“Well, the next few hours were a strange mixture of sensations. We could nowhere find our brigades, and after ten hours in the lorry we landed here at a place sixteen miles back from the firing line; here our division had been located by a signaller, whom we had consulted when we stopped by the cross-roads! We were left by the lorry at 5.0 a.m. at a field ambulance station ‘close to H.Q.,’ where we slept wearily till 8.0, to awake and find ourselves miles from our division, which is really, I believe, quite near where we had been in the firing-line! Now we are sitting in a big old château awaiting a telephone-message; we are in a dining-room, walls peeling, and arm-chairs reduced to legless deformities! It is a jolly day: sun, and the smell of autumn.” I shall not forget that long ride. I was at the back, and could see out; innumerable villages we passed; innumerable mistakes we made; innumerable stops, innumerable enquiries! But always there was the throbbing engine while we halted, and the bump and rattle as we plunged through the night. Eight officers and seven valises, I think we were; one or two were reduced to grumbling; several were asleep; a few, like myself, were awake, but all absolutely tired out. It was too uncomfortable to rest, cramped up among bulky valises and all sorts of sprawling limbs! Once, at about four o’clock, we halted at a house with a light in the window, and found a miner just going off to work. An old woman brewed some very black coffee, and we hungrily devoured bits of bread and butter, coffee, and cognac; while the old woman, fat and smiling, gabbled incessantly at us! A strange weird picture we must have made, some of us in kilts and bonnets, standing half-awake in the flickering candle-light.
We were at the Château all the morning. “The R.A.M.C. fellows were very decent to us; gave us breakfast (eggs, bread and butter, and tinned jam) and also lunch (bully-beef, cheese, bread and butter, and beer). These were eaten off the dining-room table in style. I explored the Château during the morning; just a big ordinary empty house inside; outside, it is white plaster, with steep slate roofs, and a few ornamental turrets. The garden is mostly taken up with lines of picketed horses; outside the orchards and enclosures the country is bare and flat; it is a mining district, and pyramids of slag stand up all over the plain.”
I cannot do better than continue quoting from these first letters of mine; of course, I did not mention places by name:
“Well, at 2.0 p.m. the same old lorry and corporal turned up and took us back to Béthune. I gather he got considerable ‘strafing’ for last night’s performance, although I think he was not given clear enough instructions. Then, with seven other officers, we were sent off again in daylight, and dropped by twos and threes at our various Brigade Headquarters. Our “Brigade H.Q.” was in one of the few houses left standing. Here I reported, and was told that an orderly would take me to my battalion transport. In half an hour the orderly arrived on a bicycle, and by 6.0 p.m. I was only half a mile from our transport. We were walking along, when suddenly there was a scream like a rocket, followed by a big bang, and the sound of splinters falling all about. I expected to see people jump into ditches; but they stood calmly in the street, women and all, and watched, while several shells (whizz-bangs, I believe)”—No, dear innocence, High-explosive Shrapnel—“burst just near the road about a hundred yards ahead. We were four miles back from the firing-line. It was just the ‘evening hate,’ I expect. It didn’t last long. Just near us was one of our own batteries firing intermittently.”
This was my first experience of being under fire. I hadn’t the least idea what to do. The textbooks, I believe, said “Throw yourself on the ground.” I therefore looked at my orderly; but he was ducking behind his bicycle, which I am sure is not recommended by any manual of military training! I ducked behind nothing, copying him. This all took place in the middle of the road. But when I saw women opening the doors of their houses and standing calmly looking at the shells, ducking seemed out of the question; so we both stood and watched the bursting shells. Then the salvo ceased, and I, thinking I must show some sort of a lead, suggested that we should proceed. But my orderly, wiser by experience, suggested waiting to see if another salvo were forthcoming. After ten minutes, however, it was clear that the Germans had finished, and we resumed our journey in peace.
My letter continues: “At the transport I had a very comfortable billet. The quartermaster and two other new officers and myself had supper in an upstairs room. The quartermaster seemed very pessimistic, and told us a lot about our losses. We turned in at ten o’clock, and I slept well. It was ‘very quiet’; that is to say, only intermittent bangs such as have continued ever since the beginning of the war, and will continue to the end thereof!
“October 9th. This morning a cart took us at nine o’clock to within about a mile of the firing-line, putting us down at the corner of a street that has been renamed ‘H—— Street.’ The country was dead flat; the houses everywhere in ruins, though some were untouched and still inhabited. Thence an orderly conducted us to H.Q., where we reported to the Adjutant and the C.O. (who is quite young by the way); they were in the ground-floor room of a house, to which we came all the way from H—— Street along a communication trench about seven feet deep. These trenches were originally dug by the French, I believe. I was told I was posted to ‘D’ Company, so another orderly took me back practically to H—— Street, which must be six or seven hundred yards behind the firing-line. ‘D’ is in reserve; I am attached to it for the present. There are two other officers in it, Davidson and Symons. Both have only just joined.”
So at last I was fairly lodged in my battalion. I had been directed, dumped, shaken, and carried, in a kindly, yet to me most amazingly haphazard, way to my destination, and there I found myself quite unexpected, but immediately attached somewhere until I should sort myself out a little and find my feet. I had a servant called Smith. In the afternoon I went with Davidson to supervise a working party, which was engaged in paving a communication trench with tiles from the neighbouring houses. In the evening I set to and wrote letters. I will close this chapter with yet one more quotation:
“Now I am in the ground-room of one of the few standing houses in H—— Street. Next door is a big ‘École des filles,’ which I am quite surprised to find empty! Really the way the people go about their work here is amazing. Still, I suppose to carry on a girls’ school half a mile from the Boche is just beyond the capacity of even their indifference! I’ve already got quite used to the noise. There are two guns just about forty yards away, that keep on firing with a terrific bang! I can see the flashes just behind me. I think the noise would worry you, if you heard these blaring bangs at the end of the back garden, which is just about the distance this battery is from me! We are messing here in this room; half a table has been propped up, and three chairs discovered and patched up for us. All the windows facing the enemy have been blocked up with sand-bags. I sleep here to-night. If the house is shelled, I shall flee to the dug-out twenty yards away. Orders have not yet come, but I believe we go back to billets to-morrow.
A free issue of ‘Glory Boys’ cigarettes has just arrived: two packets for each officer and man. Please don’t forget to send my Sam Browne belt.”