XII. Soldiers and Peasants, Cassel.
After working up there for about six weeks I began to feel very tired, and thought I would go for a change; so I decided to run away and go and see some "Bases"—Dieppe, Le Havre and Rouen. The day after I reached Dieppe I received a telegram from the "Colonel": "When do you return?" to which I replied: "Return where, please?" to which apparently no reply could be made. But two days later I received a letter from him saying he was moving to another job, but would always remember the honour of his having had me working under him. This was a nasty one for me, and I had no answer to give. About the same time I received a telegram from Sir Philip Sassoon: "Where the devil are you? aaa Philip." Months later he sent me a great parcel of correspondence as to whether this telegram, sent by the P.S. of the C.-in-C., could be regarded as an official telegram, its language, etc. The minutes were signed by Lieutenants, Captains, Majors, Colonels, all up to the last one, which was signed by a General, and ran thus: "What the —— hell were you using this disgusting language for, Philip?"
After a week I went back to Cassel, packed up and went south to Amiens.
CHAPTER V
THE SOMME IN SUMMER-TIME (AUGUST 1917)
Never shall I forget my first sight of the Somme in summer-time. I had left it mud, nothing but water, shell-holes and mud—the most gloomy, dreary abomination of desolation the mind could imagine; and now, in the summer of 1917, no words could express the beauty of it. The dreary, dismal mud was baked white and pure—dazzling white. White daisies, red poppies and a blue flower, great masses of them, stretched for miles and miles. The sky a pure dark blue, and the whole air, up to a height of about forty feet, thick with white butterflies: your clothes were covered with butterflies. It was like an enchanted land; but in the place of fairies there were thousands of little white crosses, marked "Unknown British Soldier," for the most part. (Later, all these bodies were taken up and nearly all were identified and re-buried in Army cemeteries.) Through the masses of white butterflies, blue dragon-flies darted about; high up the larks sang; higher still the aeroplanes droned. Everything shimmered in the heat. Clothes, guns, all that had been left in confusion when the war passed on, had now been baked by the sun into one wonderful combination of colour—white, pale grey and pale gold. The only dark colours were the deep red bronze of the "wire" and one black cat which lived in a shelter in what once was the main street of Thiepval. It was strange, this black cat living there all alone. No humans, or those of her own species, lived within miles of her. It took me days to make friends and get her to come to me; and when at last I succeeded, the friendship did not last long. No matter where I worked round that district, the black cat of Thiepval would find me, and would approach silently, and would suddenly jump on my knees and dig all her long nails deeply into my flesh, with affection. I stood it for a little time, and then gave her a good smack, after which I never saw my little black friend again.
