Chapter 10

In the evening I did not wait in the dinner queue, but went to the St. Martin. It was kept by an old woman and her two daughters. They were tortured by anxiety:

"Les Allemands vont venir ici--de Shermans come heer?" they asked. But I knew no more than they did. I told them, against my own conviction, that the German advance would be held up, but they remained anxious. The uproar of the cannonade was louder than ever. All the windows of the building shook and rattled. The old woman muttered: "'Tis niet goet, 'tis niet goet," and the elder daughter echoed: "Oh, 'tiss no bon, 'tiss no bon."

Two British officers entered. They looked round and saw that private soldiers were sitting at the tables. But the St. Martin was the biggest estaminet in the village and provided the best wines and coffees, so they stood in the doorway, undecided what to do. They asked one of the girls if there was a restaurant for officers in the neighbourhood. She answered: "No--no restaurant for officeerss--you come heer--privates, zey no hurt you--privates, officeerss, all same."

Encouraged by these assurances, one of the newcomers said to the other:

"Come on, let's sit down here and have a coffee--we needn't stop long."

All the smaller tables were occupied, but there was one long table that stretched across the room and only a few men were sitting at the far end of it. The officers sat down at the near end and ordered coffee. They seemed a little embarrassed at first, but they soon began to talk freely to each other:

"I wonder if there's a war on in these parts--I hear the Huns have made a bit of a push."

"Curse the blighters--they'll mess up my leave, it's due in a week's time."

"Jolly good coffee, this! Here, Marie, bring us another two cups--der coop der caffay--that's right, isn't it?"

"Dat's right," said the girl, "you speak goot French--vous avez tout a fait l'accent parisien."

Suddenly her sister came running into the room, sobbing loudly:

"English soldier come round from Commandant--he tell us Shermans come--ve got to go 'vay at once, ve got to leave everysing--ve go 'vay and English troops steal everysing and shellss come and smash everysing and ve looss everysing."

The civilians of the village had received orders to leave immediately. Through the window we could see groups of people standing in the street and talking together. They were greatly agitated.

The old woman sniffed and wiped her eyes. The elder daughter was packing a few things in a bundle. One of the officers asked: "What about our coffee?" but she took no notice. Her sister had gone out in search of further information.

She soon returned. Yes, they would all have to leave at once, but, if they liked to take the risk, they could come back to-morrow with a wagon, if they could get one, and fetch their belongings.

They were comforted. They knew where they would be able to get a wagon. They would cart their stock and their household property away on the morrow. They would start another estaminet somewhere. They would suffer loss and inconvenience, but they would not be ruined--their valuable stock of wines would save them from that.

The bundle was made up and they prepared to leave. We paid our bill and went out into the street. Numbers of soldiers were straggling past. They looked wretched and exhausted. Their boots and puttees were caked with mud. They had neither rifles nor packs. Three men were lying up against a garden wall. We asked them for news. They could not tell us much, except that the Germans were still advancing.

"We was at Dickebusch when 'e started slingin' stuff over--gorblimy, 'e don't 'alf wallop yer--umpteen of our mates got bleed'n' well biffed. We cleared out afore it got too 'ot."

Several famished "battle-stragglers" had entered our camp in order to beg for food. They sat round the cook-house and ate in gloomy silence.

In the adjoining field a number of tents had sprung up. Blue figures were moving in and out amongst them. The French had arrived.

The next morning, about breakfast time, the first shell burst near the camp--a short rapid squeal followed by a sharp report. The second shell burst a few minutes after, throwing up earth and smoke. A steel fragment came sailing over in a wide parabola and struck the foot of a man standing in the breakfast queue. He limped to the first-aid hut, looking very pale. When he got there, he had some difficulty in finding his wound, it was so slight.

We paraded and marched off. Several shells burst in the neighbouring fields. We reached the ration dump and began to load the train. A civilian arrived with the newspapers. Our N.C.O.'s were powerless to stop the general stampede that surged towards the paper-vendor.

The Germans had advanced on a wide front ... Armentières had fallen. The news was several days old and much might have happened since.

We went back to our work and discussed events. We were bullied and threatened with arrest, but we talked in groups while we carried cases of rations. Would we be involved in the advance? We might even be captured--that would at least be an experience and a change.

In the evening a few of us went to the St. Martin to see if the old woman and her daughter had been able to fetch their property away. We observed that the windows, where tinned fruit, chocolate, cakes, soap, postcards, and other articles used to be exhibited, had been cleared completely. We entered and found one of the girls in tears:

"All gone--all gone--I show you--you come into de cellar--all de wine gone--bottles all, all broken. English soldiers come in de night and take everysing 'vay--ve nussing left--it's de soldiers in de camp over zair in de field--zey plenty drunk dis morning--ve lose everysing--ve poor now."

Besides the windows, the till and the shelves had been cleared, and empty drawers and boxes had been thrown on to the floor. We went down into the cellar. All the cases had been opened and the stone floor was littered with empty and broken bottles. The girl began to sob again when she saw the ruin that had been inflicted:

"All gone, all gone--ve poor now."

"Why don't you complain to the Town Major?" one of us suggested.

"Complain?--vat's de use complain?--de Town Major, he nice man, he kind to us, but he no find de soldiers dat come, and if he find zem he punish zem but ve get nussing. Vat's de use punish zem if ve get nussing? All gone, ve poor now--oh, dis var, dis var--dis de second time ve refugeess--ve lose eversing 1914, ve come here from Zandvoorde and ve start again--ve do business vis soldiers, soldiers plenty money, ve do goot business, and now ve refugeess again and ve novair to go. If de Shermans come, ve do business vis de Shermans--but de shells come first and ve all killed--ah, dis var, dis var! Vat's de use fighting? All for nussing! Var over, me plenty dance!"

We ascended the cellar stairs. The mother was in the main room, wiping her eyes. We said good-bye to her and her daughter, feeling ashamed of our uniforms, and walked out into the street.

A mass of French cavalry were galloping past. It was growing dark. The cannonade had become deafening. Over the town a few miles off there was a crimson glare in the sky.

A horde of civilians was thronging the main street of the village. Old men and women were carrying all that was left to them of their property on their backs. Others were pushing wheelbarrows heaped up with clothes and household utensils. Girls were carrying heavy bundles under their arms and dragging tired, tearful children along. White-faced, sorrowful mothers were carrying peevish babies. Great wagons, loaded with furniture and bedding, and whole families sitting on top, were drawn by lank and bony horses. A little cart, with a pallid, aged woman cowering inside, was drawn painfully along by a white-haired man. They passed by us in the gathering gloom, and there seemed to be no end to these straggling multitudes of ruined, homeless people who were wandering westwards to escape the disaster that threatened to engulf us all.

The eastern sky flickered with vivid gun-flashes and scintillated with brilliant shell-bursts. The night was full of rustling noises and sullen thunder-claps, while a more distant roaring and rumbling seemed to break against some invisible shore like the breakers of a stormy sea.

We retired to our huts and tents. Soon after lights-out the Police Corporal came round and shouted:

"Parade at 4.45 to-morrow morning in marching order."

The tumult increased as though the surge were coming nearer and nearer. Shells of small calibre passed overhead with a prolonged whistle and burst with a hardly audible report. The thunder of bigger explosions shook the huts and caused the ground to tremble.

As I woke the next morning the din of the cannonade broke in upon my senses with a sudden impact. Rumbling, thundering, bellowing, rushing, whistling, and whining, the tumult seemed all around and above us. Sudden flashes lit up the whole camp so that for fractions of seconds every hut and tent was brilliantly illuminated. Multitudes of dazzling stars appeared and disappeared.

We drew our breakfast and packed up our belongings. All was confusion in the hut.

We paraded, the roll was called, and as the day began to dawn we marched off.

We passed down the main road in long, swaying columns of fours. We left the woodyard behind us and hoped it would be destroyed--how we hated the place for the dreary months we had spent there! The westward stream of refugees had ceased, but an eastward stream of French infantry and field artillery thronged the roads. The artillerymen were mostly tall and powerfully built. The infantry were nearly all elderly men of poor physique. They looked desperately miserable. We exchanged greetings:

"It's a good war!"

"C'est une bonne guerre!"

And then we broke into song:

"Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, _Oh_ it's a lovely war!"

The French did not sing, but we, who were escaping destruction, passed from one song to another:

"I don't want to fight the Germans, I don't want to go to war, I'd sooner be in London, Dear old dirty London."

And

"Far, far from Ypers, I'd like to be, Where German snipers Can't get at me."

And

"When this bloody war is over, O how happy I shall be, When I get my civvy clothes on, No more soldiering for me."

and all the other songs familiar to every soldier in the British army.

We marched all day along straight roads running in between flat fields and past ugly little villages. As we grew tired and footsore our rollicking spirit abated and the singing died down.

Towards nightfall we halted in a large meadow with a pond in one corner. Several lorries loaded with tents were waiting for us. We unloaded them, pitched the tents, crept into them, and went to bed.

The rumble of the cannonade sounded faintly in the far distance.

"I reckon it's a bloody shame to let the other Tommies and the Frenchies...."

The voice seemed to die away into a drawl as weariness overcame me. I continued to hear the sound of words for a little while, but they conveyed no meaning. And then sleep descended and brought entire oblivion.

VIII

HOME ON LEAVE

"I have several times expressed the thought that in our day the feeling of patriotism is an unnatural, irrational, and harmful feeling, and a cause of a great part of the ills from which mankind is suffering; and that, consequently, this feeling should not be cultivated, as is now being done, but should, on the contrary, be suppressed and eradicated by all means available to rational men."

(TOLSTOY.)

A change had come over us all. Instead of long spells of dreary silence interrupted by outbursts of irritability, by grumbling and by violent quarrels over nothing, there was animated conversations and sometimes even gaiety. Our talk was all about one subject--not about peace, for we had abandoned all hope of peace and hardly ever thought of it--but about leave. We had been waiting for seventeen months when, without warning, a leave allotment was assigned to our unit. About half a dozen men were going every day and no one knew whose turn would come next. We were full of intense excitement and glad expectation, but also of anxiety in case something should happen to stop our leave altogether.

I made up my mind to enjoy myself thoroughly. I would see parents and friends and forget all about the army and the war. I would be gay and frivolous and go to theatres, music-halls and cafés. And one day I would spend in the British Museum and lose myself in books--that would be just like old times! Of course, our leave would not last for ever and the return journey would be terrible. No doubt the fortnight would pass very quickly, but I determined to enjoy every single hour with deliberation and understanding, and to squeeze every drop of pleasure out of it. How many hours were there in a fortnight? More than three hundred! Many would be wasted in sleep, but still, there would be many left and by dwelling upon each one, the fortnight would seem an age.

* * * * *

An afternoon and an evening in a train that travelled all too slowly. A night and half a day at Calais Rest Camp. How terrible was the rankling impatience that gnawed our hearts as the hours dragged on.

But at last we were on the leave boat. There was another long delay, and then, with a feeling of immense relief, we heard the engines throb and the paddle-wheels begin to turn. I looked overboard and saw white foam hissing along the surface of water rapidly widening between us and the quay.

Seventeen months of exile and slavery had come to an end and before us lay a wonderful fortnight of freedom and happiness. And at the end of the fortnight? There was no need to think of that now.

The sea was blue and smooth and a cool breeze was blowing. We saw the cliffs of England grow larger and larger. Soon we were able to distinguish the town of Dover, the houses clustered round the harbour, and the Castle up on the cliff. It was there that I had begun my career as a soldier more than two years before. How much had happened since then! I felt that I had become a different being altogether.

The boat entered the harbour and ran alongside the quay. A train was waiting for us. We poured out of the ship in two streams that spread out fan-wise and flowed into the carriages.

It was good to sit by the window in a comfortable compartment and lean back against soft cushions.

Glad anticipation and barely suppressed excitement were visible on everybody's face.

The train sped through familiar country: meadows, pastures, cornfields, orchards and woodlands. People waved their handkerchiefs at us from cottage windows.

It was growing dark as the first rows of drab suburban houses began to glide past.

So this was London. I stared out of the window and tried to grasp the tremendous, wonderful fact with all the power of my mind. Somehow or other it did not seem real, but I felt I could make it real by an effort of the will.

Streets and houses and moving people soon crowded the whole view. The people filled me with intense curiosity. I longed to talk to them and find out what they felt and thought about the war.

We entered Victoria Station. I opened the door of the compartment with hasty, trembling hands. I did not wait to change my French money, but hurried out into a street and got on to a 'bus.

London, with its subdued lights, lay all around me. It had not changed since I saw it last, and yet I felt it ought to have changed. The reason was that I had changed. And then I began to fear that I had changed beyond the power of recovery. The oppressive sensation that I was in a dream forced itself upon me. I felt that there was only one reality in the whole world--the war. Would I ever escape from the war? It would come to an end some day, and I would leave the army, but would not the war obsess me until the end of my life? Would I ever be myself again?

But this was not the way to enjoy my leave! I began to feel disappointed at not being so happy as I had expected to be. Why was I not full of rapture? Why did not every object fill me with delight? But I ought to have known that habitual discontent and bitterness and revolt are not shaken off in a few hours or a few days, and that they persist even after their immediate cause has been removed.

I looked round at the other people sitting on the 'bus. I had visited foreign countries in former years, but never before had I felt that I was amongst complete strangers. There are moments when a dog, a horse, or a bird fills us with a sense of the uncanny--its mind is an insoluble mystery, with depths so dark and inscrutable that one feels something that approaches fear and horror. And so it was as I sat on the 'bus. The civilians around me seemed like animals of a different species. They were not human at all--or was it I who was not human?

I went to another seat in order to listen to a man and woman who were talking together. I felt that if they were to talk about the war, the uncanny spell would be broken, the dream would dissolve and I would be restored to my own fellow creatures. But they spoke about trivial domestic matters and about a flower show. If they had only mentioned the word "war" I would have felt relieved by its familiarity, but they did not mention it once.

And then, in great mental agony, I said to myself: "I _will_ be happy, I _will_ enjoy my leave." But a number of invisible cobwebs hung between myself and the world around me. I tried to brush them away, but they were so impalpable that the movement of my hand did not disturb them at all.

I gave up the attempt. I would wait until I got home. Then I would talk and forget myself--only by forgetting myself would I enjoy the present. Only those who forget themselves are happy. The obsession of self is the most oppressive of all burdens.

I descended from a 'bus and took a train. A girl sitting opposite me stared at my blue chevrons and whispered to her fellow passenger: "He's just come from the front." So I too was regarded as a strange kind of animal. I got out at my home-station. I showed my leave-warrant to the ticket collector. He was a benevolent looking old man. He smiled and wished me good luck. Things began to seem a little less foreign. And then the thought of being home in a few minutes absorbed me entirely.

I hurried down the street. I knocked at the door, and it opened. The long yearned-for meeting took place at last.

I threw my pack, equipment and steel helmet contemptuously into a corner. I took an infantile delight in clean, furnished rooms, in the white table-cloth, the shining silver, the cut flowers, and the oil-paintings on the wall. And we talked until late into the night.

It was good to wake up the next morning and to know that the first day of my leave was still before me. I felt encouraged to face my new surroundings boldly. I would understand them and identify myself with them. If the sensation that I was dreaming came upon me again, I would welcome it and then I would destroy it once and for all. I would enjoy my leave at any cost. It would become my only reality, and when it was over it would be a reality which I would take back to the front. I would hoard it and always think of it out there, so that the war would seem like a dream, the end of which I could await with patience and resignation.

I went out to seek friends and acquaintances. I also hoped to meet some war enthusiasts. I would tell them something about the war. How would their theories be able to stand before my actual experiences!

I was soon disillusioned.

I dined with a wealthy kinsman. The slaughter of millions had brought him prosperity. He had never done any fighting except with his mouth, but it is precisely that kind of fighting that infuriates the spirit, engenders heroic ardour, and causes the nostrils to dilate. He was so bellicose that he even desired to do some _real_ righting, not understanding the difference between the two. He thought of joining an infantry unit--the artillery were not good enough, he did not want to fire at an enemy he could not see, he wanted to use the bayonet and murder his fellow men in hand-to-hand encounters.

I began to understand why many men I had met were glad to come back from leave.

I tried to dissuade him, although I felt it would do him good to see something of the war and he would learn a much-needed lesson. And yet I did not want him killed or horribly mutilated, although I knew that he and those like him were alone responsible for the entire war, both at its origins and its continuance.

But he would not be persuaded. He said he was _dying_ to go out and see the fun.

At the word "fun" I felt a sudden and violent contraction of all my muscles. I had an almost irresistible impulse to stand up and strike him across the face. But I was in a public restaurant and I controlled myself. He did not seem to notice anything.

The conversation drifted away from the war and became commonplace. I tried to relate a few of my experiences, but somehow or other they seemed unsuited to the occasion.

I had set out with the intention of destroying a mouldering, tottering edifice built up of illusions and ignorant prejudices, and I found myself face to face with towering, strong, unshakable walls, strong and unshakable precisely because it was built of illusions, lies, and prejudices.

I felt the burden of war descending upon me with all its crushing, annihilating weight. I fought a losing fight against the conviction that for the rest of my leave I would be able to talk of nothing else and think of nothing else but the war. If only I could talk to someone who would understand, that at least would bring relief!

I longed to see my two friends, although I felt some anxiety lest they might have changed, or rather lest they might not have changed with me.

It was in the evening of my first day that we met. At first the one embarrassed me a little by his apparent cold aloofness. But his caustic observations on the war soon made it clear that he had stood the test. I realized, from the hatred that lay behind them, that he had suffered as much as many a soldier in the trenches.

Then the other said to me:

"This is a thing I have never told anyone yet, but I will tell it to you now. There are times when I almost wish I could see German troops marching victoriously through the streets of London. It is not my reason that is speaking now, but my bitterness, which has become stronger than my reason."

I understood him far too well to make any comment.

And then after a long silence, I said: "I wonder if anybody else thinks like that."

And he answered: "Yes, there are many--more than you would believe."

But the first added: "We must remain neutral--that is our one and only duty. The more malevolent our neutrality the better, but it must be neutrality. Remember that there are Germans whose bitterness prompts them to wish that British troops were marching through the streets of Berlin. I think their wish is juster than yours, but both wishes cannot be fulfilled, and it is therefore desirable that the next best thing should happen, namely, that both the Allies and their enemies should be entirely deprived of victory."

I agreed, but added:

"Yes, fundamentally one must remain neutral, but in relation to present circumstances one cannot remain neutral. It is our business to arraign England, our own country, and not Germany. It is for every nation to discover its own faults. There are many Germans of courage and honesty who will condemn their country for the crimes she has committed. But condemnation from outside is useless and is always discredited. In all probability the Allies and the Central Powers are both equally bad, and to denounce the enemy only is mere yelping with the rest of the savage, vindictive pack."