This being a village in which we had formerly been billeted, our men had required no one to give them pointers. At the morning stables they had been warned to keep sober and get all the sleep that was possible; but the moment they were dismissed, they had scattered to the various cottages where drink was obtainable. By this time many of them were mellow and some were completely intoxicated. On arriving at the horse-lines we found them lying beneath the guns and wagons and on the bales of hay, either dead to the world or staring dreamily at nothing. “One sees himself all messed up. It’s to stop thinking that most chaps get drunk!”
Poor laddies! They were little more than boys. Life hadn’t been over-gay for them since war started; by all accounts it would be even less gay in the coming months. Their faces told the story; boys of twenty looked forty. Their cheeks were hollow and lined; in their eyes was a strained expression of haggard expectancy. They were brave; they always would be brave. Their pride of race kept them up. Directly the battle had really started they would become alert and eager as runners. But for the moment they had broken training; the long tension had proved too much. They had seized their opportunity for forgetfulness. Throughout the fields and beneath the trees, wherever there was a bit of shade they lay fallen and crumpled, their tunics flung aside and their shirts torn open to the chest. They would look very much like this one day when the tornado of bullets and shell-fire had swept over them. The thought made me sick; the picture was too horribly similar and realistic. It was only when I looked at the horses, strung out in three long lines, peacefully swishing their tails and nosing round for any wisps of hay that were remaining, that I felt assured that the catastrophe which was always coming nearer, had not yet befallen.
The important task before us was to get them collected up and safely into billets, where they could sleep off the effects of their debauch. Any moment we might get orders to hook in and continue the march. It was unlikely that we would be given such orders until the cool of the evening; but should some emergency make the step necessary, we would find ourselves in a pretty mess. Suzette had already realised the seriousness of the situation; out in the meadows, where men had thrown themselves down in the glaring sun, I could see her rousing them and helping them to get under cover. The great danger from the individual man’s point of view, was that in his befuddled state he might wander away and be missing when we took up our march again. What would follow would depend on each particular Tommy. If he had sense, when he found that he had lost his unit, he would report to the first British officer he encountered and get a written statement from the officer to that effect. Every day that he was absent, until he re-found us, he would get a signed reference as to his movements. If, however, on coming out of his stupor he got frightened, he might hide himself; in which case, though he originally had no intention to desert, his action would be interpreted as desertion. Many a man has been court-martialed and condemned, when his only fault was stupidity ana ignorance of military procedure.
You can’t “crime” two-thirds of a battery; the only thing to be done was to take steps to avoid the consequences. I sent the guard to summon all the N.C.O.’. and officers to the horse-lines. We then brought together all the men who were still fit for duty and, having increased the guard, set to work to carry or lead all those who were incapable back to their quarters. When we had called the roll and knew that no one was absent, we made a search for any drink that might be concealed about the men’s persons and then proceeded to sober up the worst cases by dashing buckets of water over them. When this had been done, we placed an armed guard at the entrance to every billet, with orders to permit no one to go out or to enter. We then left them to sleep it off.
At sun-down a dispatch-rider dashed up to Brigade Headquarters. The sound of his motorbike chugging through the village had been sufficient warning to all the officers’ messes; there were representatives from all the batteries waiting in the courtyard when the adjutant came out to give us the Colonel’s orders. “The orders are to hook in at once and be ready to move off by 9 p.m.”
“In what direction?” we asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, “and that’s no lie. The Colonel doesn’t know, but he’s off to see the General. In any case we shan’t be told until the last minute.” Then commenced the appalling job of getting a half-sober battery harnessed up, hooked in and looking sufficiently respectable that its true condition might not be apparent. This was a case when the Iron discipline of the Army showed at its best. A well-disciplined unit is never so drunk that it can’t beat a teetotal one in which the discipline is lax. It was extraordinary how under the spur of necessity the men pulled themselves together; they had learnt how to make their insubordinate bodies obey their wills up front, flogging them forward to victory through mud and cold and weariness. With leaden eyes and shaking hands, they went through all the familiar motions, so that the battery was mounted and sitting to attention a quarter of an hour before the time appointed struck. In the inspection that followed, hardly a buckle was out of place or a piece of equipment ill-adjusted.
But there were some men who were kept hidden till the last moment—these were the dead drunk. It was our purpose to bring them out only at the last moment when, trusting to the gathering darkness to conceal their condition, we planned to bind them to the seats of the guns with drag-ropes. It takes all kinds to make an army; some who are the worst actors out at rest, are the finest heroes in action.
“There’s those that does it because they’re frightened.” That thought kept running through my head as I searched the stern and haggard faces of these boys who had been shipped from the ends of the earth to die together. They didn’t took the kind to be easily frightened. I knew they weren’t the kind, for I’d seen them fighting forward through the mud-bath of the Somme and driving their guns into action through the death-drops of Farbus. But no one can guess rightly the agony which lies hidden behind the impassive masque of the external.
The sunset, lying low on the horizon, cut a brilliant line behind the shoulders of the drivers, causing their metal-work to glitter and emphasising the erectness of their soldierly bearing in the saddle. They looked a very different lot from the disorganized mob which eight hours earlier had lain scattered throughout the ditches of the countryside.