The place has been scoured out, and makes an excellent ward, but for the elements, whose fierceness baffles all efforts to heat the interior.
Apart from the wounded there is no denying that Thomas Atkins has a strong penchant for stuffy rooms. Maybe it is the reaction after months of enforced outdoor life, but the fact remains that if he can shut every door and window, and huddle round a fireplace instead of enjoying the fresh air, he will, without fail, continue to do so.
Icy blasts penetrate the cracks of the unlined wooden wall, rain pours through the ventilators—which the French workmen had unthinkingly built inwards—quite oblivious of the fact that the sleeping figures on the beds are deserving of more consideration. We have just put red lampshades on to mellow the light, and even have dreams of varnishing the floor one day, when things are slack.
Outside, in the marquee devoted to the storage of our tables and usual equipment, we are carrying on our own work—at a disadvantage, to be sure—but still carrying on, to facilitate which an extemporary boiler has been erected near the door.
In the kitchen, where daily we are gleaning undreamt-of wisdom on the scores of ration-drawing, diet sheets, order forms, chaos would reign but for the continual presence of one of us. For the two French girls and two orderlies are tumbling over each other in their anxiety to get things done up to time. As it is, things work admirably, and we are all growing adepts at brandishing heavy meat choppers and cooking in the cauldrons and stewpots, so large that no two women can move them.
We stewed 30 kilos of meat, with vegetables, this morning, and served it at 12.15. As we cut up their meat for the handless and armless, they were as unanimous in their appreciation of the food as we had been in our admiration of the excellent ration beef, of which each man is entitled to ten ounces. We can only attribute the men's grousing to the fact that it may sometimes be insufficiently cooked. Better meat and vegetables were surely never served before a king.
September 30th. As far as possible only the slight cases are sent to us, so that the work amongst the fit may go on as usual.
Amongst the lying-down cases is a man with a bullet through the pelvis, a gaunt Irishman of a strange hue, who, whilst wounded, had been gassed by one of our own explosive shells.
"Look at them raindrops," said he. "That's 'ow the bullets fell, thick as that."
"The wonder ain't the number of casualties, it's that anyone could live through it," rejoined another.
"But we were through the fifth line o' their trenches and fightin' in the open when I come down," adds a third, his eyes gleaming with the light of victory that betokens that it was all worth while.
The achievement of our men seems all the more wonderful when one hears how they were not only outnumbered and outflanked, but, in many parts of the line, lacking in ammunition, which they maintain had to be held in reserve for the main attack.
As the dressings were being done by the solitary nurse and doctor in charge, as one by one the wounds were attended to, and a silence pregnant with unuttered groans reigned, one felt vividly that none but Michelangelo himself could depict that scene—those fine, muscular forms looming in the dim morning light.
CHAPTER XIII
October, 1915
October 3rd. All the morning we had been hard at work amongst our blessés. It is odd how soon they endear themselves to everyone. There is the little wizened bit of humanity who gazes all day long into space with a horror-stricken look, or falls asleep, half on the floor, half on the bed, until aroused. The unearthly green pallor of his face is not accounted for by his slum upbringing alone, but by the German gas and the fact that he has twice been blown heavenwards by exploding mines. There is the finely built Canadian—one of the first contingent who have all "seen hell with the lid off," to use their own terminology—who, when the pain of his rheumatic limbs allows, is so very precise in his toilet. He changes his shirt frequently, gloating over the neatly folded bundles in which repose his requisites with the air of a miser, never forgetting to clean his boots and call for a glass by which to shave. He is "some" smart, and, judging by the crested seal and gold watch-chain dangling from his waistcoat pocket, must be a sahib at home. To us he is most remarkable for his expression—the grimmest I have ever seen.
Then there is the "buffoon" of the place, who yarns lengthily about the four times he has been hit (though his record only points to once), and invariably sets out to sing comic songs when the rest of the community is preparing to sleep.
The men are full of their glimpses of enemy trenches and methods; of how they found quite a number of Germans chained to their own machine-guns, which reminds me of the most dramatic side of warfare.
Very little is told of courts martial, very little is known of courts martial, except to those whose duties bring them in contact with the relentlessness of discipline. To realise one must see.
Until quite recently a blue-eyed, fair-haired boy lay in the end bed of an airy ward in B—— Hospital. In spite of his extreme reticence he won the affection of both nurses and patients. His wound was healing quickly, but he only shook his head when they spoke of getting home.
One day as dinner was being taken round he asked for a second helping of meat and pudding.
"Why, whatever is the matter?" exclaimed the kindly nurse. "Are you very hungry?"
"Not very, Sister; but it's my last dinner!" came the quiet answer.
Not understanding, the Sister repeated the remark to the Medical Officer.
It was quite true. The boy's wounds were self-inflicted. It was a case for court martial. Next day he was gone.
October 10th. It was in the midst of serving out the dinners that two friends turned up on their way home to England.
Hungry and travel-stained though they were, we were too busy to do more than hurl a frying-pan and eggs into their hands, with injunctions to help themselves until the rush was over and we could attend to them. How they admired our ward and its now stained, polished floors, for which we found a solution of brunswick black and turpentine so efficacious! The afternoon being slack, we hied into the town to pay a long promised visit to a naval friend, and were entertained right royally, enjoying to the full the childish pleasure of having to scale ungainly ladders from boat to boat, and listening to the conversation between our host and the ship's captain in a jargon edifying but utterly incomprehensible to the mere landlubber.
We wandered round the quay, along the roads on which stand well-guarded, but by no means hidden, 5-inch guns, their attendant "caterpillars," and, in the trains, loads of ammunition. As we watched cranes lifting great weapons of destruction off the boats the significance of this war of cold steel against quivering human flesh was borne upon us. We sauntered round, marvelling at the wonderful method by which, in less than a year, the British have created a whole small city out of nothing.
Gangs of khaki-clad workmen dwell here, utterly oblivious, no doubt, of the wonderful sunsets and Turneresque light effects as they work amidst the stores of rations destined daily for the trenches, or the picric acid, petrol and other explosives that lie by the sea.
My friends' enthusiastic anticipation of home was infectious, and it needed much will-power to withstand their pleadings to get leave too. And as the boat that carried them home grew into a faint speck on the horizon, involuntarily our thoughts went with them, past the brightly coloured villas, for all the world like the sugar-candy edifices of fairy-tales, to the land where nothing is changed. Yes! There are hours when one would gladly relinquish the necessities of life for a few of its luxuries. Chief and foremost of these, needless to say, would be an unlimited supply of those hot baths we were wont to accept as our birthright, and are only just beginning to value at their true worth. I wonder if anyone who has not spent a bleak winter in the jerry-built summer residences of a French watering-place, whose eyes have not been continually offended by the salmon-pink walls and hideous rococo cupids on low ceilings, can realise the true joy of living once more in a house, no matter how modest, but a house built to withstand the weather?
October 13th. The British advance on the outskirts of Hulluch—the village of Loos, the progress near Hooge, the French capture of that ghastly Souchez cemetery, their valiant fighting in Champagne, are things of the past. It is the Hohenzollern Redoubt that is on everyone's lips now, and Vermelles. Our own men—the hospital orderlies, that is to say—who spend all their spare moments at the hut, are quite worn out by this rush of work, which nevertheless seems to have put new life into them.
Many grouse at the R.A.M.C. Few people realise the deference due to those devoted men who, day and night, are working to alleviate suffering. They number amongst their ranks many well-born men, who joined that corps at the first call in the hopes of "getting out soon," and many who gave up excellent posts to enlist are undergoing undreamt-of hardships with a stoicism that is admirable.
After all, which lot is preferable? That of the man who, after running risks in the trenches for six days, finds himself in billets the succeeding week, able to enjoy his liberty with the consciousness of having earned it—or the man who has had steadily to perform the same menial jobs for fifteen unrelieved months, running no risk, it is true, save that of infection, but subject to the obloquy of those he is serving because he has never been in the trenches? As an R.A.M.C. orderly, who has made three unsuccessful attempts to transfer into a combatant unit, remarked to-day, the Base has well been described as "the place where they keep you until you are so fed up that the Front is a treat!"
A hundred temptations assail them, and men who had never before felt the least inclination towards drink find themselves drifting by degrees into those enticing-looking little French cafés not yet closed by the authorities.
And it is to detract from the attractions of these dens that we work to keep the men amused.
Said one onlooker to-day pityingly: "I hear you have such a bad set of men—drunkards and all sorts of undesirables!"
With truth I could rejoin: "Not nearly bad enough. It's the worst we want, for they need helping most."
October 19th. There is no end to the gamut of emotions one traverses during the space of an ordinary day. To close one's eyes and look back over the kaleidoscopic events of the week is almost bewildering.
The picture of Second Lieutenant Jones, lately junior clerk at Messrs. Morells, steamship owners, being brought face to face with his former employer, Sir Cuthbert Morell, private, A.S.C., is inexpressibly funny.
Private Morell accords the Tommy's salute to his officer, who seems to have lost all his customary swagger and starch for the moment.
Lieutenant Jones stops. "I—I hope you're getting on all right—sir," he stammers.
The grey-haired private, master of millions, with shooting-boxes, country seats, town houses that a prince might envy, replies to his £100 per annum clerk and superior officer that all is well. For a moment they gaze at each other speechless. Then the topsy-turvydom of it all grows too much for them, and, to the astonishment of the onlooker, the adjutant of Jones's regiment, they burst into a roar of laughter that, contrary to all military etiquette, ends in a hearty handshake.
October 20th. Whilst we were still a hospital, and our work temporarily paralysed, a new hut was opened. In a state of great indignation some of the men clustered round to reassure us as to their patriotism to the old place.
"You needn't fear no rivalry," exclaimed one; "they've got the wrong class o' person doon there."
"This is our hut, and you make us feel as if we belonged to the place and it to us," said another.
If their loyalty warmed our hearts, it did not in the least facilitate the task of explanation that our Association fears no rivalry, that it is not attempting to run a cheap café, and rather than be thought to outbid anyone else would pack up its traps and depart.
Such is the spirit of the institution for which we are working. And perhaps I may whisper it in my diary that in one place, when some unscrupulous folk were bribing unwary men with free drinks to spread abroad that the Association tea was of an inferior quality to theirs, with their truly magnanimous spirit the Y.M.C.A. did walk out of the camp, and yet continued to supply the said unscrupulous folk with all the stores they required.
Oh, yes, we're all inordinately proud to be working under the sign of the Red Triangle!
Many, no doubt, have used the institution for the purpose of gratifying their curiosity, more as a means of playing their rôle in the Great Game, and most, maybe, will sever their connection with the Association to which they owe so much with the cessation of hostilities; but those who have been vouchsafed an insight into the methods of the Y.M.C.A., the dominating spirit that has driven it into the position of responsibility it now holds—in face of the derision with which its rise was first greeted—will not forget that the Y.M.C.A. has never yet failed where it was most needed, never shown anything but the greatest magnanimity of spirit. Entirely undenominational, it throws its doors open to every sect under the sun, its buildings have been lent to Jews and Catholics, Mohammedans and others alike; and just because of its broadness and the largeness of its vision it is having an evangelising power undreamt of by any religious inquisition of the Middle Ages. There will be many, after this war, who will be able to say:
"I grew religious because I saw what a wonderful thing active religion can be"; and though the members of this Association—which has a way of giving the humbler born leaders of men an opportunity of leading—may never hear of all this, it will be inscribed to their favour on the Day of Reckoning! And surely the very silence of its workings is sufficient testimony of its strength, as its growth is of its utility.
Does the world know, I wonder, how daily improvised centres are springing up nearer and nearer the Front, to the men's delight, until the old familiar sign of the Red Triangle—not Bass's Pale Ale, be it noted—but the Red Triangle, that symbolises "Body, Mind and Spirit," is to be found even in dug-outs?
Nor is the institution behindhand in Egypt or the Near East or Gallipoli.
Only to-day we heard of a secretary (originally here with the Indian force) who, on landing at Gallipoli, was greeted by the C.O. with a cheerful:
"And what are you looking for?"
"A place with no shells flying about, sir, to start a Y.M. centre!"
"Why, that's what everyone on the Peninsula is looking for!" exclaimed the Colonel. "If you can find it, by all means keep it!"
October 28th. All things considered, the resignation of the French Ministry is causing far less comment here than such a move in England would make, though in Paris we hear there is quite an upheaval. Internal politics in France are so entirely subservient to the international issues at stake.
One would not want those at home to know all there is to know of modern warfare—of the vast pestilential graveyard that is Belgium—yet one cannot help wishing that some of the vibrations of these strenuous times could be more clearly felt by them, that they would cease to see things as they wish to see them, and realise that the worst is yet to come—that we must brace ourselves to face it.
Not only the spirits of the fallen heroes of our little insignificant Western Front cry out to be avenged, not only the scarce human prisoners, dying in hundreds of cold and hunger in disease-ridden concentration camps; the girl mothers of Belgium, the murdered innocents, the crucified Canadians; men burned by liquid fire, suffocated by poison gas, parched men dying of thirst on the arid plains of the East; but every forbear of our gallant race warns us that the end is not yet, that to safeguard the future of our children the nation must turn its whole attention to the work in hand.
How can we blame the slackers who, for want of confidence, refused to throw in their lot with what seems to them a wild-goose chase—until fetched? We must blame the slothful system that allows one man to profit by another's patriotism.
We must not lay the blame of any one failure at the door of any one particular man, but attribute it to the fault we are most often apt to exalt as a virtue—as if by so doing we exonerated our mistakes—our slack unpreparedness.
Surely, until we are animated by one great unity of purpose, one great desire to sink personal in national interests, even as our dead heroes have done, there can be no end.
Surely if our Russian Allies could achieve in one day what reformers had scarce hoped to see effected in a hundred years, and by one fell swoop convert herself into an abstemious country, animated with but one desire—to conquer—we should be able to attain a little more unity, a little less slackness?
October 29th. The news of the King's accident whilst reviewing the troops is the one thing one hears discussed on all sides. Exactly where he will be taken seems as yet indefinite, but the orderlies from the Officers' Hospital opposite are fully convinced that their wards are being prepared for his reception. The French seem almost as upset as we are, for their love of our Royalty remains as staunch as during the life of King Edward, whom they worshipped, and the Prince of Wales—of whom we have caught an occasional glimpse on his way to and from the Front—vies in popularity with his genial grandfather.
CHAPTER XIV
November, 1915
November 2nd, All Souls' Day! The Bishop of Arras held a service in the cemetery, a memorial service for those morts pour la Patrie.
The rain streamed down from the steel-grey sky in Boulognese torrents as the mass surged hither and thither amongst the crowded graves.
Those graves into which but a year ago we watched the dead being heaped three deep, into which we cast our meagre offering of violets with a wish that those relatives at home might know that at least two English souls were there to pray for them lovingly at the end, are now old graves and planted with neat little boxwood crosses.
Oh! city of little white crosses on that high hill, what a history of pain and valour you stand for!
The bishop came late. Some feared the weather might deter him; others scoffed at the idea.
"A bishop who has faced the fighting with his people in the field, who has watched his whole diocese gradually destroyed, will not fear the rain!" they said.
Addressing a few words of thanks to the crowd for being present, the bishop hastily robed. The choir chanted. A new young widow beside me began to sob. Scarce an eye in that vast concourse of black and uniforms was dry.
"Requiescat in pace!"
It seemed to me that no passed souls could be so needful of that prayer as the restless, tortured souls of the living mourning crowd.
An irresistible something drew me once more towards the now deserted hospital on the quay. It had had to be abandoned for reasons of hygiene. For even after the rise of its now celebrated dental, ocular and aural departments, even when the lavatories and baths and X-ray apparatus had been satisfactorily installed, its situation—low down by the sluggish water—its lack of proper ventilation, made it untenable, and within the space of a few days it was transferred to healthier quarters facing the sea and refreshed by sun and breezes, where there was no fear of the low fever that continually attacked the staff in that original charnel-house. Once more it is an evil-smelling empty barn. I clapped my hands to my eyes to see if I was awake. Could this ever have been the place we knew, the harbour of so much pain! Oh, could those whitewashed walls and dirty floors speak! No tales of massacre could be more lurid than the remembrance of the original British Expeditionary Force who passed through and will not come again. In spite of the dead stillness that reigned I could feel the throbbing of the many souls who passed away. Vividly, as if no intervening year had elapsed, their faces rose up to greet me with cries for water and release from pain, whilst eager blue-ticketed crowds pressed forward as the arrival of a hospital ship was announced.
A rat ran across the concrete, emphasising the desolation of the scene. Out of the gloom of a certain corner the spirit of a nameless prisoner greeted me. With a last tetanus spasm—a writhe—a death-rattle—the jaw relaxed like a gaping fish, and a strange little sigh seemed to betoken a released spirit.
The mortuary door was blacked over. Why not removed? For what purpose could such a place ever be used again? The theatres still stood—deprived of their hardly accumulated equipment. A sigh of wind came through a broken pane. Was it imagination, or did it bear with it faintly from afar the old oft-heard cry: "Christ help us!"
Bah! It was but an evil nightmare. They are all gone. I alone am left to tell the tale; and generations to come will never know.
Outside things are not much changed. The cobblestones, responsible for the premature demise of such innumerable pairs of stout boots and shoes, are as uneven as ever. The best part of the road, however, has now been railed off for the use of ambulances only, in order that the wounded may be subjected to as little jolting as possible. I recall how, after our first few days at the Gare Maritime Hospital, one of the nurses discovered an easier method of getting from our billets to our work, and how the half-hour's walk to the hospital was soon superseded by a ten-minutes' row in one of the many ferryboats from one side of the harbour to the other. Sometimes, of course, it had been too rough. Once, indeed, there was nearly a calamity when an old boatman, rather more anxious for the welfare of his pocket than the safety of his passengers, ventured out in a storm so violent that the little boat was in danger of being swamped by the waves, and necessitated the putting out of the lifeboat, or whatever is the Boulognese equivalent. Even then the strong current proved almost too much for the frail craft, which was gradually drifting seawards. For several days afterwards most of us risked extra weary feet rather than face the elements at sea.
Sometimes, of course, we obtained a lift in an ambulance or private car, for even to-day the laws of meum and tuum are less rigorous here than at home. It is no unusual occurrence for a driver going along a desolate road with no passengers to offer a lift to any solitary pedestrian he may find on the road. He will not, needless to say, go out of his way if duty forbids, but just drop his passenger at the nearest point to the destination for which he is bound. Nor, in a place where there are hardly any public vehicles to be had, is one shy of "asking for a lift," a proceeding which one can hardly picture at home.
November 18th. Out of evil comes good, and if ill-health has temporarily paralysed my activities, it has at least given me time and opportunity to see something of the environment of the place that has been our home for so long.
There is one hospital base fringing the sea and situated in the pine forests which once formed one of the smartest little golfing centres of the coast whither Fate took me. There can be no harm in describing it, for already we are told a most exact and minute description has appeared in the German medical papers!
Almost a year ago we had visited it, seen the magnificent wards of the —— Hospital that has now been converted for the use of officers, and visited a large French hospital.
It had been run almost entirely by untrained voluntary Englishwomen with a modicum of experience who apparently diagnosed their own cases and treated them accordingly. Well I recall the hall of dusky Zouaves gobbling up their midday meal, or disposing of what victuals they did not require on to the sanded floor, just as a vision of English beauty, clad in the daintiest of nursing creations, tripped out of a side ward, her eyes aglow with excitement.
"I know he's got enteric," she exclaimed cheerfully to our cicerone, pointing to her patient and glancing at the Red Cross book in her hand. "I know he's got enteric, and I shall treat him for it."
Exactly how many patients that charming girl managed to dispose of I haven't discovered, but, as the Court Circular announced her marriage shortly afterwards, we may assume that the Zouaves proved enough. What the hospital lacked in operating theatres in those days it made up for in "dressing-rooms," where doctors and nurses worked side by side, and when aseptic conditions always, antiseptic measures generally, were things unknown. And now? Along the roadside lie huts with accommodation for over twenty thousand patients, with all the requisite medical staff, and within quite a small area no fewer than four of our canteens have replaced the small tent of other days, whilst individual enterprises run by free lances, commonly known by their nicknames of "Lady Angelina Flapcabbage" and "Mrs. Always Huntem," still flourish.
November 19th. Of the observation airships that have passed daily over our field on their way to prospect in the Channel, I have said but little; yet they are a very interesting item of our daily programme as they search for mines and torpedoes on a still day, wirelessing their messages back to the aerodrome some miles away.
It was my good fortune to visit the hangars to-day.
As the car sped along in the waning light and drew up before the wooden huts which form the officers' and men's quarters, the great hangar, painted in varied hues for all the world like a giant toy tunnel, formed an impressive sight.
The officers of the R.N.A.S. have a way of making their bunks as shiplike as possible, and the neatness of the place, the well-arranged vases of flowers, the well-made curtains, bore out the nautical reputation for almost feminine "nattiness."
Without, one was challenged on all sides by vigilant sentries who guarded entrance and egress to the place, to say nothing of the upturned anti-aircraft guns, whilst grey naval cars panted in and out on their business.
The sea of mud and general dampness contributed to the illusion that one was aboard, as two men came up to ask for leave to "go ashore."
Perhaps the C.O. caught the look of inquiry in my eye.
"Ashore," he explained, "is the town of B——."
The little outlying villages, boasting scarce more than three shops amongst them, made the nearest town a matter of some importance.
Within the hangar lay all the trappings and trunks of those huge inflated monsters, whose levers regulate such wonderfully diverse bombs of destruction, and whose observer's seat might be a smoking-room arm-chair for comfort. From a corner, where lay the debris of derelict machines, we were allowed to purloin a small piece of the yellow fabric as a memento of our visit, whilst over the tea-table—for the quality of which there were many quite unneedful apologies—we came across the air jargon, of which hitherto only "dope" and "cold feet" had figured in our vocabulary.
CHAPTER XV
December, 1915
December 2nd. Each honours list brings us greater surprises than the last, for it seems that a man who runs a military grocer's shop at the Base in perfect security is far more likely to reap a reward than a man risking his life daily in all the discomfort of the trenches!
We have been convulsed with laughter lately by the antics of a little chauffeur, erstwhile jockey, whose reckless driving has for some time been the talk of the place. He has long evaded the arm of the law, but the other night, very unwisely, knocked down an important French Staff Officer in the middle of a country road.
"'Op in, and I'll give yer a lift," said the jockey in his most Cockney accent, with a jerk of the thumb towards the car, as he handed the French officer a two-franc piece to hold his tongue!
December 3rd. The French people often come to us with demands for contraband goods. "Will we sell them just a little tea, as it is so expensive in France? Or cigarettes—just a few packets of Woodbines? Or some matches, as theirs, being a Government monopoly, are both dearer and of an inferior quality?"
All these little favours we have regretfully to refuse, explaining that it would be a breach of faith with the French Government, whose kindness permits goods for the British Forces to come in untaxed and under bond, but who would not for a moment tolerate the abuse of this privilege.
But the R.A.M.C. have many opportunities of rendering little services to the civilian war sufferers.
The confidence in khaki felt by the French population is extraordinary and highly complimentary. If a child sprains an ankle or cuts his hand he will go to the first man in khaki for help, be he orderly or medical officer; and owing to the scarcity of French doctors, medical etiquette is waived for the time being, and our R.A.M.C. does wonderfully good work amongst the poor.
To-day our maid—"the little savage"—dropped a heavy window on her hand. It was badly contused, but she was more frightened than hurt, and cried unceasingly. Whilst I was donning a hat and coat to take her to the doctor she disappeared, much to my astonishment.
Half an hour later she turned up, all smiles.
"I was afraid Mademoiselle might take me to a French doctor," she said, brandishing a bottle of lead lotion triumphantly, "so I went along to the big hospital that smells so strongly of good disinfectant!"
December 20th. Our days are busy preparing for our invitation Christmas tea, which, by the way, is to be postponed until New Year's Day, owing to the amount of festivities and work in the hospitals; but our interest is focused on affairs in Macedonia, the fall of Monastir, General Townshend's retreat to Kut-el-Amara, Sir John French's retirement from command in France, and, last of all, the withdrawal from Anzac and Suvla Bay.
December 26th. On Christmas Day we were occupied in decorating the building, whilst the men, true to their long-anticipated licence (for to-day restrictions are relaxed), grew very merry over their dinners, supplemented by unlimited beer. With what results, it were perhaps indiscreet to mention! But hilarious visits from various groups of the prospective artists at hospital concerts, clad in their make-up of mufti and rakish top-hats, with a gait far from steady, make us wonder how much of the afternoon's programme will perforce have to be omitted!
December 30th. Our Sunday evening services are more enthusiastically attended since we organised a male voice choir, with our best pianist as president, and an erstwhile Sheffield photographer, who has sung at the musical festivals, as vice. Quite a number of undreamt-of denominations are drawn together by the bond of music.
One might almost classify music over here under three heads—extemporary, local, and imported; and it is not until one has stood in a crowded hall, or seen the enthusiastic reception accorded to every effort in that direction, that one realises the large rôle music plays in the existence of the average Briton, usually accredited with lack of artistic appreciation.
Some there are whose hunger for music is such that, all untutored in the art of playing, they are constrained to sit down to any tin kettle of a piano in a vain attempt to pick out some well-loved melody with one finger for hours at a time. At these moments the listeners are not altogether sorry that half the notes have grown dumb from disuse and dampness!
I wonder if there is anything in all billet, trench or Base existence to equal an extemporary concert? Whether the means at hand consist of a penny whistle and comb, a number of lusty voices, or the now almost obsolete Made-in-Germany mouth-organ, it matters not.
Invariably a leader of men arises (usually a pianist), and as invariably he shows a genius for discovering local talent. Maybe he has heard a pal engaged in trench-digging whistle an air from the "Messiah," maybe a deep voice bellows a few notes of "Till the Boys Come Home." As sure as he is there, the leader will collect his material for an impromptu "sing-song."
Then the fun begins. Private Jones, the silent, is discovered to be the possessor of a magnificent tenor voice, whilst Corporal Rawlinson, whose buffoonery is the joy of his company, displays extraordinary aptitude for comic songs and anecdotes, or a newly joined recruit, hitherto dubbed "Snowball" on account of his pallor, is discovered to have been a professional clog-dancer in pre-war days.
The leader realises that here is material for a really good Christmas concert to which every C.O. in the vicinity may be invited with impunity. "A pantomime," someone suggests, and a pantomime is evolved. Solos, duets, choruses, all original, are worked up to a perfection that is incredible, and the neighbourhood is invited to "the Christmas Pantomime in Three Spasms," for which "carriages and stretchers" are to be ordered at nine o'clock.
At least, this is how the sergeant responsible for our splendid Christmas pantomime tells me it originated. Costumiers and wigmakers from home "come up to the scratch," as the men have it, and supply not only complete suits for Robinson Crusoe, Man Friday, Dick Whittington, and Fair Damsels, but make-ups for clowns and harlequins and all the other paraphernalia of pantomime.
Topical allusions and catchwords are the joy of the audience for many days to come, and in the intervals of the performance Sergeant Topham, as a coon, gives humorous anecdotes, and Sapper Hall sings solos, of which the refrains as a chorus are encored at least a dozen times.
It isn't very great music, but, as one who has heard most of the great music in most of the great capitals, I should like to state that there is no more impressive thing in the world than an old barn or outhouse "somewhere in Flanders," filled with men whose voices threaten to bring down what remains of the roof for very lustiness. It may be a hymn, it may be an old melody with modern ribald words, it is the primitive method primitive man employed in primæval times, of self-expression. And if Britons do not compose complicated "'Ymns of 'Ate," they do at least put into their "Tipperary" all the passion of love and patriotism and determination that otherwise, from sheer natural reserve, must remain unexpressed.
Of local talent there is much to say. Since the time of the troubadours and trouvères the fame of the French chansons has spread abroad, nor has the stress of war lessened our Allies' hold on the greatest of arts. Even now it is not hard to get together a number of musical souls to form a miniature orchestra to enliven dreary days.
The appearance of the band is apt to surprise one. The 'cellist, in private's uniform, has to be back in barracks by nine, he informs one; the first violin, a minute boy of twelve years old, with a couple of half-smoked cigarettes tucked behind his ears, casts his eyes longingly on whatever food is near. He is at a local school of music, and works so hard that he has little or no time to eat, he explains. The pianist is a bearded veteran whose six sons are fighting. He was once the chef d'orchestre at the one and only first-rate hotel, which is now full of wounded. An officer in the reserve plays the viola; he was a barber by profession, and picked up his music from an artist sister. Strange and diverse characters, they are all drawn together by the bonds of their art, and once they begin to play with all the finesse, all the charm and taste of their race, the incongruity of their appearance is forgotten. Nor is it necessary to say that the appreciation accorded by their khakied Allies is of unparalleled enthusiasm.
I do not remember ever to have heard anything more haunting than a "Marche des Estropiés," written by a wounded Frenchman as he lay in hospital and inspired by the ceaseless stream of lame and limping figures that hobbled past his window. It was a true sample of local talent that bordered on genius.
We had had a concert in a big wooden canteen hut, and for two hours the Frenchmen had entertained their Allies by a series of popular tunes. They did not attempt to hide their contempt at the fact that rag-times were more favourably received than chamber music, but they played them with a right good will nevertheless.
Martial law decreed lights out at nine o'clock, and at nine o'clock the men trooped out. Darkness reigned. Outside the rain beat down drearily on to the mud-bathed road, above which sound an occasional booming of distant guns was audible.
Someone said:
"Can't we have some music now?"
The chef d'orchestre understood and smiled.
By the light of two candles the four musicians began to play. Their repertoire was big—they did not need to call upon Hun music; they played "Manon" and the haunting Slav music, and Italian things that breathed sunshine and joy, and "Sappho."
For fear of the military police we blocked up every crack of the windows. Then, sobbing above the sound of the elements, rose the wail of the "Marche des Estropiés," till every corner of the darkened hall seemed flooded with light, and the soul of the most dead materialist was reborn.
"My son composed it," said the bearded old man, who alternately conducted as first violin and acted as pianist, simply, as the last long-drawn note died into the stillness. "And he is in the trenches."
It was only afterwards, when they had gone and the windows were unbarred and the incessant patter of the rain made the desolation of it all more awful than before, that we realised how we had hungered for music, and blessed the local talent that had lifted us for so short a time out of our weary and narrow rut.
Of imported music, one can only state that if it is to be imported from home, no matter what its quality or quantity, it will be greeted uproariously.
Great and small are welcomed alike. From the celebrated oratorio singers and rag-time kings to the obscure little girl who offers her services on the score of her promising soprano voice, no one goes away disappointed with their reception. We show no favouritism! The artists themselves confess that the bad acoustic properties of the ward hastily converted into a concert hall, the less boisterous yet none the less hearty applause, the small audience, necessitated by the beds and stretchers, all are compensated for by the gleam of happiness in the eyes of those blue-coated figures, the whispered "It was heaven" from the boy with the bandaged hand, the hand clasp of the one-armed man. They find their great reward as much in the feeble applause of the wounded as in the tumultuous ovation of the fighting men, or a hall crammed full of white-capped nurses.
A notice announcing the advent of a concert party from "Blighty" is one of the "thrills" of Front and Base existence. Everyone flocks to hear it, and the debt owed to the association whose generosity has made it possible for every Base, and a good many places "Further up the line" than the Base, to enjoy regularly these Lena Ashwell Concert Parties, which are one of the most civilising elements of life out here, can never be repaid.
To be kept in touch with the latest songs, the latest train of thought from home; to see, after months of the same war-worn faces and well-known uniforms, daintily-clad artists whose every movement bears a breath of home; to hear, after the eternal reiteration of the local favourites' small repertoire, new music, new voices, it borders on an earthly Paradise.
And, of course, the artists cater for the tastes of their different audiences, and never forget Mr. Thomas Atkins's love of hearing his own voice. Anything in which he can join rejoices his heart, and a valse tune played by a mediocre 'cellist, to which the men are asked to whistle, often receives an ovation infinitely superior to that accorded to a famous singer's rendering of old folk-songs, much to the concert director's surprise.
But then the valse was one that brought memories of home and twilight evenings spent with loved ones over the piano, or maybe visions of some irresponsible ball-room mood that our generation will never know again, and though it wasn't Great Music it went straight to the hearts of the hearers.
And so, no doubt, one day, when War no longer holds us in its grip, we shall hearken spellbound to the strain of some melody that our local band of tin whistles and combs used to play, and mayhap with the divine discontent of humanity, we shall sigh softly for the good old days of France, bully beef and tin whistles.
BOOK III
1916
Scrapped
CHAPTER XVI
January, 1916
January 1st, 1916. Each New Year's Day one wonders afresh at the oddness of commencing the year in January, cold January, when all the world is engrossed in recovering from Christmas benevolence and bracing itself to hustle through the days with the minimum amount of cold, instead of Nature's New Year in April. January, this month of surprises, with its rain and sunshine, sleet and mists, its promises of rest soon to be found, is surely already a hoary old man with a life of infinite experience behind him, a month for achieving and not for beginning things.
At least, this is how we felt when the New Year's festivities, over which we had taken such trouble, commenced. Our tables, plentifully laid out with fruits, bonbons and crackers, the gifts of friends at home as well as those here, betokened rather Christmas than New Year gaieties.
If our decorations of green garlands, mistletoe, holly and ribbons were more elegant than effective, they were, at any rate, appreciated, judging by our guests' criticism as they waited in a queue for the doors to open.
Throughout the tea, which kept us well occupied as, cans in hand, we filled and refilled cups, a first-rate volunteer concert party kept the room in roars of laughter.
Some A.S.C. officers (professionals in peace time) were especially clever in patter songs, and delight was unbounded when one of them, unrecognisable in a motley selection of our garments and a gorgeous wig, in which he impersonated a "flapper," moved coyly among the audience and, willing or unwilling, embraced all within his reach, singing in a high falsetto, "You made me love you."
For those unable to come to the early tea we hastily prepared a second spread for eight o'clock, during which time a local French orchestra played popular selections.
Thus, with much festivity, by which we hoped to make a slight break in the monotony of "this Base existence," ended New Year's Day, 1916. Successful though it was, to me at least there was a certain tinge of sadness, for it is impossible any longer to conceal the fact that, owing to failing health, my days of work are numbered.
To be "scrapped" like the Ford cars, to return home a derelict, a Rip van Winkle, is no pleasing prospect; but—che sarà, sarà. We are all fatalists now, like the men in the trenches.
Nor is the passing of so many familiar faces altogether a pleasing thing to contemplate, whilst the psychology of new arrivals leaves us marvelling. Did we ever thrill at the sight of a crowded camp, a convoy, or feel an odd sensation of pride at the sight of the khaki-crammed rooms in the early days of our apprenticeship? Were we inspired to write long descriptions of "The Front"—as they insist on calling the Base—and of War?
Every now and then one feels tempted to say, "War? What do you know of war?
"Have you seen men as they came down from the Front during the first mad months, primitive, demented, at their last gasp, ready to face death in any form rather than the hellish uncertainty they had just left? Have you heard the groans of the wounded, seen arms rotting off and legs smashed to pieces, and dressed black gaping holes in young boys' sides? Have you seen faces blown beyond recognition—faces eyeless, noseless, jawless, and heads that were only half heads?
"Have you stood by the dying and watched them in their last agonies, writhing with tetanus, and prayed God to give a speedy release from their sufferings?
"Have you been round the cold, extemporised wards and covered up countless restless forms on their pallets, smelt the smell of the mud-caked coats that were their pillows, soothed their coughs with what there was left of tinned milk, hearkening as they cried aloud in their sleep:
"'Great Lord Jesus, help us!'
"Men who had probably not prayed since their childhood, men who had probably scoffed at the idea of God—have you heard them live through their battles again in their slumber or under anæsthetics? 'Get at 'em, lads—now's your last chance—give it 'em 'ot—ah! ah!'
"Have you removed clothes and boots from helpless limbs caked on by seven weeks' mud and overrun with vermin? Have you seen forever nameless enemy corpses washed and carried out to the mortuary, and, enemy though they were, because of their youth, wished that you could tell their mothers you had done your best?
"When you have seen this—which you never can see, for this was 'In the beginning,' and now the great System is prepared for every emergency—and not before, will you know what modern warfare means."
Yet it is all something one would not have missed, although no sane person would face it a second time; for, as an American said recently: "Those who have not participated in this war will be for ever lacking in something which is not to be recaptured later."
January 5th. Not only did a Taube honour us with a visit to-day, but it actually deigned to drop a bomb or two and succeeded in killing a few women and children, though not a single man, just outside one of our huts. After an exciting chase it was brought down, we are told, off Calais; though exactly the object of the visit no one can imagine.
January 15th. In the evening the Gymkhana finals and prize-giving took place. It is surprising what an amount of sport can be found in an indoor affair of this sort.
True, it needs someone with a strong personality to organise, but such a personality is in our midst at the moment in the person of the Rev. Dr. F——, denomination unknown, but humour and strength of character undeniable. In spite of the fact that he acts as Master of Ceremonies, clad in a ludicrous medley of garments, khaki breeches, brown fisherman's blouse, canvas slippers that convert him into a true "Simplicitas," he is never for a moment lacking in the dignity necessary to a Maître de Cérémonies.
The greatest zeal is shown in participation of the different sports—the wheelbarrow race, the cock fight, hat-trimming competition, potato race, the spar pillow fight, for which an odd contrivance of wood has been erected over a buffer of mattresses, and other items of the varied programme.
Most fun was perhaps found in the shaving race, in which the palm was awarded to the man who shaved his victim most cleanly and quickly with the handle of a teaspoon.
January 24th, Dawn. It was about eight o'clock yesterday that the first alarm was given. In the stillness of the serene night the church bell began to toll; simultaneously the sound of whistles rent the air. Thinking it must be the military policemen on their nocturnal hunt for delinquents not yet in barracks, I put my head into a neighbouring café to drop a suggestive word of warning to two unwary sergeants lingering over their glasses of beer. It was not the military policemen, however, for from the distance a cry of "Fire!" resounded, and with the incredible rapidity characteristic of all rumours we learned that the Enteric Hospital was ablaze.
Guided by the smell of smoke and the dishevelled groups at the doorways, we found ourselves in the midst of the confusion. From the lower windows of the building a cloud of black smoke issued. Men on ladders, hose in hand, had smashed the windows—a fact which merely served to add fury to the flames.
"Turn the water on!" they cried, and even above the din of the gesticulating, gabbling crowd came the cry, "Turn the water on!" The Frenchman to whom the appeal was repeated shrugged his shoulders. He did not quite understand.
There is no wind; it is a divine night, as calm and clear as midsummer, with a bright moon looking smilingly on. It can yet be saved, this wonderful building, whence issue streams of khaki figures readjusting the respirators they had donned in place of smoke helmets, bearing with what care they can their precious burdens on beds and stretchers.
A voice beside me said:
"Here, you, take that!"
"That" proved to be a woman's form which the speaker was carrying with the aid of a frail-looking little V.A.D., who, from the way she held the patient, had obviously never been in such a position before. I gripped the man's hand, with a "Don't strain; lie easy!" to the patient. We got her into a neighbouring house, where already two or three other bad cases are installed. Their beds are tilted upwards, they are clad in their hospital garments only.
"Ah! You're there, Hope," says our burden, as we deposit her in a deep arm-chair, to the white-faced boy whose bed occupies most of the small room.
The coincidents of war are strange! It is supposedly from this very patient that she has contracted the disease.
"Yes, and he's an officer now," came a nurse's reply. "Gazetted to-day. Did you know?"
They are very cosy and cheerful, and as yet the noise without has not penetrated the room. We pass out again. The fire is getting under way now; clouds of black smoke issue from the windows of the first floor, and flames lick the upper balcony.
Still they cry for more water.
They have moved the patients from the beach to the side streets now. They lie on the roadway, already soaking in the water which, by reason of the countless leakages in the hose, fails to arrive anywhere near the scene of action.
In their eyes is a mute appeal, as a gust of wind hurls a shower of sparks over their helpless forms. Then a cloud of smoke hides them from our sight.
"Is anyone left in the building?" is the question on everyone's lips. A reassuring murmur goes round that no patients are left, and the firemen, looking strangely grotesque in their respirators, are now making efforts to save a few of the valuable instruments and records. Some of them are cut about the face by falling glass. From the open doors smoke begins to issue, and cries of "Gangway, there! Gangway!" The hot flames fan one's cheeks. They come in spurts now. Great fascinating spurts! One surmises which window next, and feels a ridiculous sensation of pride at being present, coupled with a longing to do something.
The opportunity comes. Load after load one's hands are filled with apparently valuable documents. "Officers' Mess," shout the men who place them there, as one moves off to find an entrance to the building.
On returning the noise is greater than ever. The rescued are being deposited anywhere—everywhere—wildly—pêle-mêle. Red blankets fall from windows, papers flutter a moment, adding to the general danger, and get trodden under foot in the mud.
"The left wing is doomed. Can they save the right?"
"Why don't they blow it up to safeguard the adjoining houses?"
Fragments of conversation float from all sides. Everyone has suggestions to make, but it seems to be no one's business to carry them out.
One's thoughts fly to those patients on the stretchers, and one wonders why this must be added to all they have already endured. Many of them will die of shock. It all seems so unnecessary. And all this time, silently and with dignity, the electric lights in the right wing of the great edifice burn on.
What are those old stone walls feeling as their invincible enemy creeps on? They who have seen so much of the levity of peace time, so much of the sorrow of war, have come to their end at last. They meet their fate bravely, unflinchingly, with the fortitude of the captain of an abandoned ship.
One thinks of all the comedies and tragedies that have been enacted within these walls, the laughing romances of summer days, the weary suffering. One recalls the months of valuable research work that have been carried on in the improvised laboratories—discoveries to benefit mankind—all may be irrevocably lost.
One thinks of all the things lying there—the little personal things—the treasures that can never be replaced—the lover's first gift, the parent's last letter.
The doomed building has been abandoned. The moon gleams red through the veil of sparks and smoke on to the crowd that has congregated on the beach. Watching the Ypres-like eddies of flame, one casts a thought at the surprise of the arrivals on incoming troopships; one wonders if folks at home, too, are watching the stupendous beacon.
It is all a matter of time now, and the watching is so full of suspense that the end is anxiously awaited by all. A wind is springing up with the oncoming sea, endangering the neighbouring buildings, more especially the adjacent infectious compound composed of carefully isolated bathing-boxes.
On the roof of each stands an orderly extinguishing the sparks as they fall by means of buckets of sand and water handed up by the crowd below.
To the horror of fire is added the horror of risk from infection, as the rudely awakened patients are hurried from their involuntary isolation. As the roaring flames draw nearer, ambulances reeking of disinfectants hurry backwards and forwards with their loads.
The flames run on; turning, twirling and twisting, they play round the glowing beams and iron girders, revelling in their might, licking their chops, one might almost say, as the dull, uncanny thuds of falling masonry bring terror to the hearts of the onlookers.
Then a strange thing occurs. Of a sudden the roof falls in with a crash, dome and eaves, and against the sky stands the flaming skeleton of the ruin. Simultaneously a great red cross glows for a space of time on the southern side. And, although it is only a burning window frame, it seems to us to symbolise the invincibility of that great universal emblem of mercy—the Red Cross.
January 25th. With the dawn we visit the ruins. An uncanny stillness reigns as the waning moon gleams through the charred framework. Distorted bedsteads hang by a thread from skeleton balconies, charred heaps of clothing and paper litter the ground. Isolated beams and fragments gleam, ghostlike, in the desolate upper stories, shedding every few moments a thin shower of sparks. A slight wind fans the one remaining corner into a bright blaze. The thin stream of water is still being played, by way of precaution, upon the adjoining houses.
A French sentry, leaning wearily on his rifle, guards the approach on one side, whilst on the other a British Military Policeman has installed himself upon an empty cask to make the best of his long wait.
Through the cavernous window frames, from gaping cavity to gaping cavity, heedless of the floors that are no more, the wind passes like a restless, moaning spirit. All the wonder, all the excitement, all the glory of its glorious end has passed. There remains only the smouldering debris, the blackened, unbeauteous bricks, the after-smell of burnt-out burning.
Later in the day many sightseers began to appear, some even walking out from the town before their day's work began to verify the reports. For, needless to say, many were the rumours about the fire which had reached them, and they were with difficulty persuaded that—a few cuts and scratches from broken glass excepted—there had not been a single casualty.
In an existence so choc-à-bloc with meetings and partings as ours, it is only a few of the better-known faces that remain in our memory. Yet there came into our hut this morning a man whom we shall not easily forget! He came with a kindly-faced N.C.O., who explained that they were "joy-riding." It was, one surmised from his shyness, the patient's first outing, for he seemed as yet unaccustomed to his disfigurement, which was, to say the least of it, appalling, and which, by means of his large muffler and averted head, he made vain efforts to conceal.
Something in the appeal in the eyes of that pallid, crooked face that may once have been handsome, something of the pathos of that limping, bent young figure, as he stood by the counter declining the sergeant's persuasion to take something, with a pathetic gurgle, only just comprehensible, of, "I can't eat! You know I can't eat," touched us all particularly.
And to think that this is but one of thousands of cases for ever haunted by their own hideousness, for ever dependent on others. Such things as this it is that have wrought us to such a pitch of indignation that the words are apt to escape our lips, "God strafe Germany, the author of this devastation!"