Peace and War
You'll see from the La Bassée Road, on any summer day,
The children herding nanny goats, the women making hay.
You'll see the soldiers, khaki clad, in column and platoon,
Come swinging up La Bassée Road from billets in Bethune.
There's hay to save and corn to cut, but harder work by far
Awaits the soldier boys who reap the harvest fields of war.
You'll see them swinging up the road where women work at hay,
The long, straight road, La Bassée Road, on any summer day.
The farmhouse stood in the centre of the village; the village rested on the banks of a sleepy canal on which the barges carried the wounded down from the slaughter line to the hospital at Bethune. The village was shelled daily. When shelling began a whistle was blown warning all soldiers to seek cover immediately in the dug-outs roofed with sandbags, which were constructed by the military authorities in nearly every garden in the place. When the housewifes heard the shells bursting they ran out and brought in their washing from the lines where it was hung out to dry; then they sat down and knitted stockings or sewed garments to send to their menfolk at the war. In the village they said: "When the shells come the men run in for their lives, and the women run out for their washing."
The village was not badly battered by shell fire. Our barn got touched once and a large splinter of a concussion shell which fell there was used as a weight for a wag-of-the-wall clock in the farmhouse. The village was crowded with troops, new men, who wore clean shirts, neat puttees and creased trousers. They had not been in the trenches yet, but were going up presently.
Bill and I were sitting in an estaminet when two of these youngsters came in and sat opposite.
"New 'ere?" asked Bill.
"Came to Boulogne six days ago and marched all the way here," said one of them, a red-haired youth with bushy eyebrows. "Long over?" he asked.
"Just about nine months," said Bill.
"You've been through it then."
"Through it," said Bill, lying splendidly, "I think we 'ave. At Mons we went in eight 'undred strong. We're the only two as is left."