Chapter 2

THE SOMME (APRIL 1917)

Amiens was the one big town that could be reached easily from the Somme front for dinner, so every night it was crowded with officers and men who had come back in cars, motor-bikes, lorries or any old thing in or on which they could get a lift. After dinner they would stand near the station and hail anything passing, till they found something that would drop them near their destination. As there was an endless stream of traffic going out over the Albert and Péronne Roads during that time (April 1917), it was easy.

Amiens is a dirty old town with its seven canals. The cathedral, belfry and the theatre are, of course, wonderful, but there is little else except the dirt.

I remember later lunching with John Sargent in Amiens, after which I asked him if he would like to see the front of the theatre. He said he would. When we were looking at it he said: "Yes, I suppose it is one of the most perfect things in Europe. I've had a photograph of it hanging over my bed for the last thirty years."

But Amiens was a danger trap for the young officer from the line, also for the men. "Charlie's Bar" was always full of officers; mirth ran high, also the bills for drinks--and the drink the Tommies got in the little cafés was terrible stuff, and often doped.

Then, when darkness came on, strange women--the riff-raff from (p. 017) Paris, the expelled from Rouen, in fact the badly diseased from all parts of France--hovered about in the blackness with their electric torches, and led the unknowing away to blackened side-streets and up dim stairways--to what? Anyway, for an hour or so they were out of the rain and mud, but afterwards? Often did I go with Freddie Fane, the A.P.M., to these dens of filth to drag fine men away from disease.

The wise ones dined well--if not too well--at the "Godbert," with its Madeleine, or the "Cathedral," with its Marguerite, who was the queen of the British Army in Picardy, or, not so expensively, at the "Hôtel de la Paix." Some months later the club started, a well-run place. I remember a Major who used to have his bath there once a week at 4 p.m. It was prepared for him, with a large whisky-and-soda by its side. What more comfort could one wish? Then there were dinners at the Allied Press, after which the Major would give a discourse amid heavy silence; then music. The favourite song at that time was:--

"Jackie Boy! Master? Singie well? Very well. Hey down, Ho down, Derry, Derry down, All among the leaves so green, O.

"With my Hey down, down, With my Ho down, down, Hey down, Ho down, Derry, Derry down, All among the leaves so green, O."

Later, perhaps, if the night was fine, the Major would retire to the (p. 018) garden and play the flute. This was a serious moment--a great hush was felt, nobody dared to move; but he really didn't play badly. And old Hale would tell stories which no one could understand, and de Maratray would play ping-pong with extraordinary agility. It would all have been great fun if people had not been killing each other so near. Why, during that time, the Boche did not bomb Amiens, I cannot understand, it was thick every week-end with the British Army. One could hardly jamb oneself through the crowd in the Place Gambetta or up the Rue des Trois Cailloux. It was a struggling mass of khaki, bumping over the uneven cobblestones. What streets they were! I remember walking back from dinner one night with a Major, the agricultural expert of the Somme, and he said, "Don't you think the pavement is very hostile to-night?"

I shall never forget my first sight of the Somme battlefields. It was snowing fast, but the ground was not covered, and there was this endless waste of mud, holes and water. Nothing but mud, water, crosses and broken Tanks; miles and miles of it, horrible and terrible, but with a noble dignity of its own, and, running through it, the great artery, the Albert-Bapaume Road, with its endless stream of men, guns, food lorries, mules and cars, all pressing along with apparently unceasing energy towards the front. Past all the little crosses where their comrades had fallen, nothing daunted, they pressed on towards the Hell that awaited them on the far side of Bapaume. The mud, the cold, the noise, the misery, and perhaps death;--on they went, plodding through the mud, those wonderful men, perhaps singing one of their cheer-making songs, such as:--

"I want to go home. (p. 019) I want to go home. I don't want to go to the trenches no more, Where the Whizz-bangs and Johnsons do rattle and roar. Take me right over the sea, Where the Allemande can't bayonet me. Oh, my! I don't want to die, I want to go home."

How did they do it? "I want to go home."--Does anyone realise what those words must have meant to them then? I believe I do now--a little bit. Even I, from my back, looking-on position, sometimes felt the terrible fear, the longing to get away. What must they have felt? "From battle, murder and sudden death, Good Lord, deliver us."

On up the hill past the mines to Pozières. An Army railway was then running through Pozières, and the station was marked by a big wooden sign painted black and white, like you see at any country station in England, with POZIÈRES in large Roman letters, but that's all there was of Pozières except a little red in the mud. I remember later, at the R.F.C. H.Q., Maurice Baring showed me a series of air-photographs of Pozières as it was in 1914, with its peaceful little streets and rows of trees. What a contrast to the Pozières as it was in 1917--MUD. Further on, the Butte stood out on the right, a heap of chalky mud, not a blade of grass round it then--nothing but mud, with a white cross on the top. On the left, the Crown Prince's dug-out and Gibraltar--I suppose these have gone now--and Le Sars and Grévillers, at that time General Birdwood's H.Q., where the church had been knocked into a fine shape. I tried to draw it, but was much put off by air fighting. It seemed a favourite spot for this.

Bapaume must always have been a dismal place, like Albert, but (p. 020) Péronne must have been lovely, looking up from the water; and the main _Place_ must have been most imposing, but then it was very sad. The Boche had only left it about three weeks, and it had not been "cleaned up." But the real terribleness of the Somme was not in the towns or on the roads. One felt it as one wandered over the old battlefields of La Boisselle, Courcelette, Thiepval, Grandcourt, Miraumont, Beaumont-Hamel, Bazentin-le-Grand and Bazentin-le-Petit--the whole country practically untouched since the great day when the Boche was pushed back and it was left in peace once more.

A hand lying on the duckboards; a Boche and a Highlander locked in a deadly embrace at the edge of Highwood; the "Cough-drop" with the stench coming from its watery bottom; the shell-holes with the shapes of bodies faintly showing through the putrid water--all these things made one think terribly of what human beings had been through, and were going through a bit further on, and would be going through for perhaps years more--who knew how many?

I remember an officer saying to me, "Paint the Somme? I could do it from memory--just a flat horizon-line and mud-holes and water, with the stumps of a few battered trees," but one could not paint the smell.

Early one morning in Amiens I got a message from Colonel John Buchan asking me to breakfast at the "Hôtel du Rhin." While we were having breakfast, there was a great noise outside--an English voice was cursing someone else hard and telling him to get on and not make an ass of himself. Then a Flying Pilot was pushed in by an Observer. The Pilot's hand and arm were temporarily bound up, but blood was (p. 021) dropping through. The Observer had his face badly scratched and one of his legs was not quite right. They sat at a table, and the waiter brought them eggs and coffee, which they took with relish, but the Pilot was constantly drooping towards his left, and the drooping always continued, till he went crack on the floor. Then the Observer would curse him soundly and put him back in his chair, where he would eat again till the next fall. When they had finished, the waiter put a cigarette in each of their mouths and lit them. After a few minutes four men walked in with two stretchers, put the two breakfasters on the stretchers, and walked out with them--not a word was spoken.

I found out afterwards that the Pilot had been hit in the wrist over the lines early that morning and missed the direction back to his aerodrome. Getting very weak, he landed, not very well, outside Amiens. He got his wrist bound up and had asked someone to telephone to the aerodrome to tell them that they were going to the "Rhin" for breakfast, and would they send for them there?

After I had been in Amiens for about a fortnight, going out to the Somme battlefields early in the morning and coming back when it got dark, I received a message one evening from the Press "Major" to go to his château and ring up the "Colonel" at Rollencourt, which I did. The following was the conversation as far as I remember:--

"Is that Orpen?"

"Yes, sir."

"What do you mean by behaving this way?"

"What way, please, sir?"

"By not reporting to me."

"I'm sorry, sir, but I do not understand." (p. 022)

"Don't you know you must report to me, and show me what work you have been doing?"

"I've practically done nothing yet, sir."

"What have you been doing?"

"Looking round, sir."

"Are you aware you are being paid for your services?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, report to me and show me your work regularly.--Tell the Major to speak to me."

The Major spoke, and I clearly heard him say my behaviour was damnable.

This wonderful Colonel expected me to work all day, and apparently, in the evening, to take what I had done and show it to him--the distance by motor to him and back was something like 110 miles!

I saw there was nothing for it, if I wanted to do my work, but to fight, so I decided to lay my views of people and things before those who were above the Colonel. This I did, and had comparative peace, but the seed of hostility was sown in the Colonel's Intelligence (F) Section, G.H.Q., as I think it was then called, and they made me suffer as much as was in their power.

* * * * *

"BEAUMONT-HAMEL" (p. 023)

A MEMORY OF THE SOMME (SPRING 1917)

A fair spring morning--not a living soul is near, Far, far away there is the faint grumble of the guns; The battle has passed long since-- All is Peace. At times there is the faint drone of aeroplanes as They pass overhead, amber specks, high up in the blue; Occasionally there is the movement of a rat in the Old battered trench on which I sit, still in the Confusion in which it was hurriedly left. The sun is baking hot. Strange odours come from the door of a dug-out With its endless steps running down into blackness. The land is white--dazzling. The distance is all shimmering in heat. A few little spring flowers have forced their way Through the chalk.

He lies a few yards in front of the trench. We are quite alone. He makes me feel very awed, very small, very ashamed. He has been there a long, long time-- Hundreds of eyes have seen him, Hundreds of bodies have felt faint and sick Because of him. Then this place was Hell, But now all is Peace. And the sun has made him Holy and Pure-- He and his garments are bleached white and clean. A daffodil is by his head, and his curly, golden (p. 024) Hair is moving in the slight breeze. He, the man who died in "No Man's Land," doing Some great act of bravery for his comrades and Country-- Here he lies, Pure and Holy, his face upward turned; No earth between him and his Maker. I have no right to be so near.