Part 5

The Supply Column made two or three journeys up on its usual errand, but the cavalry were sent back to the previous billets after a few days, it being found that no opportunity for cavalry fighting had been effected. Although this was the case it must not be thought that the Indian Cavalry Corps were kept entirely in a state of idleness. The ---- Divisions of the Corps, under the command of Lieut.-General Rimington, were directly under the orders of General Headquarters, and were available to be attached to any army and sent to any part of the line where it was considered that an opportunity for using them might arise. Meanwhile they did their bit of reserve trench digging in various parts of the line, and many a pleasant summer day I have spent in convoying up the lorries of supplies for the different digging parties, and off-loaded them at various points between Locon and Estaires. The R.H.A. batteries attached to the Corps were almost continually in action at different places, though more in the role of Field than of Horse Artillery.

The most interesting journeys, from the Supply Column point of view, were when the Indian Cavalry were sent up to the trenches, again in the role of infantrymen, to the Ypres Salient. This was in the early summer of 1915, when they reinforced the line immediately after the first German gas attack, from which our line naturally suffered severely through being unprepared for another new and previously unanticipated form of German "Kultur."

It is interesting at this point to note that during this time a British Cavalry Regiment, forming part of a Native Cavalry Brigade, assisted in the attack and capture of Hooge Chateau, which has changed hands so many times.

The rendezvous for the motor-lorries on these occasions was at some shelter huts on an open, flat piece of ground, where once grass had grown and now used as a camping-ground for troops recently out of, or about to take their turn in, the trenches just beyond. On it are erected a number of huts, similar to those which can be seen in many parts of England where troops in training have been encamped. A road runs through the middle of this plain, and at a prearranged point on it was the ration dumping-ground. Here the motor-lorries were met by the Supply Officer and their contents off-loaded. The use made by us of this ground as a camp was, of course, not unknown to the Germans, who occasionally favoured it with a certain amount of shelling. On one or two occasions they shelled it at a most inopportune moment. A smoking concert had been got up and was to take place in one of the largest huts. It was to start at 8 p.m., and no sooner had the first performer on the programme mounted the improvised platform than a shell landed just outside; it was followed by several others. There was only one thing to be done, and the senior officer present ordered the hut to be evacuated. So everyone departed, cursing the Huns roundly for being so extremely inconsiderate as to spoil an evening's amusement.

One Sunday a Church Parade was being held, and those present were lustily singing a hymn, the opening line of which is, "Stand up, stand up for Jesus." As the words "Stand up" were leaving their lips, a shell came screaming over and exploded near by. Every one, the padre included, instinctively "ducked"!

From the rest camp, as from many other points behind the line, an aerial combat is no unusual sight. One hears the drone of the aeroplane engines and sees the hostile machine speeding along over the line, while little white puffs, like flakes of cotton-wool, spring suddenly into being all around it, as the shrapnel shells from anti-aircraft batteries, familiarly known always as "Archies," burst. Or perhaps the gunners may favour it with high explosive shells, which leave little black puffs. On a still day the puffs of smoke linger for several minutes in the blue sky like tiny clouds and gradually disperse. The hostile aeroplane darts hither and thither. All eyes are turned skywards, and the following are the type of comments overheard as the shells burst: "Just a bit too low," "Too far ahead," "The next'll get him," "Got him," "No, he's only doing a dive down into his own lines." Often the whole path which the aeroplane has taken across the sky is literally covered with these little white puffs of shrapnel smoke. I have counted as many as a hundred and eighty, and even then the aeroplane not infrequently escapes without apparent damage. But the Taube does not have things all its own way, for one or more of our own 'planes rise to attack, and if one is very lucky one sees it descend with a long and rapid dive--nose first, in flames, a tangled mass of framework and burning canvas. An air duel on a clear day is not only wonderful from a spectacular point of view, but the most exciting episode it is possible to witness. If, however, one happens to be directly underneath where the shrapnel shells are bursting and realizes that all that goes up comes down again, one takes more than a spectacular interest in such an incident. By night aviators afford one even greater excitement, trying to spot the hostile machine and locate it by the sound of its engine. Then perhaps a terrific crash as it drops an incendiary bomb, the explosion of which lights up the whole neighbourhood with a dull red glow.

The weather all through that month of May 1915 was ideal, and nothing could have looked more beautiful than the long, straight white roads, with their line of tall trees on either side that characterize the Routes Nationales and Routes de Grande Communication, the main arteries leading across the borders of France into Belgium, and which run through miles of intensely cultivated land. The main road from Hazebrouck to Ypres is a typical example of the highways of Flanders; with its strip of raised _pave_ in the centre, it is flanked by earth on either side and runs between an avenue of tall and stately poplars. It has been followed by troops from every part of the world over which flies the Union Jack or the Tricolour, and they have marched along it on their way to fight the bloodiest battles of the world's history. The nearer one gets to the trenches, the worse becomes the condition of the roads, and that leading through Poperinghe to Ypres was among the roughest on which I have ever travelled. Leaving Hazebrouck, it gradually became worse and worse as one approached and crossed the frontier of Belgium. The _pave_ in the centre is narrow and has a high camber. The earth that borders it on either side is soft, so that it is particularly difficult for two heavy motor-lorries proceeding in opposite directions to pass one another. It is to the credit of British motor-car manufacturers that the lorries and cars with the Expeditionary Force in France have stood up so well on roads such as they were never designed or intended to travel on.

They were sad runs these, up to the trenches, where every village through which the convoy passed was suffering more from the devastating effects of shell fire than the last. Every day almost one would notice a change; another church tower a little more damaged, or a house that yesterday was proudly standing and a landmark is a victim to German artillery and a ruined mass to-day. Fewer and fewer buildings left standing, not a piece of glass remaining in any single window frame; the bare walls, perhaps, of a house here and there still standing, but bespattered with shrapnel bullets. The further up one got, the fewer civilian inhabitants one saw, until the last villages, such as Vlamertinghe on the road to Ypres, which had been entirely evacuated by the civilian population, except perhaps for one or two old peasants here and there, who had possibly spent all their lives in their own particular village and intended to continue doing so, even if this entailed living a considerable part of the time in cellars. We often passed little parties of refugees making their way slowly into France, there to throw themselves on the hospitality of their more fortunate friends. Turning their backs for ever on their old homes, which they instinctively knew they had seen for the last time, a whole family, perhaps, the father leading a horse and cart piled up with such odd bits and pieces of household goods as they had managed to save, perhaps all their worldly possessions--a bed, mattress, and a few sticks of furniture--the other members of the family either riding on the cart or following in a sorrowful little procession behind it, their possessions amongst the animal world not being forgotten, but frequently represented by a goat and a few chickens. The further up one got, too, the more congested were the roads with the impedimenta of war: motor-lorries, ambulances, guns, wagons and the like. The Military Police, being stationed on point duty on the more important cross roads, with the aid of red and green flags directed the traffic, and for all the world it was often like a block of vehicular traffic at Piccadilly Circus, the usual accompaniment of language not being forgotten!

From the rest huts at Vlamertinghe right into Ypres, or what remained of it, was only a matter of five minutes on a motorcycle. Never have I seen or imagined a sight so tragic. Street after street in a state of absolute wreck and ruin. What had once been beautiful and massive buildings, such as the famous Cloth Hall, which dates from the thirteenth century, and the Church of St. Martin, now heaps of debris and broken glass lying across the road. Houses destroyed, many of them, beyond recognition; some had been set alight by shells and were slowly smouldering; others, with their fronts completely blown away, were still standing and displayed their contents nakedly to the passer-by. Such is the ugliness of war's destruction--the desolation of desolation, deserted by every living soul. Never before have I experienced such a sensation of utter loneliness. This struck me more forcibly, I think, than anything else. If one had searched amongst those ruins, what treasures and what gruesome tragedies might one have encountered! Ypres must once have been a very beautiful city and capital of Flanders; now it was a city of Death. To visit it in 1915 was to see the eighth wonder of the world. Surely it will for ever be haunted by the spirits of the soldiers who have fallen in fighting to hold it. That the Ypres Salient has been consistently held against fearful odds and the heavy attacks which the enemy has made on it, with Calais as his objective, is an everlasting memorial to the valour of British soldiers.

I picked up some pieces of coloured glass, which had once formed part of the stained-glass windows of St. Martin's Church, now shattered and littered over the ground around its ruins, to take away as a memento, and as these thoughts were just passing through my mind, a shell whistled overhead and burst with a crash a little distance away and awoke in me a sense of duty. I made my way out of Ypres along the debris-strewn road, containing here and there some fine examples of shell-holes in the middle of it. On the way out I passed what had once been a General Service wagon with horses and riders, now a horrible inert mass of horse-flesh and wheel-spokes--at least, that is the impression that this sight left on my mind. A shell had caught it fair--a direct hit--a few minutes before.

Ypres at this time, it will be seen, was by no means a health resort. The long straight road leading into it was shelled regularly as clockwork every day; usually at about five or six o'clock the evening "hate" started. That is what is meant when the official communique states that "artillery fire was directed upon billets, railheads, and communication roads"; for this was a road which much transport loaded with rations, ammunition, and other material for the trenches there travelled along, and in the villages along that road troops on their way up to or out of the trenches were frequently temporarily billeted.

Whether it is a peculiarly machine-like working of the German mind or due to the fact that German organization is carried to such limits of mathematical precision I do not know, but the fact remains that this road was normally quite safe except between certain fixed and regular hours each evening. So I was never particularly anxious to delay the return journey of the convoy of empty motor-lorries longer than was absolutely necessary, and used to leave the danger zone as soon as we had off-loaded the rations and secured the Supply Officer's receipt for them. On one occasion only, on the return journey, however, did we have any excitement. We were travelling in convoy along a narrow road leading from the huts up to and at right angles to the main road. Just as we came to the junction of the two a few shells landed in the adjoining field, planted with tall poles, around which twining hops grew, doubtless of the famous Popeninghe brand. A few of these were destroyed, and quantities of earth were thrown up, the shells leaving dense grey-black clouds of smoke in the air, but doing no other damage. We were only just in time, though, that day, for a few hours later a motor-cyclist dispatch rider, who had come along the same road, caught up the convoy at Hazebrouck and told me that further back the road was being heavily shelled.

The saddest sight of all is just behind the line, in those roadside fields where rest the fallen. No matter to what part of the line one goes, but particularly behind Ypres--and nowhere scarcely along the whole front has the fighting been heavier than on this bit of the British line--one sees clustered together in groups here and there the little wooden crosses which mark the graves of those of whom Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, "They despised Death and have won their discharge." They are cared for now and duly registered, and as far as possible inscribed with names and dates by that excellent department, the Graves Registration Committee at General Headquarters. "Oh, Cromwell's England, must thou yield for every inch of ground a son?" asks the poet; and these little graves will for ever remain, silent witnesses to the fact that here Death once reaped a rich harvest.

_*Chapter IX*_

_*MR. THOMAS ATKINS AND THE FRENCH*_

As I have already stated, Aire remained our railhead for some months, and during the first week of August 1915 we left it. What sorrow our departure caused! As the long procession of lorries pulled out through the narrow _pave_ streets for the last time, the civilian population turned out _en masse_ and was literally in tears! It is a noticeable fact that when British troops arrive to take up their quarters in any town or village for the first time they are occasionally, but by no means always, looked upon with a certain amount of suspicion and distrustfulness by the civilian inhabitants, who sometimes seem disinclined to offer facilities in the way of accommodation and so forth. I suppose this is not to be wondered at, and it would be curious to see what reception Allied foreign troops would receive in an English village. After a few days, however, they find Tommy is a good fellow and spends freely what little money he has. The shopkeepers in the little towns behind the line are as fortunate as the inhabitants of the invaded towns on the other side of the line are unfortunate. Among others, the _debitants de boissons_, or Estaminet keepers, do a roaring trade in such drinks as they are allowed to sell to the troops--very "small beer," and the usual red and white wines. Occasionally, in some places, one observes a small notice to the effect that "English Beer and Stout are sold here." The popular winter drink of 1914, _cafe-rhum_, came to an end when the veto was put on the sale of spirits to the troops, and it is impossible now to buy even a whisky and soda, though I have heard of one being produced by the _garcon_ at a certain cafe on being asked for a _vin blanc Ecosse_.

It is wonderful how Mr. Thomas Atkins, always adaptable, has mastered the French language, or rather, I should say, has compounded a language, half-French and half-English, but which nevertheless enables him to make himself understood and thoroughly at home in the most trying circumstances. As a rule, he is able to undertake the most complicated shopping with the greatest of ease, and carry on long conversations and arguments with the vendor meanwhile. There are, however, exceptions to every rule. A friend of mine, on one occasion, arrived late in the evening in a new village. It had been raining hard all day, as it only can in Flanders. Being wet through and very tired, he told his orderly to find the billet allotted to him and make various arrangements with Madame as to a latch-key and so forth. The orderly returned a little later with a crestfallen look and an air of dismay. "Can't make Madame understand, sir," he said. "They seem to talk a different kind of slang here to the last place we were in."

On another occasion my friend himself went into a chemist's shop at St. Omer with the object of purchasing some hair-wash. "Huile pour les chevaux" was the nearest he could think of, and he was greatly alarmed when the chemist produced a bottle of Elliman's horse embrocation and proclaimed its excellent qualities at some length. _Huile pour les chevaux_ and _huile pour les cheveux_ are two very different things! But Tommy is seldom at a loss. "Deux beers sivous play, Ma'mselle, compree?" he will demand as he enters an estaminet, and if Ma'mselle in question has any pretensions to beauty, he will not infrequently at a later stage of the proceedings, purely, no doubt, by way of paying a delicate compliment and to further cement the _entente_, add to his previous remarks some such jocular suggestion as "Promnarde avec moi?" To which the Ma'mselle will probably reply to the effect that he is "Tres polisson." Tommy, nothing daunted, will round off the conversation by some cryptic remark to the effect that she is "no bong"!

Certain phrases, easily acquired orally, and seldom quite understood--for example, "nar poo," derived from "il n'y-en a plus," do duty on many occasions and under varying circumstances. Tommy even sometimes carries his French phrases so far as his letters home, possibly for "showing off" purposes. His spelling of French words is usually quaint.

Many of our lorry drivers, as I have explained, were previous to the war motor-bus and taxi-cab drivers in London. The powers of repartee of this type of man are proverbial, and with a slight admixture of French have lost none of their former crispness. On the contrary, his "vocabulary" has been augmented. It is a pity that we have had to resort to conscription for the Army, and one can only hope that sooner or later some distinction will be made between the conscript and the man who, regardless of age and the cost, volunteered for service in the early part of the war. In an Army Service Corps unit particularly, one notices men whose appearance leads one to think that there is, to say the least, a discrepancy between their real and regimental age as given on enlistment. I recollect asking one elderly-looking man his age; he replied, "Forty-two, sir." Noticing that on his breast was the blue and white ribbon of the Egypt medal of 1882, I remarked, "Then you must have been eight years old when that was awarded to you!"

It is interesting to note that Indian troops pick up French in many cases quite readily, and apparently more easily than English. If you chance on one on the road, trying to find his way to some village or other, and he cannot speak English and you cannot speak Hindustani, a little "pidgin" French will usually be found to be a common basis for conversation, or an old soldier, who has rejoined for the war and who many years ago perhaps served in India, will come to the rescue and explain matters with much gesticulation and a curious mixture of English, French, and Hindustani, the word _compris_, in the form of a question, usually playing an important part in the conversation. Many of the Native Cavalry soldiers now speak French quite fluently, their pronunciation being almost perfect.

There is one excuse for everything which, like charity, covers a multitude of sins, in France to-day. If one has occasion to suggest to a shopkeeper that so and so is _tres cher_, or to the _chef de gare_ that the train is late for which you are waiting, no matter what the complaint, the answer is invariably the same, "C'est la guerre, monsieur." It is the stock phrase of consolation and explanation. They accept the war, do these peasants and bourgeois of Northern France, in a spirit of optimistic fortitude, as something which has unfortunately got to be, and which shows no sign of ending, at any rate at present. Their hatred of the Boches, which they readily express, both verbally and by such cryptic signs and phrases as "Coupez la gorge," etc., is intense, and of a nature that could hardly be realized by the people of England, who have not been subjected to the systematic brutality which the Boches have invariably exercised, or experienced the invasion of Belgium--as carefully planned as it was diabolically executed.

In no town or village in which I have been have I seen a solitary man of military age, married or single alike, except, of course, the obviously physically unfit, who is not in the Army, the Navy, or the workshops, and this has been the same since the first 1914 mobilization in France. The older men are employed as sentries at level crossings and on railway bridges. Even in the munition works, the impression one gains is that the bulk of the people thus employed are old men, women, or young girls and boys.

Yet the work of the land, right up almost to the trenches, in this richly agricultural and intensely cultivated country, is carried on as usual by those left behind. The old men, women, and children work in a way that is truly remarkable. Never have I seen women and children do such an amount of manual work. The pay of the French _poilu_, formerly five centimes (a halfpenny) and latterly raised to twenty-five centimes (two-pence halfpenny), together with the small "separation allowance" paid to his dependents, compel the latter to carry on the work of the land as of yore and keep things going till the war is ended.

As a contrast to the many posters which placard every available hoarding and wall in England, there are very few in France. One is to be seen everywhere--in cafes, railway carriages, in the streets, etc.; and it contains three lines of straightforward and pungently sound advice, strictly to the point and commendably brief. It emanates from the Minister of War, and is as follows:

Taisez-vous! Mefiez-vous! Les oreilles des ennemies vous ecoutent!

The only other posters to be seen advertise the advantages of investment in the French War Loan; they are obviously drawn by artists, and are in keeping with the best theatrical posters in London, such as one would see outside His Majesty's Theatre.