At 11 A.M. I stood opposite the church and exclaimed in a loud voice to nobody in particular—
"Gentlemen, the war is now over—absolutely!"
The company, naturally enough, had begun already to celebrate the occasion with appropriate rites, and its steadiness on parade, when before lunch the General came round to make a little speech, was truly remarkable. Only one officer in the rear was humming a little ditty to himself, and only one man interrupted the speech by a faint "hear! hear!" Salutes at the conclusion of the parade were superb....
We had a cold lunch, but one faithful mess waiter served us nobly with a set face. The two cooks with arms around each other's waists were strolling up and down outside the window. I think they must have been singing.
In the afternoon we went for a long walk—the news had come too early in the day. We returned a little refreshed. At night there was a bonfire; but I cannot do better than quote from the vivid narrative of one of my most trusted officers:—
"November 11th was a great day—and a greater night. The dreariness and loneliness of the place vanished suddenly on the receipt of the news of the enemy's capitulation. Would we not soon all be back in Blighty? The thought came like champagne to our thirsting souls. Imagination responded promptly. The bareness of officers billets vanished before visions of cosy sofas and arm-chairs, carpeted floors and clean-sheeted beds. Better still, faces of those we longed to see, especially of those we longed to kiss, came to us. Their owners moved amidst the pictured cosiness, sat in those arm-chairs, shared their sofas.... What a picture after the gritty holes and cramping caves of earth-covered ammunition boxes in the Cérisy Valley, or the stuffy, fly-ridden dilapidation of billets in Fouilloy! And it was the same with the men. No doubt their visions were as fair. The delight of these things shone in every one's faces. Unwonted cheerfulness was general. Every one smiled.
"And at night every one cheered. A way must be found to give free and full expression to bounding spirits. A huge bonfire was decided upon.... At twenty hours the massed logs that had been heaped on the top of the fallen masonry were saturated with petrol, a match was thrown, and a sheet of flame shot up. A war of cheering followed. Songs burst forth. Every one sung who could or thought he could. The rest shouted. It didn't matter—noise was the thing. Half an hour later the officers joined the shouting throng. The din grew louder. Some one shouted Speech!... Next the Adjutant, and in turn every other officer was called. Reversing the order, the officers then called upon the sergeant-major and senior N.C.O.'s. Finally, the 'other ranks' vociferously sang of the officers, 'For they are jolly good fellows,' and the officers in similar fashion paid compliments to the men. By this time the flames had died down. Flickering light and shadow replaced the ruddy glow, and slowly the crowd broke up. But for hours yet a small group of enthusiastic maffickers sat around the dying embers...."
I should like to leave you with that picture—I feel that after "dying embers" the word "Finis" might suitably be written—but, if this halting chronicle is to present an honest picture, it must stumble on for a few more paragraphs just as my Company dragged out a wearisome existence for a few more months.
There were compensations. Christmas brought its festivities; we played football desperately, and all but won the Brigade Cup; we were second in the Brigade Cross Country Run; a Concert Party visited us; a lecturer was heckled by our pet Socialist. It was, however, an almost impossible task to find the men something to do. We heard vaguely of an Army Education Scheme, or, more correctly, we read much about it in the newspapers, and we endeavoured to organise classes to shorten the long evenings, but we had no lamps or candles, no paper, no pencils, and no books.
We could think only of demobilisation, and soon my orderly-room staff was allowed to think of little else. We were overwhelmed with complicated regulations. We struggled through them, and discovered that Pte. X., who, entering the Army notoriously under pressure, had arrived in France quite recently, was due to go at once, while Sergt. T., an old and trusted N.C.O., was to remain in France indefinitely. The system of demobilising men by classes could not possibly have been meant to apply to a company billeted in a filthy village on the edge of an old trench system. Such a system disregarded entirely the natural feelings of the men—"First out, first back,"—and it was very necessary to consider such feelings after the Armistice. The men were no longer soldiers; they were civilians impatient of control and eager to get home. Only an army, which was undoubtedly the best disciplined army in France, could have suffered such a system of demobilisation with so little disturbance. It was astonishing to us that the émeutes, the existence of which is now common knowledge, were not more numerous. The system, admittedly perfect in theory from the standpoint of industrial reconstruction, could not be administered strictly without disregarding entirely the ordinary soldier's sense of justice.