"I am the most unlucky devil on earth," I thought, as riding up to the front again I found that the pole of an ammunition wagon had broken and was going to cause still further delay. But it was a selfish thought. There was a distant rumbling, not of thunder, far behind us. I looked back. The night was clearing and the black horizon was a clear-cut line against the heavens. Into the sky, now here, now there, kept darting up tiny sparks of fire, and over the whole long line, for miles and miles, a glimmer, as of summer lightning, flickered spasmodically. For in that direction lay "the front." On this Christmas night in the year of grace nineteen hundred and fifteen, from the North Sea to the Alps, there stood men peering through the darkness at the dim shape of the parapet opposite, watching for an enemy who might be preparing some sinister scheme for their undoing. And I had dared to deem myself unlucky—I who had hope that some time that night I should undress and slip into bed—warm and dry....
St. Stephen's Day! I wonder if the U.H.C. are meeting at Clonmult to-day. Closing my eyes I can picture the village street with its crowd of holiday-making farmers, buckeens, horse-dealers, pinkcoated officers and country gentlemen, priests and "lads on jinnets," as it was when I went to a meet there that Boxing Day the year that "Brad" and I spent our leave in Cork. But now hunting is a thing of small importance and Brad—is a treasured memory....
We are comfortable here, extraordinarily so. The whole battery is in one farm and more than half the horses are under cover. The men sleep in a roomy barn with plenty of straw to keep them warm, the sergeants have a loft of their own. We have arranged harness rooms, a good kitchen for the cooks, a washhouse, a gun park, a battery office, and a telephone room. "M. le patron" is courtly and obliging, Madame is altogether charming. Their parlour is at the officers' disposal for a living-room: I've got a bedroom to myself. We are, in fact, in process of settling down.
My admiration for the soldiers of the New Army increases daily. For I perceive that they too, in common with their more highly trained, more sternly disciplined comrades of the original "Regulars," possess the supreme quality of being able to "stick it." The journey from our station in England to this particular farm in northern France was no bad test for raw troops—and we are raw at present, it is idle to deny the fact. We marched to Southampton, we embarked (a lengthy and a tiring process). We were twelve hours on the boat, and we had an exceptionally rough crossing, during which nine-tenths of the battery were sick. We disembarked, we groomed our horses and regarded our rusty harness with dismay. We waited about for some hours, forbidden to leave the precincts of the quay. Then we marched to the station and entrained. Any one who has ever assisted to put guns and heavy wagons on to side-loading trucks, or to haul unwilling horses up a slippery ramp, knows what that means. And I may add that it was dark and it was raining. We travelled for twenty-four hours—with a mess-tin full of lukewarm tea at 8 a.m. to hearten us—and then we detrained at just the time when it was getting dark again and still raining. Moreover, whilst we were in the train, cold, hungry, dirty and horribly uncomfortable, we had ample time to remember that it was Christmas Day, a festival upon which the soldier is supposed to be given a gratuitous feast and a whole holiday. But all this, to say nothing of a five-mile march to our billet afterwards and the tedious process of unharnessing and putting down horse lines in the dark, was done without audible "grousing." Truly this morning's late réveillé was well earned.
The sun is shining this afternoon. The gunners are busy washing down the guns and wagons, the drivers sit around the courtyard scrubbing away at their harness: through the open window I can hear them singing softly. The poultry picking their way delicately about the yard, the old patron carrying armfuls of straw to his cattle, and Madame sitting sewing in the kitchen doorway almost make one feel that peace has come again into the world. But from the eastward occasionally and very faintly there comes that ominous rumbling which portends carnage, destruction—Death....
It was the quartermaster-sergeant's idea originally. He is a New Army product, but he has already developed the two essential attributes which go towards the making of a good quartermaster-sergeant—a suave manner and an eye to the main chance. It was he who suggested, laughingly, that since the men had missed their Christmas dinner, we should pretend to be Scotch and celebrate New Year's Day instead. The arrangements are now complete. The men are to be "paid out" to-morrow and they have all agreed to subscribe a franc apiece. This will be supplemented until the funds are sufficient. The Expeditionary Force canteen at —— has been visited, and in spite of the heavy demands previously made upon it for Christmas has provided us with numerous delicacies. The old farmer, entering cheerfully into the spirit of the affair, has offered beans and potatoes which Madame proposes to cook for us. Bottled beer has been purchased, beer on draught will be forthcoming. There are even crackers. To crown all, the Child returns triumphantly seated upon the box seat of a G.S. wagon which contains—a piano!...
In the end circumstances forced us to celebrate the birth of the year of victory on the last day but one of 1915. For to-day two officers and a large party of N.C.O.'s and men departed for the front on a course of instruction. So we had to have our "day" before they went. And what a day it was! The dinner—thanks largely to the energy and resource of the "quarter-bloke" and the cooks—was an immense success. Every man ate until, literally, he could eat no more. Then, after the issue of beer and a brief interval for repose and tobacco, an inter-section football match was started. The two subalterns whose commands were involved made a sporting agreement that the loser should stand a packet of cigarettes to every man of the winning section—some sixty in all. The game, which was played in a water-logged meadow, ended in a draw, so they each stood their own men the aforesaid packet—a highly popular procedure.
The piano, need I say, was going all the afternoon. It was necessary to practise for the evening's concert, and besides we are Welsh and therefore we are all musical. Moreover—and this I record with diffidence—I saw the one sergeant we have who is not Welsh but Irish inveigle the dairymaid into waltzing round the yard!
In the officers' mess we too "spread ourselves a bit." We had guests and we gave them an eight-course dinner which began with hors d'œuvre variés (but not very varied seeing that there were only sardines and chopped carrots) and ended with dessert. Specially selected ration beef was, of course, the pièce de résistance, but it was followed by roast pigeon and a salad, the latter mixed and dressed by Madame's own fair hands. But the pigeons, though cooked to a nicety, were undeniably tough—a fact which was not surprising seeing that they were quite possibly the oldest inhabitants of the farm!