Part 11

His hushed and mournful words spoke of nothing but death and grief. There was scarcely a farm or a house the door of which was not marked with the cross of death, or in which mourning or disablement had not a home....

IX--"MY FIANCEE--SHE ONLY WEPT"

My _fiancée_ was standing in the middle of the yard. Her face had not the same bright gentleness as before. About her features and on her lips there were the same sad and mournful lines that I had seen on the faces of the women in the hospital. She, too, was stamped with the daily silent longing and uncertainty, the nightly dread and heart-ache.

She seemed to me to look old. And she was not yet twenty-two.

She threw her arms round my neck, almost before I had reached the ground. She said nothing. She only cried, clinging closely to me and hiding her face on my shoulder.

"Well, _you_ can recognise him, it seems," said my father. "It was all I could do--just at first...."

She looked at me, and then turned to my father as she said:

"I _knew_ that he would look like that--that was how I always saw him. In my thoughts by day and my dreams at night."

Then we went into the sitting-room.

X--"MY MOTHER--SHE BROKE DOWN AND SOBBED"

My mother was standing by the table. She was pale and there was a frightened and despairing look in her eyes.

She gazed at me for a moment as if in terror. Then she sank down upon a chair and hid her face in her hands.

"Is that _my_ boy--is that _my_ boy?..."

It sounded like a heart-broken wailing. I saw that she was sobbing. I perceived that my face had frightened her; the empty sleeve too.

I went over and knelt down beside her, putting my arm round her waist and my head in her lap.

I had always done that as a boy when she was grieved about anything.

Then I felt her hand gently, stroking my head. How soft that hand was! What a blissfulness there was in that quiet, gentle stroking!

Is there anybody who knows how to caress like a mother? Is there anything in the world that holds such rapturous joy?...

After a little while she took my chin in her hands and raised my head. Our eyes met. Hers were soft and shining--a fathomless deep of love to gaze into.

Her face was grey and there was a quivering about her firmly-closed lips. But I could see that she was happy--silently, speechlessly happy.

I felt her lips on my forehead. It was like a great solemnity to me. And then she said in a soft whisper:

"My own big boy--my own big boy--thank God for ever that I have you back again!"

A sad little smile passed over her face, and, as if she felt a desire to say something showing a little of her warm-hearted and charming humour, she added between smiles and tears:

"But you are _not_ such a handsome boy as when you went away."

Then she broke down and bent her face over mine.

That was my home-coming. I had looked forward to it and it had given me all the happiness I could wish for.

(The Danish soldier boy tells the tragic story of the "folk back home;" how mothers, and wives and children are "waiting" for their loved ones. His whole story is one of the most pathetic and loving tales of the broken hearts of the war.)

FOOTNOTES:

[6] All numerals relate to stories herein told--not to chapters in the original sources.

"ADVENTURES OF A DESPATCH RIDER"

_An Oxford Man With the Motorcyclists_

_Told by Capt. W. H. L. Watson_

This young Oxford student at the outbreak of the War was in London to begin his work in the British Museum. "At 6:45 P.M., on Saturday, July 25th, 1914, Alec and I determined to take part in the Austro-Serbian War. I remember the exact minute," he says. They were certain Armageddon was coming. He went straight to Scotland Yard and joined the Despatch Riders with several of his fellow students. He then began his daring adventures carrying despatches for the British Army in Northern France. He rode through the battle of Mons and in the thrilling pursuit that lead to the Aisne. His experiences teem with exciting incidents of those never-to-be-forgotten days. The thrill of the charge, the depression of retreat, the elation of outwitting a clever enemy and all the little incidents of heroism, self-sacrifice and comradeship that have become commonplaces in the daily lives of the British Tommies, are most interestingly described in this Oxford man's account of "Adventures of a Despatch Rider" by permission of his publishers, _Dodd, Mead and Company_.

[7] I--STORIES OF THE SIGNAL OFFICE IN NORTHERN FRANCE

It had been a melancholy day, full of rain and doubting news. Those of us who were not "out" were strolling up and down the platform arranging the order of cakes from home and trying to gather from the sound of the gunning and intermittent visits to the Signal Office what was happening.

Some one had been told that the old 15th was being hard pressed. Each of us regretted loudly that we had not been attached to it, though our hearts spoke differently. Despatch riders have muddled thoughts. There is a longing for the excitement of danger and a very earnest desire to keep away from it.

The C.O. walked on to the platform hurriedly, and in a minute or two I was off. It was lucky that the road was covered with unholy grease, that the light was bad and there was transport on the road--for it is not good for a despatch rider to think too much of what is before him. My instructions were to report to the general and make myself useful. I was also cheerfully informed that the H.Q. of the 15th were under a robust shell-fire. Little parties of sad-looking wounded that I passed, the noise of the guns, and the evil dusk heartened me.

I rode into Festubert, which was full of noise, and, very hastily dismounting, put my motorcycle under the cover of an arch and reported to the general. He was sitting at a table in the stuffy room of a

## particularly dirty tavern. At the far end a fat and frightened woman

was crooning to her child. Beside her sat a wrinkled, leathery old man with bandaged head. He had wandered into the street, and he had been cut about by shrapnel. The few wits he had ever possessed were gone, and he gave every few seconds little croaks of hate. Three telephone operators were working with strained faces at their highest speed. The windows had been smashed by shrapnel, and bits of glass and things crunched under foot. The room was full of noises--the crackle of the telephones, the crooning of the woman, the croak of the wounded old man, the clear and incisive tones of the general and his brigade-major, the rattle of not too distant rifles, the booming of guns and occasionally the terrific, overwhelming crash of a shell bursting in the village.

I was given a glass of wine. Cadell, the Brigade Signal Officer, and the Veterinary Officer, came up to me and talked cheerfully in whispered tones about our friends.

There was the sharp cry of shrapnel in the street and the sudden rattle against the whole house. The woman and child fled somewhere through a door, followed feebly by the old man. The brigade-major persuaded the general to work in some less unhealthy place. The telephone operators moved. A moment's delay as the general endeavored to persuade the brigade-major to go first, and we found ourselves under a stalwart arch that led into the courtyard of the tavern. We lit pipes and cigarettes. The crashes of bursting shells grew more frequent, and the general remarked in a dry and injured tone--

"Their usual little evening shoot before putting up the shutters, I suppose."

II--"I AM WRITING UNDER SHRAPNEL FIRE"

But first the Germans "searched" the village. Now to search a village means to start at one end of the village and place shells at discreet intervals until the other end of the village is reached. It is an unpleasant process for those in the middle of the village, even though they be standing, as we were, in comparatively good shelter.

We heard the Germans start at the other end of the village street. The crashes came nearer and nearer, until a shell burst with a scream and a thunderous roar just on our right. We puffed away at our cigarettes for a second, and a certain despatch rider wished he were anywhere but in the cursed village of Festubert by Béthune. There was another scream and overwhelming relief. The next shell burst three houses away on our left. I knocked my pipe out and filled another.

The Germans finished their little evening shoot. We marched back very slowly in the darkness to 1910 Farm.

This farm was neither savoury nor safe. It was built round a courtyard which consisted of a gigantic hole crammed with manure in all stages of unpleasant putrefaction. One side is a barn; two sides consist of stables, and the third is the house inhabited not only by us but by an incredibly filthy and stinking old woman who was continually troubling the general because some months ago a French cuirassier took one of her chickens. The day after we arrived at this farm I had few despatches to take, so I wrote to Robert. Here is some of the letter and bits of other letters I wrote during the following days. They will give you an idea of our state of mind:

If you want something of the dramatic--I am writing in a farm under shrapnel fire, smoking a pipe that was broken by a shell. For true effect I suppose I should not tell you that the shrapnel is bursting about fifty yards the other side of the house, that I am in a room lying on the floor, and consequently that, so long as they go on firing shrapnel, I am perfectly safe.

It's the dismallest of places. Two miles farther back the heavies are banging away over our heads. There are a couple of batteries near the farm. Two miles along the road the four battalions of our brigade are holding on for dear life in their trenches.

The country is open plough, with little clumps of trees, sparse hedges, and isolated cottages giving a precarious cover. It's all very damp and miserable, for it was raining hard last night and the day before.

I am in a little bare room with the floor covered with straw. Two telegraph operators are making that infernal jerky clicking sound I have begun so to hate. Half a dozen men of the signal staff are lying about the floor looking at week-old papers. In the next room I can hear the general, seated at a table and intent on his map, talking to an officer that has just come from the firing line. Outside the window a gun is making a fiendish row, shaking the whole house. Occasionaly there is a bit of a rattle--that's shrapnel bullets falling on the tiles of an outhouse.

If you came out you might probably find this exhilarating. I have just had a talk with our mutual friend Cadell, the Signal Officer of this brigade, and we have decided that we are fed up with it. For one thing--after two months' experience of shell fire the sound of a shell bursting within measurable distance makes you start and shiver for a moment--reflex action of the nerves. That is annoying. We both decided we would willingly change places with you and take a turn at defending your doubtless excellently executed trenches at Liberton.

The line to the ----[8] has just gone. It's almost certain death to relay it in the daytime. Cadell and his men are discussing the chances while somebody else has started a musical-box. A man has gone out; I wonder if he will come back. The rest of the men have gone to sleep again. That gun outside the window is getting on my nerves. Well, well!

The shrapnel fire appears to have stopped for the present. No, there's a couple together. If they fire over this farm I hope they don't send me back to D.H.Q.

Do you know what I long for more than anything else? A clean, unhurried breakfast with spotless napery and shining silver and porridge and kippers. I don't think these long, lazy after-breakfast hours at Oxford were wasted. They are a memory and a hope out here. The shrapnel is getting nearer and more frequent. We are all hoping it will kill some chickens in the courtyard. The laws against looting are so strict.

What an excellent musical-box, playing quite a good imitation of _Cavalleria Rusticana_. I guess we shall have to move soon. Too many shells. Too dark to write any more----

III--HOW IT FEELS TO BE SHELLED

After all, quite the most important things out here are a fine meal and a good bath. If you consider the vast area of the war the facts that we have lost two guns or advanced five miles are of very little importance. War, making one realize the hopeless insignificance of the individual, creates in one such an immense regard for self, that so long as one does well it matters little if four officers have been killed reconnoitering or some wounded have had to be left under an abandoned gun all night. I started with an immense interest in tactics. This has nearly all left me and I remain a more or less efficient despatch-carrying animal--a part of a machine realizing the hopeless, enormous size of the machine.

The infantry officer after two months of modern war is a curious phenomenon.[9] He is probably one of three survivors of an original twenty-eight. He is not frightened of being killed; he has forgotten to think about it. But there is a sort of reflex fright. He becomes either cautious and liable to sudden panics, or very rash indeed, or absolutely mechanical in his actions. The first state means the approach of a nervous breakdown, the second a near death. There are very few, indeed, who retain a nervous balance and a calm judgment. And all have a harsh, frightened voice. If you came suddenly out here, you would think they were all mortally afraid. But it is only giving orders for hours together under a heavy fire.

Battle noises are terrific. At the present moment a howitzer is going strong behind this, and the concussion is tremendous. The noise is like dropping a traction-engine on a huge tin tray. A shell passing away from you over your head is like the loud crackling of a newspaper close to your ear. It makes a sort of deep reverberating crackle in the air, gradually lessening, until there is a dull boom, and a mile or so away you see a thick little cloud of white smoke in the air or a pear-shaped cloud of grey-black smoke on the ground. Coming towards you a shell makes a cutting, swishing note, gradually getting higher and higher, louder and louder. There is a longer note one instant and then it ceases. Shrapnel bursting close to you has the worst sound.

It is almost funny in a village that is being shelled. Things simply disappear. You are standing in an archway a little back from the road--a shriek of shrapnel. The windows are broken and the tiles rush clattering into the street, while little bullets and bits of shell jump like red-hot devils from side to side of the street, ricochetting until their force is spent. Or a deeper bang, a crash, and a whole house tumbles down.

_¾-hour later._--Curious life this. Just after I had finished the last sentence, I was called out to take a message to a battery telling them to shell a certain village. Here am I wandering out, taking orders for the complete destruction of a village and probably for the death of a couple of hundred men[10] without a thought, except that the roads are very greasy and that lunch time is near.

Again, yesterday, I put our Heavies in action, and in a quarter of an hour a fine old church, with what appeared from the distance a magnificent tower, was nothing but a grotesque heap of ruins. The Germans were loopholing it for defence.

Oh, the waste, the utter damnable waste of everything out here--men, horses, buildings, cars, everything. Those who talk about war being a salutary discipline are those who remain at home. In a modern war there is little room for picturesque gallantry or picture-book heroism. We are all either animals or machines, with little gained except our emotions dulled and brutalized and nightmare flashes of scenes that cannot be written about because they are unbelievable. I wonder what difference you will find in us when we come home----

IV--A NIGHT SCARE AT THE FRONT

Do you know what a night scare is? In our last H.Q. we were all dining when suddenly there was a terrific outburst of rifle fire from our lines. We went out into the road that passes the farm and stood there in the pitch darkness, wondering. The fire increased in intensity until every soldier within five miles seemed to be revelling in a lunatic succession of "mad minutes." Was it a heavy attack on our lines? Soon pom-poms joined in sharp, heavy taps--and machine guns. The lines to the battalions were at the moment working feebly, and what the operators could get through was scarcely intelligible. Ammunition limbers were hurried up, and I stood ready to dart anywhere. For twenty minutes the rifle-fire seemed to grow wilder and wilder. At last stretcher-bearers came in with a few wounded and reported that we seemed to be holding our own. Satisfactory so far. Then there were great flashes of shrapnel over our lines; that comforted us, for if your troops are advancing you don't fire shrapnel over the enemy's lines. You never know how soon they may be yours. The firing soon died down until we heard nothing but little desultory bursts. Finally an orderly came--the Germans had half-heartedly charged our trenches but had been driven off with loss. We returned to the farm and found that in the few minutes we had been outside everything had been packed and half-frightened men were standing about for orders.

The explanation of it all came later and was simple enough. The French, without letting us know, had attacked the Germans on our right, and the Germans to keep us engaged had made a feint attack upon us. So we went back to dinner.

In modern war the infantryman hasn't much of a chance. Strategy nowadays consists in arranging for the mutual slaughter of infantry by the opposing guns, each general trusting that his guns will do the greater slaughter. And half gunnery is luck. The day before yesterday we had a little afternoon shoot at where we thought the German trenches might be. The Germans unaccountably retreated, and yesterday when we advanced we found the trenches crammed full of dead. By a combination of intelligent anticipation and good luck we had hit them exactly----

From these letters you will be able to gather what mood we were in and something of what the brigade despatch rider was doing. After the first day the Germans ceased shrapnelling the fields round the farm and left us nearly in peace. There I met Major Ballard, commanding the 15th Artillery Brigade, one of the finest officers of my acquaintance, and Captain Frost, the sole remaining officer of the Cheshires. He was charming to me; I was particularly grateful for the loan of a razor, for my own had disappeared and there were no despatch riders handy from whom I could borrow.

Talking of the Cheshires reminds me of a story illustrating the troubles of a brigadier. The general was dining calmly one night after having arranged an attack. All orders had been sent out. Everything was complete and ready. Suddenly there was a knock at the door and in walked Captain M----, who reported his arrival with 200 reinforcements for the Cheshires, a pleasant but irritating addition. The situation was further complicated by the general's discovery that M---- was senior to the officer then in command of the Cheshires. Poor M---- was not left long in command. A fortnight later the Germans broke through and over the Cheshires, and M---- died where a commanding officer should.

V--"I WAS SENT A MESSAGE"

From 1910 Farm I had one good ride to the battalions, through Festubert and along to the Cuinchy Bridge. For me it was interesting because it was one of the few times I had ridden just behind the trenches, which at the moment were just north of the road and were occupied by the Bedfords.

In a day or two we returned to Festubert, and Cadell gave me a shake-down on a mattress in his billet--gloriously comfortable. The room was a little draughty because the fuse of a shrapnel had gone right through the door and the fireplace opposite. Except for a peppering on the walls and some broken glass the house was not damaged; we almost laughed at the father and mother and daughter who, returning while we were there, wept because their home had been touched.

Orders came to attack. A beautiful plan was drawn up by which the battalions of the brigade were to finish their victorious career in the square of La Bassée.

In connection with this attack I was sent with a message for the Devons. It was the blackest of black nights and I was riding without a light. Twice I ran into the ditch, and finally I piled up myself and my bicycle on a heap of stones lying by the side of the road. I did not damage my bicycle. That was enough. I left it and walked.

When I got to Cuinchy bridge I found that the Devon headquarters had shifted. Beyond that the sentry knew nothing. Luckily I met a Devon officer who was bringing up ammunition. We searched the surrounding cottages for men with knowledge, and at last discovered that the Devons had moved farther along the canal in the direction of La Bassée. So we set out along the towpath, past a house that was burning fiercely enough to make us conspicuous.

We felt our way about a quarter of a mile and stopped, because we were getting near the Germans. Indeed we could hear the rumble of their transport crossing the La Bassée bridge. We turned back, and a few yards nearer home some one coughed high up the bank on our right. We found the cough to be a sentry, and behind the sentry were the Devons.

The attack, as you know, was held up on the line Cuinchy-Givenchy-Violaines; we advanced our headquarters to a house just opposite the inn by which the road to Givenchy turns off. It was not very safe, but the only shell that burst anywhere near the house itself did nothing but wound a little girl in the leg.