* * * * *
Our Mess was a great centre for visitors, both English and Italian, we being at this time the British Battery in the most advanced and interesting position. Among our visitors, especially on Sundays, was a Chaplain, whom I will call Littleton, who used to conduct our Church Parades. In the British Army, and I believe in most others, the principle of compulsory religious observance is still intermittently enforced, when it does not interfere with the still more important business of fighting. I liked Littleton very much in many ways, but sometimes he infuriated me. He was lunching with us one day and describing how for some months in France, during some murderous fighting, he was attached to an Infantry Battalion. "I have never in my life enjoyed myself more," he said, "than during those months." I could not help asking, "What did you enjoy, seeing the poor devils getting hit?" I told him afterwards that I knew he did not really delight in spectacles of agony and bloodshed, but that "enjoy" seemed to me an unfortunate word to use.
On another occasion I attended, in the capacity of Orderly Officer for the day, one of Littleton's Church Parades and heard him preach. It was clear that he was troubled by a suspicion that the war and the details of its development had discredited in some minds some of the ideas of which he was the professional exponent. He made a brave struggle, however, against this tide of unreason. "God does not make things too easy for us," he explained, "He gives us the opportunities, and if we choose not to use them, that is our fault. A loving father sets up a tremendously high standard for his son, and judges him severely, not in spite of, but because of, his love for him. In God's sight, three or four years of war may be tremendously worth while."
Then we sang a hymn. I felt inclined to sing instead a song, written by a soldier who was wounded in France:—
"The Bishop tells us, 'when the boys come back
They will not be the same; for they'll have fought
In a just cause: they led the last attack
On Anti-Christ; their comrades' blood has bought
New right to breed an honourable race.
They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.'
'We're none of us the same!' the boys reply.
For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind;
Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die;
And Bert's gone syphilitic; you'll not find
A chap who served there hasn't found some change.'
And the Bishop said 'The ways of God are strange!"
It was hard for such a limited intelligence as mine, especially in this unending Italian sunshine, to imagine that it could seriously be worth while to burn down a whole real world, in order to roast a probably imaginary pig. I found it very hard to believe, with the Chaplains, that the war was purifying everyone's character, and I was particularly sceptical as regards some of the elderly non-combatants who were unable to realise at first hand "the Glory of the Great Adventure."
CHAPTER VIII
A FRONT LINE RECONNAISSANCE
Every day, in our Group, some officer carried out a Front Line Reconnaissance. This officer was chosen in rotation from the Group Headquarters and the various Batteries. Colonel Raven, our Group Commander, often carried out these Reconnaissances himself. Of all British officers at this time serving in Italy, he had, I think, the greatest understanding of the Italians. He had travelled in Italy in peace-time and had studied Italian history. He fully appreciated the difficulties against which the Italian Army had to contend, and its military achievements in spite of them. He enjoyed social intercourse with Italians, and his invariable and slightly elaborate courtesy was, in an Englishman, remarkable. For, as Mazzini once said, an Englishman's friendship, when once secured, holds very firm, but it is manifested more by deeds than by words. But Colonel Raven had the gift of sympathetic imagination, and he had also in full measure the Allied spirit.
The purpose of these Reconnaissances was twofold: first, to report on matters of military importance, any notable activity by the enemy, the direction and nature of hostile fire upon our trenches, the effects of our own fire, when not otherwise ascertainable, the precise position on the map, especially after any action, of our own and of the enemy's lines, including saps, advanced posts and the like; second, to maintain a real contact and spirit of comradeship with the Italian Infantry and to seek to give them confidence in the efficiency and promptitude of British Artillery support. Under the first head, valuable information was frequently brought back, and under the second I believe that, so far at least as our Group was concerned, the personal relations between the Artillery and the Infantry were exceptionally good. Hardly ever did we receive complaints that our guns were firing short, though such complaints are often made, and often quite groundlessly, when the Infantry lack confidence in the Artillery behind them.