In the willow-groves nightingales were still singing when we entered.
In the swamp the River Scarpe has its source. At this point it is so weak and narrow that a boy could leap across it; the village geese touch bottom as they breast its ripples; a brigade of artillery could drink it dry if all the horses were led down together. Here it is peaceful, but to the south of Arras it becomes sufficiently broad to give its name to the valley through which the Hun tried to drive last spring, when the waters of the Scarpe ran scarlet. The houses of the village stand at irregular intervals, divided from the road by a strip of common upon which geese graze. One reaches the common by little bridges which cross the Scarpe, which wanders singing, paralleling the highway. Nothing has been marred by shell-fire; the roar of the guns is so distant that it is seldom heard by day—only at night does their flash flicker momentarily, like the glow of a lantern carried between trees.
It is a very quiet spot, well within the threatened area, where war is ignored and life has not altered its ways. Nature has conspired with the inhabitants in pretending that the world is unchanged. The gardens are fragrant with flowers; there are even more birds than formerly, for the refugee songsters from No Man’s Land have made these thickets their place of escape. The only terror that comes near to disturb them is the sullen explosion of bombs dropped at night from Hun planes, as is witnessed by raw scars in the greenness of the surrounding meadows.
When we entered, the white mists of morning still hung above the common; early risen cocks with their attendant harems were our only welcomers. We had set up our horse-lines and were half way through the grooming before the villagers discovered that old friends were again among them.
All day we have been wondering why we have been brought here. A part of the general plan of deception, I suppose—so that the Hun may think, if he hears of our whereabouts, that we’ve simply marched out for manoeuvres as before. All kinds of details confirm our belief that the big push is about to start. A Divisional Staff-car called in at Brigade this noon: the Canadian Maple Leaf and all the usual Divisional marks had been painted out. The patches and shoulder-badges of the car’s occupants had been torn off—nothing was left that would betray the fact that storm-troops are on the march. As yet we have received no orders as to how long we are to stay here—it would be normal to give us a few days’ rest; but none of the kit has been removed from the vehicles—which is significant. We could hook in and be off within the hour.
It was announced this morning that no more letters from our Corps would be accepted at the Army Post Office. This is the most certain sign we have had that an attack is going to be pulled off. Letters home are a frequent source of leakage of information. When men know that they are writing what may prove to be their last message to their mothers, wives, sweethearts, it is almost impossible for them to keep that knowledge to themselves. Moreover, we each one have codes, pre-arranged with our correspondents, by means of which we can get forbidden news past the censor—so it’s wise, if harsh, to insist on silence between ourselves and the outside world.
The outside world! How little it understands what our lives are like. In the outside world there are standards of freedom and politeness; in all personal matters a man has the power of choice. He is at liberty to make or ruin himself. He washes if he so desires; if he prefers to go dirty, he does not wash. Within reason, as far as is compatible with the earning of his daily bread, he sleeps as long as he wants. To miss one’s night’s rest is to court ill-health. To be verminous is to fall into the category of the slum-dweller; to go hungry is well-nigh impossible. To lay down one’s life for somebody else is exceptional and martyr like. To become a criminal is a really difficult affair.
With us everything is reversed. We grow moustaches under Army orders; we crop our hair to please the Colonel. We have no areas of privacy either in our bodies or our souls. We rise, sleep, eat and wash when we are commanded. We are physically examined, physicked, pumped full of anti toxins and marched off to church parade to worship God without our wishes being consulted. To die for someone else is not martyr-like, but our job. To go foodless, sleepless, shelterless and wet is not a matter for self-pity, but our accepted lot. We cannot give notice to our employers; we have no unions—no means of protest. To be always cheerful and smiling, the more cheerful and smiling in proportion to the hardship, is a duty for the performance of which we must expect no thanks. Our existence as individuals is ignored until we have fallen short, then, all of a sudden, we become important. What in civilian life would be errors in taste or mistakes in temper with us are offences and crimes. For a man in the ranks to come upon parade unshaven, with his buttons unshone or a few minutes late is an office offence To be found kicking a horse is a crime, demanding a court-martial. To strike a superior, to be asleep on sentry-go, or to be absent from the unit when it is moving into action means death.
Military punishments are largely physical and therefore degrading. They compel men to do better through fear of further punishment; they neither educate into a finer appreciation of righteousness, nor do they achieve any economic purpose. They consist in being strapped to a gun-wheel for so many hours a day or in being marched with heavy packs on the back when other men are resting. In the alloting of punishment the age, former social status or mental qualities of the offender are rarely taken into account. There are no excuses, no explanations. Take the gravest crime of all—cowardice. In peace times it was generally allowed that not every man was brave. Before anyone who had been unheroic was judged, his history and environment were taken into consideration. But in the Army if a man fails in courage he is shot. Had St. Peter been a soldier of the Allies, after denying Christ thrice he would never have been given the Keys of Heaven. He would have been executed at the feet of the hanging Judas. The Army asks every man to be infallible; it can afford to show no mercy and gives no second chance. We are judged and graded by our military virtues. What we knew, were or possessed, and what has been our individual sacrifice of happiness count for nought. We are fighting-men, and therefore not required to think—only to obey blindly.
I suppose I still retain my civilian mind, for I cannot treat men as automatons; I have to interpret them with imagination. If one were to see only their externals, they would appear to be rough chaps, coarse in speech and habits, with a scowling attitude towards authority which only an iron discipline can keep subordinate. But when you view them with imagination, you see their enthusiasm for an ideal, which made them willing to give up their freedom and jeopardise their lives. For no one in our brigade needed to be in France; they all came as volunteers. You also see how from the very first the Army has failed to appreciate or make use of that enthusiasm; it prefers to treat men as people who, having signed away their bodies and lives, have to obey because they cannot escape. Yet despite the Army, the enthusiasm of the men survives. It creeps out in their letters to their mothers and wives, to whom they still are heroes. It even creeps out in their conversation, when one’s up front with them and keeping watch through the dreary hours of the night. They are coarse and rough it is true, for they are leading a coarse and a rough existence. Their only bedding is their blanket; they can never remove their clothes at night. Their chances for bathing come very rarely. They can carry only one change of underclothing as their rolls have to be of an exact and limited size. While in the line their quarters consist of holes burrowed under-ground; when out at rest they consist of broken down stables and barns, into which they are packed so closely that they can scarcely turn over without disturbing the men on either side. All the niceties and decencies of civilised life are denied them; war is a nasty affair and its nastiness cannot be avoided. No outcast of the city streets, drowsing under bridges and being harried by the police, leads a more comfortless existence. At the end of the journey, as a reward for their sufferings, are probable mutilation and death. Is it to be wondered that some of them get drunk to escape their misery whenever the chance presents itself, and that when drunk, they become bold to challenge the discipline which in action is their greatest protection? The crimes which they commit are crimes only in the Army—few of them would be even offences anywhere else. A man suffers the death penalty on active service for an error which in a civil court would cost him no more than a warning and a fine.