We were trying to bluff it out to all the sleeping country that we didn’t care and rather liked dying.
The base-port across the Channel at which we landed was in strange contrast to London’s haggard smiling. It not only did not care, but it totally ignored the fact that “our backs were to the wall.” Nothing had changed since we had seen it last. People were no cheerier, no duller. They had the same bored air of carrying on with what they obviously regarded as “a hell of a job". The dug-out Colonels and Majors, who handed us our transportation, were just as fussily convinced as ever that they alone were conducting the war. On the journey up the line the only signs of menace were trench-systems hastily thrown up far back of where any had been before, a rather unusual amount of new ordnance on trucks and the greater frequence of hospital trains, hurrying towards the Channel. The idea that we were soon to be corpses began to fade; we played cards more assiduously that we might keep normal. Now and then, as we passed towns, we looked out of the window. We began to recognise the names of stations and to guess at the part of the Front to which we were going. We ceased guessing; we knew at last.
“So he’s attacking the Viny Ridge,” we thought.
It was a year since our Corps had captured it: if the capturing of it had been a bloody affair, the defending of it against overwhelming odds would be twice as bloody. In imagination I could smell the horror of the unburied dead of Farbus and see the galloping of the shells, like the hoofs of invisible cavalry, up the road from Willerval. The fallen victors of last year’s fight would be stirring in their shallow graves and pushing their bones above the ground in protest.
All this I saw as I journeyed and played cards.... And when I got here I found that it was to this I was returning—to this intolerable inertia of watching. “The Canadians will advance or fall with their faces to the foe". Brave words! But we have neither advanced, nor fallen. In utter weariness, but with purpose unbroken, other men are crawling into battle on their hand and knees before Amiens, while we sit still, with the indignity of not dying upon us.
IV
THE Major has just phoned me to say that there’s an officer coming forward to relieve me, and that he won’t be one of us. That sets me wondering; does it mean that we’re going to be pulled out to take part in the fight? There have been all kinds of rumours going the rounds this summer—rumours to the effect that when Foch has let the Hun advance far enough our Corps is to be made the hammer-head of the offensive which is to push him back. There would seem to be some truth in the report, for every time we’ve been withdrawn from the line it’s been to practise open warfare. We’ve rehearsed with tanks and aeroplanes, and fought sham battles in which nearly all our work has consisted in coming into action at the gallop. We’ve been nicknamed “Foch’s Pets,” which may not mean very much; but it at least seems certain that when the Allies’ drive starts we shall be in it. The thought is intoxicating: it means the end of waiting.
But what will become of Bully Beef and his mother if we sail off into the blue on a great attack? Bully Beef and his mother need explaining; they have no official standing—they are members of our battery whom the Army does not recognize. Bully Beef is a little boy in skirts, about four years old I should hazard. His mother is a French girl of not more than twenty; she is not married. Bully Beef introduced himself to the battery about two months ago when we were out at training. He used to hide himself in the hedge of a deeply wooded lane which climbed the hill to the sergeants’ mess; from this point of vantage he used to throw sticks and stones at anyone in khaki. He had long hair down to the middle of his small fat back; this, taken in conjunction with his skirts, left all the battery fully persuaded for a week that he was a girl. On account of his supposed sex he was not chastised for his stone-throwing. We called him “Little Sister".