We were off again the next day (December 3rd, 1918) at 7.45 a.m., and in spite of the weather the march was interesting enough, as the route lay past Lens and the Vimy Ridge. The former place is probably the largest ruined town in France. Without being absolutely levelled to the ground, it yet possesses no building that can be described as anything but a ruin. Shattered masonry and woodwork are heaped in the wildest chaos in every direction, mingled with broken machinery and all kinds of interior fittings. There is not one single roof in position, not a wall that is not pierced or shattered. Standing as the place does on the slope of a hill, the effect of the annihilation which has visited the town is very striking. The Vimy Ridge is a bold, upstanding piece of ground, bare as bare can be, and dotted now with graves and monuments. In this part of the country it forms a very marked eminence, though in reality of no great height.
It rained steadily as we tramped along the slippery pavé, and the aspect of our billets, with the rain pouring through the rents in roof and wall, was enough to dismay the boldest heart. As may be imagined, after the comforts of Lille these quarters were hardly popular, but the men accepted the situation nobly. It was 4.15 p.m. when we got in, and there was little enough time to make their billets habitable. The next and subsequent days the job was tackled with the utmost energy, while caustic reports were forwarded to the Higher Command.
Company route marches accompanied by limbers—"scrounging parades," we called them—were instituted, and the material was soon collected from derelict huts and trenches to repair the most serious damage. So strong were our protests that we were informed that we were to move to Warlus Camp, a few miles away, at an early date. This was out of the frying-pan into the fire. Warlus Camp had not been used for some time. Most of the fittings had been removed to another camp, and what little was left had been "borrowed" by the civilians. There was not a duck-board or a stove in the camp. All the huts were Nissen, and from these most of the lining had already vanished.
In the meanwhile our houses in Arras were assuming quite a habitable appearance, and the change was viewed with considerable dismay. Fortunately, there was no water at the camp—or, rather, there was no drinking water; in the huts themselves there was enough and to spare—so the move was postponed till after Christmas; though an advance party, under Lieutenant Beavan, composed mainly of pioneers, moved over there to begin the work of rebuilding the camp.
The question of education now began to excite more attention. Letters from the Higher Command were full of schemes and exhortations, and in view of the eminently desirable results which our educational programme might be hoped to achieve, the problem was carefully considered.
The results hoped for were—first, a new, and therefore to a certain extent an attractive, form of employment for the men during the mornings; and, secondly, the sharpening of their thinking powers, which, as has been mentioned above, had become somewhat blunted. The difficulties of the task became apparent at the outset. We had to begin in profound ignorance as to the educational standards of the men, who, of course, were drawn from every rank of life. Then we had no qualified teachers, no educational books, no note-books or paper, no class-rooms, and no syllabus of work. These were the initial difficulties; there were others to follow later.
Official Photograph by permission of The Imperial War Museum.
HÔTEL DE VILLE, ARRAS.