THE WAR
One of my earliest recollections is of myself seated on a shiny chair from which I had difficulty in not slipping, listening to my father and mother and a large, smiling gentleman talking about Peace. There were to be no more wars. It had all been settled at a place called Paree. The large gentleman said Paris. But my mother explained to me, afterwards, that it meant the same. My father and my mother, so I gathered, had seen a gentleman named Napoleon, and had fixed it up. The large gentleman said, with a smile, that it didn't look much like it, just at present. But my father waved his hand. Nothing could be done all at once. One prepared the ground, so to speak.
“The young men, now coming forward,” said my mother, “they will see to it.”
I remember feeling a little sad at the thought that there would be no more war—that, coming too late into the world, I had missed it. My mother sought to comfort me by talking about the heavenly warfare which was still to be had for the asking. But, in my secret heart, it seemed to me a poor substitute.
With the coming of the Alabama claim things looked brighter. My father, then President of the Poplar branch of the International Peace Association, shook his head over America's preposterous demands. There were limits even to England's love of Peace.
Later on, we did have a sort of war. Nothing very satisfying: one had to make the best of it: against a King Theodore, I think, a sort of a nigger. I know he made an excellent Guy Fawkes. Also he did atrocities, I remember.
At this period France was “The Enemy.” We boys always shouted “Froggy” whenever we saw anyone who looked like a foreigner. Crécy and Poitiers were our favourite battles. The “King of Prussia,” in a three-cornered hat and a bob-tailed wig, swung and creaked in front of many a public-house.
I was at school when France declared war against Prussia in 1870. Our poor old French Master had a bad time of it. England, with the exception of a few cranks, was pro-German. But when it was all over: France laid low, and the fear of her removed: our English instinct to sympathize always with the underdog—not a bad trait in us—asserted itself; and a new Enemy had to be found.
We fixed on Russia.
Russia had designs on India. The Afghan War was her doing. I was an actor at the time. We put on a piece called “The Khyber Pass”—at Ashley's, if I remember rightly. I played a mule. It was before the Griffith Brothers introduced their famous donkey. I believe, if I had been given a free hand, I could have made the little beast amusing. But our stage-manager said he didn't want any of my damned clowning. It had to be a real mule, the pet of the regiment. At the end, I stood on my hind legs, and waved the British flag. Lord Roberts patted my head, and the audience took the roof off, nearly.
I was down on my luck when the Russo-Turkish War broke out. There were hopes at first that we might be drawn into it. I came near to taking the Queen's shilling. I had slept at a doss-house the night before, and had had no breakfast. A sergeant of Lancers stopped me in Trafalgar Square. He put his hands on my shoulders and punched my chest.
“You're not the first of your family that's been a soldier,” he said. “You'll like it.”
It was a taking uniform: blue and silver with high Hession boots. The advantages of making soldiers look like mud had not then been discovered.
“I'm meeting a man at the Bodega,” I said. “If he isn't there I'll come straight back.”
He was there; though I hadn't expected him. He took me with him to a Coroner's inquest, and found a place for me at the reporter's table. So, instead, I became a journalist.
The music-hall was the barometer of public opinion in those days. Politicians and even Cabinet Ministers would often slip in for an hour. MacDermott was our leading Lion Comique. One night he sang a new song: “We don't want to fight, but by Jingo if we do.” Whatever happened, the Russians should not have Con-stan-ti-no-ple, the “no” indefinitely prolonged. It made a furore. By the end of the week, half London was singing it. Also it added the word Jingo to the English language.
Peace meetings in Hyde Park were broken up, the more fortunate speakers getting off with a ducking in the Serpentine. The Peacemonger would seem to be always with us. In peace-time we shower palm leaves upon him. In war-time we hand him over to the mob. I remember seeing Charles Bradlaugh, covered with blood and followed by a yelling crowd. He escaped into Oxford Street and his friends got him away in a cart. Gladstone had his windows broken.
And, after all, we never got so much as a look in. “Peace with Honour,” announced Disraeli; and immediately rang down the curtain. We had expected a better play from Disraeli.
To console us, there came trouble in Egypt. Lord Charles Beresford was the popular hero. We called him Charlie. The Life Guards were sent out. I remember their return. It was the first time London had seen them without their helmets and breastplates. Lean, worn-looking men on skeleton horses. The crowd was disappointed. But made up for it in the evening.
And after that there was poor General Gordon and Majuba Hill. It may have been the other way round. Some of us blamed Gladstone and the Nonconformist conscience. Others thought we were paying too much attention to cricket and football, and that God was angry with us. Greece declared war on Turkey. Poetical friends of mine went out to fight for Greece; but spent most of their time looking for the Greek army, and when they found it didn't know it, and came home again. There were fresh massacres of Armenians. I was editing a paper called To-day, and expressed surprise that no healthy young Armenian had tried to remove “Abdul the damned,” as William Watson afterwards called him. My paragraph reached him, by some means or another, and had the effect of frightening the old horror. I had not expected such luck. The Turkish Constitution used to be described as: “Despotism tempered by assassination.” Under the old régime, the assassin, in Turkey, took the place of our Leader of the Opposition. Every Turkish Sultan lived in nightly dread of him. I was hauled up to the Foreign Office. A nice old gentleman interviewed me.
“Do you know,” he said, “that you have rendered yourself liable to prosecution?”
“Well, prosecute me,” I suggested. Quite a number of us were feeling mad about this thing.
He was getting irritable.
“All very well, for you to talk like that,” he snapped. “Just the very way to get it home into every corner of Europe. They can't be wanting that.”
The “they” I gathered to be the Turkish Embassy people.
“I am sorry,” I said. “I don't seem able to help you.”
He read to me the Act of Parliament, and we shook hands and parted. I heard no more of the matter.
It was about this time that America made war upon Spain. We, ourselves, had just had a shindy with America over some God-forsaken place called Venezuela, and popular opinion was if anything pro-Spanish. The American papers were filled with pictures of Spanish atrocities, in the time of Philip II. It seemed the Spaniards had the habit of burning people alive at the stake. Could such a nation be allowed to continue in possession of Cuba?
The Fashoda incident was hardly unexpected. For some time past, France had been steadily regaining her old position of “The Enemy.” Over the Dreyfus case it occurred to us to tell her what we thought of her, generally. In return, she mentioned one or two things she didn't like about us. There was great talk of an Entente with Germany. Joe Chamberlain started the idea. The popular Press, seized with a sudden enthusiasm for the study of history, discovered we were of Teutonic origin. Also it unearthed a saying of Nelson's to the effect that every Englishman should hate a Frenchman like the Devil. A society was formed for the promotion of amicable relationship between the English and the German-speaking people. “Friends of Germany” I think it was called. I remember receiving an invitation to join it, from Conan Doyle. An elderly Major, in Cairo, who had dined too well, tore down the French flag, and performed upon it a new dance of his own invention. This was, I believe, the origin of the Fox-trot. One of the Northcliffe papers published a feuilleton, picturing the next war: England—her Navy defeated by French submarines—was saved, just in the nick of time, by the arrival of the German Fleet.
The Boer War was not popular at first. The gold mines were so obviously at the bottom of it. Still, it was a war, even if only a sort of a war, as the late Lord Halsbury termed it. A gentleman named Perks resigned from the Presidency of the Peace Society, in order to devote himself to war work. Other members followed his example. There were Boer atrocities. But they were badly done and, for a while, fell flat.
It was the Kaiser's telegram that turned the wind. I was in Germany at the time, and feeling was high against the English. We had a party one evening, at which some Dutch ladies were present—relations of De Wet, we learnt afterwards. I remember in the middle of the party, our Dienstmädchen suddenly appearing and shouting “Hoch die Buren,” and immediately bursting into tears. She explained to my wife, afterwards, that she couldn't help it—that God had prompted her. I have noticed that trouble invariably follows when God appears to be interesting Himself in foreign politics.
In France it was no better. Indeed, worse. In Paris, the English were hooted in the street, and hunted out of the cafés. I got through by talking with a strong American accent that I had picked up during a lecturing tour through the States. Queen Victoria was insulted in the French Press. The Daily Mail came out with a leader headed “Ne touchez pas la Reine,” suggesting that if France did not mend her manners we should “roll her in the mud,” take away her Colonies, and give them to Germany. The Kaiser had explained away his famous telegram. It seemed he didn't really mean it. In a speech at the Vagabonds' Club, I suggested that God, for some unrevealed purpose of His own, had fashioned even Boers, and was denounced the next morning in the Press for blasphemy.
At the time, there was much discussion throughout Europe as to when the twentieth century really began. The general idea was that it was going to bring us luck. France was decidedly reforming. On the other hand, Germany was “dumping” things upon us. She was dumping her goods not only in England, but in other countries, where hitherto we had been in the habit of dumping ours, undisturbed. After a time we got angry. There was talk of an Entente with France, who wasn't dumping anything—who hadn't much to dump. The comic papers took it up. France was represented to us as a Lady, young and decidedly attractive. Germany as a fat elderly gentleman, with pimples and his hair cropped close. How could a gentlemanly John Bull hesitate for a moment between them!
Russia also, it appeared, had been misunderstood. Russia wasn't half as bad as we had thought her: anyhow, she didn't dump.
And then, out of sheer cussedness as it seemed, Germany, in feverish haste, went on building ships.
Even the mildest among us agreed that Britannia could tolerate no rival on the waves. It came out that Germany was building four new cruisers. At once we demanded eight. We made a song about it.
“We want eight,
And we won't wait.”
It was sung at all the by-elections. The Peace parties won moral victories.
Sir Edward Grey has been accused of having “jockeyed” us into the war—of having so committed us to France and Russia that no honourable escape was possible for us. Had the Good Samaritan himself been our Foreign Secretary, the war would still have happened. Germany is popularly supposed to have brought us into it by going through Belgium. Had she gone round by the Cape of Good Hope, the result would have been the same. The Herd instinct had taken possession of us all. It was sweeping through Europe. I was at a country tennis tournament the day we declared war on Germany. Young men and maidens, grey-moustached veterans, pale-faced curates, dear old ladies: one and all expressed relief and thankfulness. “I was so afraid Grey would climb down at the last moment”—“It was Asquith I was doubtful of. I didn't think the old man had the grit”—“Thank God, we shan't read 'Made in Germany' for a little time to come.” Such was the talk over the tea-cups.
It was the same whichever way you looked. Railway porters, cabmen, workmen riding home upon their bicycles, farm labourers eating their bread and cheese beside the hedge: they had the faces of men to whom good tidings had come.
For years it had been growing, this instinct that Germany was “The Enemy.” In the beginning we were grieved. It was the first time in history she had been called upon to play the part. But that was her fault. Why couldn't she leave us alone—cease interfering with our trade, threatening our command of the sea? Quite nice people went about saying: “We're bound to have a scrap with her. Hope it comes in my time”—“Must put her in her place. We'll get on all the better with her afterwards.” That was the idea everywhere: that war would clear the air, make things pleasanter all round, afterwards. A party, headed by Lord Roberts, clamoured for conscription. Another party, headed by Lord Fisher, proposed that we should seize the German Fleet and drown it. Books and plays came out one on top of another warning us of the German menace. Kipling wrote, openly proclaiming Germany, The Foe, first and foremost.
In Germany, I gather from German friends, similar thinking prevailed. It was England that, now secretly, now openly, was everywhere opposing a blank wall to German expansion, refusing her a place in the sun, forbidding her the seas, plotting to hem her in.
The pastures were getting used up. The herds were becoming restive.
The only contribution of any value a private citizen can make towards the elucidation of a National upheaval is to record his own sensations.
I heard of our declaration of war against Germany with cheerful satisfaction. The animal in me rejoiced. It was going to be the biggest war in history. I thanked whatever gods there be that they had given it in my time. If I had been anywhere near the age limit I should have enlisted. I can say this with confidence because later, and long after my enthusiasm had worn off, I did manage to get work in quite a dangerous part of the front line. Men all around me were throwing up their jobs, sacrificing their careers. I felt ashamed of myself, sitting in safety at my desk, writing articles encouraging them, at so much a thousand words. Of course, not a soul dreamt the war was going to last more than a few months. Had we known, it might have been another story. But the experts had assured us on that point. Mr. Wells was most emphatic. It was Mr. Wells who proclaimed it a Holy War. I have just been reading again those early letters of his. A Miss Cooper Willis has, a little unkindly, reprinted them. I am glad she did not do the same with contributions of my own. The newspapers had roped in most of us literary gents to write them special articles upon the war. The appalling nonsense we poured out, during those hysterical first weeks, must have made the angels weep, and all the little devils hold their sides with laughter. In justice to myself, I like to remember that I did gently ridicule the “War to end war” stuff and nonsense. I had heard that talk in my babyhood: since when I had lived through one of the bloodiest half centuries in history. War will go down before the gradual growth of reason. The movement has not yet begun.
But I did hate German militarism. I had seen German “offizieren” swaggering three and four abreast along the pavements, sweeping men, women and children into the gutter. (I had seen the same thing in St. Petersburg. But we were not bothering about Russia, just then.) I had seen them, insolent, conceited, over-bearing, in café, theatre and railway car, civilians compelled everywhere to cringe before them, and had longed to slap their faces. In Freiburg, I had seen the agony upon the faces of the young recruits, returning from forced marches under a blazing sun, their bleeding feet protruding from their boots. I had sat upon the blood-splashed bench and watched the Mensur—helpful, no doubt, in making the youngsters fit for “the greatest game of all,” as Kipling calls it. I hated the stupidity, the cruelty of the thing. I thought we were going to free the German people from this Juggernaut of their own creation. And then make friends with them.
At first, there was no hate of the German people. King George himself set the example. He went about the hospitals, shook hands with wounded Hans and Fritz. The Captain of the Emden we applauded, for his gallant exploits against our own ships. Kitchener's despatches admitted the bravery of the enemy. Jokes and courtesies were exchanged between the front trenches. Our civilians, caught by the war in Germany, were well treated. The good feeling was acknowledged, and returned.
Had the war ended with the falling of the leaves—as had been foretold by both the Kaiser and our own Bottomley—we might—who knows?—have realized that dream of a kinder and better world. But the gods, for some purpose of their own, not yet perhaps completed, ordained otherwise. It became necessary to stimulate the common people to prolonged effort. What surer drug than Hate?
The Atrocity stunt was let loose.
A member of the Cabinet had suggested to me that I might go out to America to assist in English propaganda. On the ship, I fell in with an American Deputation returning from Belgium. They had been sent there by the United States Government to report upon the truth—or otherwise—of these stories of German frightfulness. The opinion of the Deputation was that, apart from the abominations common to all warfare, nineteen-twentieths of them would have to be described as “otherwise.”
It was these stories of German atrocities, turned out day by day from Fleet Street, that first caused me to doubt whether this really was a “Holy War.” Against them I had raised my voice, for whatever it might be worth. If I knew and hated the German military machine, so likewise I knew, and could not bring myself to hate, the German people. I had lived among them for years. I knew them to be a homely, kind, good-humoured folk. Cruelty to animals in Germany is almost unknown. Cruelty to woman or child is rarer still. German criminal statistics compare favourably with our own. This attempt to make them out a nation of fiends seemed to me as silly as it was wicked. It was not clean fighting. Of course, I got myself into trouble with the Press; while a select number of ladies and gentlemen did me the honour to send me threatening letters.
The Deputation published their report in America. But it was never allowed to reach England.
America, so far as I could judge, appeared to be mildly pro-French and equally anti-English. Our blockade was causing indignation. In every speech I made in America, the only thing sure of sympathetic response was my reference to the “just and lasting” peace that was to follow. I had been told to make a point of that. A popular cartoon, exhibited in Broadway, pictured the nations of Europe as a yelling mob of mud-bespattered urchins engaged in a meaningless scrimmage; while America, a placid motherly soul, was getting ready a hot bath and bandages. President Wilson, in an interview I had with him, conveyed to me the same idea: that America was saving herself to come in at the end as peace-maker. At a dinner to which I was invited, I met an important group of German business men and bankers. They assured me that Germany had already grasped the fact that she had bitten off more than she could chew, to use their own expression, and would welcome a peace conference, say at Washington. I took their message back with me, but the mere word “conference” seemed to strike terror into every British heart.
It was in the autumn of 1916 that I “got out,” as the saying was. I had been trying to get there for some time. Of course my age, fifty-five, shut all the usual doors against me. I could have joined a company of “veterans” for home defence, and have guarded the Crystal Palace, or helped to man the Thames Embankment; but I wanted to see the real thing. I had offered myself as an entertainer to the Y.M.C.A. I was a capable raconteur and had manufactured, or appropriated, a number of good stories. The Y.M.C.A. had tried me on home hospitals and camps and had approved me. But the War Office would not give its permission. The military gentleman I saw was brief. So far as his information went, half the British Army were making notes for future books. If I merely wanted to be useful, he undertook to find me a job in the Army Clothing Department, close by in Pimlico. I suppose my motives for wanting to go out were of the usual mixed order. I honestly thought I would be doing sound work, helping the Tommies to forget their troubles; and I was not thinking of writing a book. But I confess that curiosity was also driving me. It is human nature to jump out of bed and run a mile merely to see a house on fire. Here was the biggest thing in history taking place within earshot. At Greenwich, when the wind was in the right direction, one could hear the guns. Likewise masculine craving for adventure. Quite conceivably, one might get oneself mixed up with excursions and alarms: come back a hero. Anyhow, it would be a relief to get away, if only for a time, from the hinterland heroes with their shrieking and their cursing. The soldiers would be gentlemen.
I had all but abandoned hope, when one day, outside a photographer's shop in Bond Street,—I met an old friend of mine, dressed up in the uniform of a Major-General, as I took it to be at first sight.
You could have knocked me down with a feather. I knew him to be over fifty, if a day. The last time I had seen him, about three weeks before, had been in his office. He was a solicitor. I had gone to him about some tea-leaves my wife had been saving up. She was afraid of getting into trouble for hoarding.
He shook hands haughtily. “Sorry I can't stop,” he said. “Am sailing from Southampton to-night. Must look in at the French Legation.”
“One moment,” I persisted. “Can't you take me out with you, as your Aide-de-camp? I don't mind what I do. I'm good at cleaning buttons——”
He waved me aside. “Impossible,” he said. “Joffre would——”
And then, looking at my crestfallen face, the soldier in him melted. The kindly stout solicitor emerged. Taking out a note-book, he wrote upon a page. Then tore it out and gave it me.
“You can tell them I sent you,” he said. “Ta-ta.” He dived into a waiting taxi. The crowd had respectfully made way for him.
It was an address in Knightsbridge that he had given me. I saw a courteous gentleman named Illingworth, who explained things to me. The idea had originated with a French lady, La Comtesse de la Panousse, wife of the military attaché to the French Embassy in London. The French Army was less encumbered than our own with hide-bound regulations. Age, so long as it was not accompanied by decrepitude, was no drawback to the driving of a motor ambulance. I passed the necessary tests for driving and repairs, and signed on. Thus I became a French soldier: at two and a half sous a day (paid monthly; my wife still has the money). The French Legation obtained for me my passport. At the British War Office I could snap my fingers. Passing it, on my last day in London, I did so: and was spoken to severely by the constable on duty.
Upon our uniform, I must congratulate La Comtesse de la Panousse. It was, I understand, her own creation: a russet khaki relieved by dark blue facings, with a swordbelt and ornamental buttons. It came expensive. Of course, we paid for it ourselves. But I am sure that none of us begrudged the money. The French army did not quite know what to make of us. Young recruits assumed us, in the dusk, to be Field-Marshals. One day, in company with poor Hutchinson, the dramatist, who died a few months after he got back to England, I walked through the gateway of the Citadelle at Verdun, saluted in awed silence by both sentries.
I sailed from Southampton in company with Spring-Rice, brother to our Ambassador at Washington, and our Chef de Section, D. L. Oliver, who was returning from leave in England. We took out with us three new cars, given by the British Farmers' Association. The ship was full of soldiers. As we stepped on deck, we were handed life collars, with instructions to blow them out and tie them round our necks. It gave us an Elizabethan touch. One man with a pointed beard, an officer of Engineers, we called Shakespeare. Except for his legs, he looked like Shakespeare. But lying down in them was impossible. Under cover of darkness, we most of us disobeyed orders, and hid them under our greatcoats. Passing down the Channel was like walking down Regent Street on a Jubilee night. The place was blazing with lights. Our transport was accompanied by a couple of torpedo destroyers. They raced along beside us like a pair of porpoises. Every now and then they disappeared, the waves sweeping over them. About twelve o'clock the alarm was given that a German submarine had succeeded in getting through. We returned full speed to Southampton dock, and remained there for the next twenty-four hours. On the following night, we were ordered forward again; and reached Havre early in the morning. The cross-country roads in France are designed upon the principle of the Maze at Hampton Court. Every now and then you come back to the same village. To find your way through them, the best plan is to disregard the sign-posts and trust to prayer. Oliver had been there before but, even with that, we lost our way a dozen times. The first night we reached Caudebec, a delightful mediæval town hardly changed by so much as a stone from the days of Joan of Arc, when Warwick held it for the English. If it hadn't been for the war, I would have stopped there for a day or two. As it was, Spring-Rice and myself were eager to get to the front. Oliver, who had had about a year of it, was in less of a hurry. At Vitry, some hundred miles the other side of Paris, we entered “the zone of the Grand Armies,” and saw the first signs of war. Soon we were running through villages that were little more than rubbish heaps. The Quakers were already there. But for the Quakers, I doubt if Christianity would have survived this particular war. All the other denominations threw it up. Where the church had been destroyed the “Friends” had cleared out a barn, roofed it, and found benches and a home-made altar—generally, a few boards on trestles, with a white cloth and some bunches of flowers. Against the shattered walls they had improvised shelters and rebuilt the hearth-stone. Old men and women, sitting in the sun, smiled at us. The children ran after us cheering. The dogs barked. Towards evening I got lost. I was the last of the three. Over the winding country roads—or rather cart tracks—it was difficult to keep in touch. I knew we had to get to Bar-le-Duc. But it was dark when I struck a little town called Revigny. I decided to stop there for the night. Half of it was in ruins. It was crowded with troops, and trains kept coming in discharging thousands more. The poilus were lying in the streets, wrapped in their blankets, with their knapsacks for a pillow. The one miserable hotel was reserved for officers. My uniform obtained me admission. The salle-à-manger was crammed to suffocation: so the landlady put me a chair in the kitchen. The cockroaches were having a bad time. They fell into the soups and stews, and no one took the trouble to rescue them. I secured some cold ham and a bottle of wine; and slept in my own ambulance on one of the stretchers. I pushed on at dawn; and just outside Bar-le-Duc met Oliver, who had been telephoning everywhere, enquiring for a lost Englishman. I might have been court-martialled, but the good fellow let me off with a reprimand; and later on I learnt the trick of never losing sight of the car in front of you. It is not as easy as it sounds. At Bar-le-Duc we learnt our destination. Our unit, Convoi 10, had been moved to Rarécourt, a village near Clermont in the Argonne, twenty miles from Verdun. We reached there that same evening.
We were a company of about twenty Britishers, including Colonials. Amongst us were youngsters who had failed to pass their medical examination, and one or two officers who had been invalided out of the army. But the majority were, like myself, men above military age. Other English sections, similar to our own, were scattered up and down the line. The Americans, at that time, had an Ambulance Service of their own: some of them were with the Germans. A French officer was technically in command; but the chief of each section was an Englishman, chosen for his knowledge of French. It was a difficult position. He was responsible for orders being carried out and, at the same time, was expected to make things as easy as possible for elderly gentlemen unused to discipline: a few of whom did not always remember the difference between modern warfare and a Piccadilly club. Oliver was a marvel of tact and patience. We drew the ordinary army rations. Meat and vegetables were good and plentiful. For the rest, we had a mess fund, and foraged for ourselves. Marketing was good fun. It meant excursions to Ste. Menehould or Bar-le-Duc, where one could get a bath, and eat off a clean tablecloth. For mess-room, we had a long tent in the middle of a field. In fine weather it was cool and airy. At other times, the wind swept through it, and the rain leaked in, churning the floor into mud. We sat down to la soupe, as our dinner was called, in our greatcoats with the collars turned up. For sleeping, we were billeted about the village. With three others I shared a granary. We spread our sleeping sacks upon stretchers supported on trestles, and built ourselves washing-stands and dressing-tables out of packing-cases that we purchased from the proprietress of the épicerie at a franc a piece. Later, I found a more luxurious lodging in the house of an old peasant and his wife. They never took their clothes off. The old man would kick off his shoes, hang up his coat, and disappear with a grunt into a hole in the wall. His wife would undo hidden laces and buttons and give herself a shake, put her shoes by the stove, blow out the lamp, and roll into another hole opposite. There was a house near the church with a bench outside, underneath a vine. It commanded a pretty view, and of an evening, when off duty, I would sit there and smoke. The old lady was talkative. She boasted to me, one evening, that three officers, a Colonel and two Majors, had often sat upon that very bench the year before and been quite friendly. That was when the Germans had occupied the village. I gathered the villagers had made the best of them. “They had much money,” added Madame.
Fuel was our difficulty. It's an ill wind that blows nobody good. The news that a shelled village had been finally abandoned by its inhabitants flew like wildfire. It was a question of who could get there first, and drag out the timbers from the shattered houses. Green wood was no good: though, up in the dug-outs, it was the only thing to be had. They say there is no smoke without fire. It is not true. You can have a dug-out so full of smoke that you have to light a match to find the fire. If it's only French matches you have, it may take a boxfull. It was our primus stoves that saved us. Each man's primus was his vestal fire. We kept them burning day and night: cooked by them, dried our clothes, and thawed our feet before going to bed. Mud was our curse. The rain never ceased. We lived in mud. Our section worked the Argonne forest. Our point de secours, where we waited, was some hundred yards or so behind the front trenches. The wounded, after having passed through the Field Dressing Station, were brought to us on stretchers; or came limping to us, twisting their faces as they walked. So long as we were within call we could wander at our will, creep to where the barbed-wire ended, and look out upon the mud beyond. Black, silent, still, like some petrified river piercing the forest: floating on it, here and there, white bones, a man's boot (the sole uppermost), a horse's head (the eyes missing). Among the trees the other side, the stone shelters where the German sentries watched.
The second night I was on duty, I heard a curious whistling just above my head. I thought it some night bird, and looked up. It came again, and I moved a few steps to get a better view. Suddenly something butted me in the stomach and knocked me down; and the next moment I heard a loud noise, and a little horse, tethered to a tree some few yards off, leapt up into the air and dropped down dead. It was Monsieur Le Médecin, a chemist from Peronne, who had bowled me over, and was dragging me down the steps into his dug-out. I didn't hang about another time, when I heard that whistling in the trees.
There must have been some means of communication between the men themselves on either side. During the two hours, every afternoon, when the little tramway was kept busy, hauling up food, both French and German batteries were silent. When the last barrel of flour, the last sack of potatoes, had been rolled in safety down the steps of the field kitchen, the firing would break out again. When a German mine exploded, the Frenchmen who ought to have been killed, were invariably a quarter of a mile away sawing wood. One takes it that the German peasant lads possessed like gift of intuition, telling them when it would be good for their health's sake to take walking exercise.
A pity the common soldiers could not have been left to make the peace. There might have been no need for Leagues of Nations. I remember one midday coming upon two soldiers, sitting on a log. One was a French poilu and the other his German prisoner. They were sharing the Frenchman's lunch. The conqueror's gun lay on the ground, between them.
It was the night call that we dreaded. We had to drive without lights: through the dense forest, up and down steep, narrow ways with sudden turns and hairpin bends—one had to trust to memory: and down below, in the valley, were the white mists into which one strained one's eyes till it felt as if they were dropping out of their sockets. We had to hasten all we dared, the lives of men behind us depending upon time. Besides, we might be wanted for another journey. We often were. There ought at times to have been a moon, according to the almanac: but to that land of ceaseless rain she rarely came. It was nerve-racking work. The only thing to do was not to think about it till the moment came. It is the advice that is given, I understand, to men waiting to be hanged. One takes off one's boots, and tunic, blows out the candle and turns in. A rat drops from somewhere on to the table, becomes immovable. By the light of the smouldering logs, we look at one another. One tries to remember whether one really did put everything eatable back into the tin. Even then they work the covers off, somehow—clever little devils. Well, if he does, he does. Perhaps he will be satisfied with the candle. Ambulance Driver Nine turns his head to the wall. Suddenly he is up again. A footstep is stumbling along the wooden gangway. It is coming nearer. He holds his breath. The gods be praised, it passes. With a sigh of relief he lies down again, and closes his eyes.
The next moment—or so it seems to him—a light is flashing in his eyes. A bearded, blue-coated figure is standing over him. Ambulance to start immediately! (“ Ambulance faut partir.”) The bearded figure, under its blue iron helmet, kindly lights the candle (rat having providentially found something more tasty) and departs. Ambulance Driver Nine struggles half unconsciously into his clothes and follows up the steps. Pierre, the aide, is already grinding away at the starting handle, and becoming exhausted. One brushes him aside and takes one's turn, and with the twentieth swing—or thereabouts—the car answers with a sudden roar, as of some great drowsy animal awakened from its slumbers; and Pierre, who has been cursing her with all the oaths of Gascony, pats her on the bonnet and is almost amorous. A shadowy group emerges apparently from the ground. Two stretchers and three assis is the tale. The stretchers are hoisted up and fitted swiftly into their hangings. The three assis mount slowly and shuffle painfully into their places. Rifles and knapsacks are piled up beside them, and the doors are clanged to. Another “case” is to be picked up on the way—at Champ Cambon. You take the first road on the left, after passing the ruins of the Ferme de Forêt, and the camp is just beyond the level crossing. It seems you cannot miss it. And Ambulance Driver Nine climbs into his seat.
Through the forest, he keeps his eyes upon the strip of sky above his head. Always he must be in the exact centre of that narrow strip of sky. And it will wobble. Pierre sits on the foot-board, his eyes glued to the road. “ Gauche, gauche,” he cries suddenly. Driver Number Nine pulls the wheel to the left. “ A droit,” shrieks Pierre. Which the devil does he mean? And what has become of the sky? Where's the damned thing gone to? The deep ditch that he knows to be on either side of the road seems to be calling to him like some muddy Lorelei. Suddenly the sky reappears. It seems to have come from behind him. He breathes once more.
“ Arretez,” cries Pierre, a little later. He has detected a vague, shapeless mass that might be the ruins of a farm. He descends. One hears his footsteps squelching through the mud. He returns triumphant. It is a farm. Things seem to be shaping well. Now, all they have to do is to look out for a road on the left. They find a road on the left—or hope they have. The descent appears to be steep. The car begins to jump and jolt. “ Doucement, camarade—doucement! ” comes an agonized cry from within. Pierre opens the little window and explains that it cannot be helped. It is a mauvaise route: and there is silence. The route becomes more and more mauvaise. Is it a road, or are they lost? Every minute the car seems as if it were about to stand on its head. Ambulance Driver Nine recalls grim stories of the mess-room: of nights spent beside a mud-locked car, listening to groans and whispered prayers: of cars overturned, their load of dying men mingled in a ghastly heap of writhing limbs, from which the bandages have come undone. In spite of the damp chill night, a cold sweat breaks out all over him. Heedless of Pierre's remonstrances, he switches on his electric torch and flashes it downwards. Yes, it is a road of sorts, chiefly of shell-holes, apparently. The car crashes in and out of them. If the axles do not break, they may get down. The axles do not break, by some miracle. Pierre gives a whoop of joy as the car straightens herself out. They have reached the level, and the next moment they bump over the crossing, and hear the welcome voice of a sentry.
The blessé is brought out. He has been unconscious for two hours. Driver Nine had best make speed. The mist that fills the valley grows whiter and whiter. It is like a damp sheet, wrapped round his head. Shadows move toward him, and vanish; but whether they were men or trees or houses he cannot tell. Suddenly he jams on his brakes and starts up. It is clear enough this time—a huge munition wagon, drawn by a team of giant horses. They are rearing and plunging all round him.
But no sound comes from them! Pierre has sprung to the ground and is shouting. Where is their driver?
The whole thing has vanished. They listen. All is silence. Pierre climbs up again and they break into a loud laugh.
But why did Pierre see it, too!
They crawl along on bottom gear. There comes a low crashing sound. Even the torch is useless, a yard in front of them. They find by feeling that they are up against a door. Fortunately the back wheels are still on the road, so that they can right themselves. But it seems useless going on. Suddenly, Pierre dives beneath the car and emerges, puffing a cigarette. He dances with delight at his own cleverness. He holds the lighted cigarette behind his back and walks jauntily forward, feeling the road with his feet. Ambulance Driver Nine drives on, following the tiny spark. Every now and then, the invisible Pierre puffs the cigarette, covered by his hand, and it reappears with a brighter glow. After a time the mist rises; and Pierre bursts into song and remounts. A mile or so farther on they reach the barrier, beyond which lamps are permitted, but decide not to light up. Their eyes are in training now, and had better not be indulged; it will spoil them for the journey back. They are both singing different tunes when they arrive at the Base Hospital, twenty kilometres behind the lines.
“Have any trouble?” asks a fellow driver from another section, who has just discharged his load and is drawing on his gloves.
“The mist was a bit trying,” answers Driver Nine. “We had to come round by Champ Cambon.”
“Nasty bit of road, that, down the hill,” agrees the other. “So long!”
From Rarécourt we were moved to Verdun. It was in ruins then. From some of the houses merely the front wall had fallen, leaving the rooms intact, just as one sees them in an open dolls' house: two chairs drawn close together near the hearth, the crucifix upon the wall, a child's toy upon the floor. In a shop, were two canaries in their cage, starved to death, a little heap of feathers that fell to pieces when I touched them. In a restaurant, the soup still stood upon the table, the wine half finished in the glasses. The Citadelle was still occupied: an underground city of galleries and tunnels, streets of dormitories, mess-rooms, a concert hall, stores, hospitals and kitchens. Here and there, one came across groups of German prisoners removing the débris, tidying up generally. There must have been great shortage of wool in Germany, at that time. It was a bitter winter, yet the most of them had no underclothing but a thin cotton shirt. One could see their naked bodies through the holes. A company of French Engineers was quartered in the Cathedral. The altar served them for a kitchen table. The town was strangely peaceful, though all around the fighting still continued. Our Unit, Section 10, had been there the winter before, during the battle, and had had a strenuous time. During the actual fighting, Hague Conventions and Geneva regulations get themselves mislaid. The guns were eating up ammunition faster than the little tramways could supply them, and the ambulances did not always go up empty. Doubtless the German Red Cross drivers had likewise their blind eye. It is not the soldiers who shout about these things. I was on the “Lusitania,” the last voyage she made from New York to Liverpool, before she was torpedoed. We were loaded to the Plimsol line with war material. The Germans were accused of dropping shells on to the hospital. So they did. How could they help it? The ammunition park was one side of the railway head and the hospital the other. It was the most convenient place for both. Those who talk about war being a game ought to be made to go out and play it. They'd find their little book of rules of not much use. Once we were ordered to take a company of staff officers on a tour of inspection. That did seem going a bit too far. Spring-Rice bluntly refused: but not all of us had his courage.
From rain the weather had turned to frost. Often the thermometer would register forty degrees below zero. The Frenchmen said it was “ pas chaud.” A Frenchman is always so polite. It might hurt the Weather's feelings, telling it bluntly that it was damn cold. He hints to it that it isn't exactly warm, and leaves the rest to its conscience. Starting the cars was horse's work. We wrapped our engines up in rugs at night and kept a lamp burning under the bonnet. One man made a habit of using a blow-pipe to warm his cylinders, and the rest of us gave him a wide berth. The birds lost the use of their wings. They lay huddled up wherever there was shelter from the wind. Some of the soldiers took them scraps of food, but others caught and cooked them. It wasn't worth the trouble: there was nothing on them.
One day, in a wood, I chanced upon a hospital for animals. It was a curious sight. The convalescents were lying about in the sun, many of them still wearing bandages. One very little donkey was wearing the Croix de Guerre. His driver had been killed and he had gone on by himself, with a broken leg, and had brought his load of letters and parcels safely up to the trenches. The transport drivers were kind to their beasts; and many of the soldiers had their little dog that marched with them and shared their rations. But they used to pour petrol over the rats, when they caught them, and set fire to them. “He ate my sausage,” a bright-eyed little poilu once answered me. He regarded it as an act of plain justice. Some of the officers had made gardens in front of their dug-outs; and the little cemeteries, dotted here and there about the forest, were still bright with flowers when I first saw them. A major I used to visit had furnished his dug-out with pieces of genuine Louis Quatorze: they had been lying about the fields when he had got there. We used to drink coffee out of eggshell china cups. In the villages further back, life went on much as usual. Except when a bombardment was actually in progress, the peasants still worked in the fields, the women gossiped and the children played about the fountain. Bombardment or no bombardment, Mass was celebrated daily in the church—or what was left of it. A few soldiers made the congregation, with here and there a woman in black. But on Sundays came the farmers with their wives and daughters in fine clothes and the soldiers—on week days not always spick-and-span—had brushed their uniforms and polished up their buttons.
But within the barrier, which ran some ten kilometres behind the front, one never saw a woman or a child. Female nurses came no nearer than the hospitals at the base. It was a dull existence, after the first excitement had worn off. We worried chiefly about our food. The parcel from home was the great event of the week. Often, it had been opened. We had to thank God for what was left. Out of every three boxes of cigarettes that my wife sent me, I reckon I got one. The French cigarettes, that one bought at the canteens, were ten per cent poison and the rest dirt. The pain would go out of a wounded soldier's face when you showed him an English cigarette. Rum was our only tipple, and the amount that each man could purchase was limited. It was kind to us, and warmed our feet. The Paris papers arrived in the evening—when they did arrive. They told us how gay and confident we were. For news, we preferred reading the daily bulletin, posted up each morning outside headquarters: it told the truth, whether pleasant or unpleasant. We got used to the booming of the guns. At the distance of a few miles the sound was not unmusical. Up in the dug-outs, we were close to our own batteries. They were cleverly hidden. I remember once sitting down upon a log to read. It was a pretty spot, underneath a bank that sheltered one from the wind. Suddenly something happened. I thought, at first, my head had come off. I was lying on the ground, and became aware of a pair of eyes looking at me through a hole in the bank. I had been sitting outside a battery of seventy-fives. The boyish young officer invited me inside. He thought I'd be more comfortable. Round Verdun, they barked incessantly, and got upon one's nerves. Sometimes the order would be given for “all out” on both sides, and then the effect was distinctly terrifying. But one had to creep out and look. The entire horizon would be ablaze with flash-lights, stars and rockets, signalling orders to the batteries. Towards dawn the tumult would die down; and one could go to bed. One had no brain for any but the very lightest literature. Small books printed on soft paper, the leaves of which could be torn out easily, were the most popular. We played a sort of bridge and counted the days to our leave. The general opinion among the French was, that the English had started the war to capture German trade, and had dragged France into it. There was no persuading them of their mistake.
It had been a trying winter, and my age had been against me. At the end of it, I was not much more good for the work. I came back cured of any sneaking regard I may have ever had for war. The illustrations in the newspapers, depicting all the fun of the trenches, had lost for me their interest. Compared with modern soldiering, a street scavenger's job is an exhilarating occupation, a rat-catcher's work more in keeping with the instincts of a gentleman. I joined a little company who, in defiance of the Press and of the Mob, were making an appeal for a reasonable peace. We made speeches in Essex Hall and in the provinces. Among others on our platform, I recall Lord Parmoor, Buckmaster, the Earl of Beauchamp, Ramsay MacDonald, Dean Inge, Zangwill, the Snowdens, Drinkwater, and E. D. Morel the great-hearted. We had one supporter in the Press, Common Sense, edited by F. W. Hirst, who right through the war kept his flag flying with tact and good-humour. Later, Lord Lansdowne came to our aid. Lord Northcliffe, who died not long afterwards of a lingering brain disease, suggested he must be suffering from senile decay. Whether we did any good, beyond satisfying our own consciences, I cannot say.
The war ended in 1918. From 1919 to 1924 there was every prospect of France's regaining her old position as The Enemy. Reading the French papers, one gathered that nothing would please France better. At the present moment (1925) a growing party would seem to be in favour of substituting Russia. It may be that the gods have other plans. The white are not the only herds. The one thing certain is that mankind remains a race of low intelligence and evil instincts.