Part 7

Very shortly after this first discovery, my friend made another, which somewhat counterbalanced his relief in the first, which was that one of the points most distinctly to be avoided was the very place he wished to reach, the Pylons themselves. Round about their base a howitzer battery was methodically placing high-explosive shell, and amongst the upper works a field battery was making very accurate practice with those most undesirable "woolly bears." There was nothing for it, however, and the longer one stopped and looked at it the worse it seemed, so, with feelings utterly unlike those that are popularly supposed to steel the heart of the hero who boldly faces death for his country's sake, he made his way under cover of such houses as still remained, to the mine buildings at the foot of the great steel structure. Here was destruction such as he had never seen. The buildings, strongly as they had been built to withstand the weight of the machinery within them, were completely shattered, their contents strewing the floors like scrap iron in a merchant's yard. Great iron girders were cut as by a knife, the bridge leading from the Pylons to the loading stages on the end of the Crassier, a riveted steel structure, was broken in half, the ends torn and frayed as though made of paper. The towers themselves are so massive and their weight is so distributed among many uprights, that, although many of these latter were bent or broken, the edifice they supported still stood gaunt and menacing, dominating the country-side. But their foot was no place to sit in idle conjecture that morning, as a shell that nearly blocked up the entrance to the shelter into which he had made his way abruptly reminded him. Waiting until its last fragments had fallen--a process that takes a surprisingly long time--he made a bolt over the ruins, climbing and scrambling up a refuse-covered slope, until he reached the foot of the winding stairs that rose up the centre of one of the towers. Fortunately for him, this stairway was partly enclosed by sheets of boiler-plate, for the next shell burst uncomfortably close and the fragments hit the boiler-plate with a sound that left no doubt in his mind of what his fate would have been had this shield not been there. Up the spiral stairway then--was ever such an interminable flight? Surely, notwithstanding the friendly morning mist, the whole German army must see him as he climbed ever higher! Those friendly steel sheets had been hit direct more than once at various times, leaving several turns of the stairway open, plain to everybody's view. However, nothing alarming happened, and the goal was reached--not the top of the tower where the winding pulleys hung, but a gallery that had formed the upper limit of travel of the cage, where the trolleys were unloaded and pushed across the bridge to the loading sheds. This gallery or platform stood perhaps a hundred and fifty feet above the ground, and had once been glazed, but long ago every pane of glass had been shattered and the steel floor was thickly carpeted with the fragments. Once in the gallery one was fairly safe, for the floor and roof were of steel and so was the circular wall up to the level of the glazing. Nothing but pieces of shell coming through the windows--and the place was full of fragments showing where this had happened--or a direct hit from a heavy shell could do much damage. But it was not the place for a rest-cure, the moral effect of "woolly bears" bursting amongst the girder-work close to one, although one knew that by the time one heard the report the danger was over, was most disturbing. Once, too, a fairly heavy shell hit the tower itself, causing it to rock like a sapling in a gale, as my friend expressed it afterwards. His first thought was of the delights of his situation had it carried away part of the staircase, when he would be faced by the prospect of staying where he was till dusk or of swarming down the steelwork in full view of the German trenches, but fortunately this contingency did not arise.

But the view that he obtained amply compensated for everything. From the grim black mass of Fosse 8, past the tower of Cité St. Elie, the cupola of Douvrin, the trees, magnificent in their thick verdure, that clothe the banks of a little stream that flows past Hulluch, to the strange medley of chimneys and elevators that gives to the works of the Société Métallurgique de Pont-à-Vendin the appearance of a fore-and-aft rigged vessel under sail, the whole country lay spread as on a map. Further south still, Lens and its thickly-built suburbs could be seen, and towards the west, the well-known country that we held, the high land of the Vimy Ridge, with Souchez at its feet, the tall slag-heaps of Noeux-les-Mines and Auchel, the dark mass of the Bois des Dames, the square tower of Béthune. What an observation post! No wonder that the enemy, whose use of the place for that very purpose was apparent by the presence of German newspapers and a broken table with some scraps of paper upon it, were determined to make it untenable by constant shelling.

For utterly impossible as a permanent observation post it undoubtedly was, and my friend, having verified his geography, left it with a feeling of deep thankfulness at having escaped unhurt. But his adventures were by no means at an end, he had still to find a situation of comparative safety from which he could observe when required under more restful conditions. The first place he selected was a house in the Enclosure, as the buildings near the foot of the Pylons have been termed. This also had been used by the enemy for the same purpose, for the walls were sandbagged, the lower floors were shored up with pit-props, and the basement had evidently been occupied by a fairly large party. Curiously enough, the house was in quite good repair, the walls and half the roof were standing, in contrast to the wreckage that lay around it. Here the explorer received what he describes as "the shock of his life," for on opening the door of one of the upper rooms he found, sprawling over a table as though just fallen asleep, the body of a German officer, still holding a pencil with which he had been addressing a post-card to a girl in Magdeburg. So lifelike was the attitude that it was impossible to realize at first that he was dead, notwithstanding the jagged hole above the temple where the fragment had entered and the blood that stained his right side. From this room a good view of the desired stretch of country could be obtained, there was a plentiful supply of sandbags ready filled in the house, and it seemed in every way desirable. But, just as my friend had determined upon converting it to his own uses, a (fortunately) small shell, evidently intended for the Pylons, but a little "over," entered the ground floor and burst there, wrecking the staircase, bringing down ceilings and tiles all over the house and smashing what was probably the last pane of glass in Loos. If this place was going to play long-stop for all the byes that passed the Pylons, it was distinctly unhealthy. He clambered down the wreckage of the stairs and looked round for a more likely spot, settling upon a tall house some little distance away. But here again he was doomed to disappointment. As he walked towards it a light howitzer shell sang over his head and burst a hundred yards beyond his goal. Instinct told him that this was the first round of a series of which his projected O.P. was the target. Even as he realized that he was standing about the same distance short of the place as the first round had fallen over, and in a direct line, the second shell passed so close to him that he swears he felt the wind of it, and burst in a manure-heap not ten yards away. Thanking heaven that it had found a soft billet that muffled the force of its explosion, he turned and bolted, having no further interest in observing that particular series, the components of the manure-heap dropping in a shower about him.

The next place he came to was a biggish building in a part of the town that seemed to be immune from shelling. He walked boldly into it and climbed up to an attic in the roof. Here were more signs of German occupation, a window that faced towards our old line being heavily sandbagged, whilst behind it was a neatly constructed platform and rest. Hundreds of empty cartridge-cases scattered over the floor and a few loaded clips still lying on the platform showed that the sniper whose lair it had been had known good sport there. But even here my friend was not destined to rest undisturbed. Hardly had his eye taken in these details than a sound of hurried whispers below burst upon his ears, and a peremptory voice bade him "Descendez, vite!" "Qu'est-ce qu'il-y-a?" he replied. "Descendez, vite, vite, ou nous allons tirer!" Discretion was by far the better part of valour, so down he came, to be surrounded at once by a number of French soldiers armed with rifles and fixed bayonets. To his enquiries as to what they wanted, the only reply was, "Vous pouvez dire ce que vous voulez à M. le Commandant." The latter gentleman was very comfortably installed in a roomy cellar, and my friend was ushered into his presence with the significant words, "C'est un espion que nous avons attrapé en haut, mon Commandant, regardez ces machines-là qu'il porte!" The latter presumably in reference to the sextant, compass and other strange-looking impedimenta that he carried. It was an uncomfortable moment, but he managed to establish his identity, and mutual explanations followed, to the satisfaction of all parties, and my friend was told that he might make himself free of the place whenever he liked--"Mais, monsieur, je crains que vous avez trouvé en Loos que les français sont plus dangereux que les allemands. Mais, peste, vous êtes vraiment monté dans les Pylons! J'ose bien dire, comme disent les Anglais, que c'etait un endroit 'not sanitary'!" As a variant upon the hackneyed phrase "not healthy," I think that this is hard to beat.

The next question was the best way of getting home. The friendly mist had by now disappeared, and it was hardly advisable to face the open road again, even if this had not involved the ghastly walk along the death-strewn communication trench. My friend finally decided to find the end of a communication trench that, starting from a point in the north-western corner of the village, led into the old German front line between the Lens Road and the Loos Road Redoubts. To reach this the greater part of Loos had to be traversed, but the streets in this direction were fairly safe. They were, however, even more encumbered with the dead bodies of men and horses than those in the other half of the town. It seems that a large number of men had been driven to the dug-outs and bombed there, and that when these same dug-outs were required for Allied occupation, their former tenants were evicted into the road, for the burial parties to deal with when time permitted. Wonderful structures were these dug-outs, examples of the enemy's thoroughness. Not content with the protection afforded by a cellar, in many places they had excavated large chambers below the cellars themselves, whose floors they had paved with bricks and whose walls they had lined with boards. Once in them the garrison was perfectly safe from the most furious bombardment.

A further example of method was to be seen in the treatment of shells that had fallen blind. When these were of medium size, they had been collected in small heaps and surrounded with barbed wire to prevent inquisitive fingers experimenting with them. In the back yard of a cottage lay the enormous bulk of a fifteen-inch shell, that had judiciously been left where it fell, and had been honoured by a complicated stockade of its own. All this seemed to contrast with the present state of the town, which was everywhere littered with military stores of every conceivable kind. Some attempt had been made to collect them into heaps, but even this attempt had been very half-hearted. War is, anyhow, an expensive amusement, and it seems a pity to make it more so by sheer lack of method. For not only Loos itself, but the whole of the country over which the advance was made was littered with arms, ammunition, equipment, bombs, in prodigious numbers. My friend, having occasion to go into Loos again some weeks later, found these heaps still untouched, and was foolish enough to report their existence and their exact position. As a reward for this unwarranted officiousness, he was requested to escort a wagon to Loos and indicate the localities where these various stores lay, on an evening when the battery was at its busiest, an invitation that he firmly declined.

The way home, although much longer, proved to be cleaner and more secure, besides having the interest of leading through the old German front line. This was then in the occupation of our reserves, and had consequently been considerably tidied up, but large parts of it were still completely broken down, showing the effect of our bombardment. The shooting had been distinctly good, very few shell-craters were far from the trenches, and a large proportion of the projectiles had either fallen into them or blown in the parapet. But here again the dug-outs must have afforded very excellent protection. Wide shafts, driven straight down from the front wall of the trench at an angle of forty-five degrees with the horizontal, led into hollowed-out chambers twenty feet below the surface that would easily accommodate a couple of dozen men. Each dug-out had more than one shaft, to reduce the chances of men being buried by an explosion filling in the only means of exit. The trenches were everywhere revetted with timber or hurdles, and had a false bottom of wooden gratings to keep the men's feet as dry as possible. If only from the point of view of comfort they contrasted very favourably with our own, through which the homeward track next lay.

Loos, City of the Dead! If in years to come you are ever rebuilt, a task that to the observer of your utter destruction and desolation seems impossible, what strange and gruesome relics will your workmen find! Surely the Spirit of Carnage will for ever haunt those narrow streets and open widespread fields, surely your inhabitants of the future will wake in terror in the September nights to hear ghostly echoes of the then-forgotten struggle, the unceasing whistle and roar of the shells, the rushing footsteps of the charging men, the despairing cries of the bombed wretches in the cellars! And if timid eyes dare lift the curtain to peep fearfully through the windows, will they not see a blood-red moon shining upon streets through which pour the serried columns of the victors, and scent the night air tainted with a faint sickening odour of slaughter? But not alone shall Loos bear its burden of horror, for in how many towns and villages must these scenes be repeated before Peace comes again!

VIII

IN FRENCH TERRITORY

At the beginning of October our battery, owing to reasons of strategy and convenience, changed its position by a matter of about a mile-and-a-half, and by so doing entered an area where the right of the British line joined the left of the French line. The actual point of junction of the lines varies from time to time, as much owing to the two armies' requirements in the matter of billets as for any other reason, and, as it happened, on the very day we moved into our new position, this point was in process of being moved a mile or so northwards. We saw, therefore, the familiar khaki give place to the looped-up blue greatcoat, and when, the desperate struggle to get the battery in order in the minimum time being over, we had time to look round and take note of our surroundings, we found ourselves in French Territory.

I think that the weeks we spent there were the happiest we have ever known, although the life of a gunner is a rough paradise for a man with health and strength--plenty of work, plenty of sport, and complete freedom from the cares of an artificial existence, there being nothing artificial about war. Our position was amongst ruined _corons_, not so badly damaged but that they could with very little trouble be made into very comfortable billets, and owing to the fact that it was in French territory, was immune from the visits of predatory "brass hats." Further, in our group commander we had a strong buckler against interference and aggression, and one in whom we all placed implicit confidence. His kindness to us all will be amongst the most precious memories of those happy days.

We found the change of tenants in the villages round us extremely advantageous in many ways, not the least of which was the amount of loot we acquired. It seems curious that the British Army, equipped as it is with a more copious transport than has ever before been imagined, should invariably leave in its wake enormous quantities of perfectly serviceable stores. On this particular occasion we found abandoned more than enough overcoats and waterproof capes to fit out the whole battery, and collected from the billets into which we moved over a hundred thousand rounds of small-arm ammunition alone. Although these matters were reported, no steps were ever taken to remove the stores, and subsequent discoveries of hundreds of boxes of unused bombs met with the same indifference. What wonder that the thrifty French regard it as the best fortune that can befall them to take over any part of our line, or that French officers to whom I have spoken are inclined to base their opinions of our conduct of the war upon such indications of our national habits. "No army before has ever wasted as you waste," said one to me; "the food you reject would feed half the French Forces, the rifles you failed to collect after Loos would equip many battalions of your New Army. What is your proverb--'Straws show which way the wind blows'--is it not?" Nor did the British troops leave only stores behind in their evacuation. Two days after the exchange, an officer arrived in the battery with a strange tale of woe. He was in command of a picquet in a certain village, from where he had watched his own people depart and the French arrive, expecting every moment to be relieved. Since that time he had received neither orders nor rations, and he and his men had lived upon the charity of a French regiment. We fed him and sent him back to his lonely vigil with an armful of provisions and a promise to report his troubles through our headquarters. I heard subsequently that his patrol had been forgotten and never missed, so presumably he might have been there now but for his own action.

The first and greatest Commandment when on active service is this, "Thou shalt covet thy neighbour's goods, and if he doesn't keep his eye on them, thou shalt possess them." Nationality seems to have no effect upon the speed with which the soldier assimilates this doctrine. The French _piou-piou_ is as great a follower of it as the British Tommy, but his native politeness lends to the act a more distinguished air. Of course, British troops with their wasteful ways are to him lawful game, and the first couple of days in his company taught our people habits of carefulness that were never learnt before. Our most experienced marauders returned empty-handed from raids into the French lines, and this bred a respect for our Allies that rapidly blossomed into genuine friendship. And undoubtedly the French soldier, taking him all round, is a most charming person and an almost perfect fighting man. He takes life very seriously, and is frequently scandalized by our behaviour, not quite understanding that a mask of frivolity may be only the result of a desire to make light of difficulties and to hearten others, hiding in reality an immovable determination to do one's duty. "Pour vous, la guerre n'est pas sérieuse," said a big Breton to me once, and I, knowing the melancholy tendencies of his race, knew not what to reply. But next day a party of which he formed one, doubled past the battery. "Que faites-vous?" I called as he passed. With a face wreathed in smiles he replied, "Nous allons donner aux Bosches un petit coup de fusil, ça sera très amusant, hein?"

Of the picturesque appearance of these French troops a few words may be said. There is an entry in my diary about this time, "Walked down to headquarters this morning. Saw two Frenchmen dressed alike." And to the eyes of those accustomed to unvarying khaki, the extraordinary kaleidoscopic effect of steel helmet, képi, coats of all conceivable colours, breeches and trousers likewise, putties that shame the rainbow, and an increasing note of khaki with a dash of colour on the collar or sleeve, strikes very strangely. Even the men of the same regiment do not seem to wear the same kit. One will be met in steel helmet, dark blue coat and red trousers, the next in képi, light blue coat and breeches, and grass-green putties. The authorities knew better than to waste the stocks of clothing that they already had on hand.

It would be impertinent to discuss the fighting qualities of these superb troops. The English Tommy, invariably a keen and usually a perspicacious critic of everything that comes into his range of vision, is apt to comment unfavourably upon what appears to his eye as an undisciplined mob strolling along the roads. But his eyes are gradually opened as first of all he discovers that these men, laden with a far greater weight than he is ever called upon to carry, are travelling quite as fast as he cares to, and then, at the end of the day, he finds that they have made themselves thoroughly comfortable and are enjoying a good meal long before he has thought of anything but the contents of his water-bottle. After that the revelation of their fighting qualities does not come as such a shock to him. Who that has seen them at work, for instance round Souchez or in their magnificent attack on the Double Crassier on October 11, can refrain from blessing our historic national luck for the Allies it has brought us?

And throughout his nature runs the Frenchman's traditional love for the turning of an honest penny. No sooner were we settled in our position than a bearded French soldier, probably a newsvendor in civil life, saw his golden opportunity. In his hours off duty he used to walk back many miles from the position, and return with an armful of English newspapers of the day before. How he procured them was a mystery we never solved, for he always arrived with them hours before we could obtain them anywhere ourselves. "Délé peppers!" he would cry, and the whole battery turned out as one man to greet him and buy his wares, which, by the way, he sold cheaper than their price in the neighbouring towns. How much English he understood I never knew; he would talk it freely with the men, but never with the officers--"Non compris" and a shake of the head was his invariable reply to our advances in this direction. But he always knew the contents of the papers he sold, especially the _Daily Mail_. Certainly his ideas occasionally got a little mixed. I am convinced, for instance, that he was under the impression that Lord Northcliffe was either Dictator of England or had changed places with Lord Kitchener. "Monsieur Lor' Notcliffe il va bien ce matin!" he would say with great satisfaction, "il va finir la guerre sur-le-champ." His politics swayed him to the extent that he always refused to bring us French dailies. "Mais non, je vous dis, monsieur. Vous aimez les journaux français? Bien, demain je vous apporterai peut-être _La Vie Parisienne_, _Le Rire_, ce que vous voulez. Mais _Le Temps_, _Le Matin_? Ceux sont les organes honteuses des capitalistes. _L'Homme Enchaîné_, si vous voulez----"