEANT]
But the point of telling you of this episode is that meanwhile it was
getting time for the post to go. Prudent Sergeant Marsden (Orderly Room
sergeant) observed that I hadn't addressed the letter yet or signed it
outside. So he did it himself! "You very seldom write any letters to
other addresses, you see, sir, so I thought I'd better address it
myself. I thought it would be _inadvisable_ to miss a post, and I
thought the young lady would forward it on if it was not for her!"
It made me laugh as I haven't laughed for a long time. Wasn't it nice
and thoughtful. He tells me he duly forged my signature in the left-hand
bottom corner.
Jorrocks sends his love. "Your little filly" he always calls you.
_November 29._
About leave. There's no more chance of it at present, I think, as we are
going up to the line again in a week or two, and we want to work off all
the men, who haven't had any leave at all, before moving up mudwards,
when all leave will be stopped. We are engaged at present in
practically rebuilding and making sanitary an entire French village, and
in "training," which means all the old dismal tedium of manoeuvres
plus spit and polish.
These villages are most amazingly ill-built. Swallow this morning lashed
out on being bitten by Jezebel, and (dear silly Swallow!) instead of
hitting Jezebel, she brought down half the wall of the shed in which
they live, which frightened her to such an extent, Hunt tells me, that
she allowed Jezebel to eat all her food at midday stables.
_November 30._
We move next week, I think, or possibly the week after.
We are not going back to quite the same part of the line, but near it.
It will be new country to me altogether, and to everyone else concerned.
Poor Swallow, poor Jezebel, poor Tank, I'd give anything to shelter you
three; but, alas! I fear you are going to have a nasty time of it now.
All clipped, too. It's Swallow particularly that I tremble for. He does
so throw up the sponge. Tank copies Bird in everything, so she ought to
pull through all right.
_December 1._
[Sidenote: AMIENS CATHEDRAL]
All leave is cancelled again, at any rate in this army--possibly on
account of the move, possibly on account of nasty fish in the sea.
However, the telegram says "until further notice," which usually means
for a short time only. Not that it affects me, but it's bad luck on some
of the men who were just off.
Now about Xmas. I have got a new crop, thank you ever so much, that I
bought at a town near here.
A beautiful cathedral town.
With doors all padded up with sand-bags, the great cathedral towers
above the town, and is seen for miles and miles. A good effort. What fun
they must have had building it. What they believed then they expressed
in outward and visible form. What we think now is (or ought to be) very
different indeed from what they thought then. But I can't remember
having ever seen anything that _begins_ to express what we think (or
ought to think) now.
Everyone in the Church of England now seems to me to think _almost
exactly_ what was thought when this cathedral was built! If this war
achieves nothing else, I pray with all my mind, and all my soul, and all
my strength, that all the sects and all the churches may suddenly feel
tired of all the 1001 little methods of procedure, and say: "Damn it
all! what does all this ancient paraphernalia mean to us? Is God quite
so complicated and involved as we have supposed? Everything else in the
world progresses. Thought progresses. Let us take a deep breath, and
realize that religion ought to be more 'into the future' than even
Zeppelins or Tanks, please."
[Illustration: EXPLOSION OF AN AMUNITION DUMP
The smoke from a large explosion usually assumes a queer tree-like form
and disperses slowly.]
_December 2._
Just been superintending the burying of some horses. A curious job. You
have to disembowel them first. Quite ghoulish. And then head and legs
are cut off, and the whole is buried in a hole 12 feet deep. Up there
they often lie about for some time, and get as smelly as dead human
beings. Back here it all has to be done prestissimo.
The strange thing is that, whereas before the war I should have felt
sick and possibly dreamt about it, now it seems merely more boring than
most other things of the kind.
Up there Tommies and Honourables eat their lunch of sandwiches with lots
and lots of dead people in varying stages of decomposition all round. An
odour more hideous than anything you have ever imagined. But you get
used to it.
[Sidenote: TALKING ABOUT HOME]
"How unpleasant they are to-day," you say to anyone you are with.
And the answer is probably just a laugh. Then you go on (if things are
quiet) to discuss an imaginary day at home. You would smile.
We actually discuss everybody's clothes, the things in the room, the
shape of the fireplace, the look of the tea-things and the comfiness of
the chairs.
And we always end up by saying: "And then after that I shall do
absolutely _Nothing_ for a fortnight!"
_December 3._
December. Frost on the trees, all fairy-like in this dense mist. Not a
sound. The sun quite small and white and far away. And if we were on the
Cotswolds, I expect we should go out for a bit of a walk, just to warm
up, after breakfast.
_December 4._
A staff job has been in the air several days. It may or may not come
off. I'm not very keen about it in many ways. But I've a feeling that I
could do it rather well, and so I'm not sure that I oughtn't to accept.
Jezebel and Swallow have quarrelled. Isn't it awful. Hunt has had to
put Tank in between them.
Jezebel kicked Swallow, and the blood fairly spouted out--got her in the
leg, and she lost her temper, and began lashing out. Hunt, with great
presence of mind, threw a bucket of water over them both. And as soon as
they were quiet, dear, good, demure little Tank was put in between them
as buffer.
It's a most dreadful nuisance. They used to get on so well together. I
hope they will leave that curious little Tank alone. Swallow is as lame
as a cat now. The accursed female is very exasperating, I fear. Hunt
quite irritated me for a moment when he remarked, after the incident:
"Oh, it's all right, sir. She was in one of her moods." I pointed out to
him that it was not all right. Whereupon he took it into his head that I
was strafing him, and muttered sulkily: "Well, sir, I must say I never
did like Abroad."
Which made me laugh to such an extent that I got a sort of fit of
laughing (don't you know?) and couldn't stop. Eventually I had to go
away. He looked so comic and so dejected, and his use of the word Abroad
(as if it were a country in itself) always makes me laugh idiotically. I
haven't seen him since, and it will be difficult to explain the apparent
frivolity.
Things have been very complicated just lately owing to our having to
make arrangements about taking over this new bit of line.
_December 5._
[Sidenote: CONCERNING WORK]
One of the many things the war has taught us, I think, is the
comparative equality of all work. Work depends almost entirely on the
actual number of hours per diem, don't you think?
Certainly brain work is more tiring than spade work. But I'll guarantee
that the man who does eight hours' brain work is not _much_ more tired
than the man who does eight hours' spade work.
The only difference is that open-air work means better health, and
consequently more power to work long hours.
But I really do believe that, for example, a nurse's day's work (either
for wounded or babies) is _just_ as hard as a bricklayer's day, or a
bank clerk's day, or an engine driver's day. And I believe that the
various degrees of skill, necessary for doing any job really well, are
not very different on the whole. Different, yes, but not very different.
A General's job is difficult, but not _much_ more difficult than a
nurse's job.
And so I believe all jobs ought to be paid on a rather more equal
footing. Not on an equal footing, but a _rather more equal_ footing
than now.
Do you agree?
_December 6._
Cathedrals, the earth, the sky, and all that in them is--those are the
things that rest and soothe one out here. Thank God for cathedrals! How
splendid of Litlin, to be getting Bunny taught reels. I do trust she
will give lots of attention to it.
After seeing a certain amount of human misery and so forth, I believe
more than ever that the whole aim of the world is in the direction of
Joy. And as dancing is one of the most primitive expressions of joy,
give me dancing, says I.
This is all said in the middle of dictation of orders, and so I expect
it's ungrammatical, but you know what I mean.
_December 7._
What do you think? I lunched to-day with George. We lunched in a most
superb officers' club, formerly the house of some Count or other: all
white and gold, and chandeliers and mirrors--a dream.
_December 8._
[Sidenote: JEZEBEL ACCEPTS AN APOLOGY]
Our move has been postponed twice now, and we don't go till Monday.
But meanwhile I heard from Mark to-day. He is A.D.C. to the G.O.C., and
apparently caught sight of Roger and me the other day, while flashing
past in the G.O.C.'s car. So we are going to have a great meeting. It
will be immense fun. Mark, Dennis and I were all tremendous
friends--just the same type.
Swallow is much better, and Jezebel says that, if she had known Swallow
would bleed so much, she would have kicked him in a different place,
where he wouldn't have bled so profusely. This, for Jezebel, is
extremely gracious.
Tank's only remark about being put between the two was: "Well, I'm
always very glad to do what I'm told."
Swallow is desperately sorry about the whole affair, and is on
tenter-hooks lest Jezebel should never speak to him again. He says she
really didn't mean to kick, and she can't understand how it is that he
has so little control over himself. So all's well.
_December 9._
Hunt and Hale have made their very tumble-down barn a perfect model of
neatness. They sleep within about 3 yards of the horses' heels. Hunt in
particular never likes to be far away from "my 'osses," as he calls
them. I have less and less say in the matter of the 'osses as time goes
on! I merely say: "Hunt, I want a horse and an orderly at 8 a.m.
to-morrow."
It's useless for me to say I'd like Swallow or Tank or Jezebel, because,
if I name one in particular, there's always some reason why it would be
better not to ride that one that day. Oh, "she wants shoeing behind,"
or, "she had one of her moods this morning, and so I exercised her very
early," or "he didn't eat his corn, and had better stay in." So I just
meekly ask for a horse. And a horse arrives.
Swallow is still rather lame, but seems better now. And the gentle
influence of Tank is, I really believe, soothing Jezebel. Tank is a very
charming creature, and her perfect manners are a good example to the
other two. But--what an awful admission!--she is so good that I own I
find her rather dull. Poor little Tank!
Jorrocks has gone off to a nasty place, I fear, with his troop. But all
seems fairly quiet at present.
_December 12._
The trek is at an end.
We have arrived at a place well behind the line, and not at all
wrecked, except for holes here and there. But the river! Oh my aunt!
It's marvellous. It winds in and out of low hills, and as I saw it this
evening, from an eminence, it looked more snaky than ever. Huge great
loops with the lovely pale sedges on either side. The almost yellow
hills are dotted with junipers. I long to see it to-morrow morning.
There's no doubt it's one of the most fascinating rivers I've seen.
Hooded crows sailing over the uplands, and I met a flock of bright sweet
goldfinches near some guns, and a tree-creeper in a copse.
[Sidenote: SAILLY-LE-SEC]
What a wonderful day! It was snowing all the time, with quite warm,
sunny intervals. Swallow and Tank and Jezebel are all under cover, and
I've actually got a bed! You might not call it a bed, but it is a bed,
because it has four legs (one of them a biscuit tin). The place where we
were going to has been rather too heavily strafed lately, so they are
keeping us back here.
Things are wonderfully quiet, and there are no batteries near us, which
is pleasant. I did want to show you the beautiful river winding in and
out of the little hills. The great river-bed is quite untouched by
shells here, and the very sight of it would soothe the most jangled
nerves. Oh, it did look so heavenly this evening. Thank God for this
glorious river. The snow melted as it fell. The snow flakes as they
touched the river were like fairies taking headers.
_December 15._
Isn't this fine about Peace?
So Fritz would like Peace, would he? No amount of flamboyant talk can
possibly hide the fact that he wants peace. And it isn't the victor who
asks for peace first. Carry on, say we.
_December 20._
Have you had any of the letters in which I told you how the place we
were to have been sent to was too continuously strafed? And how we were
sent to this very quiet and unwrecked place? And how I've got a bed, and
how happy the horses are?
About the intelligence job. Things are hanging fire rather, as the Staff
Major, who may ask for me to come away with him to another corps, is now
attached to this corps. So what will be the end of it I don't know.
Frankly, I am sore tempted for this reason, that I think I could do it
rather well. Of course, each corps does things differently, but, judging
from the way in which this corps likes the job done, I feel certain I
could tackle it in another corps. That's boasting. But you understand
so perfectly. It would be glorious to be doing something really well.
[Sidenote: A STAFF JOB]
I _can't_ be an ordinary soldier. Too absent-minded--hopelessly vague
and careless. I live on tenter-hooks always. What detail have I
forgotten? What order did I give that could be taken two ways?
It's sad for Pat that his friends are gone. I feel so murky when mine
go, that I understand what it must be for him. But friends or no
friends, broken-hearted or whole, we must damned well carry on! And
that's all about it.
A perfect letter from old Norman to-day. He must be quite useless as a
soldier, whereas at his own job he stands alone, with a wonderful future
before him. Well, well! I meant not to grouse to you again. And here's a
letter nearly full of it. But there, I made a stupid mistake to-day, and
it's all so boring and beastly.
Anyhow, we are fighting for civilization, and the Huns are, too, in a
way. But our idea of civilization is better than the Huns' idea. So we
gradually win.
_December 21._
I have at last made up my mind. I'm going to take on this job. How
unwillingly I can hardly tell you. I wanted to be in the great Push
next year so badly. Everyone, everything, is preparing for it. The
cavalry will get through, and I shall be driving about behind in some
gilded car, or watching from some very distant hill with Jezebel (who
won't care a damn whether the cavalry get through or not).
But I had two interviews with the Major and the General to-day. Coves
like painters seem to be rather wanted, and--well, it's clear now. I
must go.
To-morrow or next week, perhaps, the extreme fascination of the job will
obliterate a certain feeling of flatness, of disappointment, of ... of
... of shirking. Yes, that's it: I feel as if I were shirking all the
horrors. You see, I shall enjoy this job immensely. All the hateful
"arrangering things" for large numbers of men, all the tiresome
formalities, all the discomfort, all the future dangers, finished
with--over. I don't say that we've had _long_ periods of danger or
_much_ discomfort; but we've had quite enough to make a very ordinary
mortal hope never to go through it again.
But to think that I've deliberately chosen the easy path. Well, I don't
care! I've chosen it. I meant to choose it. I'm glad I've chosen it.
That is the one job in the whole war that I could do really well. How
best to serve the country--that's the only question. So there you are.
I've been and took the plunge, and I believe I'm right.
First of all a week or two getting to know the ropes in _this_ corps,
and then off with the Major and the General to another corps.
My aunt! what an egoistical letter this is. However, to you no
apologies.
_December 22._
[Sidenote: A DECISION]
Letters have been lurching in, in threes and fours. But what matters it
how they come? I always know that they are coming. And the future's
where _my_ heart is always. So here's to the letters to come, and here's
to our meeting again, and here's to Life--long, sweet, glorious Life.
We shall see the Christmas roses of the Cotswolds together one day, and
I think the war will have given them a mysterious loveliness that we
never understood before. Every year they'll come up out of the ground
again and surprise us. I shall be getting older and older--and so will
you, too. And all our little plans will have a quiet, peaceful joy for
us that wouldn't have been possible but for the war. Art will be like
angels coming and going. Effort will be intensified. The lives of the
poor must be happier, because everyone will be more ready to give and
take.
It won't come all at once. But there'll be a difference. The war will
have made a difference. Thank God for the war!
_December 25._
[Sidenote: CHRISTMAS 1916]
Never talk about the "idle" staff. Yesterday we were working absolutely
solid without any break at all except an hour for lunch and an hour for
dinner (tea? away frivolous thought!) from 9 a.m. till 11.30 p.m. Most
interesting; but let's hope this first day's experience won't be a fair
sample, or I shall simply melt down like a guttered candle. None of the
Generals and people seemed to think it unusual. At least they never said
so. Personally I found it quite kolossal.
_12.30 a.m._
Such a funny Christmas Day! I've been fixing on a large map all the gun
positions on the corps front. There are a very great many, and the
positions must be marked very exactly. I was quite nervous lest there
should be a mistake. It has taken since about two o'clock till now. And
I think it is accurate at last.
At about 10 p.m. I found out an awful mistake. One of the heavies quite
100 yards wrong, which might have meant that it would be ranging on the
wrong place, and probably do no damage whatever. Desperate thought!
Well, the staff is the most hard-working body of men I've ever seen.
They don't appear ever to get any exercise. And, really, the work is all
so vital that I don't see how they ever can expect to get any exercise.
About leave. Possibly on the way up to the other corps a side-slip to
Blighty will be allowed.
Don't depend on anything. There seems to be a dearth of people who can
do this work, and so it would be unwise to count on getting away. The
thing is, however, conceivable--that is all.
_December 27._
First of all about current affairs here.
Captain G---- is probably going to Army, so it is suggested that I shall
take his place here. He runs all the plotting of the aeroplane
photographs, etc., for the corps. It's a most awful and alarming
responsibility, and I don't feel that I can do it yet. May he not get
taken away just for a little while, or I'm lost.
The corps commander sends for him (he has been doing the job for nine
months), and says: "Now, where is our line at the present moment? Has
so-and-so trench been repaired, and where is so-and-so German battery
that was shelling the ---- Brigade yesterday?" Well, of course I simply
couldn't answer these questions yet.
The prospect is murky. Given a little time, I think I could do it; but
... well, one can but try.
I asked the Captain if he thought leave at all possible. He most
strongly advised me not to dream of asking. The corps is certain to
refuse in any case, as they will want me to sweat up the show and get to
know all about it as rapidly as possible.
_January 2, 1917._
I think I shall be going to live with the R.F.C., so as to be able to
snatch their photographs the instant they come in--puzzle them out--put
them quickly on to a map--and send them off. Everyone then will know far
more quickly what Fritz is up to.
So don't be surprised if letters are addressed from R.F.C. shortly. I
shall take a couple of draughtsmen and a clerk and an orderly, and Hale.
[Illustration: THE BUTTE DE WARLENCOURT
This small chalk mound was one of the most difficult obstacles on the
way to BAPAUME. In the foreground a large 'crump-hole' and the
remains of a little copse.]
_January 11._
[Sidenote: AEROPLANE PHOTOGRAPHS]
I don't know when leave will be possible. This job is rather in the
making, and is really very important stuff. A great responsibility,
says the corps commander. In fact, I am just a bit nervous about
things generally. That battery that was reported in so-and-so wood. Is
it there still? Well, where has it moved to, then? You are not sure? Why
not? No recent photographs of it? But why not? Can it be in so-and-so
quarry, perhaps? That light railway has been repeatedly smashed up by
our heavies. Repaired? What? What evidence have you? Let me have a map
as soon as possible, showing exactly where you believe that line has
been repaired, and the exact position of that battery in the quarry--if
it really is there. But don't tell me it's in the quarry unless you are
quite sure. Yes, sir. And you'd better have the map duplicated. How many
can the draughtsmen print before to-morrow? About 300. Well, send out
copies. I must have that battery silenced at once. Do you see? Can I
rely on it being sent out in time? Yes, sir.
That's the sort of thing. Things that _must_ be done and quickly.
Perhaps it sounds nothing much--a mere bit of a map. But maps are like
lamps to men in the dark. And they must be accurate. To me, therefore,
the most inaccurate, absent-minded mortal before the war that ever
breathed, it is all a source of great anxiety.
_January 12._
I've got a bedroom with a brick floor in a cottage. I really hardly know
what it's like, as I arrive there about twelve o'clock every night and
fall into bed, and then up again at 7.30 next morning as a rule, and
frowsy at that. The roads here are just as muddy as ever, and if you go
off the roads you go too deep. We are camouflaging the whole place, and
I think it will soon be very difficult for the Huns to see it. At least,
when I say "we" are camouflaging, I mean that I run out for two minutes
about every three hours, and give hurried directions to a few bewildered
men, and rush in again. I'm sure they think the extraordinary patterns
that I order them to paint all over the huts, etc., are quite mad. The
R.F.C. show isn't ready yet, but it's likely to be so shortly.
_January 17._
To-day's letter got me into an absurd fit of internal laughter. Hale
brought it in while I was poring over some new photographs of Boche
emplacements, or dug-outs, or something--poring with a magnifying
glass.... And then came your drawings of the rooms at the cottage.
That'll be admirable. I tried to hold my head and think of exactly how
the cottage looked, and where the new rooms were to be; but somehow I've
got no brains left. And I leave it all to you. One day we shall be able
to discuss it peaceably, but at present this brain is like some limp
jellyfish floating in the sea.
To-day I'm doing a map, and the draughtsmen are copying it, of some
Boche dug-outs. Ye gods! what do I care about dug-outs! As well make
maps of all the rabbit-holes in Glamorganshire. But there, what's the
good of talking like that. It's got to be done.
_January 24._
[Sidenote: BUSY DAYS]
The aeroplanes have brought in the most marvellous photographs, and I am
very busy deciphering them and mapping the information on to a map.
_February 8._
After many, many days of incessant work comes a brief interval of
repose--till to-morrow morning.
We moved up here yesterday afternoon late.
Well, imagine a lovely large hut.
The room on the left is where all the maps, etc., are made, and the
room on the right is my office.
But outsiders can't just barge into my office. Oh no! They must ask one
of the orderlies if they can see me. Isn't it ridiculous!
Then there is a tiny bedroom.
The office walls are entirely covered now with aeroplane photos and
maps. It is all rather fun, and I think it won't be quite such a strain.
The cold is intense. Hale is functioning with the stove in my room at
the moment. I have said once that I don't really need a fire in my
bedroom; but he evidently has different views, and is firmly lighting
it. He is quite happy here.
I'm having the hut papered, to make it warmer. And canvas curtains, if
you please!
The R.F.C. people are most hospitable and nice. I like them very much.
It's all quite interesting, and the aeroplanes are delicious as they
move, buzzing like vast mosquitoes.
I go down in a side-car every day (that's the programme) to corps H.Q.
to report and get instructions.
_February 12._
Something may happen to prevent leave before leave comes. You will
understand. I should have to "remain at my post," as novels say.
_February 15._
[Sidenote: WITH THE R.F.C.]
A very difficult map has just been finished, and is being printed, and
here we sit down for a little talk together. The war is for the moment
far away. Away anxiety, away nervous apprehension, away fatigue, away
responsibility, away Wilhelm! Let the doors be shut, the curtains drawn.
Listen. An adventure, amusing, and rather exciting. Would you like to
hear about it? Well, I was making a raised map of a particular part of
the line for the corps commander. And I go up from time to time to scan
the ground, so that it may be very accurate and therefore rather useful.
At least that is what I hope. Yesterday, then, up into the blue, piloted
by Eric.
It was not a good day. In fact, too dud for good observation. But the
relief map must be ready quickly.
Imagine us, please, robed in leather coats and leather helmets and
gauntlets, and with goggles, waiting at the entrance of a hangar while
the mechanics bring out the gadfly. They have already looked the
creature over with great care. The pale yellow wings glitter against the
violet horizon. The sun is shining, but it's freezing hard. Eric climbs
in, and then I do. I sit behind with the machine gun.
I clasp a sketchbook, to sketch the lie of the land. O my aunt in
Jericho! isn't it Arctic! Fingers that feel like ammoniated quinine. You
know, a faint unpleasant tingle.
They are starting the engines. Difficult this cold weather. The
following strange colloquy ensues:
_Mechanic:_ "Contact."
_Pilot:_ "Contact."
_M._ "Switch off."
_P._ "Switch off."
_M._ "Contact."
_P._ "Contact."
_M._ "Switch off."
_P._ "Suck in."
_M._ "Contact."
_P._ "Contact."
And with a terrific whir the propeller flashes round. The sound
increases, and then decreases slightly, and increases again. The gadfly
moves. Moves more rapidly. Skims along the ground. Rises, rises, rises.
Ah, the beautiful river! Every time I have flown the beauty of that
river catches me in the throat. But this featureless waste. Bereft of
everything but earth, and a few low shelters and gun-pits, and seamed
with trenches. Hideously lonely.
Well, anyhow, here we are sailing high above it all, the wind
occasionally lifting one of the wings, and then the other, like a
sea-gull's. There is a haze, and it's not easy to see. You peer over the
edge, and behold at last the desired wood.
[Sidenote: A SCRAP IN THE AIR]
A wood? That? Good heavens! That poor miserable mess of splinters and
gashed soil? Each time I see one of the woods destroyed by this war I
thank God that our glorious Cotswold woods are still untouched.
Primroses, wood-anemones, squirrels. To think of squirrels!... Not
another aeroplane in sight. Neither our own nor Hun machines. Eric
circles smoothly round above the wood, and then crosses back over
no-man's-land to fly low, so that I can see the wood obliquely. Archie
quite wide of his mark. This doubling and circling perplexes him. The
sketch progresses. I look round from time to time to see that there are
still no Huns about. Eric also looks about. No: nothing in sight. The
guns are pooping off, but the noise of the engines makes the guns sound
like tiny little "pops." There, now I've nearly done. Lucky I came,
because the wood isn't quite what we thought. Yes, that'll do.... We are
up at a considerable height....
Suddenly Rat-tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat! above our heads. Three
Hun aeroplanes right on top of us; Eric drives headlong in a spiral
curve at full speed, smoke trailing out behind. The gun! I fumble.
Can't get round to it. Damn!
Rat-tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat! go the Huns. But Eric is faster. Are
they all Huns, though? Shall I fire? Yes. No. They daren't come down low
over our lines. We are safe. Yes, look, they were all Huns. They hang
about far up aloft. The Hun usually hunts in threes. Why, oh why, didn't
I fire? Well, it can't be helped now. Eric looks round. We both laugh.
"Why didn't you fire?" he shouts. I can't hear what he says, but I know
from the shape of his mouth that's what he is saying. I just smile and
shake my head. Can't explain now.
Where on earth did they come from? Coasting about very high up, I
suppose, and suddenly swooped down at us.
However, the drawing is done. So that's that. Home, John!
One little bullet-hole through one of the wings, no more. Indifferent
shooting, my friend Fritz. However, I can't talk, because I never fired
at all!
_February 16._
I've never thanked you for the chocolates which arrived two days ago.
But they arrived during one of the avalanches of work, and were all
eaten within half an hour or so; not by me, but by various R.F.C. men
who are always coming in and out of my office for "the latest."
[Sidenote: TOLL OF WAR]
To-day all frosty and sunny. Think of going on to the terrace at home
before breakfast and seeing some jolly little new flower out, with the
Golden Valley behind, all grey-blue and woody.
It's all working well here, and, being the representative of the corps,
I have a certain status which is pleasant. They think that I may or may
not give them a good character to the Powers that be. Quite fun.
They are awfully nice fellows. The only two I knew before were Eric and
Bill Vivian. Bill I have known for a very long time, and during the war
I've seen a great deal of him, and was very fond of him. He was brought
down by Archie yesterday in our lines. Burnt to death. Dead when they
reached him. Yesterday night at mess we were all quite gay. Only one man
showed that his heart was as heavy as lead. And it seemed bad form.
Heaviness of heart is bad form. No gentleman should have a heavy heart.
A sign of weakness, of ill breeding.
_February 17._
To-day has been one of the jumpy, anxious days again, because something
is to happen shortly, and those concerned are ringing up all the time
asking me this and that about the Boche trenches, etc. And they want
maps of this and plans of that and t'other. It's these times before some
event that are so wearing. The smaller the event, the more wearing very
often, because it's just some one or two officers, perhaps, who are
doing the show, and, of course, half their success or failure depends on
whether an unhappy intelligence officer can tell them exactly what they
are up against, and exactly where it is and so on. I always go on the
principle of assuming the worst. If I think there _may_ be a minny to
meet them, I tell them there _is_ a minny, and probably two. It may not
be very cheering to them. But if the minny is there, well, then I've put
them on their guard; and if it isn't there, well, they can laugh at the
work of the staff, and there's no harm done. People don't realize the
awful strain and responsibility and hard work of staffs. It's sometimes
a nightmare. Think of it in this way: I make a slip. A dozen men get
killed. When the Push comes, I make another slip, and a hundred men get
killed. Perhaps more. All the work of the lazy and incompetent staff!
But if the staffs are lazy and incompetent, then, for goodness' sake,
let's put more energetic and more competent people in their places. But
where are these more competent people? In the divisions? in the
battalions? But that is exactly where the present staffs came from! And
they are the very people who originally jibed at the staffs! Well,
anyhow, the war will end some day.
_February 21._
[Sidenote: THE WILD DUCK]
_Re_ America. It doesn't look much as if they were coming in now, does
it? However, one of the Scots Guards gave me June as the end of the war.
He offered me 10 to 1 in francs; but, as I am always rather muddled as
to whether that means that he gives me 10 francs if I win, or I give him
1 franc if I lose, or what, I declined to bet. I expect he thinks I
don't bet on principle. But, anyway, let's hope he wins.
Leave is off at present.
The worst of this game is that now I feel I want to do it all myself. I
really do know a fair amount about the Boche lines, and I long to spend
a day wandering about there taking notes!
I was up yesterday afternoon trying to find out a certain T.M. battery,
and what should fly by quite close and quite unconcerned but a duck! We
were not very high, and it was very misty. The duck just appeared, with
his neck stretched out, eager and oblivious. And then vanished into the
mist again. I was thinking about that duck too much to find out what I
wanted. Anyway, it was a fruitless journey. But flying amongst clouds is
very beautiful. Sometimes we got above the clouds, to where the sun was
functioning away as efficiently as ever. The clouds looked like millions
of feather beds.
_March 2._
I have been doing some drawings of R.F.C. officers. They love being
"took" out here, and my office is rapidly degenerating into a club,
which makes work no easier.
Well, you see from the papers what is happening. The Boche retires to
the Hindenburg Line, and we follow.
I should so love to tell you all about it, but Mum's the word. A great
moral defeat for poor Fritz, anyway.
The cavalry are sharpening their swords.
The aeroplanes sail high up in the blue, like hungry hawks.
_March 5._
I am probably going off to-morrow. Now, where do you think? Paris?
Madrid? Anything of that sort?
Wrong again. Shall I tell you?
VICTORIA.
I'll send you a telegram directly I get across the briny.
And I plead for no "back from the war tea-parties," please!
* * * * *
[Illustration: PERONNE
From BIACHES
A few days after the evacuation. From a distance the place looked almost
intact, as some of the outside walls had been left standing. That white
building in the centre of the town was once the cathedral. MONT ST.
QUENTIN on the left. The thin white lines on the slopes beyond are
trenches.]
_March 22._
[Sidenote: THE HUN RETREAT]
The Hun rearguards are now well beyond ----. I knew the place so
intimately from photographs, and from high up in the air, that a view of
it from terra-firma promised to be quite interesting.
So with great eagerness, some sandwiches, and the faithful sketchbook, I
sallied forth. Harry came, too. A glorious day of brilliant sun and
brief snowstorms.
From the aerodrome through all this devastated country, past wrecked
villages, orchards laid waste, dug-out camps, bivouac camps, R.E. dumps,
light railways, battered trollies lying on their sides, and all the ugly
confusion of old wire rusted a red-hot colour, bits of corrugated iron,
bits of netting screens, more wire, dead horses, dead men in all stages
of decomposition, legs, hands, heads scattered anywhere, dead trees,
mud, broken rifles, gas-bags, tin helmets, bully-beef tins, derelict
trenches, derelict telephone wires, grenades, aerial torpedoes, all the
toys of war, broken and useless. Tommy, the dear hairies, and the R.E.
dumps, to remind you what vast stores of everything are still being
accumulated.
The ground becomes more and more like boiling porridge as you approach
no-man's-land. Of no-man's-land itself, perhaps, the less said the
better. No-beast's-land--call it that rather. And yet men have been very
brave, very tender, in no-man's-land. Next we come to those Hun trenches
that I have peered at from a distance so long and mapped so often. It
all seems rather futile now.
Past the support trenches. Past the second line. Damn it! how much
larger and deeper that old emplacement is than I thought! The country is
less pitted, too. Of course, it hasn't been fought over like our back
areas. Why; here are trees scarcely knocked about at all. A recognizable
field there. How real that stream looks! And, oh Jemima! a blue tit.
A little distance farther. Over that gentle rise, and there behold ----.
Surely one of the loveliest towns in France, on its low hill surrounded
by the quiet waters of the Somme. From a distance it looks all right;
though somehow, the smoke still ascending from it doesn't look natural.
As you approach you realize that what looks so charming is just
empty, shelled, charred, and broken. The Huns have destroyed every
single house, all the bridges, and the cathedral, too. The cathedral
that once crowned the town now stands a pale crushed ghost in the
deserted market-place.
[Sidenote: PERONNE]
Some of the streets are almost amusing. Imagine Rye with the pretty
alleys so encumbered and piled up with roofs, sofas, the contents of
wardrobes, dormer-windows, smashed mirrors, rubble, and dust, that it's
quite impossible to proceed. Very well, that's ----.
Go into the houses, and there it's just as it is in the streets.
Everything crushed to atoms. Images of saints have been hurled out on to
garbage-heaps, and in the cathedral huge pillars are lying about in
clumsy confusion amongst chairs, organ pipes, and gilded flowers.
On a huge notice board in the Grande Place the Hun has written:
NICHT ARGERN: NUR WUNDERN!
(Don't argue: only wonder! We the Huns did this. Why discuss what we
have done? We have destroyed your city. Gape and stare, stupid fools!
What does it matter to us? We took your precious town from you, because
we wanted it. Now we don't want it any more. Here it is back again.
With our love.) Some merry soldier wrote that up, I suppose. It was a
pity.
There were French officers in ---- to-day. I spoke to one. He answered
with a quiet, simple bitterness and determination that would have turned
even a Hohenzollern pale, I think. Unhappy Emperor! he must be feeling
decidedly uneasy nowadays.
Another odd sight was a tub full of water, with a little dog trying to
get out. But the little dog was dead. A crump evidently landed somewhere
near, and just petrified him, as it were. You often see men like that,
struck dead in the middle of some act. Men are usually turned a dull
purplish or greenish black. So was this little dog. We ate a delicious
lunch on the battlements, our legs dangling 50 feet above the reedy
water. Lots of moorhen and coot swimming about.
The sun was warm. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. What a heavenly world
it is!
_April 6._
After a hectic day comes this chance of writing to you. Eleven-thirty
p.m.
Would you like to hear about night flying? I didn't go, but I sketched
the others going. And these are some notes. A bombing raid. It had been
ordered in the morning. A raid on ----. After a cheery dinner we trooped
out, singing foolish songs. The hangars a few hundred yards away across
the mud. They looked huge and eerie, looming up from the dark ground,
all stately in the moonlight. The moon had a halo, but was very bright,
bright enough to sketch by.
[Sidenote: NIGHT FLYING]
Six flares were flickering at intervals round the aerodrome. A vivid
orange colour against the dim blue sky. The horizon was greyer, and
little flames flashed intermittently from it. There were the aeroplanes
waiting.
It was very cold. Soon the mechanics were starting the machines. The
usual loud spurting and fizzing till presently the first machine begins
to move. A big semi-luminous beetle lurching forward; then faster and
faster and away, lifting up, up, up into the night. Only the lights
visible now, but you can hear the hum of the engines a long way off.
Other machines follow. The sky is full of twinkling fairies. They circle
about for a bit, and then all head towards the east. Gradually the
humming dies away in the distance. Look out for yourselves, you sleeping
Huns!
A long while afterwards the humming again.
The first aeroplane is coming home. There he is. Gradually lower and
nearer. The machine descends smoothly on to the ground, turns and
"taxis," spitting angrily towards the hangar where it lives. Muffled
figures get out, and the mechanics take in the machine tail first to its
home. What? oh yes, quite successful. Smashed the place to blazes.
Anyone got a cigarette? Other machines begin coming in. It's such a
clear night that we still stand about in groups waiting for the last one
to arrive. Damn it all! where can old Rupert have got to? We'll just
wait till he comes back, and then bundle off to bed. Anxious? Good Lord,
no! What about?
Suddenly a small sharp flash high up in the night. Another and another.
The Huns! They are coming. Archie is shelling them. Now another Archie
poops off nearer here. Quick! Where's the orderly officer?
In a couple of minutes all is dark. Gradually the drone of the Huns,
high up in the air, becomes audible. No. They seem to be steering more
towards ----. Searchlights from three different directions grope slowly
to and fro. Where the devil are the Huns? The searchlights cannot find
them. They must be cruising somewhere up above those thin cirrus clouds.
Are they going to drop bombs on us? No, their direction is too far
south. The searchlights cannot find them.
[Sidenote: THE END]
No sign of Rupert yet. Probably he has landed at another aerodrome. Dear
old Rupert. One of the very best in this world. He'll be all right. Come
on. It's too cold. Let's turn in.
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