We have moved to the famous Langhof Chateau on the Lille road. This is supposed to have belonged to Hennessey of “Three Star” fame, but the Germans had been through the wine cellars. We looked very, very carefully, but only found empties. My batman has made me comfortable. I'm writing this on a washstand; in front of me I have a bunch of roses in a broken vase. My trench coat is hanging on a nail from a coat-hanger. A large piece of broken wardrobe mirror has been nailed up to a beam for my use. One of the men just came in to ask if a trousers press would be of any use. We have a fine little bureau cupboard of carved oak; we use this for the rations. A pump, repaired with the leather from a German helmet, has been persuaded to work and has been busy ever since. The roof of my cellar is arched [pg 120] brick and has a few tons of fallen debris on the floor upstairs. That strengthens it. It is shored up from inside with rafters. This makes the roof shell-proof, except for big shells, and the enemy always use big shells. The cellar floors are concrete.
It is very strange the lightness with which serious things are taken by men here, and it took me some time to understand it. I met a young captain of the Royal Marine Artillery who was in charge of a battery of trench mortars. He was telling me of how one of his mortars and the crew were wiped out by a direct hit. He referred to it as though he had just missed his train.
Two days later I went up with the Machine-Gun Officer of the Second Gordons to look at a piece of ground. To get there we had to crawl on our hands and knees. In one part of our journey we came to a sunken road. The day was fine, so we lay there. He asked me about Canada. He wanted to know something about the settler's grant. He said: “Of course you [pg 121] know after a chap has been out here in the open, it will be impossible to go back again to office life.” I boosted Canada and suddenly the irony of the situation occurred to me. Here we were lying down in a road quite close to the German lines, so close that it would be suicide to even stand up, and yet here we were calmly discussing the merits of Canadian emigration. I commented on this and he replied: “My dear fellow, when you have been out as long as I have, you will come to realize that being at the front is a period of intense boredom punctuated by periods of intense fear, and that if you allow yourself to be carried away by depression it will be your finish.” He had been out since just after Mons.
I remembered this and I found that the nonchalant and care-free attitude of the average British officer was really a mask and simulated to keep his mind off the whole beastly business: this great big dirty job which white people must do.
I was sitting one afternoon by the side of the canal bank about two hundred yards in front of my chateau having tea with the officers of the East Yorks when suddenly the chateau-smashing started again. To go back was dangerous and useless. My men were under cover, resting, so that they would be ready for the night work. The shelling was intermittent. One shell went over and presently I heard crack,—crack,—boom, crack, crack,—crack; my heart was in my boots and I was unable to move.
The colonel listened for a few seconds, then said: “Keene, do you know what that is?” I lied: “No, sir.” I thought it was the explosion of my machine-gun bullets in their web belts and I dreaded to go up to see my section. I had worked with them and tried hard to be a good officer and the feeling that I should probably only find their mangled remains sickened me. The colonel said: “That's the ‘Archie’ in Bedford House. I think the last ‘crump’ got it. You two”—indicating myself and another officer—“go [pg 123] up and see if we can do anything. See if they want a working party and let me know.”
We started to run. On the way up I looked into the cellars to see the men whom I, the minute previously, had mourned for, and found two asleep, three hunting through their shirts, and the rest breaking the army orders by “shooting craps.” From Bedford House a long trail of smoke was rising and the explosions became louder. We suddenly discovered the “Archie” in flames. It was in the courtyard and for camouflage had been covered with branches. It was mounted on an armored Pierce-Arrow truck. The “crump” had hit it, and gasoline, paint, branches, and hubs were supplying the fuel which was cooking out the ammunition, the crack, crack, being the report of single shells, whereas one loud boom signified the explosion of an entire box. These shells were going off in all directions and it became dangerous to stay too near.
The flames on the car were of pretty colors. [pg 124] It is surprising the amount of inflammable material there is on a car. The late owner of the car, a lieutenant in the Royal Marine Artillery, was cursing in a low, but emphatic, marine manner, and several other officers from nearby batteries were attracted by the noise and the pyrotechnic display. I spoke to the lieutenant and sympathized with him, and he retorted: “Gott strafe Germany. Why they should hit the ‘bus’ when I have a brand-new pair of trench boots that I had never worn, I dunno.” Just then and there the case cooked out and a piece of shell cut between us and buried itself deep in the support of a dugout, so we got under cover.
“Whiz-Bangs.”