Part 13

We've got a mighty lot to wipe out in this little push. It isn't only such scraps of discomfort as we suffered, nor yet the few men we lost there. But, French and British, month in and month out, for many a long day and night, we've been using up good men and true in that bloody, shell-torn corner. Why, there's not a yard of its churned-up soil that French and English men haven't suffered on. We've all that to wipe out; all that, and a deal more that I can't tell you about. I'll only tell you that I mean to get through it all right. Every man in the Battalion means real business--just as much as any of the chaps who fought under Nelson and Wellington, believe me. So, whatever you do, be under no sort of anxiety about your

"_Temporary Gentleman_."

P.S.--Seeing that you and I, and all our lot, never have known anything about military matters before this war came, I think it may interest you, as it interests me, to know that I have never seen the Company as a whole jollier, or in higher spirits than it is with this job before it; and, do you know, I never felt happier myself, never. I feel this makes it worth while to be alive and fit; more worth while than it ever was in civil life before the war.

FRONT LINE TO HOSPITAL

Perhaps this address will be quite a shock to you if you know what it means. So I hasten to say that I am perfectly all right, really. "Clearing Station"--perhaps that won't have the ominous look to you that "Hospital" would, though it means the same thing. But the point is, I am all right. I told you I'd get through, and I have. The fact that I'm lying in bed here--in luxurious comfort--is only an incident. I am quite safe and perfectly all right.

They tell me here that directly an officer is wounded information to that effect is sent home to his people. Well, I hope you will get this word from me first, and accept my assurance that there's nothing to worry about. These good folk here will put me as right as ninepence in no time, and I hope very shortly to be back with the Company and in the new line.

It was shrapnel, you know, and got me in the left leg and a bit in the right arm just when I was most wanting the use of both of 'em. I hope they haven't told you I'm going to lose my leg or anything, because I'm not. The surgeon here--a first-rate chap and a splendid surgeon--has told me all about it, and my leg will very soon be as good as ever.

This is just a line to let you know I am perfectly all right. I'll write and tell you all about it to-morrow.

I wonder whether the dispatches will have told you anything. The push was splendid. We've got that corner, and The Gut is well behind our front line now.

* * * * *

My letter of yesterday will have assured you that I am all right; nothing at all to worry about. I meant to have written you fully to-day about the push. But we've been busy. The surgeon's been cleaning me up--getting rid of useless souvenirs, you know; and it seems I'm better keeping pretty still and quiet to-day. Shall be out and about all the quicker, you see. This is a perfectly heavenly place, where you don't hear a vestige of gun-fire, and everything is sweet and clean, quiet and easy; no responsibility, no anything but comfort and ease. What a luxurious loaf I'm having! I'll write to-morrow.

* * * * *

I'm going ahead like a house afire; but so confoundedly lazy, you'd hardly believe it. I suppose this pencil will be legible, though it hardly looks it to me. As I say, I'm too lazy for words; simply wallowing in comfort and cleanliness. Thought I would just pencil a line now, so that you would know I was perfectly all right and then I can write properly to-morrow.

* * * * *

Another lazy day. I really ought to be at work, you know, so well and fit I am. But I just laze in this delightful bed, and watch the busy orderlies and sisters flitting to and fro, as though I were in a dream and other folk had to do all the world's work. The good old "Peacemaker" has come in to see me, and is writing this for me; chiefly because of my laziness, and partly that I like to spare you the work of deciphering the hieroglyphics I make with my left hand. The right arm is pretty good, you know, but it seems I'll get it entirely sound again rather quicker by not using it just now; and it's rather jolly to have one's O.C. Company working for one in this way.

He says that while I was about it I was a duffer not to get a real Blighty, and so have a holiday and come and see you all. As a fact, I've no doubt he's profoundly grateful that he will not be robbed of my invaluable services for long. "A" Company was relieved last night by a Company of the ----; in our new trenches, you know; the trenches that used to belong to Mister Boche; so our fellows are having a bit of a rest, I'm glad to say. Not the luxurious rest I'm having, of course; but something to be going on with.

I meant to tell you a whole lot of things, but for the laziness that makes me so greedy for naps and dozes. Also, they say visitors have to leave now, and "the Peacemaker" has a good way to ride. I'll write properly to-morrow. Meantime "the Peacemaker" is good enough to say he will write you to-night particulars as to how I got my scratches; so I won't ask him to write any more now. He will carry this on himself when he gets back to-night--while I laze and sleep.

* * * * *

As promised, I am adding a few lines to this for our good friend. I have not yet told him, but as a fact I am the only unwounded officer in "A" Company at the moment, and we were relieved last night in order that we might reorganise. Lieutenant Morgan--"Taffy"--was killed, I grieve to say, in the beginning of the advance, and our casualties for the Company were thirty-two killed and seventy-eight wounded. It's a terrible price, of course, but you will understand that a big loss was inevitable in our Company, when I tell you that we not only led the advance, but led it from the notorious Petticoat Lane, where the front is extraordinarily difficult to cross. We were very proud to be chosen for the lead, and compared with the net gain for the line, our loss is small, really. Indeed, if the entire casualties in the whole advance are weighed up against the position won, I believe I am right in saying that the cost was remarkably low. The gain in the line is immense, and there is not the smallest chance of the Boches taking it back again. Although our bombardment knocked his trenches about pretty badly--they were very strong trenches indeed, to begin with, very strongly placed and favourably situated--since our occupation we have worked day and night to make of the corner practically a fortified position, and one from which we can punish the Boche pretty severely on both flanks. I think this gain will lead to other gains before long in this sector. Our information is that the Boche casualties were very heavy. However, I did not mean to run on like this with regard to the military aspect. It is our friend you will want to hear about.

Now, in the first place, I should like to be allowed to say what you perhaps have guessed: that he is a very fine and a very valuable officer. I am not a bad judge, not only because I command his Company, but because, unlike himself, I am not quite without military knowledge of the kind that came before the war, having a good many years behind me of service as a Volunteer, and then as a Territorial, down to within seven months of the beginning of the war when I joined this Service Battalion. And I have no hesitation in saying that our friend is a fine and valuable officer. I know that a big share of any credit due for the fine training and discipline of our Company--which is, I think, admitted to be the crack Company of the best Battalion in the Brigade--is due, not to me, but to the Commander of our No. 1 Platoon. It is a very great loss to me to have him laid aside now; but I am so thankful his life is spared that I have no regret to waste over his being wounded. But I do very sincerely hope that he will be able to return to us, to the reorganised "A" Company, for I have never met an officer I would sooner have beside me. The men of the Platoon, and, indeed, of the whole Company, are devoted to him; and I regard it as little short of marvellous that in so comparatively short a time a man who had never had even the slightest hint of military training should have been able to become, all round, so efficient, so well posted technically, and, above all, so confident and absolutely so successful a leader of men. For that has been his greatest asset: that his men will go anywhere with him, do anything for him, trust him without the slightest reserve or doubt.

You know more about his character than I do, but I venture to say that the character you know has been wonderfully developed by the war and by his military training. He may have been the most lovable of men before, but I cannot believe that he was anything like so strong a man or so able a man. Confidence, fearlessness, decisiveness--strength, in fact; these qualities, I am sure, have developed greatly in him since he joined. I sometimes think there is nothing more wonderful in all this wonderful period of the war than the amazing development it has brought in the thousands of young Englishmen who now are capable and efficient officers, loved and trusted by their men, and as able in every way as any officers the British Army ever had, although the great majority of them have no military tradition behind them, and before August, 1914, had no military training. That is wonderful, and I am convinced that no other race or nation in the wide world could have produced the same thing. The men, fine as they are, might have been produced elsewhere, or something like them. But this apparently inexhaustible supply of fine and efficient officers--no, I think not.

The newspapers will have told you something of our little push, and I will not trouble you with any technical detail. We advanced over a very narrow front after a short but intense bombardment. Our friend led the right half of "A" because I did not want to rob his own Platoon of his immediate influence. His is No. 1. The pace was hot, despite the torn and treacherous nature of the ground. The right half did even better than my half, and stormed the first Boche line with extraordinary dash and vigour. It seemed as though nothing could stop their impetuosity; and in the midst of the tremendous din I caught little waves of their shouting more than once.

Our friend had crossed the first line, and successfully led his men to the very edge of the second line, shouting to his men to join him in taking it, when the shell burst that brought him down. The same shell must have laid some Boches low, if that is any consolation. Not that we need any consolation. I feel sure you will agree with me in that.

But I want to tell you that the wounds in the right arm--not serious, I am thankful to say--were not from the same shell. They came in the neighbourhood of the first Boche line. That same right arm (after it was wounded), carrying a loaded stick, knocked up a Boche bayonet that was due to reach the chest of a man in No. 1 Platoon and then served to support the same man on the parapet of the Boche trench--he was already wounded--for a few moments till a stretcher-bearer got him. It was not possible for our friend to stay with him, of course. A few seconds later he was leading his men full pelt towards the second line; and all that after his first wound. I thought you would like to know that. Our C.O. knows it, and I venture to hope it will find mention in dispatches.

And now with regard to his condition. Whilst he is not quite so forward as he thinks--there is, of course, no question of his coming back to duty in a few days, as he fancies--there is, I think, no cause whatever for anxiety. In fact, the M.O. at the Clearing Station assured me of so much. His general health is excellent; nothing septic has intervened; it is simply a question of a little time. The worst that is likely to happen is that the left leg may be permanently a shade shorter than the right, and it is hoped this may be averted. His Company--all that is left of us--will be very sincerely glad to see him back again. Meantime we rejoice, as I am sure you will, in the manner, the distinction, of his fall, in the certainty of his enjoying the rest he has earned so well, and in the prospect of his recovery.

THE PUSH AND AFTER

The Battalion being now out of the line, the O.C. Company has kindly sent my batman along to me here--you remember my batman, Lawson, on Salisbury Plain--and he is writing this for me, so that I can preserve my present perfect laziness. I point this out by way of accounting for the superior neatness of the handwriting, after my illegible scrawls. Lawson was a clerk at ----'s works before the war, and, as you perceive, has a top-hole "hand of write."

I got rather a fright, as I lay dreaming here, half awake and half asleep, at six o'clock this morning. An orderly came along with a blue ticket and a big safety-pin, like those the Highlanders use in their petticoats, and pinned his label on the bottom of my counterpane.

"Hallo!" says I; "what's this? Are they putting me up for sale?"

Mentally, I began to describe myself for the catalogue. (How strong are the habits of civil life!) "One full-size, extra heavy Temporary Officer and Gentleman; right arm and left leg slightly chipped, the whole a little shop-worn, but otherwise as new. Will be sold absolutely without reserve to make room for new stock." (They have to keep as many beds as possible vacant in Clearing Stations, you know.)

The orderly just grinned and faded away like the Cheshire cat. A Sister came along shortly afterwards, and I asked her the meaning of my blue label.

"Oh! that," she said, very casually, "that's the evacuation card."

I am to be evacuated, like a pulverised trench, a redoubt that has become useless or untenable. Jolly, isn't it? Seriously, I was a good deal worried about this, until I had seen the M.O., because I had an idea that once one was evacuated out of the Divisional area, one was automatically struck off the strength of one's unit, in which case, goodness knows when, if ever, I should see my own "A" Company again. But the M.O. tells me it's all right, so long as one remains in France. One is only struck off on leaving France, and when that happens one can never be sure which Battalion of the Regiment one will return to. So there's nothing to worry about. It's only that these Clearing Stations have to keep plenty of vacant accommodation ready for cases fresh out of the line; and so fellows like me, who are supposed to require a bit more patching up than can be given in two or three days, have to be evacuated to one or other of the base hospitals. Hence the label, which makes of your Temporary Gentleman an "evacuation case."

It's uncertain when I shall be moved, or to which base, so I cannot give you a new address for letters. The generosity, the kindness, the skill, and the unwearying attentiveness and consideration shown one in this place could not possibly be improved on; but their official reticence in the matter of giving one any information regarding one's insignificant self, future movements, and so on, can only be described as godlike. I shall always associate it in my mind with a smile of ineffable benevolence (also rather godlike), as who should say, with inexhaustible patience, "There, there, my little man; there, there." And that's all. Perhaps it's good for us, taken, as medicine must be, with childlike trust and faith. We must hope so.

Come to think of it, there is a hint in the gentle air of this place--never torn by shot or shell, or penetrated by even the faintest odour of defunct Boches in No Man's Land--of a general conspiracy of reticence. It has infected mine own hitherto trusted batman (who presumes to chuckle as he writes these lines at my dictation), whose professed ignorance, regarding most points upon which I have this morning sought information, suggests that I have in the past consistently overrated his intelligence and general competence. It is clearly very desirable that I should get back to my Platoon as soon as possible.

Lying here at mine ease, I think a great deal; but of the quality of my thinking I fear there is little to be said that is favourable. Perhaps the medicine I take so trustfully has contained some of the soporific stuff of dreams, and that is why the pain in my leg has been so trifling since the first day here. I feel my thoughts stirring in my mind; but they move in a swaying, dreamy fashion, as though they were floating in, say golden syrup, and were not really interested in getting out of it. I wanted to tell you all about our push, but, do you know, though it was not very many days ago, it seems already extraordinarily remote, so far as the details are concerned, and I am hazy as to what I have told you and what I have not told.

One thing stands out so clearly in my otherwise treacly mind that I feel I never, never shall forget it; and that is the sensation of the moment when the order reached us to advance. We had been a long time waiting for it, even before our bombardment began, and when it came-- But, although the sensation is very clear to me, I'm not at all sure I can convey any idea of it to you. I've just asked Lawson what he felt like when it came; but the conspiracy of reticence, or something, leads him to say he doesn't know. I found myself muttering something at the moment, and he says he did, too. That's something of a coincidence. He believes the actual words he muttered were: "What ho!" But that's not exactly illuminating, is it?

I believe my thought, as we scrambled over the parapet was that now, at last, we were going to wipe Petticoat Lane off the map as a front line. Good-bye to this hole! That was the idea, I think. We did so hate that bit of line, with its quicksand craters in front, and the sodden lowness that made it a sort of pocket for the receipt of every kind of explosive the Boche liked to lob in on us.

The struggle through the craters, before we got to the first Boche line, was pretty beastly, and, I am afraid, cost us rather dear, although we got to the near lip of the craters before the punishment began, thanks to a quick start and the fine accuracy of our gunners in their curtain fire. You know the sort of thing that happens in nightmares, when each of your feet weighs a ton and a half, at the moment when speed is the only thing to save you from the most hideous kind of spiflication. Getting through the craters was like that.

Our good time began when the craters were passed, and there was nothing but Boche trenches in front of us. Then it was we began to feel the jolly feelings you've read about; the glorious exhilaration of the charge. And, really, it wouldn't be possible to exaggerate about that. You can take it from me that the most highly coloured chromo-lithographs can't overdo that, in the essential spirit of the thing. Their detail is pretty groggy, of course--no waving plumes, gay colours, flashing swords, and polished top-boots, you know. My goodness, no! We were all the colour of the foul clay we'd come from--all over. But the spirit of it! It's perfectly hopeless for me to try to tell you, especially in a letter. They say they pump spirits and drugs into the Boches before they leave their trenches. No drug and no champagne, even of the choicest, could have given us any more exhilaration, I fancy, than one felt in that dash from the craters to the first Boche line. Heavens! but it was the real thing; real, real, real; that's what it was, more than anything else. Made you feel you'd never been really and fully alive till then. Seven-leagued boots, and all that kind of thing, you know. The earth seemed to fly under your feet. I can see the dirty, earth-smeared faces in that Boche trench now. (They were scuffling and scrambling out from the dug-outs, where they'd sheltered from our bombardment, to their fire-steps.) They seemed of no more importance than so many Aunt Sallies or Dutch dolls. Things like that to stop _us_! Absurd!

And how one whooped! I was fairly screaming "'A' Company!" at the very top of my voice as we jumped into that trench. The man on my left was Corporal Slade (Lance-Sergeant, I should say) and, as we reached their parapet I could hear him yelling beside my ear, through all the roar of the guns: "Hell! Give 'em hell! Give 'em hell, boys!" Most outrageous!

In the trench it was a sort of a football scrum glorified; oh! very much glorified. Most curiously, the thing passing through my mind then was "the Peacemaker's" old gag, apropos of the use of his trench dagger, you know: "When you hear that cough, you can pass on to the next Boche. Get him in the right place, and three inches of the steel will do. Don't waste time over any more." Queer wasn't it?

Galloping across the next stretch--by the way, it was the very devil getting out over the Boche parados, so high and shaly. A fellow grabbed my right ankle when I was half-way up; the very thing I'd always dreaded in dreams of the trenches, and, by Gad! if I didn't kick out you must let me know about it. I'd sooner have had a bayonet thrust any day than the ram of my field boot that chap got in his face. The next stretch, to the Boche second line, yes! The champagney feeling was stronger than ever then, because one felt that front line was smashed. Sort of crossing the Rhine, you know. One was on German soil, so to say. My hat, what scores to pay!

And mixed up with the splendid feeling of the charge itself--by long odds the finest feel I ever had in my life--there was a queer, worrying little thought, too. I knew some of our men were dropping, and-- "Damn it, I ought to be doing something to save those chaps." That was the thought. It kind of stung; sort of feeling I ought to have some knowledge I had failed to acquire. They're your men, you ought to know. That sort of feeling. But I don't think it slowed one's stride at all. The champagne feeling was the main thing. I was absolutely certain we were bringing it off all right. The Boche guns were real enough; but their men didn't seem to me to count.

Queer thing about the wire in front of that second line. It wasn't anything like so good or extensive as front-line wire, and I dare say our guns had knocked a good deal of the stuffing out of it. Still, there was a lot left, more than I expected for a second line. Do you know, "A" Company went through it as though it had been paper. It was a glorious thing that. You know how gingerly one approaches barbed wire or anything like that; a thorn hedge, if you like. And you've seen how fellows going into the sea to bathe, at low tide, will gallop through the rows of little wavelets where the water's shallow; feet going high and arms waving, the men themselves whooping for the fun of the thing. That's exactly how our chaps went through that wire. I'll guarantee nobody felt a scratch from it. And yet my breeches and tunic were in ribbons from the waist down when I got to the field ambulance, and from the waist to the knee I'll carry the pattern of that wire for some time to come. Might have been swan's-down for all we knew about it.