It is no use going into or describing our proceedings day by day: "Plus ça changeait, plus c'était la même chose." I have the detail of it day by day in my diary, but it was always, in the main, the same thing—minds and bodies at high tension throughout the day and most of the night; perpetual artillery fire—if not by the enemy then by ourselves; shells bursting round the château and hardly ever into it, mostly shrapnel near the house and Black Marias a bit further off—chiefly into a walled garden 200 yards off which, for some unknown reason, the Germans were convinced held some of our guns, though, as a matter of fact, our batteries were in our right rear, in well-covered positions just inside (or even outside, in some cases) the woods. But we got shells on the other side of the house as well, over the bare half-grown lawn and flower-beds between the château and the Hooge-Menin road.
It was rarely "healthy" to take a stroll in the grounds, however much we might be in want of fresh air. Even on days which were exceptionally quiet—and there were not many of them,—when one would move out to look at the grounds with a view to future defences in case we were driven back, or with a desire to ease a torpid liver, suddenly there would be a loudening swish in the air and a crash which would send one of the tall pine-trees into smithereens, with a shower of broken branches in all directions, followed by another, or half a dozen more; and we would retire gracefully—sometimes even rapidly—behind the shelter of our house.
There were some late roses in the garden, or rather in the scattered flower-beds near the house, which lasted out even when the snow was on them; but about the only live beings who took any interest in them were three or four goats, who haunted the precincts of the château, and were everlastingly trying to get inside. Indeed, when Moulton-Barrett first came to take possession, there were two goats in the best bedrooms upstairs, who peered out of the windows at the undesired visitors, and had to be evicted after a display of considerable force.
Also pigs; for half a dozen great raw-boned pink and dirty swine rootled about in the woods near by for sustenance. They were, however, shy, and did not seek the shelter of the château. Stray cattle there were too; but neither these nor the pigs paid any attention to the shells which fell near them with impartial regularity, but did them, as far as I could see, no damage whatever.
There was a stable a couple of hundred yards in rear of the house, and here at first we put what horses there were in the neighbourhood. Having Squeaky and Silver there one night—I forget why, but I know they were there—I put them into a couple of loose-boxes. Silver went in all right, but Squeaky, generally a most sensible mare, shivered and sweated with terror, had almost to be forced in, and refused to feed when there. So I let her out again, and picketed her outside. Two nights after, a doctor's horse which was in there was all but killed, for a shrapnel burst through the window and drove fourteen bullets into his head and neck. They wanted leave to kill the poor beast, but I refused permission, as he was not hit in any vital spot, and he recovered, more or less, in a few days.
As mentioned above, this stable was marked in black on the map, whilst the château—a far bigger building, of course—was hardly indicated. I take it that this accounted for our comparative immunity, for the stable was shelled (and hit) with great regularity, whilst the château was hardly ever touched. We had, however, a couple of small H.E. shell through the eastern end whilst we were in the western; one of these bored clean through the wall of a room where there was a big cupboard against it on the far side and exploded forthwith. But the cupboard was not even scratched; it was blown into the middle of the room and a table or two upset, but, strange to relate, nothing serious in the way of damage was done.[20] On another occasion, however, a few shrapnel exploded just outside the kitchen window. At the sound of the first we all bolted to the other side of the house, and called to the servants to do the same. They came out; but Brown, our excellent cook, who had come out in his shirt-sleeves, must needs go back, without orders, to fetch his coat: for which he promptly received a jagged piece of shell in his left arm, which put a stop, alas, to his cooking for good and all, as far as we were concerned, for he was sent away, and, although he recovered, never came back to us.
During the chief hours of the day, when not (or whilst) being shelled, we were pretty busy with telegrams and reports and queries and excursions and alarums. We were comfortable enough in the housekeeper's room, and got our meals "reg'lar," and we even had two or three arm-chairs, and newspapers and mails fairly well, and news from outside, which used to arrive with our rations at 9 P.M. or thereabouts. But a minor trial was the fact that two out of our five panes of glass had been blown in by shell, and let in an icy draught on most days. So we got some partially-oiled paper, and made some paste, and stuck up the panes.
The first shell explosion made the paper sag, the second made it shiver, and the third blew it out. The paste would not stick—it was the wrong sort of flour or something.
Then we used jam—that glutinous saccharine mess known as "best plum jam"—and blue sugar paper, and it stuck quite fairly well. But it wouldn't dry; and tears of jam used to trickle down the paper panes and mingle with the tin-tacks and the bread-crumbs on the sill.
The room was even then fairly dark, but the shell-bursts again shivered the jam paper and burst it, and we had to take to cardboard and drawing-boards. This made it still darker, and was not even then successful, for the explosions still shook the boards down and eventually broke another pane: it was most trying. On the last day but one four panes had been broken, and on the last day, as will be recounted, all were broken and the whole window blown in. Then we left.