IV. IN BILLETS
The village where we were to billet lay a mile on the other side of the river in a deep quiet valley. The Quartermaster and transport officer met us half a mile from our destination. They were both unaffectedly glad to see the regiment coming back into safety for a while, though, alas, there were only two-thirds of the officers left who had crossed the river a week before. It was a trying time for the Quartermaster and transport subaltern, when the regiment went into action. They had to stay behind, with only occasional fleeting visits to the firing-line, often for as long as a week or ten days. When there was a big attack, and the air for miles on either side was filled with one reverberating crash of gun and rifle fire, they had to bear the strain which is always more acute for those within sound but not in sight of fighting.
"I've got a fine breakfast for you," said the Quartermaster, "bacon and eggs and sausages."
We were glad to hear it. Meals for the past week had been scrappy affairs. Since we had parted company with our transport we had none of us tasted a hot dish of any description. Cold bacon and bread for breakfast, cold bully and cheese for lunch, cold bully and cheese again for supper. Good enough nourishment, of course, for anyone, and nice enough at the time to eat, but still a real steaming dish of bacon and eggs did sound delicious.
We soon came to the village where the brigade was to be billeted in reserve. It lay in a curve of a winding valley which ran down into the main valley of the river. The billets were allotted by companies, so much cottage and farm space being given to each company commander for his company. To those who read these lines in England the quarters allotted to men back for a few days rest from trenches may not sound very grand. My company had, for instance, a stable, two farm outbuildings, and a sort of underground cellar which was approached by a narrow arch—to crawl through which the men had to go on hands and knees—and which looked just like the kennels of a pack of foxhounds. The stable, the cellar, and the outhouses were bare except for a layer of straw. However, to the men these places seemed amply satisfying. They meant warmth at night, shelter from rain, and soft dry lying. It was the first rest the men had had for some while. Many of them had lost their greatcoats, cardigans, and woollen underclothing, owing to the exigencies of actual fighting, and had had nothing to add to their scanty clothing as they lay out in the open during the cold nights. They crowded joyfully into their billets as Goyle and I and Evans went round allotting so much space to each platoon.
Having arranged for the men we now looked round for quarters for ourselves. Goyle, whose natural inclinations for Spartan simplicity were being rapidly fanned to a mania by active service, suggested that he and Evans and I should share the stone-slabbed floor of the lower room of a cottage which looked out on a manure yard. Evans, always anxious to please, was quite agreeable to this, and set to work with a broom to sweep out the yard, but I broke away from the arrangements and went to look for quarters for myself.
After a short search I came on Mulligan, who had found some quite good quarters in a cottage. He had got a small bedroom leading off the owner's room, and suggested that the apple-loft on the same floor would do for me if I had one of the mattresses from his bed. I therefore sent Jenkins for my kit and set up house with him.
The 35-lb. kit which officers are allowed to keep with the transport meets all requirements on active service. As first bought and taken out from England it is a most immaculate and neatly arranged affair, but after a fortnight's jolting around in the wagons and a few hurried packings and unpackings it becomes a mere bundle containing a few cherished necessities. My valise held a sleeping-bag, two shirts, two pairs of socks, a pair of boots, a pair of trousers, some slippers, a few sticks of chocolate and a tin of tobacco. However, as Jenkins unpacked I watched it with the complacency of a man regarding his home. A bucket of cold water and a canteen of hot were next produced, and from the sleeping-bag my toilet set—razor, shaving brush, cake of soap, comb, and toothbrush—wrapped in a towel; and removing my coat and boots and puttees I sat down on the valise and shaved. A bath followed in the bucket and then getting into clean socks and shirt and putting on the slippers and trousers for greater comfort, I combed my hair and surveyed myself with satisfaction in a small pocket mirror. Burnt by the sun and hardened by outdoor life, I certainly have never felt fitter in all my life.
It was now about noon, and Mulligan and I strolled across to the mess. The mess consisted chiefly of "Black Maria," a small lumbering van which the mess sergeant had bought for two pounds in Belgium at the beginning of the war, and which carried all our provisions. We were only able to gather round "Black Maria" at such times of comparative peace as being in billets or on the march behind the firing-line, but her presence on the scene always meant a scale of meals and comfort undreamed of in the trenches. Bacon and eggs came from her inside, and joints and vegetables, cocoa, tea, jam, bread, butter, biscuits, also vermouth, whisky and other stimulating drinks. It was wonderful the amount she held.
We found "Black Maria" had been drawn up in the yard of a farm. A long trestle-table was set outside the front door of the farm, and several officers were sitting round this untying parcels and reading letters which had been sent out in a mail from England.
Over a fire on the far side of "Black Maria" the mess sergeant and his assistants were cooking lunch.
With the parcels which had just arrived from England there was now a plentiful supply of cigarettes, tobacco, socks, and underclothing for everybody, and while we sat waiting for lunch various exchanges were made between officers: a pair of socks for twenty-five cigarettes, an electric torch for a new briar pipe, and so on. Others, who had more of the same things sent than they wanted, put them into a box reserved for general use, from which any officer could take anything that he wanted. The parcels of officers who had been wounded and gone home were opened unceremoniously and their contents divided among the survivors.
With letters from wives and sweethearts and friends in their pockets, plenty of newspapers and parcels, and the thought of having nothing to do for the next day or two, everybody was in the best of tempers at luncheon. True, there were gaps now round the table, gaps which had not been there a few days ago, and which each was causing its measure of desolation to some English home, but by the men who had come through and learnt to bow their heads to the laws of chance and feel thankful that they too had not been taken, these gaps were not felt keenly—it was all a part of war, just as being in billets was. A day or two ago the men round the table had been in the woods across the river fighting: then the gaps had been made: that had been no joke—now they were sitting comfortably in the sun with food before them such as they had not seen for a fortnight. It would be silly not to eat and be merry.
My apple-loft proved a most comfortable chamber, and I lost no time after dinner in throwing off my clothes, getting into pyjamas, and rolling myself up in my sleeping-bag. In the middle of the night as it seemed—or to be precise, at 4 A.M.—I was woken by Jenkins. He bore the unwelcome news that the regiment was to be on the march in a quarter of an hour. He added that he had heard a report that the Germans had broken through our line somewhere, and that the whole brigade was turning out. It was an affair of three minutes to get into my clothes and equipment, which I kept ready laid out beside me. While I was dressing, Jenkins deftly rolled and strapped my valise, and off he went with it to the transport wagon while I hurried to my company. The company had already turned out when I arrived, and the men were standing outside their billets. Five minutes later we had formed fours and were swinging out of the village. It was quick work at night to turn a whole brigade out of billets at twenty minutes notice, for to wake 4000 sleeping men, scattered all over a village, and get each in his proper place complete with arms and equipment in that space of time, is no easy task. In peace time the operation would have taken at least three hours, for the men would not have exactly lent themselves to the project, but in war all is vastly different. The alarm proved false, and after marching for a mile we were halted and finally marched home again, this time for five days of unbroken rest.
The days passed pleasantly enough. There were so many little luxuries which could be indulged in in billets. It was good to go about feeling washed, and delightful to wake up in the morning feeling one had had a good night's rest, drink a cup of tea in bed, and then roll a cigarette and smoke it as one shaved squatting on one's mattress. Breakfast would follow at the table outside the farm—breakfast of eggs and bacon and as much tea and bread and butter and jam as one wanted. Then a visit to the company and an inspection of the men's rifles or their kit, perhaps a journey to the Quartermaster to try and get a man another pair of boots or a coat which he wanted. The men nearly all needed one thing or another renewed, and from where we were we could get fresh supplies up from the base. It was a pleasure to see the joy a man took in a new cardigan waistcoat or a clean pair of socks and a shirt. He had probably worn his old ragged things uncomplainingly for three weeks, but now he strutted about round the billets patting his chest and showing off the new waistcoat or boots to his pals.
At midday a mail often came in with packets of letters and parcels for everybody, and the letters had to be answered and the parcels opened and their contents shown round.
Then we did a little entertaining with the other regiments of the brigade, and staff officers would come down with bits of gossip and information about the general situation which we never got a chance of learning in the trenches. There was one fellow, an intelligence officer—heaven knows what has become of him now—who came to dine with us one night before going on to the trenches. His was most difficult and dangerous work, as he used to go out at nights, crawl out beyond our trenches and find out the position of the enemy's wire entanglements and advanced posts. It was the joke to tell him that a place would be laid for him at breakfast on his way back to general headquarters the next morning, and glad we all were when he came back to fill it.
Sometimes after tea we would go for short excursions to the country round. It was very beautiful country, and from the high ground on either side of the valley it was possible to get a far-reaching view of the battlefield.
Some evenings there seemed no sign of war, and one evening in particular I remember when I had gone out with Mulligan to explore a village on the hill above us. The village was built of grey stone hewn from a quarry in the hillside. Most of the inhabitants had stayed in their homes although the Germans had at one time been through their village. They told us how the Uhlans had ridden through in a great hurry, snatching what they wanted, but happily unable to stay to carry out coarse threats, and how the British cavalry had followed hot on their heels. But all this had been some while ago, and for the past weeks the village had been in peace. The church had some beautiful stained-glass windows which were all shivered by the explosion of shells, but the building itself stood intact, and Mulligan and I went inside and stepped softly up the aisle, unswept since war began, and littered with fragments of plaster from the ceiling. There was a great sense of calm and dignity about the little church, which had remained so near the battlefield a quiet place of refuge for its people. The old priest came across from his cottage and, bowing to us ceremoniously, offered us each a pear. We walked with him through the village till we came to a point beyond, from which we could see right down into the valley where the two armies lay facing each other. The sun was just setting at the further end of the valley and the evening mists were curling low over the meadows and river. Somewhere away behind a bell tolled for a service. For a few minutes as we stood there all was peace and quiet, then from the hill opposite our guns opened fire. The shells went screaming across the valley tearing their way through the soft evening air. We watched, wondering what was their target. Then suddenly flames broke out from a village lying across the valley within the enemy's lines. Looking through our glasses we could see the flames came from some stacks near a farm. Crash—Crash—Crash! Shell after shell fell among the cottages. Slowly the flames spread as one building after another was set aflame. The sun had sunk now and the sky was darkening. The whole village seemed one crackling bonfire. Still our guns hurled shells into the flames. Their fire seemed merciless as they lashed the little village with round after round. Suddenly the firing stopped. It had grown dark. The village was blazing now fiercely, and the whole sky was red. The work of the guns was done. We stood a moment watching the lurid, glowing mass. Mulligan wondered if we had caught a nest full of German troops. The old priest said nothing: it was war. Gradually the flames grew less, and only here and there bright red patches reflected themselves against heavy clouds of smoke. Saying good-night to the priest we made our way slowly back to billets.