Part 12
I saw a ghost at Béthune. He was a man called Private Challoner who had been at Lancaster with me and again in F company at Wrexham. When he went out with a draft to join the First Battalion he shook my hand and said: ‘I’ll meet you again in France, sir.’ He had been killed at Festubert in May and in June he passed by our C Company billet where we were just having a special dinner to celebrate our safe return from Cuinchy. There was fish, new potatoes, green peas, asparagus, mutton chops, strawberries and cream, and three bottles of Pommard. Challoner looked in at the window, saluted and passed on. There was no mistaking him or the cap-badge he was wearing. There was no Royal Welch battalion billeted within miles of Béthune at the time. I jumped up and looked out of the window, but saw nothing except a fag-end smoking on the pavement. Ghosts were numerous in France at the time.
There was constant mining going on in this Cambrin-Cuinchy sector. We had the prospect of being blown up at any moment. An officer of the R.E. tunnelling company was awarded the Victoria Cross while we were here. A duel of mining and counter-mining was going on. The Germans began to undermine his original boring, so he rapidly tunnelled underneath them. It was touch and go who would get the mine ready first. He won. But when he detonated it from the trench by an electric lead, nothing happened. He ran down again into the mine, retamped the charge, and was just back in time to set it off before the Germans. I had been into the upper boring on the previous day. It was about twenty feet under the German lines. At the end of the gallery I found a Welsh miner, one of our own men who had transferred to the Royal Engineers, on listening duty. He cautioned me to silence. I could distinctly hear the Germans working somewhere underneath. He whispered: ‘So long as they work, I don’t mind; it’s when they stop.’ He did his two-hour spell by candle-light. It was very stuffy. He was reading a book. The mining officer had told me that they were allowed to read; it didn’t interfere with their listening. It was a paper-backed novelette called _From Mill Girl to Duchess_. The men of the tunnelling companies were notorious thieves, by the way. They would snatch things up from the trench and scurry off with them into their borings; just like mice.
After one particularly bad spell of trenches I got bad news in a letter from Charterhouse. Bad news in the trenches might affect a man in either of two ways. It might drive him to suicide (or recklessness amounting to suicide), or it might seem trivial in comparison with present expediences and be disregarded. But unless his leave was due he was helpless. A year later, when I was in trenches in the same sector, an officer of the North Staffordshire Regiment had news from home that his wife was living with another man. He went out on a raid the same night and was either killed or captured; so the men with him said. There had been a fight and they had come back without him. Two days later he was arrested at Béthune trying to board a leave-train to go home; he had intended to shoot up the wife and her lover. He was court-martialled for deserting in the face of the enemy, but the court was content to cashier him. He went as a private soldier to another regiment. I do not know what happened afterwards.
The bad news was about Dick, saying that he was not at all the innocent sort of fellow I took him for. He was as bad as anyone could be. The letter was written by a cousin of mine who was still at Charterhouse. I tried not to believe it. I remembered that he owed me a grudge and decided that this was a very cruel act of spite. Dick’s letters had been my greatest stand-by all these months when I was feeling low; he wrote every week, mostly about poetry. They were something solid and clean to set off against the impermanence of trench life and the uncleanness of sex-life in billets. I was now back in Béthune. Two officers of another company had just been telling me how they had jslept, in the same room, one with the mother and one with the daughter. They had tossed for the mother because the daughter was a ‘yellow-looking little thing like a lizard.’ And the Red Lamp, the army brothel, was round the corner in the main street. I had seen a queue of a hundred and fifty men waiting outside the door, each to have his short turn with one or the other of the three women in the house. My servant, who had been in the queue, told me that the charge was ten francs a man—about eight shillings at that time. Each woman served nearly a battalion of men every week for as long as she lasted. The assistant provost-marshal had told me that three weeks was the usual limit, ‘after which the woman retires on her earnings, pale but proud.’ I was always being teased because I would not sleep even with the nicer girls. And I excused myself, not on moral grounds or on grounds of fastidiousness, but in the only way they could understand: I said that I didn’t want a dose. A good deal of talk in billets was about the peculiar bed-manners of the French women. ‘She was very nice and full of games. I said to her: “S’il vous plaît, ôtes-toi la chemise, ma chérie.” But she wouldn’t. She said, “Oh no’-non, mon lieutenant. Ce n’est pas convenable.”’ I was glad when we were back in trenches. And there I had a more or less reassuring letter from Dick. He told me that I was right, that my cousin had a spite against him and me, that he had been ragging about in a silly way, but that there was not much harm to it; he was very sorry and would stop it for the sake of our friendship.
At the end of July, I and Robertson, one of the other five Royal Welch officers who had been attached to the Welsh, got orders to proceed to the Laventie sector, some miles to the north. We were to report to the Second Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Frank Jones-Bateman and Hanmer Jones, two more of us, went to the First Battalion. The remaining two of the six had already gone back, McLellan sick and Watkin with bomb wounds that have kept him limping ever since. We were sorry to say good-bye to the men; they all crowded round to shake hands and wish us luck. And we felt a little sorry too that we had to start all over again getting to know a new company and new regimental customs. But it would be worth it, to be with our own regiment. Robertson and I agreed to take our journey as leisurely as possible. Laventie was only seventeen miles away, but our orders were to go there by train; so a mess-cart took us down to Béthune. We asked the railway transport officer what trains he had to Laventie. He told us one was going in a few minutes; we decided to miss it. There was no train after that until the next day, so we stopped the night at the Hotel de la France. (The Prince of Wales, who was a lieutenant in the Fortieth Siege Battery, was billeted there sometimes. He was a familiar figure in Béthune. I only spoke to him once; it was in the public bath, where he and I were the only bathers one morning. He was graciously pleased to remark how emphatically cold the water was and I loyally assented that he was emphatically right. We were very pink and white and did exercises on the horizontal bar afterwards. I joked to Frank about it: ‘I have just met our future King in a bath.’ Frank said: ‘I can trump that. Two days ago I had a friendly talk with him in the A.S.C. latrines.’ The Prince’s favourite rendezvous was the _Globe_, a café in the Béthune market square reserved for British officers and French civilians; principally spies by the look of them. I once heard him complaining indignantly that General French had refused to let him go up into the line.)
The next day we caught our train. It took us to a junction, the name of which I forget. Here we spent a day walking about in the fields. There was no train until next day, when one took us on to Berguette, a railhead still a number of miles from Laventie, where a mess-cart was waiting for us in answer to a telegram we had sent. We finally rattled up to battalion headquarters in Laventie High Street. We had taken fifty-two hours to come seventeen miles. We saluted the adjutant smartly, gave our names, and said that we were Third Battalion officers posted to the regiment. He did not shake hands with us, offer us a drink, or give us a word of welcome. He said coldly: ‘I see. Well, which of you is senior? Oh, never mind. Give your particulars to the regimental sergeant-major. Tell him to post whoever is senior to A Company and the other to B Company.’ The sergeant-major took our particulars. He introduced me to a young second-lieutenant of A Company, to which I was to go. He was a special reservist of the East Surrey Regiment and was known as the Surrey-man. He took me along to the company billet. As soon as we were out of earshot of battalion headquarters I asked him: ‘What’s wrong with the adjutant? Why didn’t he shake hands or give me any sort of decent welcome?’
The Surrey-man said: ‘Well, it’s your regiment, not mine. They’re all like that. You must realize that this is a regular battalion, one of the only four infantry battalions in France that is still more or less its old self. This is the Nineteenth Brigade, the luckiest in France. It has not been permanently part of any division, but used as army reserve to put in wherever a division has been badly knocked. So, except for the retreat, where it lost about a company, and Fromelles, where it lost half of what was left, it has been practically undamaged. A lot of the wounded have rejoined since. All our company commanders are regulars, and so are all our N.C.O.’s. The peace-time custom of taking no notice of newly-joined officers is still more or less kept up for the first six months. It’s bad enough for the Sandhurst chaps, it’s worse for special reservists like you and Rugg and Robertson, it’s worse still for outsiders like me from another regiment.’ We were going down the village street. The men sitting about on the door-steps jumped up smartly to attention as we passed and saluted with a fixed stony glare. They were magnificent looking men. Their uniforms were spotless, their equipment khaki-blancoed and their buttons and cap-badges twinkling. We reached company headquarters, where I reported to my company commander, Captain G. O. Thomas. He was a regular of seventeen years’ service, a well-known polo-player, and a fine soldier. This is the order that he would himself have preferred. He shook hands without a word, waved me to a chair, offered a cigarette and continued writing his letter. I found later that A was the best company I could have struck.
The Surrey-man asked me to help him censor some company letters before going over to the battalion mess for lunch; they were more literate than the ones in the Welsh regiment, but duller. On the way to the mess he told me more about the battalion. He asked me whether it was my first time out. ‘I was attached to the Second Welsh Regiment for three months; I commanded a company there for a bit.’ ‘Oh, were you? Well, I’d advise you to say nothing at all about it, then they’ll not expect too much of you. They treat us like dirt; in a way it will be worse for you than for me because you’re a full lieutenant. They’ll resent that with your short service. There’s one lieutenant here of six years’ service and second-lieutenants who have been out here since the autumn. They have already had two Special Reserve captains foisted on them; they’re planning to get rid of them somehow. In the mess, if you open your mouth or make the slightest noise the senior officers jump down your throat. Only officers of the rank of captain are allowed to drink whisky or turn on the gramophone. We’ve got to jolly well keep still and look like furniture. It’s just like peace time. Mess bills are very high; the mess was in debt at Quetta last year and we are economising now to pay that back. We get practically nothing for our money but ordinary rations and the whisky we aren’t allowed to drink.
‘We’ve even got a polo-ground here. There was a polo-match between the First and Second Battalions the other day. The First Battalion had had all their decent ponies pinched that time when they were sent up at Ypres and the cooks and transport men had to come up into the line to prevent a break through. So this battalion won easily. Can you ride? No? Well, subalterns who can’t ride have to attend riding-school every afternoon while we’re in billets. They give us hell, too. Two of us have been at it for four months and haven’t passed off yet. They keep us trotting round the field, with crossed stirrups most of the time, and they give us pack-saddles instead of riding-saddles. Yesterday they called us up suddenly without giving us time to change into breeches. That reminds me, you notice everybody’s wearing shorts? It’s a regimental order. The battalion thinks it’s still in India. They treat the French civilians just like “niggers,” kick them about, talk army Hindustani at them. It makes me laugh sometimes. Well, what with a greasy pack-saddle, bare knees, crossed stirrups, and a wild new transport pony that the transport men had pinched from the French, I had a pretty thin time. The colonel, the adjutant, the senior major and the transport officer stood at the four corners of the ring and slogged at the ponies as they came round. I came off twice and got wild with anger, and nearly decided to ride the senior major down. The funny thing is that they don’t realize that they are treating us badly—it’s such an honour to be serving with the regiment. So the best thing is to pretend you don’t care what they do or say.’
I protested: ‘But all this is childish. Is there a war on here or isn’t there?’
‘The battalion doesn’t recognize it socially,’ he answered. ‘Still, in trenches I’d rather be with this battalion than in any other that I have met. The senior officers do know their job, whatever else one says about them, and the N.C.O.’s are absolutely trustworthy.’
The Second Battalion was peculiar in having a battalion mess instead of company messes. The Surrey-man said grimly: ‘It’s supposed to be more sociable.’ This was another peace-time survival. We went together into the big château near the church. About fifteen officers of various ranks were sitting in chairs reading the week’s illustrated papers or (the seniors at least) talking quietly. At the door I said: ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ the new officer’s customary greeting to the mess. There was no answer. Everybody looked at me curiously. The silence that my entry had caused was soon broken by the gramophone, which began singing happily:
We’ve been married just one year, And Oh, we’ve got the sweetest, And Oh, we’ve got the neatest, And Oh, we’ve got the cutest Little oil stove.
I found a chair in the background and picked up _The Field_. The door burst open suddenly and a senior officer with a red face and angry eye burst in. ‘Who the blazes put that record on?’ he shouted to the room. ‘One of the bloody warts I expect. Take it off somebody. It makes me sick. Let’s have some real music. Put on the _Angelus_.’ Two subalterns (in the Royal Welch a subaltern had to answer to the name of ‘wart’) sprang up, stopped the gramophone, and put on _When the Angelus is ringing_. The young captain who had put on _We’ve been married_ shrugged his shoulders and went on reading, the other faces in the room were blank.
‘Who was that?’ I whispered to the Surrey-man.
He frowned. ‘That’s Buzz Off,’ he said.
Before the record was finished the door opened and in came the colonel; Buzz Off reappeared with him. Everybody jumped up and said in unison: ‘Good morning, sir.’ It was his first appearance that day. Before giving the customary greeting and asking us to sit down he turned spitefully to the gramophone: ‘Who on earth puts this wretched _Angelus_ on every time I come into the mess? For heaven’s sake play something cheery for a change.’ And with his own hands he took off the _Angelus_, wound up the gramophone and put on _We’ve been married just one year_. At that moment a gong rang for lunch and he abandoned it. We filed into the next room, a ball-room with mirrors and a decorated ceiling. We sat down at a long, polished table. The seniors sat at the top, the juniors competed for seats as far away from them as possible. I was unlucky enough to get a seat at the foot of the table facing the commanding officer, the adjutant and Buzz Off. There was not a word spoken down that end except for an occasional whisper for the salt or for the beer—very thin French stuff. Robertson, who had not been warned, asked the mess waiter for whisky. ‘Sorry, sir,’ said the mess waiter, ‘it’s against orders for the young officers.’ Robertson was a man of forty-two, a solicitor with a large practice, and had stood for Parliament in the Yarmouth division at the previous election.
I saw Buzz Off glaring at us and busied myself with my meat and potatoes.
He nudged the adjutant. ‘Who are those two funny ones down there, Charley,’ he asked.
‘New this morning from the militia. Answer to the names of Robertson and Graves.’
‘Which is which?’ asked the colonel.
‘I’m Robertson, sir.’
‘I wasn’t asking you.’
Robertson winced, but said nothing. Then Buzz Off noticed something.
‘T’other wart’s wearing a wind-up tunic.’ Then he bent forward and asked me loudly. ‘You there, wart. Why the hell are you wearing your stars on your shoulder instead of your sleeve?’
My mouth was full and I was embarrassed. Everybody was looking at me. I swallowed the lump of meat whole and said: ‘It was a regimental order in the Welsh Regiment. I understood that it was the same everywhere in France.’
The colonel turned puzzled to the adjutant: ‘What on earth’s the man talking about the Welsh Regiment for?’ And then to me: ‘As soon as you have finished your lunch you will visit the master-tailor. Report at the orderly room when you’re properly dressed.’
There was a severe struggle in me between resentment and regimental loyalty. Resentment for the moment had the better of it. I said under my breath: ‘You damned snobs. I’ll survive you all. There’ll come a time when there won’t be one of you left serving in the battalion to remember battalion mess at Laventie.’ This time came, exactly a year later.[4]
We went up to the trenches that night. They were high-command trenches; because water was struck when one dug down three feet, the parapet and parados were built up man-high. I found my platoon curt and reserved. Even when on sentry-duty at night they would never talk confidentially about themselves and their families like my platoon in the Welsh Regiment. Townsend, the platoon-sergeant, was an ex-policeman who had been on the reserve when war broke out. He used to drive his men rather than lead them. ‘A’ company was at Red Lamp Corner; the front trench broke off short here and started again further back on the right. A red lamp was hung at the corner, invisible to the enemy, but a warning after dark to the company on our right not to fire to the left of it. Work and duties were done with a silent soldier-like efficiency quite foreign to the Welsh.
The first night I was in trenches my company commander asked me to go out on patrol; it was the regimental custom to test new officers in this way. All the time that I had been with the Welsh I had never once been out in No Man’s Land, even to inspect the barbed wire. In the Welsh Regiment the condition of the wire was, I believe, the responsibility of the battalion intelligence officer. I never remember any work done on it by C Company. I think we left it to the Royal Engineers. When Hewitt, the machine-gun officer, used to go out on patrol sometimes it was regarded as a mad escapade. But with both battalions of the Royal Welch Fusiliers it was a point of honour to be masters of No Man’s Land from dusk to dawn. There was not a night at Laventie that a message did not come down the line from sentry to sentry: ‘Pass the word; officer’s patrol going out.’ My orders for this patrol were to see whether a German sap-head was occupied by night or not.
I went out from Red Lamp Corner with Sergeant Townsend at about ten o’clock. We both had revolvers. We pulled socks, with the toes cut off, over our bare knees, to prevent them showing up in the dark and to make crawling easier. We went ten yards at a time, slowly, not on all fours, but wriggling flat along the ground. After each movement we lay and watched for about ten minutes. We crawled through our own wire entanglements and along a dry ditch; ripping our clothes on more barbed wire, glaring into the darkness till it began turning round and round (once I snatched my fingers in horror from where I had planted them on the slimy body of an old corpse), nudging each other with rapidly beating hearts at the slightest noise or suspicion, crawling, watching, crawling, shamming dead under the blinding light of enemy flares and again crawling, watching, crawling. (A Second Battalion officer who revisited these Laventie trenches after the war was over told me of the ridiculously small area of No Man’s Land compared with the size it seemed on the long, painful journeys that he made over it. ‘It was like the real size of the hollow in a tooth compared with the size it feels to the tongue.’)
We found a gap in the German wire and came at last to within five yards of the sap-head that was our objective. We waited quite twenty minutes listening for any signs of its occupation. Then I nudged Sergeant Townsend and, revolvers in hand, we wriggled quickly forward and slid into it. It was about three feet deep and unoccupied. On the floor were a few empty cartridges and a wicker basket containing something large and smooth and round, twice as large as a football. Very, very carefully I groped and felt all around it in the dark. I couldn’t guess what it was. I was afraid that it was some sort of infernal machine. Eventually I dared to lift it out and carry it back. I had a suspicion that it might be one of the German gas-cylinders that we had heard so much about. We got back after making the journey of perhaps two hundred yards in rather more than two hours. The sentries passed along the word that we were in again. Our prize turned out to be a large glass container quarter-filled with some pale yellow liquid. This was sent down to battalion headquarters and from there sent along to the divisional intelligence office. Everybody was very interested in it. The theory was that the vessel contained a chemical for re-damping gas masks. I now believe it was the dregs of country wine mixed with rainwater. I never heard the official report. The colonel, however, told my company commander in the hearing of the Surrey-man: ‘Your new wart seems to have more guts than the others.’ After this I went out fairly often. I found that the only thing that the regiment respected in young officers was personal courage.