VI
France May 10, 1917
It's just back at the guns from a two days' rest at the wagon-fines. It's the first time I've been back since March. I rose early on a blazing morning and started down to the point where I was to meet my horses. I say “rose early,” but as a matter of fact I had only had four hours' sleep in forty-eight, and hadn't had my clothes off for nearly three weeks. As I drew away, the low thunder that we make grew less and less, the indescribable smell of bursting explosives fainter; soon I realized that a lark was singing overhead; then another—then another. Brave little birds to come so near to danger to sing for us. At the edge of a wood I found my chestnut mare, Kitty, and my groom—the chap who used to work at the Silver King mine, which overlooks our ranch at Kootenay. That we should share that memory always forms a bond of kindness between us. We didn't stop long at the wagon-line, but soon started out to get farther back for lunch. I had it in the shack of an officer who was with me at Petewawa. Then off I went at a gallop for green trees and clean country. I hadn't gone far before I came to a God's Acre full of crowded little white crosses and newly turned earth. Our captain was with me, and he learnt that an old friend from one of our batteries was on the way down with a Union Jack spread over him. We went into the brown field where the men who have “gone west” lie so closely and snugly side by side, and came to a place where six shallow holes were dug like clay coffins. Presently, winding through the forest of crosses, the hard blue sky overhead, we saw the little band advancing, the stretcher carried high on the shoulders of four officers. The burden was set down and the flag lifted, showing the mummy-like form sewn up in the blanket in which the living man had slept. The chaplain began tremulously, “I am the Resurrection and the life; he who believeth in Me,” etc., and while he recited I watched the faces of the gunners drawn up at attention in the strong sunlight. To them, whatever else the ceremony meant, it at least meant this—a day away from the guns. Suddenly I discovered that the Lord's Prayer was being said. Then heads were again covered and the word of command was given. “Right turn. Quick march.” The stretcher was gathered up and the little crowd dispersed. I suppose there is a woman somewhere who would have given ten' years of life to have stood in my shoes beside that narrow grave. For myself I thought, “Well, the chap's got what we long for most out here—rest. He won't have to stand in the mud any more, when his feet are like stones and eyes like lead, watching and watching the rockets go up along the front. And he won't have to guide his guns in at night, or wonder what life will do to him when the war is ended. He longed for sleep and now he sleeps endlessly.” It didn't impress me as at all sad. He'd played his part like a man and was at last rewarded. But we—we were alive, and we hadn't had a bath for a month—so we jumped on our horses and trotted off to the nearest shower.
It was five in the afternoon when we again took to the highway. We wanted to sponge out our minds by looking at something beautiful, just as we had sponged down our bodies. We, I should explain, were myself and the captain of my battery. Soon we found ourselves among fields from which all the wrinkles of trenches and pit-marks of shell-holes had been smoothed out. There was a river winding between tall trees unblasted by the curtain of fire. Peasants were at work on their little patches—women and either very old men or boys. We came to a town as quiet and unspoiled as those we used to visit in pre-war days. In a courtyard we tethered our horses and then sat down to one of those incomparable French meals. It was splendid after canned stuff, and you couldn't hear the boom of a single gun. The peace of the place got hold of us—we didn't want to go back too hurriedly, and kept postponing and postponing. A blue and gold haze with a touch of silver shining through it was blurring all the sky, when we remounted. We travelled slowly, singing—thinking up the twilight songs of other times. My thoughts went back to Scotch holidays at Arran and Loch Katrine—the daringly late evenings of childhood. Reluctantly we came back and saw the frantic city of Very lights grow up, which indicate the Hun front. The air began to be shaken again by the prolonged agony of rushing shells and stamping guns. It was only after midnight, when we had reached our hut, that I remembered the need of sleep. But when I struck a match on entering, I found letters from each one of you awaiting—so lay late in bed reading them by candlelight for another hour. One snatches at small pleasures and magnifies them into intensity.
Your letters told me about Khaki Courage, and seeing “Colonel Newcome,” and about the Highlanders in New York. What a very much more homely place America must be to you now. I must say I am keen to see the book. It's not mine at all—it's you dear home people's—you called it out and you put it together.
Here I sit in the underground place which I have to call “home” at present. You go through all kinds of contortions to enter. Stephen Leacock could be very funny at my expense.