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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16992-8.txt b/16992-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0bb4480 --- /dev/null +++ b/16992-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2102 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the King's Service, by Innes Logan + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: On the King's Service + Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms + +Author: Innes Logan + +Release Date: November 3, 2005 [EBook #16992] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE KING'S SERVICE *** + + + + +Produced by Irma Spehar, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + +ON THE +KING'S SERVICE + +Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms + +BY THE REV. +INNES LOGAN, M.A. +CHAPLAIN TO THE FORCES +SEPT. 1914-MAY 1916 + +HODDER AND STOUGHTON +LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO + +MCMXVII + + + +TO MY WIFE + + + +This little book is written as a slight tribute of love and respect +for those with whom the writer had, for over twenty months, the honour +of association. + +UNITED FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND MANSE, BRAEMAR. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +MUSTERING MEN + + PAGE + + I. THOSE GAUNT UNLOVELY BUILDINGS 3 + II. WHY THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND ENLISTED 7 +III. UBIQUE 10 + + +CHAPTER II + +A REINFORCEMENTS CAMP + + I. THE SUNNY VALLEY 19 + II. THE MAN FROM SKYE 22 +III. 'YOU CAN HEAR THEM NOW' 26 + + +CHAPTER III + +A CLEARING STATION WHEN THERE IS 'NOTHING TO REPORT' + + I. FROM PARAPET TO BASE 33 + II. 'DO YOU THINK THAT SORT OF THING MATTERS NOW?' 45 +III. THE NAME OF JESUS 50 + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE AFTERMATH OF LOOS + + I. THE FLAVOUR OF VICTORY 57 + II. DOUBTS AND FEARS 63 +III. OUR SHARE OF THE FIFTY THOUSAND 69 + + +CHAPTER V + +DUMBARTON'S DRUMS + + I. BACK AGAIN! 79 + II. THE FIRST SHOCK OF WAR 81 +III. AT THE NOSE OF THE SALIENT 88 + + +CHAPTER VI + +WINTER WARFARE + + I. THE SHELL AREA 95 + II. 'I HATE WAR: THAT IS WHY I AM FIGHTING' 103 +III. BILLETS AND CAMPS 106 + + +CHAPTER VII + +HOW THE ROYALS HELD THE BLUFF: AN EPISODE OF TRENCH WARFARE + + I. WAITING 117 + II. THE BLUFF 125 +III. 'WE'VE KEEPIT UP THE REPUTATION O' THE AULD MOB, ONYWAY' 128 + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HISTORIC TRIANGLE 135 + + + + +MUSTERING MEN + + + + +CHAPTER I + +MUSTERING MEN + + +I + +_Those gaunt unlovely buildings_ + +The War Office built Maryhill Barracks, Glasgow, to look exactly like a +gaol, but these gaunt unlovely buildings, packed beyond endurance with +men of the new army, were at least in some way in touch with what was +happening elsewhere. Even in that first month of the war it seemed +callous to be breathing the sweet, clear air of Braemar, or to let one's +eyes linger on the matchless beauty of mountain and glen. The grey spire +of my church rising gracefully among the silver birches and the dark +firs, bosomed deep in purple hills, pointed to some harder way than +that. Stevenson, who wrote part of _Treasure Island_ here, called it +'the wale (pick) of Scotland,' but just because it was so we saw more +clearly the agony of Belgium and the men of our heroic little Regular +Army dying to keep us inviolate. + +Up to the 10th of September recruits poured in in such numbers that it +was hard to cope with the situation in the most superficial way. On that +date the standard was raised, and, as though a sluice had been dropped +across a mill dam, the stream stopped suddenly and completely. I suppose +that was the object of the new regulation, but it caused +misunderstanding, and to this day the spontaneous rush of the first +month of the war has never been repeated. Beyond doubt the numbers were +too great to be properly handled. Men slept in the garrison church, in +the riding school, on the floor in over-crowded barrack-rooms, in leaky +tents without bottoms to them. There were no recreation rooms. It rained +a great deal, and once wet a man with no change of clothing or +underclothing remained wet for days in his meagre civilian suit. There +were too few blankets, no braziers, and the cheap black shoes of civil +life were soon in tatters. Everybody became abominably verminous, and +though the food was good enough in its way the cooks were overwhelmed, +and it was often uneatable. Nobody was to blame, and in an astonishingly +short time order began to emerge, but in those early days one enormous +'grouse' went up continually from the new army that was not yet an army, +and those conditions were partly responsible for the fact that when the +standard was lowered again the flow of recruits was so much less than +before. This, the faculty for hearty grousing, in the army whimsical, +humorous, shrewd, sometimes biting, never down-hearted, is evidently an +old national custom, for Chaucer uses the word half a dozen times. But +the aggravated discomfort of men soft from indoor life was really +pitiful. + +Before long all recruits except those for the Royal Field Artillery were +sent elsewhere, and the barracks became a great depot for this arm of +the service, with Colonel Forde in command. What marvels were done in +those early days, and how hard pushed the country was, will be realised +when it is understood that for months a body of men numbering never less +than two thousand, and sometimes as many as three times that number, +had only two field guns for training purposes, and that officers had to +be sent out to the Expeditionary Force who had worn a uniform only for +three, four, or five weeks. + + +II + +_Why the First Hundred Thousand Enlisted_ + +The first hundred thousand had some characteristics of their own +compared with their successors. They contained a large number of men who +do things on the spur of the moment, the born seekers after adventure, +men to whom war had its attractions. Many a man who had never found his +place in life, because his was the restless, roving spirit which could +not settle, or that chafed against ordered conventional ways, found his +happiness at last in August 1914. Alongside those were the men who were +passionately patriotic and saw very clearly and quickly the long issues +involved to the country they loved. The fate of Belgium had a far more +moving influence with the ranks of the new army than the officer class, +I think, quite realised. Indeed, with the later recruits I gathered the +impression that indignation at the German atrocities in Belgium was the +prevailing motive in their enlistment. There can be no question in the +mind of any one who worked intimately among the men of the new armies in +the autumn and winter of 1914 that the invasion of Belgium was the one +shocking stroke that rallied the country as one man, and that nothing +else in the situation, as it was known, would have done this. The people +as a whole did not grasp the imminence of the German menace. Of the +torturing pressure on the thin khaki line that barred the pass to the +sea we knew nothing. Day by day and night by night we were regaled with +stories of 'heavy German losses' and futile tales of the deaths of +German princes; neither our manhood nor our imagination was fully +captured, for of the almost unbelievable heroism of our brothers we were +never told. Perhaps the silence was justified; the enemy might have +learned how near they were to victory, and with a supreme effort have +broken through. At all events, unavoidably or not, the youth of the +country as a whole was never, throughout this winter, really roused to +its best. All the more honour to the first hundred thousand! + + +III + +_Ubique_ + +After this war is over no soldier can ask 'What does the Christian +Church do for me?' The members of the Church, acting through its +organisation, or more frequently through other organisations of which +its members were the moving spirits, rose to the occasion nobly all over +the country. Glasgow was no exception. It did the Churches, too, much +good, teaching them to work together. Here is an example. The men were +lodged all over the city, two or three hundred in one hall, more than +that in another. In every instance arrangements were made for their +recreation and comfort. In a given district one congregation gave its +hall as a recreation room, another paid all expenses, a third supplied +a church officer for daily cleaning, the members joined in giving +magazines and papers, and in providing tea and coffee; the missionary of +one congregation held services, and all united in giving concerts. The +Y.M.C.A., which does not accept workers unless they are members of the +Christian Church, came on the scene and built a hut, through the +generosity of Mrs. Hunter Craig, in the barrack square. + +On this, in the early months of 1915, there followed a revival of +religion among the Maryhill Barracks men, whose centre was the Y.M.C.A. +hut. This revival had the marks in it which we younger men had been told +were the marks of a true revival, but from which many had shrunk because +they were associated in our days with flaming advertisement, noise, and +ostentation. + +A wise old Scots minister was once asked, 'How are we to bring about a +revival?' 'It is God who gives revival.' 'But how are we to get Him to +give it?' 'Ask Him,' he said. Perhaps in this case we may say humbly +that our asking was largely in the form of gaining the confidence of the +men, for when we had all become friends the movement began quietly one +night through the action of an agent of the Pocket Testament League, who +was spending the evening with us. The meetings looked prosaic enough to +the eye; there was no band or solo singing or outward excitement, and +the hut was a plain wooden building, but the strain was very intense at +times. Sometimes as many as a hundred in one week would stay behind and +profess conversion, desiring to yield to the profound spiritual impulse +urging them from within to make Christ's mind and spirit their principle +in life. All had been cast loose from their moorings and had been trying +to find their feet in new surroundings. Most of them were just decent +lads who had never thought much about it before. There were others who +at last saw a chance to make a fresh start and grasped thankfully at it. +A few were 'corner-boys,' learning in discipline and comradeship a +lesson they had never dreamed of. I think there was everywhere in the +new army a certain moral uplift arising from the consciousness of a hard +duty undertaken, and it was not difficult to lead this on to a more +personal and spiritual crisis. There was something very lovable about +them. A tall, handsome fellow from a Canadian lumber camp said, with +real distress in his face, 'I've tried and tried, and, God help me, I +can't. It's no use.' His chum tucked his arm through his and declared +with a warmth of affection in his voice, 'I'll look after him, guv'nor.' + +Many months afterwards in a Flemish town I saw some of their batteries +go by clattering over the stony streets. The flashlight from an electric +torch lit up the riders flitting from darkness to darkness on either +side of the broad pencil of light. It showed bronzed faces, competent +gestures, stained uniforms, the marks of veterans, men who had been in +action many times with their guns. I am sure that they do their duty not +only to their king but to One Higher, too, in the words of the brave +motto of their corps, '_Ubique quo fas et gloria ducunt_.' + +In April orders came to join the Expeditionary Force. + + + + +A REINFORCEMENTS CAMP + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A REINFORCEMENTS CAMP + + +I + +_The Sunny Valley_ + +The reinforcements camp lay pleasantly in a sunny valley. The nearest +town was Harfleur, besieged exactly five hundred years earlier by Henry +V. of England, who placed his chief reliance on his big guns and his +mines and was not disappointed. The camp commandant was insistent that +the ground round the tents and huts should be turned into gardens, and +before long the valley was bright with flowers. There was peace over all +the landscape here. Sometimes a train of horse trucks, crowded with men +standing at the sliding doors or sitting with legs dangling over the +rails, panted up the long slope past the foot of the valley, and every +evening the supply trains pulled slowly off on their way to the front, +each laden with one day's rations for twelve thousand men. Fresh drafts +for the infantry and artillery arrived every day, stayed a few days, and +then were sent up the line. Probably a thousand men a month would be a +fair estimate for the wastage from a division at that time, that is, the +whole Expeditionary Force had to be renewed completely once a year, as +far as its fighting units were concerned. Drafts therefore were +continually passing through our camp, and I had many opportunities of +studying the morale of individuals of all ranks. The result was +interesting and worth setting down. My experience was that the good +heart of fighting men was affected by only two avoidable causes. The +first was the large number of young able-bodied men engaged in +occupations, on the lines of communications and at the base, which might +have been carried through effectively by others. These young men never +were in danger, while those who happened to have enlisted in combatant +corps were sent back to face death again and again. This (we are told) +has now been rectified, but it was for long a source of great soreness. +The second influence making for soreness was the amazing amount of +wrangling that went on at home, among the newspapers, between masters +and men, and so on. Officers would get furious with the conduct of the +'workers,' and condemn them wholesale as a class. One had to be at once +cautious and persistent in bringing home to them the fact that their +own men, whom they admired and loved, whom they knew would follow them +anywhere, were drawn from just the same class as those men who were out +on strike. Another reason why it would have been better to have had +older men and married men at the bases lay in the temptations +surrounding the men there on every side. These also have to be reckoned +with as part of the inevitable cost of war. It says much for the grit +and character of the average Briton that so many come through unscathed. + + +II + +_The Man from Skye_ + +As I was going round the tents one day I had a long talk with a man in a +draft just leaving for the front to join a Highland regiment. He had +not been long out of hospital, and, like his companions, had scarcely +pulled himself together after the sadness of a second farewell. +Following a good plan of always handing on any rumour, however +improbable, which is of a thoroughly cheerful nature I said, referring +to a report that was current in the messes that morning, 'They say Lord +Kitchener says it will be all over by September.' He looked at me very +seriously and said sternly, 'It iss not for Lord Kitchener to say when +the war will be over. It iss only for God to say that.' Presently he +said, 'And what iss more, I will nefer see Skye again.' I had tried +every way in vain to lift his foreboding from him, and now I said +sternly like himself, 'It is not for you to say whether you will ever +see Skye again; only God can know that.' He moved a little, restlessly, +and answered slowly, 'Yess, that iss so, but--yess, it iss so.' +Sometimes when we were asking one another that old familiar unanswerable +question I would tell the story of the man from Skye and his answer to +the problem. We were very glad to hear a few weeks later that he had +been discharged as permanently unfit, and was by then in his loved misty +isle. + +The Principal Chaplain visited the camp during my chaplaincy there. The +Rev. Dr. Simms, who ranks as a major-general, has charge of all +chaplains other than those of the Church of England. His tall, +distinguished, unassuming figure will always stand, in the minds of +those who were under his administration, for infinite kindness, wisdom, +and scrupulous fairness between all parties. Dr. Wallace Williamson of +St. Giles', Edinburgh, who was visiting the troops in France, +accompanied him. Their service on Sunday was very moving. Hearts were +near the surface in those brief days between the farewell and the +battlefield. The three Scotsmen whom I knew best of those who were at +this service are all dead: one fell at Loos, one in Mesopotamia, and one +on the Somme. The oldest of them, who was an officer in a Guards +battalion, could not speak and his eyes were full of tears. There was no +possibility here of the remark that one Lowlander made to another after +listening to a very celebrated London preacher: 'Aye, it was beautiful, +and he cud mak' ye see things too, whiles; but, man! there was nae +_logic_ in 't.' + +It was about this time that we heard of the sinking of the _Lusitania_. +Somehow from this moment we knew better where we were and for what we +fought. Every one's thoughts were very grim. This was sheer naked +wickedness done plainly and coldly in the sight of God and man. + + +III + +'_You can hear them now_' + +One broiling afternoon as I sat talking with a friend in my tent an +orderly came to the door and said to him, 'Message for you, sir.' He +glanced at it. It was his orders to join his battalion at the front. We +shook hands and he went off, glad to be on the move again after hanging +about waiting so long. In five minutes the orderly was back with orders +for me to proceed at once to the 2nd London Territorial Casualty +Clearing Station. I said good-bye to Adams, my servant. No man was ever +more fortunate in his batmen--Adams, a typical regular, fiercely proud +of his regiment; Campion, the London Territorial, a commercial traveller +in civil life; and Munro, the Royal Scot, who within a month or two of +the outbreak of war could no longer suppress the fighting spirit of the +Royal Regiment stirring within him, and voluntarily rejoined, leaving a +wife and six children behind him. He was a foreman in the Edinburgh +Tramways Company. Handy man that he was, he could turn his hand to +anything, whether it was devising a ferrule for a broken walking stick +out of the screw of a pickle bottle, or making a bleak-looking hut +habitable, or producing hot tea from nowhere, or transforming a +wet-canteen marquee into a decent place for Communion (empty tobacco +boxes for table, beer barrels discreetly out of sight), or building a +pulpit out of sandbags in the corner of a roofless saloon bar. + +The supply train left at a very early hour, and by devious routes +reluctantly approached the railhead. The journey took thirty hours. It +was long enough to teach the lessons never to go on a military train in +France without something to read, or to drink rashly from an aluminium +cup containing hot liquid, or to rely on bully beef as a sole article of +diet. Towards evening the Irishman in charge of the train had pity and +took me along--we had stopped for the thirty-fifth time--to admire his +Primus stove in full blast, and to share his excellent dinner. But +(stove or no stove) the world is divided into those who can do that sort +of thing and those who cannot; who, wrestling futilely with refractory +elements, wish they had never been born. + +He said that before we reached the railhead we would probably hear the +sound of the guns. The phrase is used to barrenness, even to ridicule, +but the reality when first heard rings a new emotion in your breast. The +night was windless and warm, and about ten o'clock as we stood in a +wayside station the Ulsterman came up to me and said, 'Listen, you can +hear them now.' And away to the east could be heard a deep shaking sound +rising and fading away in the still air--the sound of British artillery +fighting day and night against yet overwhelming odds. + +Twenty hours later, after many wanderings, a friendly Field Ambulance +car deposited me at the door of the mess of the clearing station, where +the arrival of a 'Scotch minister' had been awaited with a good deal of +curiosity and possibly some apprehension. + + + + +A CLEARING STATION WHEN THERE IS 'NOTHING TO REPORT' + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A CLEARING STATION WHEN THERE IS 'NOTHING TO REPORT' + + +I + +_From Parapet to Base_ + +We sometimes hear of some man who with leg smashed continues firing his +machine-gun as though nothing had happened. How is this to be explained? +The answer is one that is a real comfort to those at home. The most +shattering wounds are not those which cause the greatest immediate pain. +It is as though a tree fell across telegraph wires. The wires are down, +and no message, or, at worst, a confused jangling message can come +through to the brain. I have known a man carried into an aid-post in a +state of great delight because he had 'got a Blighty one.' He lay +smoking and talking, little realising that his wound was so grave that +it would be many months before he could walk again--if indeed he would +ever walk with two legs. By the time the realisation of the pain has +come into full play the sufferer, in ordinary times, is in the clearing +station or, at least, the field ambulance, and has the resources of +science at his disposal. + +Suppose that at three in the afternoon Jock is hit, in the front trench. +'Jock' is the name universally given to Scottish soldiers, Lowland or +Highland. It is not a melodious name, but there it is! And it somehow +expresses the Scotsman's character better than 'Tommy' does. He cannot +be carried down the communication trench because it zigzags too much: +he cannot be got round the angles. So he is taken into a dug-out and +gets first aid, and a tablet of morphine perhaps. The M.O. may possibly +come up to see him, but he may be too busy in his own aid-post. There +are stretcher bearers in the trench able to bandage properly. The +average 'S.B.,' by the way, is a man from the battalion, not from the +R.A.M.C. As soon as it is dark the stretcher bearers lift him and carry +him across the open to the aid-post, which is perhaps five hundred or a +thousand yards behind the firing trench, near the battalion +headquarters. It is an eerie journey, with a certain amount of risk. The +brilliant Boche flares rise continually--the enemy is sometimes called +'the Hun,' more often 'the Boche,' in more genial moments 'Fritz,' but +'the Germans' never--and light up the ground vividly. These flares are +very powerful. I have seen my own shadow cast from one when standing at +the time in a camp fully five miles from the trenches, and when you are +close up you feel that every eye in 'Germany' is fixed on you. The best +thing to do is to stand quite still, for artificial light is very +deceptive, and it is hard to make out what an object is. In any case, +the real danger area is 'No-Man's-Land,' for it is on that mighty +graveyard stretching from Switzerland to the sea that the enemy's eyes +are bent. The regiments used to get various kinds of flares to +experiment with. We used to laugh over an incident that occurred when a +new type, a species of parachute, had been served out. The +Second-in-command, who fired it, miscalculated the strength of the wind, +which was blowing from the enemy's trench, and the flare was carried in +a stately curve backwards until it was directly over battalion +headquarters. Here it hung for a long time, showing up all details very +successfully, to the C.O.'s great annoyance. Over this ground, very +slowly and carefully, the stretcher is carried. When the aid-post is +reached the M.O. takes charge, assisted by the sergeant or corporal of +the R.A.M.C., whom he has always with him, and the 'casualty' is laid +alongside others in the dug-out, or cellar beneath some ruined house, +that forms the aid-post and battalion dispensary. The first stage in the +journey is now over. Soon a couple of cars creep quietly up. One by one +the casualties are lifted in or climb in stiffly. The doctor who has +come up with them chats with the M.O., and the local gossip is exchanged +for the wider knowledge (or more grandiose rumours) of the field +ambulance. Our Jock, who has a bullet in his chest, is lifted in. Straps +are fastened securely and tarpaulins tied. 'All aboard, sir!' 'Right! +Well, so long, Hadley!' 'Cheero, Scott!' The ambulances start very +cautiously, and crawl up the road. It is in execrable condition, for +work in daylight here is impossible. It is all knocked to pieces with +traffic, and frequently pitted with shell holes, and as a rule very +narrow. There is no moon, which is just as well, and no lights can be +carried. The driver feels his way through inky blackness by some sixth +sense begotten of many such journeys. Every now and then a flare lights +up the broken cobbles for a few seconds. His wheels are only a couple of +feet from the mud on either side, and if he goes into that the car +would be there for hours. A little to the right a battery of 18-pounders +is firing slowly and regularly, and the shells scream over the road on +their way to the enemy. A corner is turned and the road gets better. We +draw up at a building with no light showing, and R.A.M.C. orderlies come +up the steps from a cellar. This is the advanced dressing station; it +collects from a brigade front and there are two doctors at work. A large +window covered with sacking opens at the level of the ground into the +cellar, and the wounded are lifted through it. Some will stay here all +night, but the most seriously hurt are sent on to the casualty clearing +station five or six miles back. Hot drinks are going and are welcome, +for the injured men are trembling and sick with shock. Two new drivers +come up from their dug-out, yawning, and take over; a message has just +come in that the 'P' trenches have been 'hotted' by trench mortars and +cars must go back again at once. The ambulances move off, leaving the +doctors busy, sleeves rolled up to the elbow. The second stage in the +journey has been completed. + +The cars are moving much more quickly now. Lights are still burning in +divisional headquarters, but the field ambulance headquarters are dark, +save for the lamp burning before the gate. An ambulance may have two or +three advanced dressing stations collecting from a divisional front. +Twin lamps on a pole, white and red, draw nearer and faintly light up +two flags, the Union Jack and the Red Cross. The Union Jack in Flanders +is only seen in conjunction with the Red Cross, or perhaps over the +dead body at a funeral; unless the Commander-in-chief comes round, when +the flag is carried behind him on a lance. The cars turn at right angles +into a gravelled yard and draw up before a large door. A corporal, who +has been sitting in a glass vestibule, puts his head inside the inner +door and shouts 'Stretcher bearers!' An orderly crosses quickly to the +office and reports to the orderly officer, 'Two cars with stretcher +cases.' The doctor crosses to the reception room and begins to examine +the first case. The reception room is a concert or music hall in happier +days. Its stage is the dispensary, and the little room where the +performers 'make-up' is the mortuary. The doctor is joined by the sister +on night duty. Each man is examined rapidly in turn. The M.O., or the +doctor at the dressing station, has written some words about the nature +of the wound on a label very like a luggage label, and this has been +tied to a button-hole. An orderly comes forward and takes down +particulars: name, number, battalion, brigade, division. Jock is rather +tired of giving this information because he has already had it taken +down by his M.O., and at the dressing station. But he need not begin to +complain yet, for it will be repeated at every stopping-place. He is +carried off to another room. The third stage is over. + +Jock is here a fortnight, for he is badly wounded and occupies one of +the few beds that the station boasts. One day he is borne, rather white, +into the operating theatre, and after a time is carried back, even +whiter than before. He has seen less of it than any one; saw only the +white walls and the mosquito curtains; smelled the heavy odours of ether +and chloroform and antiseptics; heard faintly and more faintly the drone +of an aeroplane overhead; saw also the padre, rather white too, but +determined to get accustomed to this sort of thing, in case they should +be short-handed when the great 'push' comes. + +Jock cannot go by train because he could not stand the jolting, so he +must wait for a barge. He listens with evident pleasure to the +description of the electric lights and fans and white sheets and +pillows. There are six sisters in the station. They are the first +English women he has seen since his last leave, and he is glad to hear +there will be two on the barge. A barge comes and goes, but no one tells +Jock that. He is told the barges are always a long time coming, which +is true too. And, indeed, before the next one comes he is so much better +that it is decided he can go by train if it comes first. It does come +first. '_Train in!_' runs through the wards like lightning. There are +hurried good-byes, gathering together of souvenirs, wistful eyes of +those who cannot yet go, watching those who can. Cars are brought round +to the side entrance, stretchers slipped into their grooves, and the +convoy is off to the station. The long train, already half filled, lies +waiting. There is a last little passage across the platform, coming and +going of bearers, the inevitable argument with the R.T.O., a warning +shriek from the engine, and the train to the base has gone. + + +II + +'_Do you think that sort of thing matters now?_' + +A clearing station is just what its name denotes. It clears the wounded +from a large number of field ambulances, each of which is split into +several advanced dressing stations. Each of these in turn draws from +several aid-posts. All the wounded, and all the sick who get beyond the +ambulances, must pass through the station. There they are put in trim +for the journey to the base, or are sent to a convalescent depot if a +week or two will see them fit for duty again. + +The Church of England chaplain was as friendly and accommodating as I +was anxious to be. We made sure that one of us saw every man to speak to +when he was brought in, and noted to which ward he was taken. For the +distribution of writing-paper, newspapers, and magazines, tobacco and +cigarettes, we divided the work, so that in one day each took half the +number of wards, on the next day reversing the half. In the case of +serious illness or trouble we kept more closely to our own men. We both +had our store of Testaments. Of all editions supplied to the troops that +of the National Bible Society of Scotland is the best. It is the most +attractive, in its bright red binding--one gets so tired of khaki--and +it contains the Psalms, so priceless and unfailing in time of war. I +think it a pity that they are in the metrical rather than the prose +form. On the other hand, an officer once told me he found it impossible +to settle to read the Bible. His experience was that a booklet of +familiar hymns was of most spiritual value to him. He would pull it out +in his dug-out and read a verse, and then put it back again. On Sundays +we held our morning services separately, in the reception room at +different hours. If it was possible there might be one or two quiet +services in the wards as well. Religion and science are sometimes +supposed to be hostile to one another. I must say this, and say it +gratefully--I always found doctors sympathetic, helpful, and +considerate, no men more so, in fact, none could have been more entirely +friendly. They are not lovers of creeds, but they are devoted servants +of humanity, and singularly responsive to any practical desire to be of +help. In the evening we held a united service. When the Presbyterian +gave the address the service was Anglican, and next Sunday the service +would be Presbyterian and the Church of England chaplain spoke. We took +our funerals to that so quickly growing cemetery with its six hundred +little wooden crosses, separately, though up the road those from the +other clearing station were taken by each chaplain on alternate days, +irrespective of denomination. We dispensed the Sacrament of the Lord's +Supper to our own people, using the beautiful little Communion set +issued by the War Office, and having as Table a stretcher covered with a +white cloth and set on trestles. + +The drawing power of nationality is immense in the field. It is far more +emphatic and real than the sense of particular church connection. Even +men very loyal to their own branch of the Presbyterian Church, for +example, lay little emphasis on that in their minds. They delight in +meeting a Scots doctor or Scots padre. He understands all the twined +fibres of tradition and training that go to make up their character. +Every man, too, likes to worship according to the forms that he is +familiar with. But Church of Scotland, or United Free Church of +Scotland, and so on, is all very much the same to him. I am speaking of +Christian men, of men quite aware of the historical situation. There +grows upon a man in the field a deeper love for his brother Scot, so +profound a sense of essential oneness in tradition, in history, in +character, in faith, that he comes to look forward eagerly, +_passionately_, to a blessed day of complete reconciliation. + +'Do you think that sort of thing matters now, Padre?' whispered a boy +who was desperately wounded, his skeleton hand picking restlessly at +the counterpane--a fine time for all our sound arguments! 'That sort of +thing' does matter, of course, but _then_ what could matter save to rest +wearily in the Everlasting Arms. I cannot believe that any one who has +knelt beside life after life passing forth in weariness and pain, cut +short so untimely, far from mothers' hands that would have ministered +love to them as they lay, and who has listened to the broken words of +trust, will ever allow his vision of the fundamental union of those who +are resting in the Eternal Love of God in Christ to be overshadowed by +lesser truths. + + +III + +_The Name of Jesus_ + +There are two periods in a soldier's life when he is especially alert to +the appeal of religion. One, as we have seen, is just after enlisting; +the other is after he has been wounded. A clearing station is the first +resting-place he has. He has had a terrible shaking, seen his chum +killed perhaps, taken part in savagery let loose. He is often all broken +up, seeking again for a foundation. The difficulty is that his stay is +so short, as a rule only a few days. Our record patient was poor Burke, +an Irishman from an Irish regiment. He had been wounded when out with a +wiring party which scattered under machine-gun fire. He crawled into a +Jack Johnson hole and lay there out of sight of either side, between the +trenches, for eight days and eight nights. He had a little biscuit and a +water bottle, nothing more. Shells screamed overhead or burst near, and +bullets whistled backwards and forwards over the shell-hole. There were +dead men near in all stages of decay. When he was discovered by a patrol +he had lain there for over two hundred hours, and he was not insane. We +speak lightly of 'more dead than alive.' He was literally that when he +was brought in. Gangrene had set in long ago, and his condition was +beyond description. Surgeon-generals and consulting surgeons came long +distances to see him, an unparalleled example of the tenacity of human +life. He lingered by a thread for many weeks, sometimes a little better, +more often shockingly ill; but at last, six weeks after admission, it +was decided he could be moved. The whole station came to say good-bye to +old Burke, and all who could went to see him lowered gently by the lift +into the barge. Later, we had letters to say that he had survived the +amputation of his leg, and was slowly recovering. But that was the +longest period that any patient stayed with us. Short as the time +generally was, however, it was sometimes long enough to become very +intimate, since both were so ready to meet. There is not, and never has +been a religious revival, in the usual sense of the term, on the +Flanders front, and I am afraid it is true that modern war knocks and +smashes any faith he ever had out of many a man. Yet in a hospital there +is much ground for believing that shining qualities which amid the +refinements of civilisation are often absent--staunch, and even tender +comradeship, readiness to judge kindly if judge at all, resolute +endurance, and absence of self-seeking, so typical of our fighting +men--have their root in a genuine religious experience more often than +is, in the battalions, immediately evident. It has been my experience, +again and again, that with dying men who have sunk into the last +lethargy, irresponsive to every other word, the Name of Jesus still can +penetrate and arouse. The hurried breathing becomes for a moment +regular, or the eyelids flicker, or the hand faintly returns the +pressure. I have scarcely ever known this to fail though all other +communication had stopped. It is surely very significant and moving. + + + + +THE AFTERMATH OF LOOS + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE AFTERMATH OF LOOS + + +I + +_The Flavour of Victory_ + +The jolliest man in the field is the man who, so to say, has been safely +wounded, that is, whose wound is serious enough to take him right down +the line, with a good prospect of crossing to Blighty, but not so +serious as to cause anxiety. I never met so hilarious a crowd as the +first batch of wounded from the fighting of 25th September 1915. We had +been prepared for a 'rush.' The growling of the guns had for days past +been growing deeper and more extended. It is, as a matter of fact, +impossible to keep a future offensive concealed. The precise time and +place may be unknown, but the gathering together of men, the piling up +of ammunition, and the necessary preparations for great numbers of +wounded, advertise inevitably that something is afoot. The ranks are not +slow to read the signs of the times: they say, for example, that an +inspection by the divisional-general can only mean one thing. How much +crosses to the other side it is hard to say, but the local inhabitants +know all that is common talk, and sometimes a great deal more. They have +eyes in their heads; they can see practice charges being carried +through, and note which regiments carry battle-marks on their uniforms; +and the little shops and estaminets are just soldiers' clubs where +gossip is 'swapped' as freely as in the London west-end clubs, and +unfortunately, is much better informed. A woman working on a farm once +told me to what part of the line a certain division was going on +returning from rest, and she gave a date. The commanding officers of the +battalions concerned knew nothing of it, and indeed a quite contrary +rumour was in circulation, but time proved the old woman to be right. + +The Loos offensive was no exception, and for many days anxious thoughts +and prayers had filled our hearts. We went from hope to despondency, and +back to hope again. I dare say the talk round the mess table was very +foolish. Compared with the earlier days of the war the country seemed +full of men, and we heard stories of great accumulation of ammunition. +Anything seemed possible. + +By nine o'clock on the morning of the 25th the convoys were coming in, +and the wounded streamed into the reception room. They were 'walking +cases,' men who had been wounded in the early part of the attack and, +able to walk, had made their way on foot to the regimental aid-post. All +had been going well when they left. They were bubbling over with good +spirits and excitement. Three--four--no, five lines of trenches had been +taken and 'the Boche was on the run.' They joked and laughed and slapped +one another on the back, and indeed this jovial crowd presented an +extraordinary appearance, caked and plastered with mud, with tunics +ripped and blood-stained, with German helmets, black or grey, stuck on +the back of their heads, and amazing souvenirs 'for the wife.' One man +with a rather guilty glance round produced for my private inspection +from under his coat an enormous silver crucifix about a foot long. He +found it in a German officer's dug-out, but probably it came originally +from some ruined French chapel. All souvenirs taken from dead enemies +are loathsome to me. It is merciful that so many people have no +imagination. I have never been able to understand, either, the carrying +home of bits of shell and mementoes of that kind. Any memento of these +unspeakable scenes of bloodshed is repulsive. Yet the British soldier is +as chivalrous as he is brave. He speaks terrible words about what he +will do to his foes, but when they are beaten and in his power he can +never carry it through. This was very striking when you consider that +until quite recently the German was 'top-dog' and how much our men had +suffered at his hands. But once the fight is over he is ready to regard +their individual account as settled. I remember so well one fire-eating +officer who was going to teach any prisoners that came into his hands +what British sternness meant. In due course twenty wounded Prussians +came in. He was discovered next day actually distributing cigarettes to +them. Now we must recollect that the British Tommy is not a class apart; +he is simply the 'man in the street,' the people. Sometimes there is +savage bitterness, not without good reason, and frequently the sullen or +frightened temper of the prisoners made friendliness difficult, but +Tommy--and by that name I mean the British citizen under arms--does not +long nourish grudges when the price has been paid. He is essentially +chivalrous, and even to his enemy, when the passion of fighting or the +strain of watchfulness is past, he is incurably kind. + +An atmosphere of hope and cheerfulness pervaded the clearing station +this first morning of the 'great offensive.' Passing through a ward I +said to the nurse, 'Well, sister, everything seems to be going +splendidly.' She looked up sombrely from the wound she was dressing and +replied, 'So they said in the first hours of Neuve Chapelle.' I was +chilled by what she said and felt angry with her. + + +II + +_Doubts and Fears_ + +As the day wore on the news was not so good. The Meerut Division, which +had delivered the containing attack in front of us on the Moulin du +Pietre, was where it had been before it attacked, so the wounded said, +with the exception of some units, notably Leicesters and Black Watch, +who had apparently disappeared. Perhaps all that had been intended had +been achieved. After all, the real battle--none could be more real and +more costly to those taking part in it than a containing attack, forlorn +hope as it often is--the _decisive_ battle was further south at Loos. +But the changed mood of the wounded now coming in was noticeable. Our +fighting men hate to be beaten, and the story was of confusion and lack +of support. Our own gas, too, had lingered on the ground and then +drifted back on our own trenches. A young German student who was brought +in wounded admitted the gallantry of the first rush, but he said, 'We +always understood those trenches could be rushed, but we also know that +they cannot be held on so small a front. They are commanded on either +side.' In all seven hundred wounded and gassed were brought in from the +British regiments of this division, and there was much work to be done. + +Sunday was a bright, warm day, and in the afternoon we gathered all who +could walk to a service in the green meadow behind the operating +theatre. (There, too, they were busy enough, God knows.) The men came +very willingly. I spoke a few words from the text 'Blessed are the +peacemakers,' for that benediction was meant also for those lads who had +just struck so brave a blow for a decent world. A gunner said +afterwards, 'Do you know, I have only heard two sermons since I came out +ten months ago. The other was by the Bishop of London, and he took the +same text!' It is, as a matter of fact, very difficult to serve the +gunners properly; they were so scattered in little groups. It was very +peaceful that Sunday afternoon--no sign of war anywhere, except the +maimed results of it--as those men remembered with tears those whom it +had 'pleased Almighty God to take out of this transitory world into His +mercy.' + +Every wounded man has a letter to write or to have written for him, and +it was essential that since the people at home knew there was heavy +fighting going on all messages should be sent off at once. This is one +of the chaplain's voluntary tasks, and we were kept close to it every +afternoon for some weeks after the offensive began. For some time the +number of letters was about four hundred every day. A number of men had +written farewell letters--very moving they seemed, but I did not think +it part of my duty to look too closely at these. They had addressed them +and then put them in their pockets, hoping that if they were killed they +might be discovered. Some had been finished just before the order to go +over the parapet. But the curious thing was that these were sent home, +with a few words in a covering note saying they were alive and well, as +a sort of keepsake. In those written after arrival in hospital a sense +of gratitude to God was very frequent, and a great longing for home and +the children. Some strange phrases were used: a mother would be +addressed as 'Dear old face,' or simply 'Old face.' But poets used to +write verses to their mistresses' eyebrows, and why not a letter to a +mother's face? + +The German prisoners sent a message asking if they might speak with the +_Hauptmann-Pfarrer_. They besought me to send word to their relatives +that they were safe. I took the full particulars and promised to ask the +Foreign Office to forward, but could not guarantee the messages getting +through, as their government was behaving very badly over the matter. +They were all very anxious that I should be sure and say their wounds +were slight (_leicht_). + +Next day came urgent orders that all wounded were to be evacuated who +could possibly be moved. So far as we had heard events seemed to be +moving fairly well at Loos, but there were some ugly rumours and the +atmosphere was one of great uneasiness. After dinner that evening the +commanding officer, Major Frankau, took me aside, and asked me not to +go to bed as they would need every available pair of hands throughout +the night. + + +III + +_Our Share of the Fifty Thousand_ + +It was ten o'clock when the first cars came crunching into the station +yard, and the convoys arrived one after another until five in the +morning. Then, as we could take in no more, the stream was diverted to +the other clearing station up the road. Before the war the deep hoot of +a car always seemed to say: 'Here am I, rich and rotund, rolling +comfortably on my way; I have laid up much goods and can take mine +ease'; but after that night it had another meaning: 'Slowly, tenderly, +oh! be pitiful. I am broken and in pain,' as the cars crept along over +the uneven roads. These were our share of the wounded from Loos, the +overflow of serious 'stretcher cases' who could not be taken in at the +already overworked stations immediately behind their own front. Many had +been lying on the battlefield many hours. They were for the most part +from the 15th (Scottish) Division and the 47th (London) Division. Both +had made a deathless name. The former got further forward than any +other, and paid the penalty with over six thousand casualties. All this +night the rain fell in torrents. It streamed from the tops and sides of +the ambulances, it lashed the yard till it rose in a fine spray; the +lamps shone on wetness everywhere--the dripping, anxious faces of the +drivers, the pallid faces of the wounded, eyes staring over their +drenched brown blankets, eyes puzzled in their pain and distress, like +those of hunted animals; and the reception room was filled with the +choking odours of steaming dirty blankets and uniforms, of drying human +bodies and of wounds and mortality. As each ambulance arrived the +stretchers, their occupants for the most part silent, were drawn gently +out and carried into the reception hall and laid upon the floor. At once +each man--the nature of whose wounds permitted it--was given a cup of +hot tea or of cold water, and a cigarette. Two by two they were lifted +on to the trestles, and examined and dressed by the surgeons. Their +fortitude was, as one of the surgeons said to me, uncanny. It was +supernatural. I could not have believed what could be endured without +complaint, often without even a word to express the horrid pain, unless +I had seen it. Amid all that battered, bleeding, shattered flesh and +bone, the human spirit showed itself a very splendid thing that night. +The reception room at last filled to overflowing and could not be +emptied. All the wards and lofts and tents were crammed. By the time the +other station was filled the two had taken in three thousand men. They +remained with us for a week, because the hospital trains were too busy +behind Loos to come our way. Every day every man had to have his wounds +dressed. Some were covered with wounds; many of the wounds were +dangerous, all were painful; and gas gangrene, which the surgeon so +hates to see, had to be fought again and again. The medical staff, seven +in number, worked on day after day, and night after night, skilfully, +tenderly, ruthlessly. There were also a great many operations, and +scores of difficult critical decisions. + +As we stepped out from among the blanketed forms I thought bitterly of +the 'glory' of war. Yet if there was any glory in war this was it. It +was here, in this patient suffering and obedience. These men might well +glory in their infirmities. This was heroism, the real thing, the spirit +rising to incredible heights of patient endurance in the foreseen +possible result of positive action for an ideal. The reaction from +battle is overwhelming. Passions that the civilised man simply does not +know, so colourless is his experience of them in ordinary days, are let +loose, anger and terror and horror and lust to kill. So for a while, as +nearly always happens, even wounds lost their power to pain in the +sleep of bottomless exhaustion. Those who could not sleep were drugged +with morphine. The moaning never stopped, but rose and fell and rose +again. It shook my heart. We turned from the ashen faces and went out +into the grey morning light. Everything seemed very grey. A mist was +drawing up slowly from the sluggish Lys, and we wondered as we went +shivering through it across the soaked grass what was happening beyond +it over there at Loos. + +Next afternoon at tea we were all cheered by the news that a man who had +had his leg taken off three hours before was asking for a penny whistle. +At last it was discovered that one of the cooks had one. (Cooks in the +army are a race apart, possessors of all kinds of strange +accomplishments.) It was willingly handed over, and soon the strains of +'Annie Laurie' were rising softly from a cot in Ward VIII. + +A month later the Principal Chaplain asked me to go to a battalion. +Chaplains who had been through the previous winter with battalions were +not anxious for another winter of it, if fresh men could be found. I was +thankful to go, in spite of all the kindness there had been on every +hand and the friendships made. The devilish ingenuity of wounds was +getting the better of me. + +My charge was a brigade, containing a battalion of the Gordon +Highlanders, with which I was directed to mess. But the day I joined, +this battalion was taken out of the brigade, and as soon as the +rearrangement was completed I was transferred to one of the battalions +of The Royal Scots. While I was with this unit both its commanding +officer and its adjutant were changed. In both cases the cause was the +promotion of the officer in question. + + + + +DUMBARTON'S DRUMS + +_The Regimental Ribbon of The Royal Scots is shown on the wrapper of +this book_ + + + + +CHAPTER V + +DUMBARTON'S DRUMS + + +I + +_Back Again!_ + +The landing of the British Expeditionary Force in the far-away days of +August 1914 was one of the great moments of history. And Scotland has a +special share in the pride and sorrow that surround that great day, for +in her premier regiment centred memories of warfare and endurance, of +ancient alliances and ancient enmities, without a parallel in the story +of any other regular regiment. The oldest regiment in Europe was on the +battlefield once again. The First, or Royal Regiment of Foot, now known +as The Royal Scots, when it climbed the steep streets of Boulogne, +marched on a soil sacred to it by the memories of heroic campaigns. +Names that were as yet unfamiliar to the world at large were dear to it +as the last resting-places of its comrades of long ago--names such as +Dunkirk and Dixmude, Furnes and Ypres, Saberne and Bar-le-Duc. Hepburn's +Regiment had fought over every foot of the ground on which it was now to +share the waging of the greatest of all campaigns. Dumbarton's Drums +were once more beating their way through Europe to the making of +history. The trust of Gustavus Adolphus and Turenne, of Marlborough and +Wellington, marched with them as the promise of victory; and from the +old Royals, dustily climbing the cobbled street, spoke all the glamour +of 'age-kept victories.' + +France was a smiling land in those days, for the sun shone in the hearts +of Frenchwomen as the rumour of war rose from the anxiously expected +British columns and drifted across the shining August fields. The 2nd +battalion--the 1st was still in India--tramped cheerily on its way. To +no one then was there revealed that dreary vista of trenches that was to +be war to the mind of the modern soldier. + + +II + +_The First Shock of War_ + +Mons and the 23rd of August saw The Royals in action. With other +battalions they occupied the Mons salient, actually the point on which +the torrent of war first broke and for a brief moment spent itself. On +that still night it seemed to hang suspended as a great wave does +before falling. As the battalion lay in the shallow trench the pregnant +silence was at last broken by the high, clear call of a bugle, one +single long note, indescribably eerie and menacing, and then the +listening men heard the rustling tread of feet moving through the grass +with a steady, regular, ominous advance. The might of Germany was on the +move, and still the thin brown line lay tense and silent, until only +forty paces separated the two. Then, at a word, The Royals' line broke +into a storm of flame which swept the line of the advancing men as a +scythe sweeps through the corn; and for the British infantry the great +war had begun. + +Mons was a victory; the German advance was held up temporarily. But all +night the British troops were being withdrawn. It was after five in the +morning before The Royals got their orders to move, and 'A' Company +claims to be the last of the British army to leave Mons. But Le Cateau +was another story. Here our men learned what the concentrated fire of +artillery could be. The shallow trenches were obliterated; our gunners, +hopelessly outclassed in weight and number of pieces, could do little, +in spite of the greatest gallantry, to protect the infantry; and that +the army was able to withdraw at all was a striking proof of its stern +discipline. Audencourt was a shambles. Colonel McMicking, wounded near +this village and left behind, as all the wounded who were unable to walk +had to be, was hit again while being carried out of the blazing church. +The command devolved on Major, now Brigadier-General, Duncan. From this +time onwards the German guns had the range of the roads, and such a +superiority of fire that they could do almost as they pleased. The +infantry, at first furious at the necessity of retreat, turned again and +again--as did the guns--on their pursuers, but even so the pressure was +perilously near breaking point. The enemy had every means of mechanical +transport, and was able to find time for rest. Our men had to press on +to the last point of human endurance. There was no respite. The French +Foreign Legion have a grim saying, 'March or die.' Here the word was +'March or be captured,' and even when every other conscious feeling but +that of utter exhaustion seemed dead, somewhere deep down in their +hearts the will to endure urged them on. + +Is there no painter, no poet, who can enshrine for future generations +the memory of this historic scene? We have here a sudden glimpse of +Britain at her best. Hot sun, torment of burning feet on the cruel, +white, and endless roads, the odour and sight and sound of death and +wounds, pressure of pressing men, and love of life and the horrid +loneliness of fear--all that was Giant Circumstance; but he could not +extinguish the souls of men made in the image of God for suffering and +endurance and triumph. English and Irish and Scottish--but brothers in +hatred of retreat and in their determination to push on until they could +turn and strike--the glamour of great names hung round all those +tattered battalions; and the very essence of it was in the oldest of +them all, in history and in campaigns, this famous Lowland regiment. Of +that at such a time they thought little, if at all; sheer physical facts +pressed too hard, yet in their desperate victory over circumstance they +wrote the most golden page of their story, and enriched the blood of all +who follow them. + +You can find a certain humour in war if you look for it, though war is +not amusing, and life at home has many more entertaining incidents in it +than life at the front. One officer of The Royals fell sound asleep in a +trench during the climax of a terrific bombardment, and awoke to find +himself alone among the dead. (He makes us laugh when he tells the +story, but at the time it cannot have been just very humorous.) He +pushed on after the retreating army, and though--owing to the mistake of +an officer at a cross-roads who stood saying, 'Third division to the +right, So-and-so division to the left,' when it should have been the +other way about--he lost his way, he found the battalion a fortnight +later. Two others came in sight of the last bridge standing on one river +just as the explosive was about to be detonated, and maintain that, +running furiously toward the bridge, they persuaded the engineer in +charge to postpone the fatal moment by brandishing a large loaf, rarest +of all articles on the heels of a retreating army. Another who had been +sent on ahead to find a billet in a château saw a beautiful bathroom, +and was preparing to make use of a priceless opportunity when he found +that the enemy was upon him, and fled in haste. The transport officer, +peering round the corner of a house, saw his beloved transport which he +had gathered and cherished until it was reputed the best in the army, +go up in matchwood and iron splinters. One subaltern, finding himself on +the ground, discovered to his horror that he had a hole in his chest, +but struggled gamely on, now walking, now stealing a ride on a +limber--just catching the last train of all--and finally arriving in +England with no other articles of kit or clothing but a suit of pink +pyjamas and a single eyeglass. + +At Meaux the steeples of Paris were in sight; but the hour had struck, +and The Royals at last wheeled to pursue. + + +III + +_At the Nose of the Salient_ + +The battalion had come through much since then, on the Marne and the +Aisne and the Lys, and in trench warfare from Hooge to Neuve Chapelle. +Here is a picture of a day's fighting from the diary of an eyewitness--a +bald note of facts. It refers to 25th September 1915:-- + +'The brigade formed up in the trench in the following order from left to +right, 1st Gordons, 4th Gordons, 2nd Royals, one company Royal Scots +Fusiliers. Each battalion received separate point of attack, namely, +Bellevarde Farm, Hooge Château, Redoubt, Sandbag Castle. Artillery +bombardment 3.50-4.20 A.M. General attack then launched. "B" Company was +at the nose of the salient; "C" Company on right of "B"; "A" Company on +left; "D" Company in dug-outs in reserve. At 4.20 A.M. the battalion +advanced to the attack. Complete silence was observed and bayonets were +dulled. The front line was captured with few casualties on our side, and +shortly after the final objective was successfully attained. Our line +was consolidated. One hundred and sixteen prisoners belonging to the +172nd Regiment of XV. Prussian Corps were taken and three lines of +trenches. All four officers of "B" Company were hit before German front +line was reached. Touch was established with R.S.F. on right and 4th +G.H. on left. There was heavy German shell-fire on the captured +trenches. A party from "D" Company tried to make communication trench +back to our old front line, 1st Gordons unfortunately were not able to +reach the German front line owing to wire being undestroyed and too +thick to cut. A gap was thus made between 1st and 4th Gordons. The enemy +pushed bombers through, thus getting behind 4th Gordons. Desperate +hand-to-hand fighting ensued. O.C. "A" Company was forced to defend his +left flank. A German counter-attack moving N. to S. by C.T. across the +Menin Road, The Royals' machine-gun did great execution. Terrific +bombardment by German heavies (H.E.). "A" Company was ordered to retire +on our old front line to get in touch with 4th G.H. on left. "B" Company +to keep in touch ordered to do the same. "C" Company rinding enemy on +left rear, position became critical. No battalion at all now on left, +1st Gordons having failed in their objective, and 4th having been +withdrawn owing to flank attack in front of 1st. No battalion now on +right either. "C" Company in danger of being surrounded. Captain N.S. +Stewart personally reported the danger of his position. A company of 4th +Middlesex were rushed up--all our men by this time having been used +up--to the nose of the salient, but could not man it owing to terrific +barrage of fire. "C" Company, completely cut off, fought its way with +the bayonet back to its former front line. Colonel Duncan reorganised +the firing line. Both sides spent the night in gathering in the +wounded.' + +So ended the containing attack from the Ypres salient. But is not every +sentence a spur to the imagination? + +Two days later, the Corps commander, in personally thanking the +battalion, complimented it on 'the smart appearance of the men who +_showed no signs of what they had gone through_.' + +It was to this famous battalion of a great Regiment that I was now +attached as one of the four Presbyterian chaplains to the 'fighting +Third' Division. + + + + +WINTER WARFARE + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WINTER WARFARE + + +I + +_The Shell Area_ + +The shell area is all the land behind the trenches which is under fire +from the enemy's guns as a matter of course. It is not a pleasant place, +for that reason, to walk about in, and our own artillery, cleverly +concealed, is apt to open fire unexpectedly within a few yards of the +passer-by in a way that is very disturbing. It is a dreary land; a dank +air broods over it, an atmosphere of destruction and death, of humanity +gone awry and desolate. I remember the almost ecstasy with which one +April afternoon some of us found ourselves among the purple hyacinths +on Kemmel hill. Poor Kemmel, once a pleasure resort whither happy +Belgians went for the benefit of their health, now far from that--and +not particularly healthy! These battered villages are now merely sordid; +only Ypres maintains a personality, an air of undefeat all its own. It +too is a ruin, but unlike the others it is a splendid ruin. At every +cross-roads the brooding crucifixes hang. The British mind does not like +this constant reiteration of mishandling and defeat in the death of +Christ. It does not seem to it to be the final message of the Cross. +Indeed, it is the product of the mediaeval, monkish mind. It was not +until the tenth century that the representations of the Crucifixion +showed Our Lord as dead; it was much later before the emphasis was laid +on agony and despair. Once from among the debris of the convent in +Voormezeele I rescued such a representation of the Body of Christ, limbs +gone, broken arms outstretched, and it seemed a symbol. But that is not +the final truth, defeat and despair. The cross-road shrines would not +look down on those groups of tramping Islanders if it were so. And as +you look back over the parados of the firing trench, across the bleached +and scarred countryside, you remember that _that_, like the scenes of +agony in the clearing station after Loos, is the plain, visible proof +that His Spirit lives in the world of men. But what a Via Dolorosa it +is, that grim ditch dug across Europe, with its crouching men behind the +snipers' plates. Strange path for the twentieth century to have to walk +in, to prove that compassion and righteousness still live. + +In all this area the British soldier walks with a singular +_insouciance_. It is not simply that he is brave. He is that, supremely +so, and not least when he is very much afraid and will not show it and +carries on with his job. But there is more in it than that. There is a +kind of warlike genius in him which makes him do the right thing in the +right way, so that he appeals to humour and comradeship as well as to +gallantry. It was one of our sergeant-majors who before a battalion +attack offered £5 to the man of his company who was first in the enemy's +trench. Think of it for a moment. He appealed to their sporting +instinct; he turned their thoughts from death and wounds and introduced +a jest into every dug-out that night; and he indicated, without +boasting, that he was going to be first over the parapet. He made it +certain that every sportsman in the company--and what British regular is +not--would strain every nerve to be first across. And the cream of the +jest was that, stalwart athlete that he was, he was first across +himself! The same may be said of the officer; he wins more than +obedience from his men. I have seen senior N.C.O.'s crying like children +because their young officer was dead. + +Along with this courage and comradeship and humour there is often a +great deal of fatalism. It expresses itself in many ways, in the reading +of Omar Khayyam--'The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes'--for +example, in the indifference so often shown by men if they lose through +their own fault some 'cushy job' and have to go back to the line, or in +the doing of really foolish things, foolish because dangerous, but +useless. I remember sitting outside the dug-out of Captain Chree (who +afterwards laid down his life on the Somme) at battalion headquarters, +and watching the shelling of one of our batteries of 18-pounders some +five hundred yards back. The Germans had searched for it repeatedly with +lavish expenditure of ammunition, and that afternoon they got it +repeatedly, with very unpleasant results. But of course there were many +misses. Whenever the German shells fell short they burst in the field, +in front of the battery, which was bounded on two sides by a road. In +the midst of the bombardment a soldier came down the road facing us and, +instead of walking round by the cross-roads, cut across the field in +which shells were bursting. He deliberately left comparative safety for +real danger simply in order to save himself five minutes' walk. On +another occasion, when I was at dusk one evening in Vierstraat, a Tommy +came along carrying some burden. At this point he got tired and planted +it down right in the middle of the cross-roads. Another man told him he +could not have chosen a worse place for a rest, that the Boche was +always firing rifles and machine-guns up the road, but he was prevailed +upon to move only with the greatest difficulty. Perhaps in another class +was the soldier the doctor and I came upon suddenly in a ruined house in +Ypres kicking with all the strength of an iron-shod boot at the fuse of +an unexploded German shell. A friend with his hands in his pockets was +watching the proceedings with much interest. He said he was only +wanting the fuse as a souvenir, but he would soon have got that to keep +and a good deal more. The doctor was quite peevish about it, as the +saying is! + +When an attack is being made or repelled, the concentration of batteries +in action turns the country in front of them into a nightmare of +noise--'a terrific and intolerable noise' in Froissart's phrase. The +incessant slamming of the guns makes it impossible to hear enemy shells +coming. The first intimation is their arrival. But the orderlies go +backwards and forwards through it all with superb courage. Wounded +trickle down the trolley line to the dressing station, and an occasional +group of prisoners come through. It was on a day like this that I saw +Davidson and Rainie for the last time. When The Royals were moved up +from the support trenches to take over from the battalion which had +delivered the attack at St. Eloi, some one said to Captain Davidson, who +was going up at the head of his company through a terrible barrage, +'This is going to be a risky affair.' 'Yes,' he replied, 'but it's not +our business whether it's risky or not. My orders are to go through.' +Soon after he fell. He was barely twenty years of age. + + +II + +_'I hate war: that is why I am fighting'_ + +There is a garden in Vlamertynghe with a marble seat overturned beside a +smashed tree, a corner just made for lovers, once. An enormous crump +hole fills the greater part of the garden, and the wall has fallen +outwards in one mass leaving the fruit trees standing in a line, their +arms outstretched. Across on the other side of the road Captain Norman +Stewart lies buried. But his memory lives in the hearts of men, and +wherever the 2nd battalion gathers round its braziers and in the glow of +them the stories of the heroes of the regiment are passed on from the +veterans to the younger men, Stewart will be remembered with reverence +as one who not only upheld but created regimental tradition. + +It was a bombing affair in which he died, detachments of Suffolks, +Middlesex, and Royal Scots, under his leadership, being ordered to drive +the enemy out of the tip of the salient. Barricades made progress almost +impossible in face of a murderous machine-gun fire. Owing to the +confused nature of the fighting no quarter could be given, and +desperate fighting ensued with bombs, bayonets and hand to hand. Finally +ten yards were gained and the ground consolidated. + +At one point of the fight, finding progress otherwise impossible, +Captain Stewart mounted to the top of the barricade in full view of the +enemy, with shells and bombs bursting all round and under machine-gun +and rifle fire. Though wounded he remained there in face of certain +death for over ten minutes. From bucket after bucket handed up to him he +still hurled bombs at the thronging enemy beneath, until a sniper crept +round to his flank, and this heroic Scotsman fell. + + 'They pass, they pass, but cannot pass away, + For _Scotland_ feels them in her blood like wine.' + +The night before he died Stewart said to a friend, 'I hate war: that is +why I am fighting.' + + +III + +_Billets and Camps_ + +The camps to which the battalion returned after each tour of the +trenches were for the most part out of danger except for an occasional +shell, but it was only when we were withdrawn to the 'rest area' that we +felt any sense of freedom to settle down and take stock of ourselves. +Both Colonel Duncan and Colonel Dyson, to whom I owe countless +kindnesses, were keen disciplinarians, and Major Everingham, the +Quartermaster, imperturbable, efficient, could really perform almost +superhuman feats. A man can only know his own department, and in mine +the standard of a battalion is shown by its attitude to religious +observances. A bad battalion finds too many engagements to turn out in +any strength on Sunday. I used to feel so proud as the old Royals, every +available man on parade, would march up behind their pipes and drums, +alert, well-groomed, punctilious in all the minor forms that are so +important an evidence of a battalion's condition. In rest billets we all +got to work; there were marches and manoeuvres, cinematographs and +cross-country runs, football matches and boxing competitions. These men +when stripped were so much more beautiful than in their clothes. Of how +many in civilian occupations could that be said? The battalion would be +refitted; a brewer's great vat was commandeered for a bathing-place; +the village school was turned, every evening, into a recreation room; +and a communicants' class was started. Not for the first time I longed +for a brief, clear statement of our Church's faith. The cumbrous +complicated Catechisms and Confessions are magnificent monuments, but +they are worse than useless under such conditions. A _Credo_ which could +be written on a blackboard and pointed to as the Church member's +essential Confession of Faith, to be developed and expanded according to +the need and circumstances, would be a real power in a chaplain's hands. +The men's behaviour in billets--ramshackle barns for the most part--was +almost exemplary. Only once or twice small episodes occurred in +connection with hen-roosts, and on one occasion a sucking-pig was +slaughtered amid its brethren at the dead of night. It must have been a +temporary madness that possessed the author of this escapade, for he had +no possible chance of escape. It was pleaded on his behalf, on his +appearance before the Colonel, that he had recently done a gallant deed, +but as some one said, 'If every man who did a gallant deed was allowed +to kill a pig there would not be a pig left in Flanders.' + +It was the cleanness of the air and of the soil that made a rest back +among the far-stretching forests of the Pas de Calais so different from +one nearer the line. To get on bridle-paths and roads free from lorry +traffic and let your horse out at full stretch over the fallen leaves +down some long grey-purple vista of bare trees, and feel the clean wind +whistling past your ears and smell the fresh odours of the great woods, +to see the blue smoke drifting up from some forester's cottage, or for a +moment in passing catch a glimpse of a fairy-story scene of charcoal +burners grouped together in a glade, was to ride into another world of +thought and feeling. My little horse John, one of the five horses left +of those who crossed with the battalion, felt it too--thought perhaps he +was in old England again. But the British soldier hates manoeuvres and +marches and drills and inspections. He would rather be left in peace in +his trenches, in a 'quiet' part of the line at least, than bothered +about those things. Movement, too, has an exhilarating effect on him, +and so when orders come to go back into action he tramps off with +remarkable goodwill. I remember one battalion of Royal Welsh Fusiliers, +suddenly rushed up from rest, pulled out of the station singing a song +of which the refrain is something like 'Ai, ai! Vot a game it is!' at +the top of their voices. And it really is by no means a game. As the +Colonel used to say (very moderately), 'Life out here is not all joy!' + +One November evening I was picking my way cautiously through the mud +camp near Reninghelst, and hearing the tune of a famous hymn, drew near +to listen, for Jock sometimes sings to hymn tunes words that certainly +never appeared in any hymn-book, and I wanted to make sure that it _was_ +the greatest hymn in the English language which was being sung. It was a +quiet night. Now and again a heavy gun fired a round, and infrequently, +on a gentle wind blowing from the trenches, was borne the rattle of a +machine-gun. From all the camp arose the subdued confused noise of an +army settling to rest for the night. Some tents were in darkness, in +others a candle burned, and here and there braziers still glowed redly. +It was from one of the lighted tents that the singing came, each part +being taken, and a sweet clear tenor voice leading. The tune was old +'Communion,' and they had just come to this verse: + + 'Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, + Save in the death of Christ, my God: + All the vain things that charm me most, + I sacrifice them to His blood.' + +How often have we sung that, perhaps thoughtlessly, in comfort at home, +but these lads had in truth sacrificed the 'vain things.' With a lump in +my throat I waited for the last verse: + + 'Were the whole realm of nature mine, + That were an offering far too small; + Love so amazing, so divine, + Demands my life, my soul, my all.' + + + + +HOW THE ROYALS HELD THE BLUFF: AN EPISODE OF TRENCH WARFARE + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +HOW THE ROYALS HELD THE BLUFF: AN EPISODE OF TRENCH WARFARE + + +I + +_Waiting_ + +The beginning of March found me with a battalion of The Royals in a +rather battered Belgian town. Its centre received a good deal of +attention from enemy artillery, but it offered two attractions which +brought in officers from divisions all around. After all, to men +accustomed to living in the trenches, the atmosphere was one of almost +Sabbath peace. The hall where 'The Fancies' made much of the humours of +trench life to uproariously delighted audiences was crowded out night +after night. You could not find anywhere greater zest and enjoyment. The +striking comradeship of soldiering, the common experience of audience +and actors, and the abandonment of all thought for the morrow, gave that +impression of cheerful carelessness the root of which is not happiness +but the conviction that the future is so uncertain and the possibilities +so dreadful that he is wise who lives for the hour only, even as the +hour may snatch life from him. I thought I knew the head in front of me, +and, leaning forward, saw it was my brother-in-law. It has always struck +me as quaint that he, who had been with his battery for a year and a +half, and I, who had been out for nine months, should have met again +under such circumstances. I had pictured a stricken field and much +coolness exhibited in an admittedly dramatic moment--something in line +with Stanley's 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume.' It was comforting to find +it otherwise, but, as Smee says in _Peter Pan_, it was 'galling too.' +First when looking into a shop window, and now in a concert hall, in all +these months of war! We said, 'Not a bad show, is it?' 'Not half bad.' +But there have been some strange meetings in this war. A private in our +battalion discovered his son, a boy of seventeen, in a new draft which +had just come up to the line. He had run away from home and been lost to +sight. The father set matters on a proper footing by thrashing his son +there and then in the front trench! + +War was not very far off after all. Two days later we were having lunch +in the comfortable warm restaurant which is this tedious town's other +attraction. We drank our coffee to the accompaniment of the nasty sound +of arriving shells. Every time a shell screamed towards us the stout +lady behind the counter dropped on hands and knees, emerging flushed and +trembling after each had burst. We were rather amused; but when we went +out and round the corner of the street, the body of a man was being +swiftly carried away wrapped in a brown blanket. Forty soldiers, it was +said, had been killed and wounded. Distracted women stood in little +groups in the passages of the houses, and there was much blood in the +gutters. + +Only a country invaded by the enemy drinks to its dregs the cup of war, +but the narrow belt a few miles behind the friendly army's trenches +enjoys great prosperity. The love of home or the love of money keeps the +population in many places where it would be better away. One beautiful +spring day I took shelter behind a farmhouse in the Hallebast-Vierstraat +area until some shelling on the path ahead had died down. The farmer's +wife came out and we got into conversation. A rise in the ground gave +some shelter from the German lines, but she told me that any movement on +horseback was immediately sniped with whizbangs. The day before all her +cows had been killed by shell-fire in the paddock behind the farmhouse, +but if she and her elderly husband let their land go out of cultivation, +how were they to live, and if they left, where could they go? When +high-explosives blew great holes in their sown land they just filled in +the holes and ploughed and sowed the place over again. The settled +sadness of her face and voice haunts me still. Others, however, stay in +danger because they are making so much money. Several shopkeepers in +this town admitted they had never known such prosperity. The estaminets +make enormous profits from the sale of very weak beer. A friend of mine, +having drawn battalion pay in notes of too large amounts, was told to +return to the paymaster and draw it in smaller sums. He found the office +closed, and turned into a little village shop to see if they could +change a part of it. To his amazement they changed the whole of it from +the till. The total amount was ten thousand francs. But how many +Belgians have lost their all? + +Our billets were clean and very airy. For some reason, though all +furniture had been removed, the presses, which were all open, were full +of beautiful bed and table linen. It was very tempting, but fortunately +we resisted the temptation. The morning after we arrived, about seven +o'clock, a disturbance arose below. Angry women's voices were heard in +altercation with the servants, there were hurried footsteps on the +stair, and a moment later our door was thrust violently open. Two +strapping Belgian women strode in and demanded answers to many +questions. We adopted our friend the Major's plan, and feigned to know +even less French than we did. We were anxious to be very inoffensive as +we lay on the floor and watched these determined individuals throwing +open the presses and wardrobes. Inside the linen lay untouched, folded +neatly; we felt thankful we had left it so. They stamped out again, and +we heard the Colonel's voice raised in protest next door. The doctor and +I looked at one another. He seemed rather pale, and I noticed for the +first time that his head rested on an enormous soft pillow covered with +a spotless linen pillow-slip edged with beautiful lace. + +But next morning we had a different awakening. Dawn was rising wanly +from the east to another day on the Salient. The broken windows were +rattling and the floor trembling under the dull continuous thudding of a +concentrated bombardment. We lay and listened, and for the thousandth +time hated war. We knew that men, some of whom we knew and loved, were +going over the parapet, many never to return. + +That night, as dusk fell, the old steeple with its rent side looked down +on cobbled streets thronging with ordered ranks of men standing ready to +move. Here and there a few officers spoke together, or a man gave his +chum a light from his fag, or straps were tightened. A rifle butt rang +on the pavement, and the adjutant's horse moved his feet restlessly. +These men had no illusions as to what they would probably have to face; +but none guessed that there lay ahead the most dreadful test of physical +endurance which the old battalion, since the great retreat, had ever +known. + + +II + +_The Bluff_ + +What had happened was this. Soon after our division had been moved back +to the rest area, part of the line which it had been holding was +strongly attacked and lost to the enemy. Several counter-attacks failed, +and finally our own Division was brought back from rest to recapture +the lost trenches. One brigade attacked with great dash and success. The +lost trenches were re-occupied, and our own brigade, which had been +lying in support, was ordered to take over and hold them against the +expected counter-attacks. The Bluff, which was the main feature of the +position and the worst part of which The Royals, as the senior +battalion, were given to hold, was a low hill jutting out at the +re-entrant to the Salient, south-east of Ypres. It was a strong tactical +position commanding the approaches to our trenches, as the enemy well +knew. Seen from our front line farther south it had the dead, bleak +appearance of all ground that is much shelled. Pitted by high explosive, +burned yellow by fumes of gas and shells, and stripped of every living +thing, with blackened stumps of trees sparsely scattered on its summit, +this muddy hillock dominated the flat lands, and, on the sunny morning +when I first saw it, seemed indescribably sinister and menacing. It said +to me, 'I am war, the antagonist of everything clean and comely, of +everything fresh and young: misery of mind and body, torment of kindly +earth and all its little growing things, lover of all that is foul and +dead.' + + +III + +_'We've keepit up the reputation o' the auld mob, onyway'_ + +That night the weather suddenly changed. There had been a hint of spring +in the air, but in an hour that was wiped out by a bitter north wind +sweeping the bare fields with icy rain and snow. The transport, pitched +in the filthy morass known as 'Scottish Lines,' saw its labour of three +weeks thrown away in a couple of nights. For the human beings there were +a few tents and huts, but in face of the searching wind canvas seemed +quite porous, and the huts were badly built and had a hundred openings +to the bitter air. But up at the Bluff conditions were terrible. The +trenches had disappeared under repeated bombardments, and had become +mere chains of shell holes in which the men stood up to their thighs in +liquid mud. When the C.O. arrived to take over the headquarters' dug-out +he found it blown to pieces. Within lay the bodies of the previous +occupants--four officers. Another dug-out was finally found. It was deep +in a bank at the end of a narrow passage twenty feet long. Within was a +chamber six feet long, four broad and four high, and in this place, so +horribly like a grave, the C.O., second-in-command, and adjutant lived +for three days and four nights. A candle gave light, and whenever a +shell burst above the flame jerked out. The sergeant-major and the +orderlies and servants lived in the tunnel, squatting on their haunches +in the mud. Outside there were no other dug-outs at all. The shelling +was continuous, but the cold was far worse. Men sank in the mud and +remained motionless for hours. Many fell into shell holes and had to be +hauled out with twisted telephone wires. The wounded suffered horribly. +Owing to the mud and the German barrage no supplies could be brought up, +and it was impossible to light braziers. On the fourth night relief +came, but it was daylight before the last company sucked itself out of +its mudholes and waded back in full view of the enemy. Fortunately a +blinding snowstorm swept down from the north and hid all movement just +when it seemed certain that disaster would occur. Every available +vehicle was sent up to meet the battalion, but there was a long walk +before these could be reached. The men crept along on sodden, swollen +feet--no gumboots had been obtainable. They came along in groups, now of +two or three, now of six or seven, or one by one. They were bent like +old men, and staggered as they walked, their faces set and grey. The +most terrible thing of all was the utter silence. Snow muffled the fall +of the dragging feet; it lay thick on the masses of ruins in the +shattered empty villages; and when the brigade major's greeting rang +out men shrank and looked fearful at the sudden sound. Yet when I spoke +to any, as they staggered through the snow past the point whither I had +gone to meet them, life flickered up for a moment from the depths of +that final exhaustion. 'What price Charlie Chaplin now, sir!' said one +man whose wavering footsteps led him hither and thither. And another in +simple words summed up the heroic simple spirit of them all: 'Well, +we've keepit up the reputation o' the auld mob, onyway.' Indomitable +men! Who could ever vanquish you? + +Rest meant tent boards under frozen canvas, but it was rest. On that +weary morning even the uninviting outline of Reninghelst village seemed +like home. + + + + +THE HISTORIC TRIANGLE + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HISTORIC TRIANGLE + + +The last time I saw the Ypres salient was from the shoulder of the +Scherpenberg. The torn church tower of Dickebusch stood up darkly near a +leaden gleam of water. From St. Eloi in front of it trenches ran curving +up to Hooge and back again to within, on the north, a mile and a half of +Ypres, enclosing the level, sodden farmland four miles across its base, +two from base to nose, which is the Ypres salient. A reluctant dawn was +turning the darkness to a dull and threatening day, and as it grew +lighter the famous miles slowly came into view. It was the hour of +'Stand-to.' All round the Salient, and north and south of it far beyond +the horizon, the trenches were filled with watching men, weary from the +night's toil at digging or wiring or 'carrying' fatigues, but standing +ready until the dangerous hour of dawn should pass. It had been an +anxious week, for the wind was blowing from the enemy's lines, and night +after night the long warning call of the gas-gongs, followed in a moment +by the awakening of all the Salient into a ring of darting flames and +tremendous concussions as the guns were called into action, had brought +all ranks to their feet. But this morning no sound broke the strange +silence. It was hard to believe that hidden beneath the soil tens of +thousands of men were silently standing face to face. As the dawn lifted +I knew that everywhere in the ten-mile ring the British soldier was +boiling the water for his tea, very strong and very sweet, the first of +half a dozen tea brewings he would make that day. Another day of the war +had begun. + +Surely so long as great deeds appeal to the British race those weary +miles will be always sacred. Within them lie the unnumbered British +dead, 'the dear, pitiful, august dead.' Comrades of the dauntless +warriors of Gallipoli, comrades of the sailors who have gone down +fighting in the cold waters of the North Sea, brothers of all brave men +suffering for a clean cause, they leave the issue with us. As long as +the British Empire endures, and it will endure so long as it works for +God and no longer, the memory of the heroes of the Ypres salient will +live and glow. + +'I hate war: that is why I am fighting,' said one of them. They fought +not merely for their country, but because they believed they were +fighting war itself. We shall not be true to their memory unless we +remember that. 'Slavery will always be,' said the defenders of slavery. +'It is impossible to prevent those things, human nature being what it +is,' said others of schools like Dotheboys Hall. A little time ago +England and Scotland were at one another's throats; a little before that +clan fell upon clan with vindictive fury. When we have beaten Germany, +who stands for the old, rotten, pagan belief in old, rotten, pagan +things we must see that we do not betray the men who died fighting +because they hated war. + +But war has good in it too, they say. Yes, and amid its hideous wrong no +doubt there was good in slavery, as there is in cancer or blindness. +Almost any evil or agony may be the root of noble qualities, and war is +no exception. + +These men died in the hope that it might be impossible for a civilised +nation again to thrust this evil on the human race. They died trusting +us to see that Europe would not again have to choose the alternative of +entering upon such an agony or of forgetting its honour towards God. +Force, it would seem, must long remain the last remedy, but might it not +be force resting on a pivot and striking with effect wherever +international crime seeks to disturb the peace of the nations? The mere +knowledge of such a united determination would at least be a powerful +persuasive. That may be only a dream. The immediate fact is that the +doctrine of Will to Power must first be crushed, represented as it is +to-day by Germany and her dupes. But men who have been through the +furnace will not rest content with less than the solemn attempt, in the +name of the dead, to put the nations of the world in a worthier +relationship to one another than has so far prevailed. Our brothers who +have fallen died in the hope that for succeeding generations life would +be different. They died believing that because of their sacrifice it +might be possible to substitute for the German (or any other) Will to +Power the Christian Will to Righteous Peace. This effort alone can be +their fitting monument. + + * * * * * + +Printed in Great Britain by T. AND A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty +at the Edinburgh University Press + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of On the King's Service, by Innes Logan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE KING'S SERVICE *** + +***** This file should be named 16992-8.txt or 16992-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/9/9/16992/ + +Produced by Irma Spehar, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. 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Innes Logan, M.A. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p {margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + text-indent: 1.25em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + img {border: 0;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;} + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the King's Service, by Innes Logan + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: On the King's Service + Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms + +Author: Innes Logan + +Release Date: November 3, 2005 [EBook #16992] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE KING'S SERVICE *** + + + + +Produced by Irma Spehar, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p> + + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span> +</p> + +<h1>ON THE </h1> +<h1>KING'S SERVICE</h1> + +<h2>Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms</h2> + +<h3>BY THE REV.</h3> +<h2>INNES LOGAN, M.A.</h2> + +<div class='center'><br /><br /><br />CHAPLAIN TO THE FORCES<br /> +SEPT. 1914-MAY 1916<br /><br /><br /></div> + +<div class="center">HODDER AND STOUGHTON<br /> +LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO<br /> +MCMXVII</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>TO MY WIFE</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>This little book is written as a slight tribute of love and respect +for those with whom the writer had, for over twenty months, the honour +of association.</p> + +<div class='center'><span class="smcap">United Free Church of Scotland Manse, Braemar.</span></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='center'>CHAPTER I</td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='center'>MUSTERING MEN</td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='left'></td> +<td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td> +<td align='left'>THOSE GAUNT UNLOVELY BUILDINGS</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_3'>3</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td> +<td align='left'>WHY THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND ENLISTED</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_7'>7</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>III.</td> +<td align='left'>UBIQUE</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_10'>10</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='center'>CHAPTER II</td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='center'>A REINFORCEMENTS CAMP</td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td> +<td align='left'>THE SUNNY VALLEY</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_19'>19</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td> +<td align='left'>THE MAN FROM SKYE</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_22'>22</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>III.</td> +<td align='left'>'YOU CAN HEAR THEM NOW'</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_26'>26</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='center'>CHAPTER III<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='center'>A CLEARING STATION WHEN THERE IS 'NOTHING TO REPORT'</td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td> +<td align='left'>FROM PARAPET TO BASE</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_33'>33</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td> +<td align='left'>'DO YOU THINK THAT SORT OF THING MATTERS NOW?'</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_45'>45</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>III.</td> +<td align='left'>THE NAME OF JESUS</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_50'>50</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='center'>CHAPTER IV</td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='center'>THE AFTERMATH OF LOOS</td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td> +<td align='left'>THE FLAVOUR OF VICTORY</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_57'>57</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td> +<td align='left'>DOUBTS AND FEARS</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_63'>63</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>III.</td> +<td align='left'>OUR SHARE OF THE FIFTY THOUSAND</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_69'>69</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='center'>CHAPTER V</td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='center'>DUMBARTON'S DRUMS</td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td> +<td align='left'>BACK AGAIN!</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_79'>79</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td> +<td align='left'>THE FIRST SHOCK OF WAR</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_81'>81</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>III.</td> +<td align='left'>AT THE NOSE OF THE SALIENT</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_88'>88</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='center'>CHAPTER VI<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='center'>WINTER WARFARE</td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td> +<td align='left'>THE SHELL AREA</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_95'>95</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td> +<td align='left'>'I HATE WAR: THAT IS WHY I AM FIGHTING'</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_103'>103</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>III.</td> +<td align='left'>BILLETS AND CAMPS</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_106'>106</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='center'>CHAPTER VII</td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='center'>HOW THE ROYALS HELD THE BLUFF: AN EPISODE OF TRENCH WARFARE</td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td> +<td align='left'>WAITING</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_117'>117</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td> +<td align='left'>THE BLUFF</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_125'>125</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>III.</td> +<td align='left'>'WE'VE KEEPIT UP THE REPUTATION O' THE AULD MOB, ONYWAY'</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_127'>128</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='center'>CHAPTER VIII</td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td> +<td align='left'>THE HISTORIC TRIANGLE</td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_135'>135</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>MUSTERING MEN</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>MUSTERING MEN<br /><br /></h3> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>Those gaunt unlovely buildings</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>The War Office built Maryhill Barracks, Glasgow, to look exactly like a +gaol, but these gaunt unlovely buildings, packed beyond endurance with +men of the new army, were at least in some way in touch with what was +happening elsewhere. Even in that first month of the war it seemed +callous to be breathing the sweet, clear air of Braemar, or to let one's +eyes linger on the matchless beauty of mountain and glen. The grey spire +of my church rising gracefully among the silver birches and the dark +firs, bosomed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>deep in purple hills, pointed to some harder way than +that. Stevenson, who wrote part of <i>Treasure Island</i> here, called it +'the wale (pick) of Scotland,' but just because it was so we saw more +clearly the agony of Belgium and the men of our heroic little Regular +Army dying to keep us inviolate.</p> + +<p>Up to the 10th of September recruits poured in in such numbers that it +was hard to cope with the situation in the most superficial way. On that +date the standard was raised, and, as though a sluice had been dropped +across a mill dam, the stream stopped suddenly and completely. I suppose +that was the object of the new regulation, but it caused +misunderstanding, and to this day the spontaneous rush of the first +month of the war has never been repeated. Beyond doubt the numbers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>were +too great to be properly handled. Men slept in the garrison church, in +the riding school, on the floor in over-crowded barrack-rooms, in leaky +tents without bottoms to them. There were no recreation rooms. It rained +a great deal, and once wet a man with no change of clothing or +underclothing remained wet for days in his meagre civilian suit. There +were too few blankets, no braziers, and the cheap black shoes of civil +life were soon in tatters. Everybody became abominably verminous, and +though the food was good enough in its way the cooks were overwhelmed, +and it was often uneatable. Nobody was to blame, and in an astonishingly +short time order began to emerge, but in those early days one enormous +'grouse' went up continually from the new army that was not yet an army, +and those conditions were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>partly responsible for the fact that when the +standard was lowered again the flow of recruits was so much less than +before. This, the faculty for hearty grousing, in the army whimsical, +humorous, shrewd, sometimes biting, never down-hearted, is evidently an +old national custom, for Chaucer uses the word half a dozen times. But +the aggravated discomfort of men soft from indoor life was really +pitiful.</p> + +<p>Before long all recruits except those for the Royal Field Artillery were +sent elsewhere, and the barracks became a great depot for this arm of +the service, with Colonel Forde in command. What marvels were done in +those early days, and how hard pushed the country was, will be realised +when it is understood that for months a body of men numbering never less +than two thousand, and some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>times as many as three times that number, +had only two field guns for training purposes, and that officers had to +be sent out to the Expeditionary Force who had worn a uniform only for +three, four, or five weeks.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>Why the First Hundred Thousand Enlisted</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>The first hundred thousand had some characteristics of their own +compared with their successors. They contained a large number of men who +do things on the spur of the moment, the born seekers after adventure, +men to whom war had its attractions. Many a man who had never found his +place in life, because his was the restless, roving spirit which could +not settle, or that chafed against ordered conventional ways, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>found his +happiness at last in August 1914. Alongside those were the men who were +passionately patriotic and saw very clearly and quickly the long issues +involved to the country they loved. The fate of Belgium had a far more +moving influence with the ranks of the new army than the officer class, +I think, quite realised. Indeed, with the later recruits I gathered the +impression that indignation at the German atrocities in Belgium was the +prevailing motive in their enlistment. There can be no question in the +mind of any one who worked intimately among the men of the new armies in +the autumn and winter of 1914 that the invasion of Belgium was the one +shocking stroke that rallied the country as one man, and that nothing +else in the situation, as it was known, would have done this. The people +as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>a whole did not grasp the imminence of the German menace. Of the +torturing pressure on the thin khaki line that barred the pass to the +sea we knew nothing. Day by day and night by night we were regaled with +stories of 'heavy German losses' and futile tales of the deaths of +German princes; neither our manhood nor our imagination was fully +captured, for of the almost unbelievable heroism of our brothers we were +never told. Perhaps the silence was justified; the enemy might have +learned how near they were to victory, and with a supreme effort have +broken through. At all events, unavoidably or not, the youth of the +country as a whole was never, throughout this winter, really roused to +its best. All the more honour to the first hundred thousand!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>Ubique</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>After this war is over no soldier can ask 'What does the Christian +Church do for me?' The members of the Church, acting through its +organisation, or more frequently through other organisations of which +its members were the moving spirits, rose to the occasion nobly all over +the country. Glasgow was no exception. It did the Churches, too, much +good, teaching them to work together. Here is an example. The men were +lodged all over the city, two or three hundred in one hall, more than +that in another. In every instance arrangements were made for their +recreation and comfort. In a given district one congregation gave its +hall as a recreation room, another paid <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>all expenses, a third supplied +a church officer for daily cleaning, the members joined in giving +magazines and papers, and in providing tea and coffee; the missionary of +one congregation held services, and all united in giving concerts. The +Y.M.C.A., which does not accept workers unless they are members of the +Christian Church, came on the scene and built a hut, through the +generosity of Mrs. Hunter Craig, in the barrack square.</p> + +<p>On this, in the early months of 1915, there followed a revival of +religion among the Maryhill Barracks men, whose centre was the Y.M.C.A. +hut. This revival had the marks in it which we younger men had been told +were the marks of a true revival, but from which many had shrunk because +they were associated in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>our days with flaming advertisement, noise, and +ostentation.</p> + +<p>A wise old Scots minister was once asked, 'How are we to bring about a +revival?' 'It is God who gives revival.' 'But how are we to get Him to +give it?' 'Ask Him,' he said. Perhaps in this case we may say humbly +that our asking was largely in the form of gaining the confidence of the +men, for when we had all become friends the movement began quietly one +night through the action of an agent of the Pocket Testament League, who +was spending the evening with us. The meetings looked prosaic enough to +the eye; there was no band or solo singing or outward excitement, and +the hut was a plain wooden building, but the strain was very intense at +times. Sometimes as many as a hundred in one week would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>stay behind and +profess conversion, desiring to yield to the profound spiritual impulse +urging them from within to make Christ's mind and spirit their principle +in life. All had been cast loose from their moorings and had been trying +to find their feet in new surroundings. Most of them were just decent +lads who had never thought much about it before. There were others who +at last saw a chance to make a fresh start and grasped thankfully at it. +A few were 'corner-boys,' learning in discipline and comradeship a +lesson they had never dreamed of. I think there was everywhere in the +new army a certain moral uplift arising from the consciousness of a hard +duty undertaken, and it was not difficult to lead this on to a more +personal and spiritual crisis. There was something very lovable about +them. A tall, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>handsome fellow from a Canadian lumber camp said, with +real distress in his face, 'I've tried and tried, and, God help me, I +can't. It's no use.' His chum tucked his arm through his and declared +with a warmth of affection in his voice, 'I'll look after him, guv'nor.'</p> + +<p>Many months afterwards in a Flemish town I saw some of their batteries +go by clattering over the stony streets. The flashlight from an electric +torch lit up the riders flitting from darkness to darkness on either +side of the broad pencil of light. It showed bronzed faces, competent +gestures, stained uniforms, the marks of veterans, men who had been in +action many times with their guns. I am sure that they do their duty not +only to their king but to One Higher, too, in the words of the brave +motto of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>their corps, '<i>Ubique quo fas et gloria ducunt</i>.'</p> + +<p>In April orders came to join the Expeditionary Force.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A REINFORCEMENTS CAMP</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>A REINFORCEMENTS CAMP<br /><br /></h3> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>The Sunny Valley</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>The reinforcements camp lay pleasantly in a sunny valley. The nearest +town was Harfleur, besieged exactly five hundred years earlier by Henry +<span class="smcap">v.</span> of England, who placed his chief reliance on his big guns +and his mines and was not disappointed. The camp commandant was +insistent that the ground round the tents and huts should be turned into +gardens, and before long the valley was bright with flowers. There was +peace over all the landscape here. Sometimes a train of horse trucks, +crowded with men standing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>at the sliding doors or sitting with legs +dangling over the rails, panted up the long slope past the foot of the +valley, and every evening the supply trains pulled slowly off on their +way to the front, each laden with one day's rations for twelve thousand +men. Fresh drafts for the infantry and artillery arrived every day, +stayed a few days, and then were sent up the line. Probably a thousand +men a month would be a fair estimate for the wastage from a division at +that time, that is, the whole Expeditionary Force had to be renewed +completely once a year, as far as its fighting units were concerned. +Drafts therefore were continually passing through our camp, and I had +many opportunities of studying the morale of individuals of all ranks. +The result was interesting and worth setting down. My experience was +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>that the good heart of fighting men was affected by only two avoidable +causes. The first was the large number of young able-bodied men engaged +in occupations, on the lines of communications and at the base, which +might have been carried through effectively by others. These young men +never were in danger, while those who happened to have enlisted in +combatant corps were sent back to face death again and again. This (we +are told) has now been rectified, but it was for long a source of great +soreness. The second influence making for soreness was the amazing +amount of wrangling that went on at home, among the newspapers, between +masters and men, and so on. Officers would get furious with the conduct +of the 'workers,' and condemn them wholesale as a class. One had to be +at once cautious and persistent in bringing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>home to them the fact that +their own men, whom they admired and loved, whom they knew would follow +them anywhere, were drawn from just the same class as those men who were +out on strike. Another reason why it would have been better to have had +older men and married men at the bases lay in the temptations +surrounding the men there on every side. These also have to be reckoned +with as part of the inevitable cost of war. It says much for the grit +and character of the average Briton that so many come through unscathed.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>The Man from Skye</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>As I was going round the tents one day I had a long talk with a man in a +draft just leaving for the front to join a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> Highland regiment. He had +not been long out of hospital, and, like his companions, had scarcely +pulled himself together after the sadness of a second farewell. +Following a good plan of always handing on any rumour, however +improbable, which is of a thoroughly cheerful nature I said, referring +to a report that was current in the messes that morning, 'They say Lord +Kitchener says it will be all over by September.' He looked at me very +seriously and said sternly, 'It iss not for Lord Kitchener to say when +the war will be over. It iss only for God to say that.' Presently he +said, 'And what iss more, I will nefer see Skye again.' I had tried +every way in vain to lift his foreboding from him, and now I said +sternly like himself, 'It is not for you to say whether you will ever +see Skye again; only God can <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>know that.' He moved a little, restlessly, +and answered slowly, 'Yess, that iss so, but—yess, it iss so.' +Sometimes when we were asking one another that old familiar unanswerable +question I would tell the story of the man from Skye and his answer to +the problem. We were very glad to hear a few weeks later that he had +been discharged as permanently unfit, and was by then in his loved misty +isle.</p> + +<p>The Principal Chaplain visited the camp during my chaplaincy there. The +Rev. Dr. Simms, who ranks as a major-general, has charge of all +chaplains other than those of the Church of England. His tall, +distinguished, unassuming figure will always stand, in the minds of +those who were under his administration, for infinite kindness, wisdom, +and scrupulous fairness between all parties. Dr. Wallace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> Williamson of +St. Giles', Edinburgh, who was visiting the troops in France, +accompanied him. Their service on Sunday was very moving. Hearts were +near the surface in those brief days between the farewell and the +battlefield. The three Scotsmen whom I knew best of those who were at +this service are all dead: one fell at Loos, one in Mesopotamia, and one +on the Somme. The oldest of them, who was an officer in a Guards +battalion, could not speak and his eyes were full of tears. There was no +possibility here of the remark that one Lowlander made to another after +listening to a very celebrated London preacher: 'Aye, it was beautiful, +and he cud mak' ye see things too, whiles; but, man! there was nae +<i>logic</i> in 't.'</p> + +<p>It was about this time that we heard of the sinking of the <i>Lusitania</i>. +Somehow <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>from this moment we knew better where we were and for what we +fought. Every one's thoughts were very grim. This was sheer naked +wickedness done plainly and coldly in the sight of God and man.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<div class='center'><big>'<i>You can hear them now</i>'</big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>One broiling afternoon as I sat talking with a friend in my tent an +orderly came to the door and said to him, 'Message for you, sir.' He +glanced at it. It was his orders to join his battalion at the front. We +shook hands and he went off, glad to be on the move again after hanging +about waiting so long. In five minutes the orderly was back with orders +for me to proceed at once to the 2nd London Territorial Casualty +Clearing Station. I said good-bye to Adams, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>my servant. No man was ever +more fortunate in his batmen—Adams, a typical regular, fiercely proud +of his regiment; Campion, the London Territorial, a commercial traveller +in civil life; and Munro, the Royal Scot, who within a month or two of +the outbreak of war could no longer suppress the fighting spirit of the +Royal Regiment stirring within him, and voluntarily rejoined, leaving a +wife and six children behind him. He was a foreman in the Edinburgh +Tramways Company. Handy man that he was, he could turn his hand to +anything, whether it was devising a ferrule for a broken walking stick +out of the screw of a pickle bottle, or making a bleak-looking hut +habitable, or producing hot tea from nowhere, or transforming a +wet-canteen marquee into a decent place for Communion (empty <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>tobacco +boxes for table, beer barrels discreetly out of sight), or building a +pulpit out of sandbags in the corner of a roofless saloon bar.</p> + +<p>The supply train left at a very early hour, and by devious routes +reluctantly approached the railhead. The journey took thirty hours. It +was long enough to teach the lessons never to go on a military train in +France without something to read, or to drink rashly from an aluminium +cup containing hot liquid, or to rely on bully beef as a sole article of +diet. Towards evening the Irishman in charge of the train had pity and +took me along—we had stopped for the thirty-fifth time—to admire his +Primus stove in full blast, and to share his excellent dinner. But +(stove or no stove) the world is divided into those who can do that sort +of thing and those who cannot; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>who, wrestling futilely with refractory +elements, wish they had never been born.</p> + +<p>He said that before we reached the railhead we would probably hear the +sound of the guns. The phrase is used to barrenness, even to ridicule, +but the reality when first heard rings a new emotion in your breast. The +night was windless and warm, and about ten o'clock as we stood in a +wayside station the Ulsterman came up to me and said, 'Listen, you can +hear them now.' And away to the east could be heard a deep shaking sound +rising and fading away in the still air—the sound of British artillery +fighting day and night against yet overwhelming odds.</p> + +<p>Twenty hours later, after many wanderings, a friendly Field Ambulance +car deposited me at the door of the mess of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>the clearing station, where +the arrival of a 'Scotch minister' had been awaited with a good deal of +curiosity and possibly some apprehension.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> +<h2>A CLEARING STATION WHEN THERE IS 'NOTHING TO REPORT'</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>A CLEARING STATION WHEN THERE IS 'NOTHING TO REPORT'<br /><br /></h3> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>From Parapet to Base</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>We sometimes hear of some man who with leg smashed continues firing his +machine-gun as though nothing had happened. How is this to be explained? +The answer is one that is a real comfort to those at home. The most +shattering wounds are not those which cause the greatest immediate pain. +It is as though a tree fell across telegraph wires. The wires are down, +and no message, or, at worst, a confused jangling message can come +through to the brain. I have known <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>a man carried into an aid-post in a +state of great delight because he had 'got a Blighty one.' He lay +smoking and talking, little realising that his wound was so grave that +it would be many months before he could walk again—if indeed he would +ever walk with two legs. By the time the realisation of the pain has +come into full play the sufferer, in ordinary times, is in the clearing +station or, at least, the field ambulance, and has the resources of +science at his disposal.</p> + +<p>Suppose that at three in the afternoon Jock is hit, in the front trench. +'Jock' is the name universally given to Scottish soldiers, Lowland or +Highland. It is not a melodious name, but there it is! And it somehow +expresses the Scotsman's character better than 'Tommy' does. He cannot +be carried down the communication trench because it zigzags too <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>much: +he cannot be got round the angles. So he is taken into a dug-out and +gets first aid, and a tablet of morphine perhaps. The M.O. may possibly +come up to see him, but he may be too busy in his own aid-post. There +are stretcher bearers in the trench able to bandage properly. The +average 'S.B.,' by the way, is a man from the battalion, not from the +R.A.M.C. As soon as it is dark the stretcher bearers lift him and carry +him across the open to the aid-post, which is perhaps five hundred or a +thousand yards behind the firing trench, near the battalion +headquarters. It is an eerie journey, with a certain amount of risk. The +brilliant Boche flares rise continually—the enemy is sometimes called +'the Hun,' more often 'the Boche,' in more genial moments 'Fritz,' but +'the Germans' never—and light up the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>ground vividly. These flares are +very powerful. I have seen my own shadow cast from one when standing at +the time in a camp fully five miles from the trenches, and when you are +close up you feel that every eye in 'Germany' is fixed on you. The best +thing to do is to stand quite still, for artificial light is very +deceptive, and it is hard to make out what an object is. In any case, +the real danger area is 'No-Man's-Land,' for it is on that mighty +graveyard stretching from Switzerland to the sea that the enemy's eyes +are bent. The regiments used to get various kinds of flares to +experiment with. We used to laugh over an incident that occurred when a +new type, a species of parachute, had been served out. The +Second-in-command, who fired it, miscalculated the strength of the wind, +which was blowing from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>the enemy's trench, and the flare was carried in +a stately curve backwards until it was directly over battalion +headquarters. Here it hung for a long time, showing up all details very +successfully, to the C.O.'s great annoyance. Over this ground, very +slowly and carefully, the stretcher is carried. When the aid-post is +reached the M.O. takes charge, assisted by the sergeant or corporal of +the R.A.M.C., whom he has always with him, and the 'casualty' is laid +alongside others in the dug-out, or cellar beneath some ruined house, +that forms the aid-post and battalion dispensary. The first stage in the +journey is now over. Soon a couple of cars creep quietly up. One by one +the casualties are lifted in or climb in stiffly. The doctor who has +come up with them chats with the M.O., and the local gossip is exchanged +for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>wider knowledge (or more grandiose rumours) of the field +ambulance. Our Jock, who has a bullet in his chest, is lifted in. Straps +are fastened securely and tarpaulins tied. 'All aboard, sir!' 'Right! +Well, so long, Hadley!' 'Cheero, Scott!' The ambulances start very +cautiously, and crawl up the road. It is in execrable condition, for +work in daylight here is impossible. It is all knocked to pieces with +traffic, and frequently pitted with shell holes, and as a rule very +narrow. There is no moon, which is just as well, and no lights can be +carried. The driver feels his way through inky blackness by some sixth +sense begotten of many such journeys. Every now and then a flare lights +up the broken cobbles for a few seconds. His wheels are only a couple of +feet from the mud on either side, and if he goes into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>that the car +would be there for hours. A little to the right a battery of 18-pounders +is firing slowly and regularly, and the shells scream over the road on +their way to the enemy. A corner is turned and the road gets better. We +draw up at a building with no light showing, and R.A.M.C. orderlies come +up the steps from a cellar. This is the advanced dressing station; it +collects from a brigade front and there are two doctors at work. A large +window covered with sacking opens at the level of the ground into the +cellar, and the wounded are lifted through it. Some will stay here all +night, but the most seriously hurt are sent on to the casualty clearing +station five or six miles back. Hot drinks are going and are welcome, +for the injured men are trembling and sick with shock. Two new drivers +come <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>up from their dug-out, yawning, and take over; a message has just +come in that the 'P' trenches have been 'hotted' by trench mortars and +cars must go back again at once. The ambulances move off, leaving the +doctors busy, sleeves rolled up to the elbow. The second stage in the +journey has been completed.</p> + +<p>The cars are moving much more quickly now. Lights are still burning in +divisional headquarters, but the field ambulance headquarters are dark, +save for the lamp burning before the gate. An ambulance may have two or +three advanced dressing stations collecting from a divisional front. +Twin lamps on a pole, white and red, draw nearer and faintly light up +two flags, the Union Jack and the Red Cross. The Union Jack in Flanders +is only seen in conjunction with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>the Red Cross, or perhaps over the +dead body at a funeral; unless the Commander-in-chief comes round, when +the flag is carried behind him on a lance. The cars turn at right angles +into a gravelled yard and draw up before a large door. A corporal, who +has been sitting in a glass vestibule, puts his head inside the inner +door and shouts 'Stretcher bearers!' An orderly crosses quickly to the +office and reports to the orderly officer, 'Two cars with stretcher +cases.' The doctor crosses to the reception room and begins to examine +the first case. The reception room is a concert or music hall in happier +days. Its stage is the dispensary, and the little room where the +performers 'make-up' is the mortuary. The doctor is joined by the sister +on night duty. Each man is examined rapidly in turn. The M.O., <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>or the +doctor at the dressing station, has written some words about the nature +of the wound on a label very like a luggage label, and this has been +tied to a button-hole. An orderly comes forward and takes down +particulars: name, number, battalion, brigade, division. Jock is rather +tired of giving this information because he has already had it taken +down by his M.O., and at the dressing station. But he need not begin to +complain yet, for it will be repeated at every stopping-place. He is +carried off to another room. The third stage is over.</p> + +<p>Jock is here a fortnight, for he is badly wounded and occupies one of +the few beds that the station boasts. One day he is borne, rather white, +into the operating theatre, and after a time is carried back, even +whiter than before. He has <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>seen less of it than any one; saw only the +white walls and the mosquito curtains; smelled the heavy odours of ether +and chloroform and antiseptics; heard faintly and more faintly the drone +of an aeroplane overhead; saw also the padre, rather white too, but +determined to get accustomed to this sort of thing, in case they should +be short-handed when the great 'push' comes.</p> + +<p>Jock cannot go by train because he could not stand the jolting, so he +must wait for a barge. He listens with evident pleasure to the +description of the electric lights and fans and white sheets and +pillows. There are six sisters in the station. They are the first +English women he has seen since his last leave, and he is glad to hear +there will be two on the barge. A barge comes and goes, but no one tells +Jock that. He is told <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>the barges are always a long time coming, which +is true too. And, indeed, before the next one comes he is so much better +that it is decided he can go by train if it comes first. It does come +first. '<i>Train in!</i>' runs through the wards like lightning. There are +hurried good-byes, gathering together of souvenirs, wistful eyes of +those who cannot yet go, watching those who can. Cars are brought round +to the side entrance, stretchers slipped into their grooves, and the +convoy is off to the station. The long train, already half filled, lies +waiting. There is a last little passage across the platform, coming and +going of bearers, the inevitable argument with the R.T.O., a warning +shriek from the engine, and the train to the base has gone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<div class='center'><big>'<i>Do you think that sort of thing matters now?</i>'</big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>A clearing station is just what its name denotes. It clears the wounded +from a large number of field ambulances, each of which is split into +several advanced dressing stations. Each of these in turn draws from +several aid-posts. All the wounded, and all the sick who get beyond the +ambulances, must pass through the station. There they are put in trim +for the journey to the base, or are sent to a convalescent depot if a +week or two will see them fit for duty again.</p> + +<p>The Church of England chaplain was as friendly and accommodating as I +was anxious to be. We made sure that one of us saw every man to speak to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>when he was brought in, and noted to which ward he was taken. For the +distribution of writing-paper, newspapers, and magazines, tobacco and +cigarettes, we divided the work, so that in one day each took half the +number of wards, on the next day reversing the half. In the case of +serious illness or trouble we kept more closely to our own men. We both +had our store of Testaments. Of all editions supplied to the troops that +of the National Bible Society of Scotland is the best. It is the most +attractive, in its bright red binding—one gets so tired of khaki—and +it contains the Psalms, so priceless and unfailing in time of war. I +think it a pity that they are in the metrical rather than the prose +form. On the other hand, an officer once told me he found it impossible +to settle to read the Bible. His experience was that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>a booklet of +familiar hymns was of most spiritual value to him. He would pull it out +in his dug-out and read a verse, and then put it back again. On Sundays +we held our morning services separately, in the reception room at +different hours. If it was possible there might be one or two quiet +services in the wards as well. Religion and science are sometimes +supposed to be hostile to one another. I must say this, and say it +gratefully—I always found doctors sympathetic, helpful, and +considerate, no men more so, in fact, none could have been more entirely +friendly. They are not lovers of creeds, but they are devoted servants +of humanity, and singularly responsive to any practical desire to be of +help. In the evening we held a united service. When the Presbyterian +gave the address the service was Anglican, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>next Sunday the service +would be Presbyterian and the Church of England chaplain spoke. We took +our funerals to that so quickly growing cemetery with its six hundred +little wooden crosses, separately, though up the road those from the +other clearing station were taken by each chaplain on alternate days, +irrespective of denomination. We dispensed the Sacrament of the Lord's +Supper to our own people, using the beautiful little Communion set +issued by the War Office, and having as Table a stretcher covered with a +white cloth and set on trestles.</p> + +<p>The drawing power of nationality is immense in the field. It is far more +emphatic and real than the sense of particular church connection. Even +men very loyal to their own branch of the Presbyterian Church, for +example, lay <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>little emphasis on that in their minds. They delight in +meeting a Scots doctor or Scots padre. He understands all the twined +fibres of tradition and training that go to make up their character. +Every man, too, likes to worship according to the forms that he is +familiar with. But Church of Scotland, or United Free Church of +Scotland, and so on, is all very much the same to him. I am speaking of +Christian men, of men quite aware of the historical situation. There +grows upon a man in the field a deeper love for his brother Scot, so +profound a sense of essential oneness in tradition, in history, in +character, in faith, that he comes to look forward eagerly, +<i>passionately</i>, to a blessed day of complete reconciliation.</p> + +<p>'Do you think that sort of thing matters now, Padre?' whispered a boy +who was desperately wounded, his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>skeleton hand picking restlessly at +the counterpane—a fine time for all our sound arguments! 'That sort of +thing' does matter, of course, but <i>then</i> what could matter save to rest +wearily in the Everlasting Arms. I cannot believe that any one who has +knelt beside life after life passing forth in weariness and pain, cut +short so untimely, far from mothers' hands that would have ministered +love to them as they lay, and who has listened to the broken words of +trust, will ever allow his vision of the fundamental union of those who +are resting in the Eternal Love of God in Christ to be overshadowed by +lesser truths.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>The Name of Jesus</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>There are two periods in a soldier's life when he is especially alert to +the appeal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>of religion. One, as we have seen, is just after enlisting; +the other is after he has been wounded. A clearing station is the first +resting-place he has. He has had a terrible shaking, seen his chum +killed perhaps, taken part in savagery let loose. He is often all broken +up, seeking again for a foundation. The difficulty is that his stay is +so short, as a rule only a few days. Our record patient was poor Burke, +an Irishman from an Irish regiment. He had been wounded when out with a +wiring party which scattered under machine-gun fire. He crawled into a +Jack Johnson hole and lay there out of sight of either side, between the +trenches, for eight days and eight nights. He had a little biscuit and a +water bottle, nothing more. Shells screamed overhead or burst near, and +bullets whistled backwards and forwards over the shell-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>hole. There were +dead men near in all stages of decay. When he was discovered by a patrol +he had lain there for over two hundred hours, and he was not insane. We +speak lightly of 'more dead than alive.' He was literally that when he +was brought in. Gangrene had set in long ago, and his condition was +beyond description. Surgeon-generals and consulting surgeons came long +distances to see him, an unparalleled example of the tenacity of human +life. He lingered by a thread for many weeks, sometimes a little better, +more often shockingly ill; but at last, six weeks after admission, it +was decided he could be moved. The whole station came to say good-bye to +old Burke, and all who could went to see him lowered gently by the lift +into the barge. Later, we had letters to say that he had survived the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>amputation of his leg, and was slowly recovering. But that was the +longest period that any patient stayed with us. Short as the time +generally was, however, it was sometimes long enough to become very +intimate, since both were so ready to meet. There is not, and never has +been a religious revival, in the usual sense of the term, on the +Flanders front, and I am afraid it is true that modern war knocks and +smashes any faith he ever had out of many a man. Yet in a hospital there +is much ground for believing that shining qualities which amid the +refinements of civilisation are often absent—staunch, and even tender +comradeship, readiness to judge kindly if judge at all, resolute +endurance, and absence of self-seeking, so typical of our fighting +men—have their root in a genuine religious experience more often <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>than +is, in the battalions, immediately evident. It has been my experience, +again and again, that with dying men who have sunk into the last +lethargy, irresponsive to every other word, the Name of Jesus still can +penetrate and arouse. The hurried breathing becomes for a moment +regular, or the eyelids flicker, or the hand faintly returns the +pressure. I have scarcely ever known this to fail though all other +communication had stopped. It is surely very significant and moving.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE AFTERMATH OF LOOS</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>THE AFTERMATH OF LOOS<br /><br /></h3> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>The Flavour of Victory</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>The jolliest man in the field is the man who, so to say, has been safely +wounded, that is, whose wound is serious enough to take him right down +the line, with a good prospect of crossing to Blighty, but not so +serious as to cause anxiety. I never met so hilarious a crowd as the +first batch of wounded from the fighting of 25th September 1915. We had +been prepared for a 'rush.' The growling of the guns had for days past +been growing deeper and more extended. It is, as a matter of fact, +impossible to keep a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>future offensive concealed. The precise time and +place may be unknown, but the gathering together of men, the piling up +of ammunition, and the necessary preparations for great numbers of +wounded, advertise inevitably that something is afoot. The ranks are not +slow to read the signs of the times: they say, for example, that an +inspection by the divisional-general can only mean one thing. How much +crosses to the other side it is hard to say, but the local inhabitants +know all that is common talk, and sometimes a great deal more. They have +eyes in their heads; they can see practice charges being carried +through, and note which regiments carry battle-marks on their uniforms; +and the little shops and estaminets are just soldiers' clubs where +gossip is 'swapped' as freely as in the London west-end clubs, and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>unfortunately, is much better informed. A woman working on a farm once +told me to what part of the line a certain division was going on +returning from rest, and she gave a date. The commanding officers of the +battalions concerned knew nothing of it, and indeed a quite contrary +rumour was in circulation, but time proved the old woman to be right.</p> + +<p>The Loos offensive was no exception, and for many days anxious thoughts +and prayers had filled our hearts. We went from hope to despondency, and +back to hope again. I dare say the talk round the mess table was very +foolish. Compared with the earlier days of the war the country seemed +full of men, and we heard stories of great accumulation of ammunition. +Anything seemed possible.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> + +<p>By nine o'clock on the morning of the 25th the convoys were coming in, +and the wounded streamed into the reception room. They were 'walking +cases,' men who had been wounded in the early part of the attack and, +able to walk, had made their way on foot to the regimental aid-post. All +had been going well when they left. They were bubbling over with good +spirits and excitement. Three—four—no, five lines of trenches had been +taken and 'the Boche was on the run.' They joked and laughed and slapped +one another on the back, and indeed this jovial crowd presented an +extraordinary appearance, caked and plastered with mud, with tunics +ripped and blood-stained, with German helmets, black or grey, stuck on +the back of their heads, and amazing souvenirs 'for the wife.' One man +with a rather guilty glance <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>round produced for my private inspection +from under his coat an enormous silver crucifix about a foot long. He +found it in a German officer's dug-out, but probably it came originally +from some ruined French chapel. All souvenirs taken from dead enemies +are loathsome to me. It is merciful that so many people have no +imagination. I have never been able to understand, either, the carrying +home of bits of shell and mementoes of that kind. Any memento of these +unspeakable scenes of bloodshed is repulsive. Yet the British soldier is +as chivalrous as he is brave. He speaks terrible words about what he +will do to his foes, but when they are beaten and in his power he can +never carry it through. This was very striking when you consider that +until quite recently the German was 'top-dog' and how <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>much our men had +suffered at his hands. But once the fight is over he is ready to regard +their individual account as settled. I remember so well one fire-eating +officer who was going to teach any prisoners that came into his hands +what British sternness meant. In due course twenty wounded Prussians +came in. He was discovered next day actually distributing cigarettes to +them. Now we must recollect that the British Tommy is not a class apart; +he is simply the 'man in the street,' the people. Sometimes there is +savage bitterness, not without good reason, and frequently the sullen or +frightened temper of the prisoners made friendliness difficult, but +Tommy—and by that name I mean the British citizen under arms—does not +long nourish grudges when the price has been paid. He is essentially +chivalrous, and even to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>his enemy, when the passion of fighting or the +strain of watchfulness is past, he is incurably kind.</p> + +<p>An atmosphere of hope and cheerfulness pervaded the clearing station +this first morning of the 'great offensive.' Passing through a ward I +said to the nurse, 'Well, sister, everything seems to be going +splendidly.' She looked up sombrely from the wound she was dressing and +replied, 'So they said in the first hours of Neuve Chapelle.' I was +chilled by what she said and felt angry with her.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>Doubts and Fears</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>As the day wore on the news was not so good. The Meerut Division, which +had delivered the containing attack in front of us on the Moulin du +Pietre, was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>where it had been before it attacked, so the wounded said, +with the exception of some units, notably Leicesters and Black Watch, +who had apparently disappeared. Perhaps all that had been intended had +been achieved. After all, the real battle—none could be more real and +more costly to those taking part in it than a containing attack, forlorn +hope as it often is—the <i>decisive</i> battle was further south at Loos. +But the changed mood of the wounded now coming in was noticeable. Our +fighting men hate to be beaten, and the story was of confusion and lack +of support. Our own gas, too, had lingered on the ground and then +drifted back on our own trenches. A young German student who was brought +in wounded admitted the gallantry of the first rush, but he said, 'We +always understood those trenches could be rushed, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>but we also know that +they cannot be held on so small a front. They are commanded on either +side.' In all seven hundred wounded and gassed were brought in from the +British regiments of this division, and there was much work to be done.</p> + +<p>Sunday was a bright, warm day, and in the afternoon we gathered all who +could walk to a service in the green meadow behind the operating +theatre. (There, too, they were busy enough, God knows.) The men came +very willingly. I spoke a few words from the text 'Blessed are the +peacemakers,' for that benediction was meant also for those lads who had +just struck so brave a blow for a decent world. A gunner said +afterwards, 'Do you know, I have only heard two sermons since I came out +ten months ago. The other was by the Bishop of London, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>he took the +same text!' It is, as a matter of fact, very difficult to serve the +gunners properly; they were so scattered in little groups. It was very +peaceful that Sunday afternoon—no sign of war anywhere, except the +maimed results of it—as those men remembered with tears those whom it +had 'pleased Almighty God to take out of this transitory world into His +mercy.'</p> + +<p>Every wounded man has a letter to write or to have written for him, and +it was essential that since the people at home knew there was heavy +fighting going on all messages should be sent off at once. This is one +of the chaplain's voluntary tasks, and we were kept close to it every +afternoon for some weeks after the offensive began. For some time the +number of letters was about four hundred every day. A number of men had +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>written farewell letters—very moving they seemed, but I did not think +it part of my duty to look too closely at these. They had addressed them +and then put them in their pockets, hoping that if they were killed they +might be discovered. Some had been finished just before the order to go +over the parapet. But the curious thing was that these were sent home, +with a few words in a covering note saying they were alive and well, as +a sort of keepsake. In those written after arrival in hospital a sense +of gratitude to God was very frequent, and a great longing for home and +the children. Some strange phrases were used: a mother would be +addressed as 'Dear old face,' or simply 'Old face.' But poets used to +write verses to their mistresses' eyebrows, and why not a letter to a +mother's face?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> + +<p>The German prisoners sent a message asking if they might speak with the +<i>Hauptmann-Pfarrer</i>. They besought me to send word to their relatives +that they were safe. I took the full particulars and promised to ask the +Foreign Office to forward, but could not guarantee the messages getting +through, as their government was behaving very badly over the matter. +They were all very anxious that I should be sure and say their wounds +were slight (<i>leicht</i>).</p> + +<p>Next day came urgent orders that all wounded were to be evacuated who +could possibly be moved. So far as we had heard events seemed to be +moving fairly well at Loos, but there were some ugly rumours and the +atmosphere was one of great uneasiness. After dinner that evening the +commanding officer, Major Frankau, took me aside, and asked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>me not to +go to bed as they would need every available pair of hands throughout +the night.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>Our Share of the Fifty Thousand</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>It was ten o'clock when the first cars came crunching into the station +yard, and the convoys arrived one after another until five in the +morning. Then, as we could take in no more, the stream was diverted to +the other clearing station up the road. Before the war the deep hoot of +a car always seemed to say: 'Here am I, rich and rotund, rolling +comfortably on my way; I have laid up much goods and can take mine +ease'; but after that night it had another meaning: 'Slowly, tenderly, +oh! be pitiful. I am broken and in pain,' as the cars <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>crept along over +the uneven roads. These were our share of the wounded from Loos, the +overflow of serious 'stretcher cases' who could not be taken in at the +already overworked stations immediately behind their own front. Many had +been lying on the battlefield many hours. They were for the most part +from the 15th (Scottish) Division and the 47th (London) Division. Both +had made a deathless name. The former got further forward than any +other, and paid the penalty with over six thousand casualties. All this +night the rain fell in torrents. It streamed from the tops and sides of +the ambulances, it lashed the yard till it rose in a fine spray; the +lamps shone on wetness everywhere—the dripping, anxious faces of the +drivers, the pallid faces of the wounded, eyes staring over their +drenched brown <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>blankets, eyes puzzled in their pain and distress, like +those of hunted animals; and the reception room was filled with the +choking odours of steaming dirty blankets and uniforms, of drying human +bodies and of wounds and mortality. As each ambulance arrived the +stretchers, their occupants for the most part silent, were drawn gently +out and carried into the reception hall and laid upon the floor. At once +each man—the nature of whose wounds permitted it—was given a cup of +hot tea or of cold water, and a cigarette. Two by two they were lifted +on to the trestles, and examined and dressed by the surgeons. Their +fortitude was, as one of the surgeons said to me, uncanny. It was +supernatural. I could not have believed what could be endured without +complaint, often without even a word to express the horrid pain, unless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> +I had seen it. Amid all that battered, bleeding, shattered flesh and +bone, the human spirit showed itself a very splendid thing that night. +The reception room at last filled to overflowing and could not be +emptied. All the wards and lofts and tents were crammed. By the time the +other station was filled the two had taken in three thousand men. They +remained with us for a week, because the hospital trains were too busy +behind Loos to come our way. Every day every man had to have his wounds +dressed. Some were covered with wounds; many of the wounds were +dangerous, all were painful; and gas gangrene, which the surgeon so +hates to see, had to be fought again and again. The medical staff, seven +in number, worked on day after day, and night after night, skilfully, +tenderly, ruthlessly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> There were also a great many operations, and +scores of difficult critical decisions.</p> + +<p>As we stepped out from among the blanketed forms I thought bitterly of +the 'glory' of war. Yet if there was any glory in war this was it. It +was here, in this patient suffering and obedience. These men might well +glory in their infirmities. This was heroism, the real thing, the spirit +rising to incredible heights of patient endurance in the foreseen +possible result of positive action for an ideal. The reaction from +battle is overwhelming. Passions that the civilised man simply does not +know, so colourless is his experience of them in ordinary days, are let +loose, anger and terror and horror and lust to kill. So for a while, as +nearly always happens, even wounds lost their power to pain in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>sleep of bottomless exhaustion. Those who could not sleep were drugged +with morphine. The moaning never stopped, but rose and fell and rose +again. It shook my heart. We turned from the ashen faces and went out +into the grey morning light. Everything seemed very grey. A mist was +drawing up slowly from the sluggish Lys, and we wondered as we went +shivering through it across the soaked grass what was happening beyond +it over there at Loos.</p> + +<p>Next afternoon at tea we were all cheered by the news that a man who had +had his leg taken off three hours before was asking for a penny whistle. +At last it was discovered that one of the cooks had one. (Cooks in the +army are a race apart, possessors of all kinds of strange +accomplishments.) It was will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>ingly handed over, and soon the strains of +'Annie Laurie' were rising softly from a cot in Ward VIII.</p> + +<p>A month later the Principal Chaplain asked me to go to a battalion. +Chaplains who had been through the previous winter with battalions were +not anxious for another winter of it, if fresh men could be found. I was +thankful to go, in spite of all the kindness there had been on every +hand and the friendships made. The devilish ingenuity of wounds was +getting the better of me.</p> + +<p>My charge was a brigade, containing a battalion of the Gordon +Highlanders, with which I was directed to mess. But the day I joined, +this battalion was taken out of the brigade, and as soon as the +rearrangement was completed I was transferred to one of the battalions +of The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> Royal Scots. While I was with this unit both its commanding +officer and its adjutant were changed. In both cases the cause was the +promotion of the officer in question.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>DUMBARTON'S DRUMS</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>DUMBARTON'S DRUMS<br /><br /></h3> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>Back Again!</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>The landing of the British Expeditionary Force in the far-away days of +August 1914 was one of the great moments of history. And Scotland has a +special share in the pride and sorrow that surround that great day, for +in her premier regiment centred memories of warfare and endurance, of +ancient alliances and ancient enmities, without a parallel in the story +of any other regular regiment. The oldest regiment in Europe was on the +battlefield once again. The First, or Royal Regiment of Foot, now known +as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> The Royal Scots, when it climbed the steep streets of Boulogne, +marched on a soil sacred to it by the memories of heroic campaigns. +Names that were as yet unfamiliar to the world at large were dear to it +as the last resting-places of its comrades of long ago—names such as +Dunkirk and Dixmude, Furnes and Ypres, Saberne and Bar-le-Duc. Hepburn's +Regiment had fought over every foot of the ground on which it was now to +share the waging of the greatest of all campaigns. Dumbarton's Drums +were once more beating their way through Europe to the making of +history. The trust of Gustavus Adolphus and Turenne, of Marlborough and +Wellington, marched with them as the promise of victory; and from the +old Royals, dustily climbing the cobbled street, spoke all the glamour +of 'age-kept victories.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<p>France was a smiling land in those days, for the sun shone in the hearts +of Frenchwomen as the rumour of war rose from the anxiously expected +British columns and drifted across the shining August fields. The 2nd +battalion—the 1st was still in India—tramped cheerily on its way. To +no one then was there revealed that dreary vista of trenches that was to +be war to the mind of the modern soldier.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>The First Shock of War</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>Mons and the 23rd of August saw The Royals in action. With other +battalions they occupied the Mons salient, actually the point on which +the torrent of war first broke and for a brief moment spent itself. On +that still night it seemed to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>hang suspended as a great wave does +before falling. As the battalion lay in the shallow trench the pregnant +silence was at last broken by the high, clear call of a bugle, one +single long note, indescribably eerie and menacing, and then the +listening men heard the rustling tread of feet moving through the grass +with a steady, regular, ominous advance. The might of Germany was on the +move, and still the thin brown line lay tense and silent, until only +forty paces separated the two. Then, at a word, The Royals' line broke +into a storm of flame which swept the line of the advancing men as a +scythe sweeps through the corn; and for the British infantry the great +war had begun.</p> + +<p>Mons was a victory; the German advance was held up temporarily. But all +night the British troops were being <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>withdrawn. It was after five in the +morning before The Royals got their orders to move, and 'A' Company +claims to be the last of the British army to leave Mons. But Le Cateau +was another story. Here our men learned what the concentrated fire of +artillery could be. The shallow trenches were obliterated; our gunners, +hopelessly outclassed in weight and number of pieces, could do little, +in spite of the greatest gallantry, to protect the infantry; and that +the army was able to withdraw at all was a striking proof of its stern +discipline. Audencourt was a shambles. Colonel McMicking, wounded near +this village and left behind, as all the wounded who were unable to walk +had to be, was hit again while being carried out of the blazing church. +The command devolved on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> Major, now Brigadier-General, Duncan. From this +time onwards the German guns had the range of the roads, and such a +superiority of fire that they could do almost as they pleased. The +infantry, at first furious at the necessity of retreat, turned again and +again—as did the guns—on their pursuers, but even so the pressure was +perilously near breaking point. The enemy had every means of mechanical +transport, and was able to find time for rest. Our men had to press on +to the last point of human endurance. There was no respite. The French +Foreign Legion have a grim saying, 'March or die.' Here the word was +'March or be captured,' and even when every other conscious feeling but +that of utter exhaustion seemed dead, somewhere deep down in their +hearts the will to endure urged them on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<p>Is there no painter, no poet, who can enshrine for future generations +the memory of this historic scene? We have here a sudden glimpse of +Britain at her best. Hot sun, torment of burning feet on the cruel, +white, and endless roads, the odour and sight and sound of death and +wounds, pressure of pressing men, and love of life and the horrid +loneliness of fear—all that was Giant Circumstance; but he could not +extinguish the souls of men made in the image of God for suffering and +endurance and triumph. English and Irish and Scottish—but brothers in +hatred of retreat and in their determination to push on until they could +turn and strike—the glamour of great names hung round all those +tattered battalions; and the very essence of it was in the oldest of +them all, in history and in campaigns, this famous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> Lowland regiment. Of +that at such a time they thought little, if at all; sheer physical facts +pressed too hard, yet in their desperate victory over circumstance they +wrote the most golden page of their story, and enriched the blood of all +who follow them.</p> + +<p>You can find a certain humour in war if you look for it, though war is +not amusing, and life at home has many more entertaining incidents in it +than life at the front. One officer of The Royals fell sound asleep in a +trench during the climax of a terrific bombardment, and awoke to find +himself alone among the dead. (He makes us laugh when he tells the +story, but at the time it cannot have been just very humorous.) He +pushed on after the retreating army, and though—owing to the mistake of +an officer at a cross-roads who stood saying,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> 'Third division to the +right, So-and-so division to the left,' when it should have been the +other way about—he lost his way, he found the battalion a fortnight +later. Two others came in sight of the last bridge standing on one river +just as the explosive was about to be detonated, and maintain that, +running furiously toward the bridge, they persuaded the engineer in +charge to postpone the fatal moment by brandishing a large loaf, rarest +of all articles on the heels of a retreating army. Another who had been +sent on ahead to find a billet in a château saw a beautiful bathroom, +and was preparing to make use of a priceless opportunity when he found +that the enemy was upon him, and fled in haste. The transport officer, +peering round the corner of a house, saw his beloved transport which he +had gathered and cherished <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>until it was reputed the best in the army, +go up in matchwood and iron splinters. One subaltern, finding himself on +the ground, discovered to his horror that he had a hole in his chest, +but struggled gamely on, now walking, now stealing a ride on a +limber—just catching the last train of all—and finally arriving in +England with no other articles of kit or clothing but a suit of pink +pyjamas and a single eyeglass.</p> + +<p>At Meaux the steeples of Paris were in sight; but the hour had struck, +and The Royals at last wheeled to pursue.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>At the Nose of the Salient</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>The battalion had come through much since then, on the Marne and the +Aisne and the Lys, and in trench warfare from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> Hooge to Neuve Chapelle. +Here is a picture of a day's fighting from the diary of an eyewitness—a +bald note of facts. It refers to 25th September 1915:—</p> + +<p>'The brigade formed up in the trench in the following order from left to +right, 1st Gordons, 4th Gordons, 2nd Royals, one company Royal Scots +Fusiliers. Each battalion received separate point of attack, namely, +Bellevarde Farm, Hooge Château, Redoubt, Sandbag Castle. Artillery +bombardment 3.50-4.20 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> General attack then launched. "B" +Company was at the nose of the salient; "C" Company on right of "B"; "A" +Company on left; "D" Company in dug-outs in reserve. At 4.20 +<span class="smcap">a.m.</span> the battalion advanced to the attack. Complete silence was +observed and bayonets were dulled. The front line was captured with few +casualties on our side, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>shortly after the final objective was +successfully attained. Our line was consolidated. One hundred and +sixteen prisoners belonging to the 172nd Regiment of XV. Prussian Corps +were taken and three lines of trenches. All four officers of "B" Company +were hit before German front line was reached. Touch was established +with R.S.F. on right and 4th G.H. on left. There was heavy German +shell-fire on the captured trenches. A party from "D" Company tried to +make communication trench back to our old front line, 1st Gordons +unfortunately were not able to reach the German front line owing to wire +being undestroyed and too thick to cut. A gap was thus made between 1st +and 4th Gordons. The enemy pushed bombers through, thus getting behind +4th Gordons. Desperate hand-to-hand fighting ensued.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> O.C. "A" Company +was forced to defend his left flank. A German counter-attack moving N. +to S. by C.T. across the Menin Road, The Royals' machine-gun did great +execution. Terrific bombardment by German heavies (H.E.). "A" Company +was ordered to retire on our old front line to get in touch with 4th +G.H. on left. "B" Company to keep in touch ordered to do the same. "C" +Company rinding enemy on left rear, position became critical. No +battalion at all now on left, 1st Gordons having failed in their +objective, and 4th having been withdrawn owing to flank attack in front +of 1st. No battalion now on right either. "C" Company in danger of being +surrounded. Captain N.S. Stewart personally reported the danger of his +position. A company of 4th Middlesex were rushed up—all our men by this +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>time having been used up—to the nose of the salient, but could not man +it owing to terrific barrage of fire. "C" Company, completely cut off, +fought its way with the bayonet back to its former front line. Colonel +Duncan reorganised the firing line. Both sides spent the night in +gathering in the wounded.'</p> + +<p>So ended the containing attack from the Ypres salient. But is not every +sentence a spur to the imagination?</p> + +<p>Two days later, the Corps commander, in personally thanking the +battalion, complimented it on 'the smart appearance of the men who +<i>showed no signs of what they had gone through</i>.'</p> + +<p>It was to this famous battalion of a great Regiment that I was now +attached as one of the four Presbyterian chaplains to the 'fighting +Third' Division.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WINTER WARFARE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>WINTER WARFARE<br /><br /></h3> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>The Shell Area</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>The shell area is all the land behind the trenches which is under fire +from the enemy's guns as a matter of course. It is not a pleasant place, +for that reason, to walk about in, and our own artillery, cleverly +concealed, is apt to open fire unexpectedly within a few yards of the +passer-by in a way that is very disturbing. It is a dreary land; a dank +air broods over it, an atmosphere of destruction and death, of humanity +gone awry and desolate. I remember the almost ecstasy with which one +April afternoon some of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>us found ourselves among the purple hyacinths +on Kemmel hill. Poor Kemmel, once a pleasure resort whither happy +Belgians went for the benefit of their health, now far from that—and +not particularly healthy! These battered villages are now merely sordid; +only Ypres maintains a personality, an air of undefeat all its own. It +too is a ruin, but unlike the others it is a splendid ruin. At every +cross-roads the brooding crucifixes hang. The British mind does not like +this constant reiteration of mishandling and defeat in the death of +Christ. It does not seem to it to be the final message of the Cross. +Indeed, it is the product of the mediaeval, monkish mind. It was not +until the tenth century that the representations of the Crucifixion +showed Our Lord as dead; it was much later before the emphasis <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>was laid +on agony and despair. Once from among the debris of the convent in +Voormezeele I rescued such a representation of the Body of Christ, limbs +gone, broken arms outstretched, and it seemed a symbol. But that is not +the final truth, defeat and despair. The cross-road shrines would not +look down on those groups of tramping Islanders if it were so. And as +you look back over the parados of the firing trench, across the bleached +and scarred countryside, you remember that <i>that</i>, like the scenes of +agony in the clearing station after Loos, is the plain, visible proof +that His Spirit lives in the world of men. But what a Via Dolorosa it +is, that grim ditch dug across Europe, with its crouching men behind the +snipers' plates. Strange path for the twentieth century to have to walk +in, to prove <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>that compassion and righteousness still live.</p> + +<p>In all this area the British soldier walks with a singular +<i>insouciance</i>. It is not simply that he is brave. He is that, supremely +so, and not least when he is very much afraid and will not show it and +carries on with his job. But there is more in it than that. There is a +kind of warlike genius in him which makes him do the right thing in the +right way, so that he appeals to humour and comradeship as well as to +gallantry. It was one of our sergeant-majors who before a battalion +attack offered £5 to the man of his company who was first in the enemy's +trench. Think of it for a moment. He appealed to their sporting +instinct; he turned their thoughts from death and wounds and introduced +a jest into every dug-out that night; and he indicated, without +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>boasting, that he was going to be first over the parapet. He made it +certain that every sportsman in the company—and what British regular is +not—would strain every nerve to be first across. And the cream of the +jest was that, stalwart athlete that he was, he was first across +himself! The same may be said of the officer; he wins more than +obedience from his men. I have seen senior N.C.O.'s crying like children +because their young officer was dead.</p> + +<p>Along with this courage and comradeship and humour there is often a +great deal of fatalism. It expresses itself in many ways, in the reading +of Omar Khayyam—'The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes'—for +example, in the indifference so often shown by men if they lose through +their own fault some 'cushy job' and have to go back to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>line, or in +the doing of really foolish things, foolish because dangerous, but +useless. I remember sitting outside the dug-out of Captain Chree (who +afterwards laid down his life on the Somme) at battalion headquarters, +and watching the shelling of one of our batteries of 18-pounders some +five hundred yards back. The Germans had searched for it repeatedly with +lavish expenditure of ammunition, and that afternoon they got it +repeatedly, with very unpleasant results. But of course there were many +misses. Whenever the German shells fell short they burst in the field, +in front of the battery, which was bounded on two sides by a road. In +the midst of the bombardment a soldier came down the road facing us and, +instead of walking round by the cross-roads, cut across the field in +which shells were bursting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> He deliberately left comparative safety for +real danger simply in order to save himself five minutes' walk. On +another occasion, when I was at dusk one evening in Vierstraat, a Tommy +came along carrying some burden. At this point he got tired and planted +it down right in the middle of the cross-roads. Another man told him he +could not have chosen a worse place for a rest, that the Boche was +always firing rifles and machine-guns up the road, but he was prevailed +upon to move only with the greatest difficulty. Perhaps in another class +was the soldier the doctor and I came upon suddenly in a ruined house in +Ypres kicking with all the strength of an iron-shod boot at the fuse of +an unexploded German shell. A friend with his hands in his pockets was +watching the proceedings with much interest.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> He said he was only +wanting the fuse as a souvenir, but he would soon have got that to keep +and a good deal more. The doctor was quite peevish about it, as the +saying is!</p> + +<p>When an attack is being made or repelled, the concentration of batteries +in action turns the country in front of them into a nightmare of +noise—'a terrific and intolerable noise' in Froissart's phrase. The +incessant slamming of the guns makes it impossible to hear enemy shells +coming. The first intimation is their arrival. But the orderlies go +backwards and forwards through it all with superb courage. Wounded +trickle down the trolley line to the dressing station, and an occasional +group of prisoners come through. It was on a day like this that I saw +Davidson and Rainie for the last time. When The Royals were moved <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>up +from the support trenches to take over from the battalion which had +delivered the attack at St. Eloi, some one said to Captain Davidson, who +was going up at the head of his company through a terrible barrage, +'This is going to be a risky affair.' 'Yes,' he replied, 'but it's not +our business whether it's risky or not. My orders are to go through.' +Soon after he fell. He was barely twenty years of age.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>'I hate war: that is why I am fighting'</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>There is a garden in Vlamertynghe with a marble seat overturned beside a +smashed tree, a corner just made for lovers, once. An enormous crump +hole fills the greater part of the garden, and the wall has fallen +outwards in one mass <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>leaving the fruit trees standing in a line, their +arms outstretched. Across on the other side of the road Captain Norman +Stewart lies buried. But his memory lives in the hearts of men, and +wherever the 2nd battalion gathers round its braziers and in the glow of +them the stories of the heroes of the regiment are passed on from the +veterans to the younger men, Stewart will be remembered with reverence +as one who not only upheld but created regimental tradition.</p> + +<p>It was a bombing affair in which he died, detachments of Suffolks, +Middlesex, and Royal Scots, under his leadership, being ordered to drive +the enemy out of the tip of the salient. Barricades made progress almost +impossible in face of a murderous machine-gun fire. Owing to the +confused nature of the fighting no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>quarter could be given, and +desperate fighting ensued with bombs, bayonets and hand to hand. Finally +ten yards were gained and the ground consolidated.</p> + +<p>At one point of the fight, finding progress otherwise impossible, +Captain Stewart mounted to the top of the barricade in full view of the +enemy, with shells and bombs bursting all round and under machine-gun +and rifle fire. Though wounded he remained there in face of certain +death for over ten minutes. From bucket after bucket handed up to him he +still hurled bombs at the thronging enemy beneath, until a sniper crept +round to his flank, and this heroic Scotsman fell.</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="They pass"> +<tr><td align='left'>'They pass, they pass, but cannot pass away,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .5em;">For <i>Scotland</i> feels them in her blood like wine.'</span></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> + +<p>The night before he died Stewart said to a friend, 'I hate war: that is +why I am fighting.'</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>Billets and Camps</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>The camps to which the battalion returned after each tour of the +trenches were for the most part out of danger except for an occasional +shell, but it was only when we were withdrawn to the 'rest area' that we +felt any sense of freedom to settle down and take stock of ourselves. +Both Colonel Duncan and Colonel Dyson, to whom I owe countless +kindnesses, were keen disciplinarians, and Major Everingham, the +Quartermaster, imperturbable, efficient, could really perform almost +superhuman feats.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> A man can only know his own department, and in mine +the standard of a battalion is shown by its attitude to religious +observances. A bad battalion finds too many engagements to turn out in +any strength on Sunday. I used to feel so proud as the old Royals, every +available man on parade, would march up behind their pipes and drums, +alert, well-groomed, punctilious in all the minor forms that are so +important an evidence of a battalion's condition. In rest billets we all +got to work; there were marches and manœuvres, cinematographs and +cross-country runs, football matches and boxing competitions. These men +when stripped were so much more beautiful than in their clothes. Of how +many in civilian occupations could that be said? The battalion would be +refitted; a brewer's great vat <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>was commandeered for a bathing-place; +the village school was turned, every evening, into a recreation room; +and a communicants' class was started. Not for the first time I longed +for a brief, clear statement of our Church's faith. The cumbrous +complicated Catechisms and Confessions are magnificent monuments, but +they are worse than useless under such conditions. A <i>Credo</i> which could +be written on a blackboard and pointed to as the Church member's +essential Confession of Faith, to be developed and expanded according to +the need and circumstances, would be a real power in a chaplain's hands. +The men's behaviour in billets—ramshackle barns for the most part—was +almost exemplary. Only once or twice small episodes occurred in +connection with hen-roosts, and on one occasion a sucking-pig was +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>slaughtered amid its brethren at the dead of night. It must have been a +temporary madness that possessed the author of this escapade, for he had +no possible chance of escape. It was pleaded on his behalf, on his +appearance before the Colonel, that he had recently done a gallant deed, +but as some one said, 'If every man who did a gallant deed was allowed +to kill a pig there would not be a pig left in Flanders.'</p> + +<p>It was the cleanness of the air and of the soil that made a rest back +among the far-stretching forests of the Pas de Calais so different from +one nearer the line. To get on bridle-paths and roads free from lorry +traffic and let your horse out at full stretch over the fallen leaves +down some long grey-purple vista of bare trees, and feel the clean wind +whistling past your ears and smell the fresh odours <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>of the great woods, +to see the blue smoke drifting up from some forester's cottage, or for a +moment in passing catch a glimpse of a fairy-story scene of charcoal +burners grouped together in a glade, was to ride into another world of +thought and feeling. My little horse John, one of the five horses left +of those who crossed with the battalion, felt it too—thought perhaps he +was in old England again. But the British soldier hates manœuvres and +marches and drills and inspections. He would rather be left in peace in +his trenches, in a 'quiet' part of the line at least, than bothered +about those things. Movement, too, has an exhilarating effect on him, +and so when orders come to go back into action he tramps off with +remarkable goodwill. I remember one battalion of Royal Welsh Fusiliers, +suddenly rushed up from rest, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>pulled out of the station singing a song +of which the refrain is something like 'Ai, ai! Vot a game it is!' at +the top of their voices. And it really is by no means a game. As the +Colonel used to say (very moderately), 'Life out here is not all joy!'</p> + +<p>One November evening I was picking my way cautiously through the mud +camp near Reninghelst, and hearing the tune of a famous hymn, drew near +to listen, for Jock sometimes sings to hymn tunes words that certainly +never appeared in any hymn-book, and I wanted to make sure that it <i>was</i> +the greatest hymn in the English language which was being sung. It was a +quiet night. Now and again a heavy gun fired a round, and infrequently, +on a gentle wind blowing from the trenches, was borne the rattle of a +machine-gun. From all the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>camp arose the subdued confused noise of an +army settling to rest for the night. Some tents were in darkness, in +others a candle burned, and here and there braziers still glowed redly. +It was from one of the lighted tents that the singing came, each part +being taken, and a sweet clear tenor voice leading. The tune was old +'Communion,' and they had just come to this verse:</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Forbid it Lord"> +<tr><td align='left'>'Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Save in the death of Christ, my God:</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">All the vain things that charm me most,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">I sacrifice them to His blood.'</span></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>How often have we sung that, perhaps thoughtlessly, in comfort at home, +but these lads had in truth sacrificed the 'vain things.' With a lump in +my throat I waited for the last verse:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Love so amazing"> +<tr><td align='left'>'Were the whole realm of nature mine,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">That were an offering far too small;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Love so amazing, so divine,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Demands my life, my soul, my all.'</span></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>HOW THE ROYALS HELD THE BLUFF: AN EPISODE OF TRENCH WARFARE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>HOW THE ROYALS HELD THE BLUFF: AN EPISODE OF TRENCH WARFARE<br /><br /></h3> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>Waiting</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>The beginning of March found me with a battalion of The Royals in a +rather battered Belgian town. Its centre received a good deal of +attention from enemy artillery, but it offered two attractions which +brought in officers from divisions all around. After all, to men +accustomed to living in the trenches, the atmosphere was one of almost +Sabbath peace. The hall where 'The Fancies' made much of the humours of +trench life to uproariously delighted audiences <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>was crowded out night +after night. You could not find anywhere greater zest and enjoyment. The +striking comradeship of soldiering, the common experience of audience +and actors, and the abandonment of all thought for the morrow, gave that +impression of cheerful carelessness the root of which is not happiness +but the conviction that the future is so uncertain and the possibilities +so dreadful that he is wise who lives for the hour only, even as the +hour may snatch life from him. I thought I knew the head in front of me, +and, leaning forward, saw it was my brother-in-law. It has always struck +me as quaint that he, who had been with his battery for a year and a +half, and I, who had been out for nine months, should have met again +under such circumstances. I had pictured a stricken field and much +coolness exhibited in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>an admittedly dramatic moment—something in line +with Stanley's 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume.' It was comforting to find +it otherwise, but, as Smee says in <i>Peter Pan</i>, it was 'galling too.' +First when looking into a shop window, and now in a concert hall, in all +these months of war! We said, 'Not a bad show, is it?' 'Not half bad.' +But there have been some strange meetings in this war. A private in our +battalion discovered his son, a boy of seventeen, in a new draft which +had just come up to the line. He had run away from home and been lost to +sight. The father set matters on a proper footing by thrashing his son +there and then in the front trench!</p> + +<p>War was not very far off after all. Two days later we were having lunch +in the comfortable warm restaurant which is this tedious town's other +attraction.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> We drank our coffee to the accompaniment of the nasty sound +of arriving shells. Every time a shell screamed towards us the stout +lady behind the counter dropped on hands and knees, emerging flushed and +trembling after each had burst. We were rather amused; but when we went +out and round the corner of the street, the body of a man was being +swiftly carried away wrapped in a brown blanket. Forty soldiers, it was +said, had been killed and wounded. Distracted women stood in little +groups in the passages of the houses, and there was much blood in the +gutters.</p> + +<p>Only a country invaded by the enemy drinks to its dregs the cup of war, +but the narrow belt a few miles behind the friendly army's trenches +enjoys great prosperity. The love of home or the love of money keeps the +population in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>many places where it would be better away. One beautiful +spring day I took shelter behind a farmhouse in the Hallebast-Vierstraat +area until some shelling on the path ahead had died down. The farmer's +wife came out and we got into conversation. A rise in the ground gave +some shelter from the German lines, but she told me that any movement on +horseback was immediately sniped with whizbangs. The day before all her +cows had been killed by shell-fire in the paddock behind the farmhouse, +but if she and her elderly husband let their land go out of cultivation, +how were they to live, and if they left, where could they go? When +high-explosives blew great holes in their sown land they just filled in +the holes and ploughed and sowed the place over again. The settled +sadness of her face and voice haunts me still. Others, how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>ever, stay in +danger because they are making so much money. Several shopkeepers in +this town admitted they had never known such prosperity. The estaminets +make enormous profits from the sale of very weak beer. A friend of mine, +having drawn battalion pay in notes of too large amounts, was told to +return to the paymaster and draw it in smaller sums. He found the office +closed, and turned into a little village shop to see if they could +change a part of it. To his amazement they changed the whole of it from +the till. The total amount was ten thousand francs. But how many +Belgians have lost their all?</p> + +<p>Our billets were clean and very airy. For some reason, though all +furniture had been removed, the presses, which were all open, were full +of beautiful bed and table linen. It was very tempting, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>but fortunately +we resisted the temptation. The morning after we arrived, about seven +o'clock, a disturbance arose below. Angry women's voices were heard in +altercation with the servants, there were hurried footsteps on the +stair, and a moment later our door was thrust violently open. Two +strapping Belgian women strode in and demanded answers to many +questions. We adopted our friend the Major's plan, and feigned to know +even less French than we did. We were anxious to be very inoffensive as +we lay on the floor and watched these determined individuals throwing +open the presses and wardrobes. Inside the linen lay untouched, folded +neatly; we felt thankful we had left it so. They stamped out again, and +we heard the Colonel's voice raised in protest next door. The doctor and +I looked at one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>another. He seemed rather pale, and I noticed for the +first time that his head rested on an enormous soft pillow covered with +a spotless linen pillow-slip edged with beautiful lace.</p> + +<p>But next morning we had a different awakening. Dawn was rising wanly +from the east to another day on the Salient. The broken windows were +rattling and the floor trembling under the dull continuous thudding of a +concentrated bombardment. We lay and listened, and for the thousandth +time hated war. We knew that men, some of whom we knew and loved, were +going over the parapet, many never to return.</p> + +<p>That night, as dusk fell, the old steeple with its rent side looked down +on cobbled streets thronging with ordered ranks of men standing ready to +move. Here and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>there a few officers spoke together, or a man gave his +chum a light from his fag, or straps were tightened. A rifle butt rang +on the pavement, and the adjutant's horse moved his feet restlessly. +These men had no illusions as to what they would probably have to face; +but none guessed that there lay ahead the most dreadful test of physical +endurance which the old battalion, since the great retreat, had ever +known.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>The Bluff</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>What had happened was this. Soon after our division had been moved back +to the rest area, part of the line which it had been holding was +strongly attacked and lost to the enemy. Several counter-attacks failed, +and finally our own Divi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>sion was brought back from rest to recapture +the lost trenches. One brigade attacked with great dash and success. The +lost trenches were re-occupied, and our own brigade, which had been +lying in support, was ordered to take over and hold them against the +expected counter-attacks. The Bluff, which was the main feature of the +position and the worst part of which The Royals, as the senior +battalion, were given to hold, was a low hill jutting out at the +re-entrant to the Salient, south-east of Ypres. It was a strong tactical +position commanding the approaches to our trenches, as the enemy well +knew. Seen from our front line farther south it had the dead, bleak +appearance of all ground that is much shelled. Pitted by high explosive, +burned yellow by fumes of gas and shells, and stripped of every living +thing, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>with blackened stumps of trees sparsely scattered on its summit, +this muddy hillock dominated the flat lands, and, on the sunny morning +when I first saw it, seemed indescribably sinister and menacing. It said +to me, 'I am war, the antagonist of everything clean and comely, of +everything fresh and young: misery of mind and body, torment of kindly +earth and all its little growing things, lover of all that is foul and +dead.'</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<div class='center'><big><i>'We've keepit up the reputation o' the auld mob, onyway'</i></big><br /><br /></div> + +<p>That night the weather suddenly changed. There had been a hint of spring +in the air, but in an hour that was wiped out by a bitter north wind +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>sweeping the bare fields with icy rain and snow. The transport, pitched +in the filthy morass known as 'Scottish Lines,' saw its labour of three +weeks thrown away in a couple of nights. For the human beings there were +a few tents and huts, but in face of the searching wind canvas seemed +quite porous, and the huts were badly built and had a hundred openings +to the bitter air. But up at the Bluff conditions were terrible. The +trenches had disappeared under repeated bombardments, and had become +mere chains of shell holes in which the men stood up to their thighs in +liquid mud. When the C.O. arrived to take over the headquarters' dug-out +he found it blown to pieces. Within lay the bodies of the previous +occupants—four officers. Another dug-out was finally found. It was deep +in a bank at the end of a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>narrow passage twenty feet long. Within was a +chamber six feet long, four broad and four high, and in this place, so +horribly like a grave, the C.O., second-in-command, and adjutant lived +for three days and four nights. A candle gave light, and whenever a +shell burst above the flame jerked out. The sergeant-major and the +orderlies and servants lived in the tunnel, squatting on their haunches +in the mud. Outside there were no other dug-outs at all. The shelling +was continuous, but the cold was far worse. Men sank in the mud and +remained motionless for hours. Many fell into shell holes and had to be +hauled out with twisted telephone wires. The wounded suffered horribly. +Owing to the mud and the German barrage no supplies could be brought up, +and it was impossible to light braziers. On the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>fourth night relief +came, but it was daylight before the last company sucked itself out of +its mudholes and waded back in full view of the enemy. Fortunately a +blinding snowstorm swept down from the north and hid all movement just +when it seemed certain that disaster would occur. Every available +vehicle was sent up to meet the battalion, but there was a long walk +before these could be reached. The men crept along on sodden, swollen +feet—no gumboots had been obtainable. They came along in groups, now of +two or three, now of six or seven, or one by one. They were bent like +old men, and staggered as they walked, their faces set and grey. The +most terrible thing of all was the utter silence. Snow muffled the fall +of the dragging feet; it lay thick on the masses of ruins in the +shattered empty villages; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>and when the brigade major's greeting rang +out men shrank and looked fearful at the sudden sound. Yet when I spoke +to any, as they staggered through the snow past the point whither I had +gone to meet them, life flickered up for a moment from the depths of +that final exhaustion. 'What price Charlie Chaplin now, sir!' said one +man whose wavering footsteps led him hither and thither. And another in +simple words summed up the heroic simple spirit of them all: 'Well, +we've keepit up the reputation o' the auld mob, onyway.' Indomitable +men! Who could ever vanquish you?</p> + +<p>Rest meant tent boards under frozen canvas, but it was rest. On that +weary morning even the uninviting outline of Reninghelst village seemed +like home.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE HISTORIC TRIANGLE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE HISTORIC TRIANGLE</h3> + +<p>Surely so long as great deeds appeal to the British race those weary +miles will be always sacred. Within them lie the unnumbered British +dead, 'the dear, pitiful, august dead.' Comrades of the dauntless +warriors of Gallipoli, comrades of the sailors who have gone down +fighting in the cold waters of the North Sea, brothers of all brave men +suffering for a clean cause, they leave the issue with us. As long <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>as +the British Empire endures, and it will endure so long as it works for +God and no longer, the memory of the heroes of the Ypres salient will +live and glow.</p> + +<p>'I hate war: that is why I am fighting,' said one of them. They fought +not merely for their country, but because they believed they were +fighting war itself. We shall not be true to their memory unless we +remember that. 'Slavery will always be,' said the defenders of slavery. +'It is impossible to prevent those things, human nature being what it +is,' said others of schools like Dotheboys Hall. A little time ago +England and Scotland were at one another's throats; a little before that +clan fell upon clan with vindictive fury. When we have beaten Germany, +who stands for the old, rotten, pagan belief <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>in old, rotten, pagan +things we must see that we do not betray the men who died fighting +because they hated war.</p> + +<p>But war has good in it too, they say. Yes, and amid its hideous wrong no +doubt there was good in slavery, as there is in cancer or blindness. +Almost any evil or agony may be the root of noble qualities, and war is +no exception.</p> + +<p>These men died in the hope that it might be impossible for a civilised +nation again to thrust this evil on the human race. They died trusting +us to see that Europe would not again have to choose the alternative of +entering upon such an agony or of forgetting its honour towards God. +Force, it would seem, must long remain the last remedy, but might it not +be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>force resting on a pivot and striking with effect wherever +international crime seeks to disturb the peace of the nations? The mere +knowledge of such a united determination would at least be a powerful +persuasive. That may be only a dream. The immediate fact is that the +doctrine of Will to Power must first be crushed, represented as it is +to-day by Germany and her dupes. But men who have been through the +furnace will not rest content with less than the solemn attempt, in the +name of the dead, to put the nations of the world in a worthier +relationship to one another than has so far prevailed. Our brothers who +have fallen died in the hope that for succeeding generations life would +be different. They died believing that because of their sacrifice it +might be possible to substitute for the Ger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>man (or any other) Will to +Power the Christian Will to Righteous Peace. This effort alone can be +their fitting monument.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class='center'>Printed in Great Britain by <span class="smcap">T. and A. Constable</span>, Printers to +His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press</div> +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<div class='tnote'><b>Transcriber's note:</b> The table of contents states that section III of Chapter VII starts on page 128. It actually starts on page 127. The link to this section has been adjusted accordingly.</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of On the King's Service, by Innes Logan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE KING'S SERVICE *** + +***** This file should be named 16992-h.htm or 16992-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/9/9/16992/ + +Produced by Irma Spehar, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: On the King's Service + Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms + +Author: Innes Logan + +Release Date: November 3, 2005 [EBook #16992] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE KING'S SERVICE *** + + + + +Produced by Irma Spehar, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + +ON THE +KING'S SERVICE + +Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms + +BY THE REV. +INNES LOGAN, M.A. +CHAPLAIN TO THE FORCES +SEPT. 1914-MAY 1916 + +HODDER AND STOUGHTON +LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO + +MCMXVII + + + +TO MY WIFE + + + +This little book is written as a slight tribute of love and respect +for those with whom the writer had, for over twenty months, the honour +of association. + +UNITED FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND MANSE, BRAEMAR. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +MUSTERING MEN + + PAGE + + I. THOSE GAUNT UNLOVELY BUILDINGS 3 + II. WHY THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND ENLISTED 7 +III. UBIQUE 10 + + +CHAPTER II + +A REINFORCEMENTS CAMP + + I. THE SUNNY VALLEY 19 + II. THE MAN FROM SKYE 22 +III. 'YOU CAN HEAR THEM NOW' 26 + + +CHAPTER III + +A CLEARING STATION WHEN THERE IS 'NOTHING TO REPORT' + + I. FROM PARAPET TO BASE 33 + II. 'DO YOU THINK THAT SORT OF THING MATTERS NOW?' 45 +III. THE NAME OF JESUS 50 + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE AFTERMATH OF LOOS + + I. THE FLAVOUR OF VICTORY 57 + II. DOUBTS AND FEARS 63 +III. OUR SHARE OF THE FIFTY THOUSAND 69 + + +CHAPTER V + +DUMBARTON'S DRUMS + + I. BACK AGAIN! 79 + II. THE FIRST SHOCK OF WAR 81 +III. AT THE NOSE OF THE SALIENT 88 + + +CHAPTER VI + +WINTER WARFARE + + I. THE SHELL AREA 95 + II. 'I HATE WAR: THAT IS WHY I AM FIGHTING' 103 +III. BILLETS AND CAMPS 106 + + +CHAPTER VII + +HOW THE ROYALS HELD THE BLUFF: AN EPISODE OF TRENCH WARFARE + + I. WAITING 117 + II. THE BLUFF 125 +III. 'WE'VE KEEPIT UP THE REPUTATION O' THE AULD MOB, ONYWAY' 128 + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HISTORIC TRIANGLE 135 + + + + +MUSTERING MEN + + + + +CHAPTER I + +MUSTERING MEN + + +I + +_Those gaunt unlovely buildings_ + +The War Office built Maryhill Barracks, Glasgow, to look exactly like a +gaol, but these gaunt unlovely buildings, packed beyond endurance with +men of the new army, were at least in some way in touch with what was +happening elsewhere. Even in that first month of the war it seemed +callous to be breathing the sweet, clear air of Braemar, or to let one's +eyes linger on the matchless beauty of mountain and glen. The grey spire +of my church rising gracefully among the silver birches and the dark +firs, bosomed deep in purple hills, pointed to some harder way than +that. Stevenson, who wrote part of _Treasure Island_ here, called it +'the wale (pick) of Scotland,' but just because it was so we saw more +clearly the agony of Belgium and the men of our heroic little Regular +Army dying to keep us inviolate. + +Up to the 10th of September recruits poured in in such numbers that it +was hard to cope with the situation in the most superficial way. On that +date the standard was raised, and, as though a sluice had been dropped +across a mill dam, the stream stopped suddenly and completely. I suppose +that was the object of the new regulation, but it caused +misunderstanding, and to this day the spontaneous rush of the first +month of the war has never been repeated. Beyond doubt the numbers were +too great to be properly handled. Men slept in the garrison church, in +the riding school, on the floor in over-crowded barrack-rooms, in leaky +tents without bottoms to them. There were no recreation rooms. It rained +a great deal, and once wet a man with no change of clothing or +underclothing remained wet for days in his meagre civilian suit. There +were too few blankets, no braziers, and the cheap black shoes of civil +life were soon in tatters. Everybody became abominably verminous, and +though the food was good enough in its way the cooks were overwhelmed, +and it was often uneatable. Nobody was to blame, and in an astonishingly +short time order began to emerge, but in those early days one enormous +'grouse' went up continually from the new army that was not yet an army, +and those conditions were partly responsible for the fact that when the +standard was lowered again the flow of recruits was so much less than +before. This, the faculty for hearty grousing, in the army whimsical, +humorous, shrewd, sometimes biting, never down-hearted, is evidently an +old national custom, for Chaucer uses the word half a dozen times. But +the aggravated discomfort of men soft from indoor life was really +pitiful. + +Before long all recruits except those for the Royal Field Artillery were +sent elsewhere, and the barracks became a great depot for this arm of +the service, with Colonel Forde in command. What marvels were done in +those early days, and how hard pushed the country was, will be realised +when it is understood that for months a body of men numbering never less +than two thousand, and sometimes as many as three times that number, +had only two field guns for training purposes, and that officers had to +be sent out to the Expeditionary Force who had worn a uniform only for +three, four, or five weeks. + + +II + +_Why the First Hundred Thousand Enlisted_ + +The first hundred thousand had some characteristics of their own +compared with their successors. They contained a large number of men who +do things on the spur of the moment, the born seekers after adventure, +men to whom war had its attractions. Many a man who had never found his +place in life, because his was the restless, roving spirit which could +not settle, or that chafed against ordered conventional ways, found his +happiness at last in August 1914. Alongside those were the men who were +passionately patriotic and saw very clearly and quickly the long issues +involved to the country they loved. The fate of Belgium had a far more +moving influence with the ranks of the new army than the officer class, +I think, quite realised. Indeed, with the later recruits I gathered the +impression that indignation at the German atrocities in Belgium was the +prevailing motive in their enlistment. There can be no question in the +mind of any one who worked intimately among the men of the new armies in +the autumn and winter of 1914 that the invasion of Belgium was the one +shocking stroke that rallied the country as one man, and that nothing +else in the situation, as it was known, would have done this. The people +as a whole did not grasp the imminence of the German menace. Of the +torturing pressure on the thin khaki line that barred the pass to the +sea we knew nothing. Day by day and night by night we were regaled with +stories of 'heavy German losses' and futile tales of the deaths of +German princes; neither our manhood nor our imagination was fully +captured, for of the almost unbelievable heroism of our brothers we were +never told. Perhaps the silence was justified; the enemy might have +learned how near they were to victory, and with a supreme effort have +broken through. At all events, unavoidably or not, the youth of the +country as a whole was never, throughout this winter, really roused to +its best. All the more honour to the first hundred thousand! + + +III + +_Ubique_ + +After this war is over no soldier can ask 'What does the Christian +Church do for me?' The members of the Church, acting through its +organisation, or more frequently through other organisations of which +its members were the moving spirits, rose to the occasion nobly all over +the country. Glasgow was no exception. It did the Churches, too, much +good, teaching them to work together. Here is an example. The men were +lodged all over the city, two or three hundred in one hall, more than +that in another. In every instance arrangements were made for their +recreation and comfort. In a given district one congregation gave its +hall as a recreation room, another paid all expenses, a third supplied +a church officer for daily cleaning, the members joined in giving +magazines and papers, and in providing tea and coffee; the missionary of +one congregation held services, and all united in giving concerts. The +Y.M.C.A., which does not accept workers unless they are members of the +Christian Church, came on the scene and built a hut, through the +generosity of Mrs. Hunter Craig, in the barrack square. + +On this, in the early months of 1915, there followed a revival of +religion among the Maryhill Barracks men, whose centre was the Y.M.C.A. +hut. This revival had the marks in it which we younger men had been told +were the marks of a true revival, but from which many had shrunk because +they were associated in our days with flaming advertisement, noise, and +ostentation. + +A wise old Scots minister was once asked, 'How are we to bring about a +revival?' 'It is God who gives revival.' 'But how are we to get Him to +give it?' 'Ask Him,' he said. Perhaps in this case we may say humbly +that our asking was largely in the form of gaining the confidence of the +men, for when we had all become friends the movement began quietly one +night through the action of an agent of the Pocket Testament League, who +was spending the evening with us. The meetings looked prosaic enough to +the eye; there was no band or solo singing or outward excitement, and +the hut was a plain wooden building, but the strain was very intense at +times. Sometimes as many as a hundred in one week would stay behind and +profess conversion, desiring to yield to the profound spiritual impulse +urging them from within to make Christ's mind and spirit their principle +in life. All had been cast loose from their moorings and had been trying +to find their feet in new surroundings. Most of them were just decent +lads who had never thought much about it before. There were others who +at last saw a chance to make a fresh start and grasped thankfully at it. +A few were 'corner-boys,' learning in discipline and comradeship a +lesson they had never dreamed of. I think there was everywhere in the +new army a certain moral uplift arising from the consciousness of a hard +duty undertaken, and it was not difficult to lead this on to a more +personal and spiritual crisis. There was something very lovable about +them. A tall, handsome fellow from a Canadian lumber camp said, with +real distress in his face, 'I've tried and tried, and, God help me, I +can't. It's no use.' His chum tucked his arm through his and declared +with a warmth of affection in his voice, 'I'll look after him, guv'nor.' + +Many months afterwards in a Flemish town I saw some of their batteries +go by clattering over the stony streets. The flashlight from an electric +torch lit up the riders flitting from darkness to darkness on either +side of the broad pencil of light. It showed bronzed faces, competent +gestures, stained uniforms, the marks of veterans, men who had been in +action many times with their guns. I am sure that they do their duty not +only to their king but to One Higher, too, in the words of the brave +motto of their corps, '_Ubique quo fas et gloria ducunt_.' + +In April orders came to join the Expeditionary Force. + + + + +A REINFORCEMENTS CAMP + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A REINFORCEMENTS CAMP + + +I + +_The Sunny Valley_ + +The reinforcements camp lay pleasantly in a sunny valley. The nearest +town was Harfleur, besieged exactly five hundred years earlier by Henry +V. of England, who placed his chief reliance on his big guns and his +mines and was not disappointed. The camp commandant was insistent that +the ground round the tents and huts should be turned into gardens, and +before long the valley was bright with flowers. There was peace over all +the landscape here. Sometimes a train of horse trucks, crowded with men +standing at the sliding doors or sitting with legs dangling over the +rails, panted up the long slope past the foot of the valley, and every +evening the supply trains pulled slowly off on their way to the front, +each laden with one day's rations for twelve thousand men. Fresh drafts +for the infantry and artillery arrived every day, stayed a few days, and +then were sent up the line. Probably a thousand men a month would be a +fair estimate for the wastage from a division at that time, that is, the +whole Expeditionary Force had to be renewed completely once a year, as +far as its fighting units were concerned. Drafts therefore were +continually passing through our camp, and I had many opportunities of +studying the morale of individuals of all ranks. The result was +interesting and worth setting down. My experience was that the good +heart of fighting men was affected by only two avoidable causes. The +first was the large number of young able-bodied men engaged in +occupations, on the lines of communications and at the base, which might +have been carried through effectively by others. These young men never +were in danger, while those who happened to have enlisted in combatant +corps were sent back to face death again and again. This (we are told) +has now been rectified, but it was for long a source of great soreness. +The second influence making for soreness was the amazing amount of +wrangling that went on at home, among the newspapers, between masters +and men, and so on. Officers would get furious with the conduct of the +'workers,' and condemn them wholesale as a class. One had to be at once +cautious and persistent in bringing home to them the fact that their +own men, whom they admired and loved, whom they knew would follow them +anywhere, were drawn from just the same class as those men who were out +on strike. Another reason why it would have been better to have had +older men and married men at the bases lay in the temptations +surrounding the men there on every side. These also have to be reckoned +with as part of the inevitable cost of war. It says much for the grit +and character of the average Briton that so many come through unscathed. + + +II + +_The Man from Skye_ + +As I was going round the tents one day I had a long talk with a man in a +draft just leaving for the front to join a Highland regiment. He had +not been long out of hospital, and, like his companions, had scarcely +pulled himself together after the sadness of a second farewell. +Following a good plan of always handing on any rumour, however +improbable, which is of a thoroughly cheerful nature I said, referring +to a report that was current in the messes that morning, 'They say Lord +Kitchener says it will be all over by September.' He looked at me very +seriously and said sternly, 'It iss not for Lord Kitchener to say when +the war will be over. It iss only for God to say that.' Presently he +said, 'And what iss more, I will nefer see Skye again.' I had tried +every way in vain to lift his foreboding from him, and now I said +sternly like himself, 'It is not for you to say whether you will ever +see Skye again; only God can know that.' He moved a little, restlessly, +and answered slowly, 'Yess, that iss so, but--yess, it iss so.' +Sometimes when we were asking one another that old familiar unanswerable +question I would tell the story of the man from Skye and his answer to +the problem. We were very glad to hear a few weeks later that he had +been discharged as permanently unfit, and was by then in his loved misty +isle. + +The Principal Chaplain visited the camp during my chaplaincy there. The +Rev. Dr. Simms, who ranks as a major-general, has charge of all +chaplains other than those of the Church of England. His tall, +distinguished, unassuming figure will always stand, in the minds of +those who were under his administration, for infinite kindness, wisdom, +and scrupulous fairness between all parties. Dr. Wallace Williamson of +St. Giles', Edinburgh, who was visiting the troops in France, +accompanied him. Their service on Sunday was very moving. Hearts were +near the surface in those brief days between the farewell and the +battlefield. The three Scotsmen whom I knew best of those who were at +this service are all dead: one fell at Loos, one in Mesopotamia, and one +on the Somme. The oldest of them, who was an officer in a Guards +battalion, could not speak and his eyes were full of tears. There was no +possibility here of the remark that one Lowlander made to another after +listening to a very celebrated London preacher: 'Aye, it was beautiful, +and he cud mak' ye see things too, whiles; but, man! there was nae +_logic_ in 't.' + +It was about this time that we heard of the sinking of the _Lusitania_. +Somehow from this moment we knew better where we were and for what we +fought. Every one's thoughts were very grim. This was sheer naked +wickedness done plainly and coldly in the sight of God and man. + + +III + +'_You can hear them now_' + +One broiling afternoon as I sat talking with a friend in my tent an +orderly came to the door and said to him, 'Message for you, sir.' He +glanced at it. It was his orders to join his battalion at the front. We +shook hands and he went off, glad to be on the move again after hanging +about waiting so long. In five minutes the orderly was back with orders +for me to proceed at once to the 2nd London Territorial Casualty +Clearing Station. I said good-bye to Adams, my servant. No man was ever +more fortunate in his batmen--Adams, a typical regular, fiercely proud +of his regiment; Campion, the London Territorial, a commercial traveller +in civil life; and Munro, the Royal Scot, who within a month or two of +the outbreak of war could no longer suppress the fighting spirit of the +Royal Regiment stirring within him, and voluntarily rejoined, leaving a +wife and six children behind him. He was a foreman in the Edinburgh +Tramways Company. Handy man that he was, he could turn his hand to +anything, whether it was devising a ferrule for a broken walking stick +out of the screw of a pickle bottle, or making a bleak-looking hut +habitable, or producing hot tea from nowhere, or transforming a +wet-canteen marquee into a decent place for Communion (empty tobacco +boxes for table, beer barrels discreetly out of sight), or building a +pulpit out of sandbags in the corner of a roofless saloon bar. + +The supply train left at a very early hour, and by devious routes +reluctantly approached the railhead. The journey took thirty hours. It +was long enough to teach the lessons never to go on a military train in +France without something to read, or to drink rashly from an aluminium +cup containing hot liquid, or to rely on bully beef as a sole article of +diet. Towards evening the Irishman in charge of the train had pity and +took me along--we had stopped for the thirty-fifth time--to admire his +Primus stove in full blast, and to share his excellent dinner. But +(stove or no stove) the world is divided into those who can do that sort +of thing and those who cannot; who, wrestling futilely with refractory +elements, wish they had never been born. + +He said that before we reached the railhead we would probably hear the +sound of the guns. The phrase is used to barrenness, even to ridicule, +but the reality when first heard rings a new emotion in your breast. The +night was windless and warm, and about ten o'clock as we stood in a +wayside station the Ulsterman came up to me and said, 'Listen, you can +hear them now.' And away to the east could be heard a deep shaking sound +rising and fading away in the still air--the sound of British artillery +fighting day and night against yet overwhelming odds. + +Twenty hours later, after many wanderings, a friendly Field Ambulance +car deposited me at the door of the mess of the clearing station, where +the arrival of a 'Scotch minister' had been awaited with a good deal of +curiosity and possibly some apprehension. + + + + +A CLEARING STATION WHEN THERE IS 'NOTHING TO REPORT' + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A CLEARING STATION WHEN THERE IS 'NOTHING TO REPORT' + + +I + +_From Parapet to Base_ + +We sometimes hear of some man who with leg smashed continues firing his +machine-gun as though nothing had happened. How is this to be explained? +The answer is one that is a real comfort to those at home. The most +shattering wounds are not those which cause the greatest immediate pain. +It is as though a tree fell across telegraph wires. The wires are down, +and no message, or, at worst, a confused jangling message can come +through to the brain. I have known a man carried into an aid-post in a +state of great delight because he had 'got a Blighty one.' He lay +smoking and talking, little realising that his wound was so grave that +it would be many months before he could walk again--if indeed he would +ever walk with two legs. By the time the realisation of the pain has +come into full play the sufferer, in ordinary times, is in the clearing +station or, at least, the field ambulance, and has the resources of +science at his disposal. + +Suppose that at three in the afternoon Jock is hit, in the front trench. +'Jock' is the name universally given to Scottish soldiers, Lowland or +Highland. It is not a melodious name, but there it is! And it somehow +expresses the Scotsman's character better than 'Tommy' does. He cannot +be carried down the communication trench because it zigzags too much: +he cannot be got round the angles. So he is taken into a dug-out and +gets first aid, and a tablet of morphine perhaps. The M.O. may possibly +come up to see him, but he may be too busy in his own aid-post. There +are stretcher bearers in the trench able to bandage properly. The +average 'S.B.,' by the way, is a man from the battalion, not from the +R.A.M.C. As soon as it is dark the stretcher bearers lift him and carry +him across the open to the aid-post, which is perhaps five hundred or a +thousand yards behind the firing trench, near the battalion +headquarters. It is an eerie journey, with a certain amount of risk. The +brilliant Boche flares rise continually--the enemy is sometimes called +'the Hun,' more often 'the Boche,' in more genial moments 'Fritz,' but +'the Germans' never--and light up the ground vividly. These flares are +very powerful. I have seen my own shadow cast from one when standing at +the time in a camp fully five miles from the trenches, and when you are +close up you feel that every eye in 'Germany' is fixed on you. The best +thing to do is to stand quite still, for artificial light is very +deceptive, and it is hard to make out what an object is. In any case, +the real danger area is 'No-Man's-Land,' for it is on that mighty +graveyard stretching from Switzerland to the sea that the enemy's eyes +are bent. The regiments used to get various kinds of flares to +experiment with. We used to laugh over an incident that occurred when a +new type, a species of parachute, had been served out. The +Second-in-command, who fired it, miscalculated the strength of the wind, +which was blowing from the enemy's trench, and the flare was carried in +a stately curve backwards until it was directly over battalion +headquarters. Here it hung for a long time, showing up all details very +successfully, to the C.O.'s great annoyance. Over this ground, very +slowly and carefully, the stretcher is carried. When the aid-post is +reached the M.O. takes charge, assisted by the sergeant or corporal of +the R.A.M.C., whom he has always with him, and the 'casualty' is laid +alongside others in the dug-out, or cellar beneath some ruined house, +that forms the aid-post and battalion dispensary. The first stage in the +journey is now over. Soon a couple of cars creep quietly up. One by one +the casualties are lifted in or climb in stiffly. The doctor who has +come up with them chats with the M.O., and the local gossip is exchanged +for the wider knowledge (or more grandiose rumours) of the field +ambulance. Our Jock, who has a bullet in his chest, is lifted in. Straps +are fastened securely and tarpaulins tied. 'All aboard, sir!' 'Right! +Well, so long, Hadley!' 'Cheero, Scott!' The ambulances start very +cautiously, and crawl up the road. It is in execrable condition, for +work in daylight here is impossible. It is all knocked to pieces with +traffic, and frequently pitted with shell holes, and as a rule very +narrow. There is no moon, which is just as well, and no lights can be +carried. The driver feels his way through inky blackness by some sixth +sense begotten of many such journeys. Every now and then a flare lights +up the broken cobbles for a few seconds. His wheels are only a couple of +feet from the mud on either side, and if he goes into that the car +would be there for hours. A little to the right a battery of 18-pounders +is firing slowly and regularly, and the shells scream over the road on +their way to the enemy. A corner is turned and the road gets better. We +draw up at a building with no light showing, and R.A.M.C. orderlies come +up the steps from a cellar. This is the advanced dressing station; it +collects from a brigade front and there are two doctors at work. A large +window covered with sacking opens at the level of the ground into the +cellar, and the wounded are lifted through it. Some will stay here all +night, but the most seriously hurt are sent on to the casualty clearing +station five or six miles back. Hot drinks are going and are welcome, +for the injured men are trembling and sick with shock. Two new drivers +come up from their dug-out, yawning, and take over; a message has just +come in that the 'P' trenches have been 'hotted' by trench mortars and +cars must go back again at once. The ambulances move off, leaving the +doctors busy, sleeves rolled up to the elbow. The second stage in the +journey has been completed. + +The cars are moving much more quickly now. Lights are still burning in +divisional headquarters, but the field ambulance headquarters are dark, +save for the lamp burning before the gate. An ambulance may have two or +three advanced dressing stations collecting from a divisional front. +Twin lamps on a pole, white and red, draw nearer and faintly light up +two flags, the Union Jack and the Red Cross. The Union Jack in Flanders +is only seen in conjunction with the Red Cross, or perhaps over the +dead body at a funeral; unless the Commander-in-chief comes round, when +the flag is carried behind him on a lance. The cars turn at right angles +into a gravelled yard and draw up before a large door. A corporal, who +has been sitting in a glass vestibule, puts his head inside the inner +door and shouts 'Stretcher bearers!' An orderly crosses quickly to the +office and reports to the orderly officer, 'Two cars with stretcher +cases.' The doctor crosses to the reception room and begins to examine +the first case. The reception room is a concert or music hall in happier +days. Its stage is the dispensary, and the little room where the +performers 'make-up' is the mortuary. The doctor is joined by the sister +on night duty. Each man is examined rapidly in turn. The M.O., or the +doctor at the dressing station, has written some words about the nature +of the wound on a label very like a luggage label, and this has been +tied to a button-hole. An orderly comes forward and takes down +particulars: name, number, battalion, brigade, division. Jock is rather +tired of giving this information because he has already had it taken +down by his M.O., and at the dressing station. But he need not begin to +complain yet, for it will be repeated at every stopping-place. He is +carried off to another room. The third stage is over. + +Jock is here a fortnight, for he is badly wounded and occupies one of +the few beds that the station boasts. One day he is borne, rather white, +into the operating theatre, and after a time is carried back, even +whiter than before. He has seen less of it than any one; saw only the +white walls and the mosquito curtains; smelled the heavy odours of ether +and chloroform and antiseptics; heard faintly and more faintly the drone +of an aeroplane overhead; saw also the padre, rather white too, but +determined to get accustomed to this sort of thing, in case they should +be short-handed when the great 'push' comes. + +Jock cannot go by train because he could not stand the jolting, so he +must wait for a barge. He listens with evident pleasure to the +description of the electric lights and fans and white sheets and +pillows. There are six sisters in the station. They are the first +English women he has seen since his last leave, and he is glad to hear +there will be two on the barge. A barge comes and goes, but no one tells +Jock that. He is told the barges are always a long time coming, which +is true too. And, indeed, before the next one comes he is so much better +that it is decided he can go by train if it comes first. It does come +first. '_Train in!_' runs through the wards like lightning. There are +hurried good-byes, gathering together of souvenirs, wistful eyes of +those who cannot yet go, watching those who can. Cars are brought round +to the side entrance, stretchers slipped into their grooves, and the +convoy is off to the station. The long train, already half filled, lies +waiting. There is a last little passage across the platform, coming and +going of bearers, the inevitable argument with the R.T.O., a warning +shriek from the engine, and the train to the base has gone. + + +II + +'_Do you think that sort of thing matters now?_' + +A clearing station is just what its name denotes. It clears the wounded +from a large number of field ambulances, each of which is split into +several advanced dressing stations. Each of these in turn draws from +several aid-posts. All the wounded, and all the sick who get beyond the +ambulances, must pass through the station. There they are put in trim +for the journey to the base, or are sent to a convalescent depot if a +week or two will see them fit for duty again. + +The Church of England chaplain was as friendly and accommodating as I +was anxious to be. We made sure that one of us saw every man to speak to +when he was brought in, and noted to which ward he was taken. For the +distribution of writing-paper, newspapers, and magazines, tobacco and +cigarettes, we divided the work, so that in one day each took half the +number of wards, on the next day reversing the half. In the case of +serious illness or trouble we kept more closely to our own men. We both +had our store of Testaments. Of all editions supplied to the troops that +of the National Bible Society of Scotland is the best. It is the most +attractive, in its bright red binding--one gets so tired of khaki--and +it contains the Psalms, so priceless and unfailing in time of war. I +think it a pity that they are in the metrical rather than the prose +form. On the other hand, an officer once told me he found it impossible +to settle to read the Bible. His experience was that a booklet of +familiar hymns was of most spiritual value to him. He would pull it out +in his dug-out and read a verse, and then put it back again. On Sundays +we held our morning services separately, in the reception room at +different hours. If it was possible there might be one or two quiet +services in the wards as well. Religion and science are sometimes +supposed to be hostile to one another. I must say this, and say it +gratefully--I always found doctors sympathetic, helpful, and +considerate, no men more so, in fact, none could have been more entirely +friendly. They are not lovers of creeds, but they are devoted servants +of humanity, and singularly responsive to any practical desire to be of +help. In the evening we held a united service. When the Presbyterian +gave the address the service was Anglican, and next Sunday the service +would be Presbyterian and the Church of England chaplain spoke. We took +our funerals to that so quickly growing cemetery with its six hundred +little wooden crosses, separately, though up the road those from the +other clearing station were taken by each chaplain on alternate days, +irrespective of denomination. We dispensed the Sacrament of the Lord's +Supper to our own people, using the beautiful little Communion set +issued by the War Office, and having as Table a stretcher covered with a +white cloth and set on trestles. + +The drawing power of nationality is immense in the field. It is far more +emphatic and real than the sense of particular church connection. Even +men very loyal to their own branch of the Presbyterian Church, for +example, lay little emphasis on that in their minds. They delight in +meeting a Scots doctor or Scots padre. He understands all the twined +fibres of tradition and training that go to make up their character. +Every man, too, likes to worship according to the forms that he is +familiar with. But Church of Scotland, or United Free Church of +Scotland, and so on, is all very much the same to him. I am speaking of +Christian men, of men quite aware of the historical situation. There +grows upon a man in the field a deeper love for his brother Scot, so +profound a sense of essential oneness in tradition, in history, in +character, in faith, that he comes to look forward eagerly, +_passionately_, to a blessed day of complete reconciliation. + +'Do you think that sort of thing matters now, Padre?' whispered a boy +who was desperately wounded, his skeleton hand picking restlessly at +the counterpane--a fine time for all our sound arguments! 'That sort of +thing' does matter, of course, but _then_ what could matter save to rest +wearily in the Everlasting Arms. I cannot believe that any one who has +knelt beside life after life passing forth in weariness and pain, cut +short so untimely, far from mothers' hands that would have ministered +love to them as they lay, and who has listened to the broken words of +trust, will ever allow his vision of the fundamental union of those who +are resting in the Eternal Love of God in Christ to be overshadowed by +lesser truths. + + +III + +_The Name of Jesus_ + +There are two periods in a soldier's life when he is especially alert to +the appeal of religion. One, as we have seen, is just after enlisting; +the other is after he has been wounded. A clearing station is the first +resting-place he has. He has had a terrible shaking, seen his chum +killed perhaps, taken part in savagery let loose. He is often all broken +up, seeking again for a foundation. The difficulty is that his stay is +so short, as a rule only a few days. Our record patient was poor Burke, +an Irishman from an Irish regiment. He had been wounded when out with a +wiring party which scattered under machine-gun fire. He crawled into a +Jack Johnson hole and lay there out of sight of either side, between the +trenches, for eight days and eight nights. He had a little biscuit and a +water bottle, nothing more. Shells screamed overhead or burst near, and +bullets whistled backwards and forwards over the shell-hole. There were +dead men near in all stages of decay. When he was discovered by a patrol +he had lain there for over two hundred hours, and he was not insane. We +speak lightly of 'more dead than alive.' He was literally that when he +was brought in. Gangrene had set in long ago, and his condition was +beyond description. Surgeon-generals and consulting surgeons came long +distances to see him, an unparalleled example of the tenacity of human +life. He lingered by a thread for many weeks, sometimes a little better, +more often shockingly ill; but at last, six weeks after admission, it +was decided he could be moved. The whole station came to say good-bye to +old Burke, and all who could went to see him lowered gently by the lift +into the barge. Later, we had letters to say that he had survived the +amputation of his leg, and was slowly recovering. But that was the +longest period that any patient stayed with us. Short as the time +generally was, however, it was sometimes long enough to become very +intimate, since both were so ready to meet. There is not, and never has +been a religious revival, in the usual sense of the term, on the +Flanders front, and I am afraid it is true that modern war knocks and +smashes any faith he ever had out of many a man. Yet in a hospital there +is much ground for believing that shining qualities which amid the +refinements of civilisation are often absent--staunch, and even tender +comradeship, readiness to judge kindly if judge at all, resolute +endurance, and absence of self-seeking, so typical of our fighting +men--have their root in a genuine religious experience more often than +is, in the battalions, immediately evident. It has been my experience, +again and again, that with dying men who have sunk into the last +lethargy, irresponsive to every other word, the Name of Jesus still can +penetrate and arouse. The hurried breathing becomes for a moment +regular, or the eyelids flicker, or the hand faintly returns the +pressure. I have scarcely ever known this to fail though all other +communication had stopped. It is surely very significant and moving. + + + + +THE AFTERMATH OF LOOS + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE AFTERMATH OF LOOS + + +I + +_The Flavour of Victory_ + +The jolliest man in the field is the man who, so to say, has been safely +wounded, that is, whose wound is serious enough to take him right down +the line, with a good prospect of crossing to Blighty, but not so +serious as to cause anxiety. I never met so hilarious a crowd as the +first batch of wounded from the fighting of 25th September 1915. We had +been prepared for a 'rush.' The growling of the guns had for days past +been growing deeper and more extended. It is, as a matter of fact, +impossible to keep a future offensive concealed. The precise time and +place may be unknown, but the gathering together of men, the piling up +of ammunition, and the necessary preparations for great numbers of +wounded, advertise inevitably that something is afoot. The ranks are not +slow to read the signs of the times: they say, for example, that an +inspection by the divisional-general can only mean one thing. How much +crosses to the other side it is hard to say, but the local inhabitants +know all that is common talk, and sometimes a great deal more. They have +eyes in their heads; they can see practice charges being carried +through, and note which regiments carry battle-marks on their uniforms; +and the little shops and estaminets are just soldiers' clubs where +gossip is 'swapped' as freely as in the London west-end clubs, and +unfortunately, is much better informed. A woman working on a farm once +told me to what part of the line a certain division was going on +returning from rest, and she gave a date. The commanding officers of the +battalions concerned knew nothing of it, and indeed a quite contrary +rumour was in circulation, but time proved the old woman to be right. + +The Loos offensive was no exception, and for many days anxious thoughts +and prayers had filled our hearts. We went from hope to despondency, and +back to hope again. I dare say the talk round the mess table was very +foolish. Compared with the earlier days of the war the country seemed +full of men, and we heard stories of great accumulation of ammunition. +Anything seemed possible. + +By nine o'clock on the morning of the 25th the convoys were coming in, +and the wounded streamed into the reception room. They were 'walking +cases,' men who had been wounded in the early part of the attack and, +able to walk, had made their way on foot to the regimental aid-post. All +had been going well when they left. They were bubbling over with good +spirits and excitement. Three--four--no, five lines of trenches had been +taken and 'the Boche was on the run.' They joked and laughed and slapped +one another on the back, and indeed this jovial crowd presented an +extraordinary appearance, caked and plastered with mud, with tunics +ripped and blood-stained, with German helmets, black or grey, stuck on +the back of their heads, and amazing souvenirs 'for the wife.' One man +with a rather guilty glance round produced for my private inspection +from under his coat an enormous silver crucifix about a foot long. He +found it in a German officer's dug-out, but probably it came originally +from some ruined French chapel. All souvenirs taken from dead enemies +are loathsome to me. It is merciful that so many people have no +imagination. I have never been able to understand, either, the carrying +home of bits of shell and mementoes of that kind. Any memento of these +unspeakable scenes of bloodshed is repulsive. Yet the British soldier is +as chivalrous as he is brave. He speaks terrible words about what he +will do to his foes, but when they are beaten and in his power he can +never carry it through. This was very striking when you consider that +until quite recently the German was 'top-dog' and how much our men had +suffered at his hands. But once the fight is over he is ready to regard +their individual account as settled. I remember so well one fire-eating +officer who was going to teach any prisoners that came into his hands +what British sternness meant. In due course twenty wounded Prussians +came in. He was discovered next day actually distributing cigarettes to +them. Now we must recollect that the British Tommy is not a class apart; +he is simply the 'man in the street,' the people. Sometimes there is +savage bitterness, not without good reason, and frequently the sullen or +frightened temper of the prisoners made friendliness difficult, but +Tommy--and by that name I mean the British citizen under arms--does not +long nourish grudges when the price has been paid. He is essentially +chivalrous, and even to his enemy, when the passion of fighting or the +strain of watchfulness is past, he is incurably kind. + +An atmosphere of hope and cheerfulness pervaded the clearing station +this first morning of the 'great offensive.' Passing through a ward I +said to the nurse, 'Well, sister, everything seems to be going +splendidly.' She looked up sombrely from the wound she was dressing and +replied, 'So they said in the first hours of Neuve Chapelle.' I was +chilled by what she said and felt angry with her. + + +II + +_Doubts and Fears_ + +As the day wore on the news was not so good. The Meerut Division, which +had delivered the containing attack in front of us on the Moulin du +Pietre, was where it had been before it attacked, so the wounded said, +with the exception of some units, notably Leicesters and Black Watch, +who had apparently disappeared. Perhaps all that had been intended had +been achieved. After all, the real battle--none could be more real and +more costly to those taking part in it than a containing attack, forlorn +hope as it often is--the _decisive_ battle was further south at Loos. +But the changed mood of the wounded now coming in was noticeable. Our +fighting men hate to be beaten, and the story was of confusion and lack +of support. Our own gas, too, had lingered on the ground and then +drifted back on our own trenches. A young German student who was brought +in wounded admitted the gallantry of the first rush, but he said, 'We +always understood those trenches could be rushed, but we also know that +they cannot be held on so small a front. They are commanded on either +side.' In all seven hundred wounded and gassed were brought in from the +British regiments of this division, and there was much work to be done. + +Sunday was a bright, warm day, and in the afternoon we gathered all who +could walk to a service in the green meadow behind the operating +theatre. (There, too, they were busy enough, God knows.) The men came +very willingly. I spoke a few words from the text 'Blessed are the +peacemakers,' for that benediction was meant also for those lads who had +just struck so brave a blow for a decent world. A gunner said +afterwards, 'Do you know, I have only heard two sermons since I came out +ten months ago. The other was by the Bishop of London, and he took the +same text!' It is, as a matter of fact, very difficult to serve the +gunners properly; they were so scattered in little groups. It was very +peaceful that Sunday afternoon--no sign of war anywhere, except the +maimed results of it--as those men remembered with tears those whom it +had 'pleased Almighty God to take out of this transitory world into His +mercy.' + +Every wounded man has a letter to write or to have written for him, and +it was essential that since the people at home knew there was heavy +fighting going on all messages should be sent off at once. This is one +of the chaplain's voluntary tasks, and we were kept close to it every +afternoon for some weeks after the offensive began. For some time the +number of letters was about four hundred every day. A number of men had +written farewell letters--very moving they seemed, but I did not think +it part of my duty to look too closely at these. They had addressed them +and then put them in their pockets, hoping that if they were killed they +might be discovered. Some had been finished just before the order to go +over the parapet. But the curious thing was that these were sent home, +with a few words in a covering note saying they were alive and well, as +a sort of keepsake. In those written after arrival in hospital a sense +of gratitude to God was very frequent, and a great longing for home and +the children. Some strange phrases were used: a mother would be +addressed as 'Dear old face,' or simply 'Old face.' But poets used to +write verses to their mistresses' eyebrows, and why not a letter to a +mother's face? + +The German prisoners sent a message asking if they might speak with the +_Hauptmann-Pfarrer_. They besought me to send word to their relatives +that they were safe. I took the full particulars and promised to ask the +Foreign Office to forward, but could not guarantee the messages getting +through, as their government was behaving very badly over the matter. +They were all very anxious that I should be sure and say their wounds +were slight (_leicht_). + +Next day came urgent orders that all wounded were to be evacuated who +could possibly be moved. So far as we had heard events seemed to be +moving fairly well at Loos, but there were some ugly rumours and the +atmosphere was one of great uneasiness. After dinner that evening the +commanding officer, Major Frankau, took me aside, and asked me not to +go to bed as they would need every available pair of hands throughout +the night. + + +III + +_Our Share of the Fifty Thousand_ + +It was ten o'clock when the first cars came crunching into the station +yard, and the convoys arrived one after another until five in the +morning. Then, as we could take in no more, the stream was diverted to +the other clearing station up the road. Before the war the deep hoot of +a car always seemed to say: 'Here am I, rich and rotund, rolling +comfortably on my way; I have laid up much goods and can take mine +ease'; but after that night it had another meaning: 'Slowly, tenderly, +oh! be pitiful. I am broken and in pain,' as the cars crept along over +the uneven roads. These were our share of the wounded from Loos, the +overflow of serious 'stretcher cases' who could not be taken in at the +already overworked stations immediately behind their own front. Many had +been lying on the battlefield many hours. They were for the most part +from the 15th (Scottish) Division and the 47th (London) Division. Both +had made a deathless name. The former got further forward than any +other, and paid the penalty with over six thousand casualties. All this +night the rain fell in torrents. It streamed from the tops and sides of +the ambulances, it lashed the yard till it rose in a fine spray; the +lamps shone on wetness everywhere--the dripping, anxious faces of the +drivers, the pallid faces of the wounded, eyes staring over their +drenched brown blankets, eyes puzzled in their pain and distress, like +those of hunted animals; and the reception room was filled with the +choking odours of steaming dirty blankets and uniforms, of drying human +bodies and of wounds and mortality. As each ambulance arrived the +stretchers, their occupants for the most part silent, were drawn gently +out and carried into the reception hall and laid upon the floor. At once +each man--the nature of whose wounds permitted it--was given a cup of +hot tea or of cold water, and a cigarette. Two by two they were lifted +on to the trestles, and examined and dressed by the surgeons. Their +fortitude was, as one of the surgeons said to me, uncanny. It was +supernatural. I could not have believed what could be endured without +complaint, often without even a word to express the horrid pain, unless +I had seen it. Amid all that battered, bleeding, shattered flesh and +bone, the human spirit showed itself a very splendid thing that night. +The reception room at last filled to overflowing and could not be +emptied. All the wards and lofts and tents were crammed. By the time the +other station was filled the two had taken in three thousand men. They +remained with us for a week, because the hospital trains were too busy +behind Loos to come our way. Every day every man had to have his wounds +dressed. Some were covered with wounds; many of the wounds were +dangerous, all were painful; and gas gangrene, which the surgeon so +hates to see, had to be fought again and again. The medical staff, seven +in number, worked on day after day, and night after night, skilfully, +tenderly, ruthlessly. There were also a great many operations, and +scores of difficult critical decisions. + +As we stepped out from among the blanketed forms I thought bitterly of +the 'glory' of war. Yet if there was any glory in war this was it. It +was here, in this patient suffering and obedience. These men might well +glory in their infirmities. This was heroism, the real thing, the spirit +rising to incredible heights of patient endurance in the foreseen +possible result of positive action for an ideal. The reaction from +battle is overwhelming. Passions that the civilised man simply does not +know, so colourless is his experience of them in ordinary days, are let +loose, anger and terror and horror and lust to kill. So for a while, as +nearly always happens, even wounds lost their power to pain in the +sleep of bottomless exhaustion. Those who could not sleep were drugged +with morphine. The moaning never stopped, but rose and fell and rose +again. It shook my heart. We turned from the ashen faces and went out +into the grey morning light. Everything seemed very grey. A mist was +drawing up slowly from the sluggish Lys, and we wondered as we went +shivering through it across the soaked grass what was happening beyond +it over there at Loos. + +Next afternoon at tea we were all cheered by the news that a man who had +had his leg taken off three hours before was asking for a penny whistle. +At last it was discovered that one of the cooks had one. (Cooks in the +army are a race apart, possessors of all kinds of strange +accomplishments.) It was willingly handed over, and soon the strains of +'Annie Laurie' were rising softly from a cot in Ward VIII. + +A month later the Principal Chaplain asked me to go to a battalion. +Chaplains who had been through the previous winter with battalions were +not anxious for another winter of it, if fresh men could be found. I was +thankful to go, in spite of all the kindness there had been on every +hand and the friendships made. The devilish ingenuity of wounds was +getting the better of me. + +My charge was a brigade, containing a battalion of the Gordon +Highlanders, with which I was directed to mess. But the day I joined, +this battalion was taken out of the brigade, and as soon as the +rearrangement was completed I was transferred to one of the battalions +of The Royal Scots. While I was with this unit both its commanding +officer and its adjutant were changed. In both cases the cause was the +promotion of the officer in question. + + + + +DUMBARTON'S DRUMS + +_The Regimental Ribbon of The Royal Scots is shown on the wrapper of +this book_ + + + + +CHAPTER V + +DUMBARTON'S DRUMS + + +I + +_Back Again!_ + +The landing of the British Expeditionary Force in the far-away days of +August 1914 was one of the great moments of history. And Scotland has a +special share in the pride and sorrow that surround that great day, for +in her premier regiment centred memories of warfare and endurance, of +ancient alliances and ancient enmities, without a parallel in the story +of any other regular regiment. The oldest regiment in Europe was on the +battlefield once again. The First, or Royal Regiment of Foot, now known +as The Royal Scots, when it climbed the steep streets of Boulogne, +marched on a soil sacred to it by the memories of heroic campaigns. +Names that were as yet unfamiliar to the world at large were dear to it +as the last resting-places of its comrades of long ago--names such as +Dunkirk and Dixmude, Furnes and Ypres, Saberne and Bar-le-Duc. Hepburn's +Regiment had fought over every foot of the ground on which it was now to +share the waging of the greatest of all campaigns. Dumbarton's Drums +were once more beating their way through Europe to the making of +history. The trust of Gustavus Adolphus and Turenne, of Marlborough and +Wellington, marched with them as the promise of victory; and from the +old Royals, dustily climbing the cobbled street, spoke all the glamour +of 'age-kept victories.' + +France was a smiling land in those days, for the sun shone in the hearts +of Frenchwomen as the rumour of war rose from the anxiously expected +British columns and drifted across the shining August fields. The 2nd +battalion--the 1st was still in India--tramped cheerily on its way. To +no one then was there revealed that dreary vista of trenches that was to +be war to the mind of the modern soldier. + + +II + +_The First Shock of War_ + +Mons and the 23rd of August saw The Royals in action. With other +battalions they occupied the Mons salient, actually the point on which +the torrent of war first broke and for a brief moment spent itself. On +that still night it seemed to hang suspended as a great wave does +before falling. As the battalion lay in the shallow trench the pregnant +silence was at last broken by the high, clear call of a bugle, one +single long note, indescribably eerie and menacing, and then the +listening men heard the rustling tread of feet moving through the grass +with a steady, regular, ominous advance. The might of Germany was on the +move, and still the thin brown line lay tense and silent, until only +forty paces separated the two. Then, at a word, The Royals' line broke +into a storm of flame which swept the line of the advancing men as a +scythe sweeps through the corn; and for the British infantry the great +war had begun. + +Mons was a victory; the German advance was held up temporarily. But all +night the British troops were being withdrawn. It was after five in the +morning before The Royals got their orders to move, and 'A' Company +claims to be the last of the British army to leave Mons. But Le Cateau +was another story. Here our men learned what the concentrated fire of +artillery could be. The shallow trenches were obliterated; our gunners, +hopelessly outclassed in weight and number of pieces, could do little, +in spite of the greatest gallantry, to protect the infantry; and that +the army was able to withdraw at all was a striking proof of its stern +discipline. Audencourt was a shambles. Colonel McMicking, wounded near +this village and left behind, as all the wounded who were unable to walk +had to be, was hit again while being carried out of the blazing church. +The command devolved on Major, now Brigadier-General, Duncan. From this +time onwards the German guns had the range of the roads, and such a +superiority of fire that they could do almost as they pleased. The +infantry, at first furious at the necessity of retreat, turned again and +again--as did the guns--on their pursuers, but even so the pressure was +perilously near breaking point. The enemy had every means of mechanical +transport, and was able to find time for rest. Our men had to press on +to the last point of human endurance. There was no respite. The French +Foreign Legion have a grim saying, 'March or die.' Here the word was +'March or be captured,' and even when every other conscious feeling but +that of utter exhaustion seemed dead, somewhere deep down in their +hearts the will to endure urged them on. + +Is there no painter, no poet, who can enshrine for future generations +the memory of this historic scene? We have here a sudden glimpse of +Britain at her best. Hot sun, torment of burning feet on the cruel, +white, and endless roads, the odour and sight and sound of death and +wounds, pressure of pressing men, and love of life and the horrid +loneliness of fear--all that was Giant Circumstance; but he could not +extinguish the souls of men made in the image of God for suffering and +endurance and triumph. English and Irish and Scottish--but brothers in +hatred of retreat and in their determination to push on until they could +turn and strike--the glamour of great names hung round all those +tattered battalions; and the very essence of it was in the oldest of +them all, in history and in campaigns, this famous Lowland regiment. Of +that at such a time they thought little, if at all; sheer physical facts +pressed too hard, yet in their desperate victory over circumstance they +wrote the most golden page of their story, and enriched the blood of all +who follow them. + +You can find a certain humour in war if you look for it, though war is +not amusing, and life at home has many more entertaining incidents in it +than life at the front. One officer of The Royals fell sound asleep in a +trench during the climax of a terrific bombardment, and awoke to find +himself alone among the dead. (He makes us laugh when he tells the +story, but at the time it cannot have been just very humorous.) He +pushed on after the retreating army, and though--owing to the mistake of +an officer at a cross-roads who stood saying, 'Third division to the +right, So-and-so division to the left,' when it should have been the +other way about--he lost his way, he found the battalion a fortnight +later. Two others came in sight of the last bridge standing on one river +just as the explosive was about to be detonated, and maintain that, +running furiously toward the bridge, they persuaded the engineer in +charge to postpone the fatal moment by brandishing a large loaf, rarest +of all articles on the heels of a retreating army. Another who had been +sent on ahead to find a billet in a chateau saw a beautiful bathroom, +and was preparing to make use of a priceless opportunity when he found +that the enemy was upon him, and fled in haste. The transport officer, +peering round the corner of a house, saw his beloved transport which he +had gathered and cherished until it was reputed the best in the army, +go up in matchwood and iron splinters. One subaltern, finding himself on +the ground, discovered to his horror that he had a hole in his chest, +but struggled gamely on, now walking, now stealing a ride on a +limber--just catching the last train of all--and finally arriving in +England with no other articles of kit or clothing but a suit of pink +pyjamas and a single eyeglass. + +At Meaux the steeples of Paris were in sight; but the hour had struck, +and The Royals at last wheeled to pursue. + + +III + +_At the Nose of the Salient_ + +The battalion had come through much since then, on the Marne and the +Aisne and the Lys, and in trench warfare from Hooge to Neuve Chapelle. +Here is a picture of a day's fighting from the diary of an eyewitness--a +bald note of facts. It refers to 25th September 1915:-- + +'The brigade formed up in the trench in the following order from left to +right, 1st Gordons, 4th Gordons, 2nd Royals, one company Royal Scots +Fusiliers. Each battalion received separate point of attack, namely, +Bellevarde Farm, Hooge Chateau, Redoubt, Sandbag Castle. Artillery +bombardment 3.50-4.20 A.M. General attack then launched. "B" Company was +at the nose of the salient; "C" Company on right of "B"; "A" Company on +left; "D" Company in dug-outs in reserve. At 4.20 A.M. the battalion +advanced to the attack. Complete silence was observed and bayonets were +dulled. The front line was captured with few casualties on our side, and +shortly after the final objective was successfully attained. Our line +was consolidated. One hundred and sixteen prisoners belonging to the +172nd Regiment of XV. Prussian Corps were taken and three lines of +trenches. All four officers of "B" Company were hit before German front +line was reached. Touch was established with R.S.F. on right and 4th +G.H. on left. There was heavy German shell-fire on the captured +trenches. A party from "D" Company tried to make communication trench +back to our old front line, 1st Gordons unfortunately were not able to +reach the German front line owing to wire being undestroyed and too +thick to cut. A gap was thus made between 1st and 4th Gordons. The enemy +pushed bombers through, thus getting behind 4th Gordons. Desperate +hand-to-hand fighting ensued. O.C. "A" Company was forced to defend his +left flank. A German counter-attack moving N. to S. by C.T. across the +Menin Road, The Royals' machine-gun did great execution. Terrific +bombardment by German heavies (H.E.). "A" Company was ordered to retire +on our old front line to get in touch with 4th G.H. on left. "B" Company +to keep in touch ordered to do the same. "C" Company rinding enemy on +left rear, position became critical. No battalion at all now on left, +1st Gordons having failed in their objective, and 4th having been +withdrawn owing to flank attack in front of 1st. No battalion now on +right either. "C" Company in danger of being surrounded. Captain N.S. +Stewart personally reported the danger of his position. A company of 4th +Middlesex were rushed up--all our men by this time having been used +up--to the nose of the salient, but could not man it owing to terrific +barrage of fire. "C" Company, completely cut off, fought its way with +the bayonet back to its former front line. Colonel Duncan reorganised +the firing line. Both sides spent the night in gathering in the +wounded.' + +So ended the containing attack from the Ypres salient. But is not every +sentence a spur to the imagination? + +Two days later, the Corps commander, in personally thanking the +battalion, complimented it on 'the smart appearance of the men who +_showed no signs of what they had gone through_.' + +It was to this famous battalion of a great Regiment that I was now +attached as one of the four Presbyterian chaplains to the 'fighting +Third' Division. + + + + +WINTER WARFARE + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WINTER WARFARE + + +I + +_The Shell Area_ + +The shell area is all the land behind the trenches which is under fire +from the enemy's guns as a matter of course. It is not a pleasant place, +for that reason, to walk about in, and our own artillery, cleverly +concealed, is apt to open fire unexpectedly within a few yards of the +passer-by in a way that is very disturbing. It is a dreary land; a dank +air broods over it, an atmosphere of destruction and death, of humanity +gone awry and desolate. I remember the almost ecstasy with which one +April afternoon some of us found ourselves among the purple hyacinths +on Kemmel hill. Poor Kemmel, once a pleasure resort whither happy +Belgians went for the benefit of their health, now far from that--and +not particularly healthy! These battered villages are now merely sordid; +only Ypres maintains a personality, an air of undefeat all its own. It +too is a ruin, but unlike the others it is a splendid ruin. At every +cross-roads the brooding crucifixes hang. The British mind does not like +this constant reiteration of mishandling and defeat in the death of +Christ. It does not seem to it to be the final message of the Cross. +Indeed, it is the product of the mediaeval, monkish mind. It was not +until the tenth century that the representations of the Crucifixion +showed Our Lord as dead; it was much later before the emphasis was laid +on agony and despair. Once from among the debris of the convent in +Voormezeele I rescued such a representation of the Body of Christ, limbs +gone, broken arms outstretched, and it seemed a symbol. But that is not +the final truth, defeat and despair. The cross-road shrines would not +look down on those groups of tramping Islanders if it were so. And as +you look back over the parados of the firing trench, across the bleached +and scarred countryside, you remember that _that_, like the scenes of +agony in the clearing station after Loos, is the plain, visible proof +that His Spirit lives in the world of men. But what a Via Dolorosa it +is, that grim ditch dug across Europe, with its crouching men behind the +snipers' plates. Strange path for the twentieth century to have to walk +in, to prove that compassion and righteousness still live. + +In all this area the British soldier walks with a singular +_insouciance_. It is not simply that he is brave. He is that, supremely +so, and not least when he is very much afraid and will not show it and +carries on with his job. But there is more in it than that. There is a +kind of warlike genius in him which makes him do the right thing in the +right way, so that he appeals to humour and comradeship as well as to +gallantry. It was one of our sergeant-majors who before a battalion +attack offered L5 to the man of his company who was first in the enemy's +trench. Think of it for a moment. He appealed to their sporting +instinct; he turned their thoughts from death and wounds and introduced +a jest into every dug-out that night; and he indicated, without +boasting, that he was going to be first over the parapet. He made it +certain that every sportsman in the company--and what British regular is +not--would strain every nerve to be first across. And the cream of the +jest was that, stalwart athlete that he was, he was first across +himself! The same may be said of the officer; he wins more than +obedience from his men. I have seen senior N.C.O.'s crying like children +because their young officer was dead. + +Along with this courage and comradeship and humour there is often a +great deal of fatalism. It expresses itself in many ways, in the reading +of Omar Khayyam--'The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes'--for +example, in the indifference so often shown by men if they lose through +their own fault some 'cushy job' and have to go back to the line, or in +the doing of really foolish things, foolish because dangerous, but +useless. I remember sitting outside the dug-out of Captain Chree (who +afterwards laid down his life on the Somme) at battalion headquarters, +and watching the shelling of one of our batteries of 18-pounders some +five hundred yards back. The Germans had searched for it repeatedly with +lavish expenditure of ammunition, and that afternoon they got it +repeatedly, with very unpleasant results. But of course there were many +misses. Whenever the German shells fell short they burst in the field, +in front of the battery, which was bounded on two sides by a road. In +the midst of the bombardment a soldier came down the road facing us and, +instead of walking round by the cross-roads, cut across the field in +which shells were bursting. He deliberately left comparative safety for +real danger simply in order to save himself five minutes' walk. On +another occasion, when I was at dusk one evening in Vierstraat, a Tommy +came along carrying some burden. At this point he got tired and planted +it down right in the middle of the cross-roads. Another man told him he +could not have chosen a worse place for a rest, that the Boche was +always firing rifles and machine-guns up the road, but he was prevailed +upon to move only with the greatest difficulty. Perhaps in another class +was the soldier the doctor and I came upon suddenly in a ruined house in +Ypres kicking with all the strength of an iron-shod boot at the fuse of +an unexploded German shell. A friend with his hands in his pockets was +watching the proceedings with much interest. He said he was only +wanting the fuse as a souvenir, but he would soon have got that to keep +and a good deal more. The doctor was quite peevish about it, as the +saying is! + +When an attack is being made or repelled, the concentration of batteries +in action turns the country in front of them into a nightmare of +noise--'a terrific and intolerable noise' in Froissart's phrase. The +incessant slamming of the guns makes it impossible to hear enemy shells +coming. The first intimation is their arrival. But the orderlies go +backwards and forwards through it all with superb courage. Wounded +trickle down the trolley line to the dressing station, and an occasional +group of prisoners come through. It was on a day like this that I saw +Davidson and Rainie for the last time. When The Royals were moved up +from the support trenches to take over from the battalion which had +delivered the attack at St. Eloi, some one said to Captain Davidson, who +was going up at the head of his company through a terrible barrage, +'This is going to be a risky affair.' 'Yes,' he replied, 'but it's not +our business whether it's risky or not. My orders are to go through.' +Soon after he fell. He was barely twenty years of age. + + +II + +_'I hate war: that is why I am fighting'_ + +There is a garden in Vlamertynghe with a marble seat overturned beside a +smashed tree, a corner just made for lovers, once. An enormous crump +hole fills the greater part of the garden, and the wall has fallen +outwards in one mass leaving the fruit trees standing in a line, their +arms outstretched. Across on the other side of the road Captain Norman +Stewart lies buried. But his memory lives in the hearts of men, and +wherever the 2nd battalion gathers round its braziers and in the glow of +them the stories of the heroes of the regiment are passed on from the +veterans to the younger men, Stewart will be remembered with reverence +as one who not only upheld but created regimental tradition. + +It was a bombing affair in which he died, detachments of Suffolks, +Middlesex, and Royal Scots, under his leadership, being ordered to drive +the enemy out of the tip of the salient. Barricades made progress almost +impossible in face of a murderous machine-gun fire. Owing to the +confused nature of the fighting no quarter could be given, and +desperate fighting ensued with bombs, bayonets and hand to hand. Finally +ten yards were gained and the ground consolidated. + +At one point of the fight, finding progress otherwise impossible, +Captain Stewart mounted to the top of the barricade in full view of the +enemy, with shells and bombs bursting all round and under machine-gun +and rifle fire. Though wounded he remained there in face of certain +death for over ten minutes. From bucket after bucket handed up to him he +still hurled bombs at the thronging enemy beneath, until a sniper crept +round to his flank, and this heroic Scotsman fell. + + 'They pass, they pass, but cannot pass away, + For _Scotland_ feels them in her blood like wine.' + +The night before he died Stewart said to a friend, 'I hate war: that is +why I am fighting.' + + +III + +_Billets and Camps_ + +The camps to which the battalion returned after each tour of the +trenches were for the most part out of danger except for an occasional +shell, but it was only when we were withdrawn to the 'rest area' that we +felt any sense of freedom to settle down and take stock of ourselves. +Both Colonel Duncan and Colonel Dyson, to whom I owe countless +kindnesses, were keen disciplinarians, and Major Everingham, the +Quartermaster, imperturbable, efficient, could really perform almost +superhuman feats. A man can only know his own department, and in mine +the standard of a battalion is shown by its attitude to religious +observances. A bad battalion finds too many engagements to turn out in +any strength on Sunday. I used to feel so proud as the old Royals, every +available man on parade, would march up behind their pipes and drums, +alert, well-groomed, punctilious in all the minor forms that are so +important an evidence of a battalion's condition. In rest billets we all +got to work; there were marches and manoeuvres, cinematographs and +cross-country runs, football matches and boxing competitions. These men +when stripped were so much more beautiful than in their clothes. Of how +many in civilian occupations could that be said? The battalion would be +refitted; a brewer's great vat was commandeered for a bathing-place; +the village school was turned, every evening, into a recreation room; +and a communicants' class was started. Not for the first time I longed +for a brief, clear statement of our Church's faith. The cumbrous +complicated Catechisms and Confessions are magnificent monuments, but +they are worse than useless under such conditions. A _Credo_ which could +be written on a blackboard and pointed to as the Church member's +essential Confession of Faith, to be developed and expanded according to +the need and circumstances, would be a real power in a chaplain's hands. +The men's behaviour in billets--ramshackle barns for the most part--was +almost exemplary. Only once or twice small episodes occurred in +connection with hen-roosts, and on one occasion a sucking-pig was +slaughtered amid its brethren at the dead of night. It must have been a +temporary madness that possessed the author of this escapade, for he had +no possible chance of escape. It was pleaded on his behalf, on his +appearance before the Colonel, that he had recently done a gallant deed, +but as some one said, 'If every man who did a gallant deed was allowed +to kill a pig there would not be a pig left in Flanders.' + +It was the cleanness of the air and of the soil that made a rest back +among the far-stretching forests of the Pas de Calais so different from +one nearer the line. To get on bridle-paths and roads free from lorry +traffic and let your horse out at full stretch over the fallen leaves +down some long grey-purple vista of bare trees, and feel the clean wind +whistling past your ears and smell the fresh odours of the great woods, +to see the blue smoke drifting up from some forester's cottage, or for a +moment in passing catch a glimpse of a fairy-story scene of charcoal +burners grouped together in a glade, was to ride into another world of +thought and feeling. My little horse John, one of the five horses left +of those who crossed with the battalion, felt it too--thought perhaps he +was in old England again. But the British soldier hates manoeuvres and +marches and drills and inspections. He would rather be left in peace in +his trenches, in a 'quiet' part of the line at least, than bothered +about those things. Movement, too, has an exhilarating effect on him, +and so when orders come to go back into action he tramps off with +remarkable goodwill. I remember one battalion of Royal Welsh Fusiliers, +suddenly rushed up from rest, pulled out of the station singing a song +of which the refrain is something like 'Ai, ai! Vot a game it is!' at +the top of their voices. And it really is by no means a game. As the +Colonel used to say (very moderately), 'Life out here is not all joy!' + +One November evening I was picking my way cautiously through the mud +camp near Reninghelst, and hearing the tune of a famous hymn, drew near +to listen, for Jock sometimes sings to hymn tunes words that certainly +never appeared in any hymn-book, and I wanted to make sure that it _was_ +the greatest hymn in the English language which was being sung. It was a +quiet night. Now and again a heavy gun fired a round, and infrequently, +on a gentle wind blowing from the trenches, was borne the rattle of a +machine-gun. From all the camp arose the subdued confused noise of an +army settling to rest for the night. Some tents were in darkness, in +others a candle burned, and here and there braziers still glowed redly. +It was from one of the lighted tents that the singing came, each part +being taken, and a sweet clear tenor voice leading. The tune was old +'Communion,' and they had just come to this verse: + + 'Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, + Save in the death of Christ, my God: + All the vain things that charm me most, + I sacrifice them to His blood.' + +How often have we sung that, perhaps thoughtlessly, in comfort at home, +but these lads had in truth sacrificed the 'vain things.' With a lump in +my throat I waited for the last verse: + + 'Were the whole realm of nature mine, + That were an offering far too small; + Love so amazing, so divine, + Demands my life, my soul, my all.' + + + + +HOW THE ROYALS HELD THE BLUFF: AN EPISODE OF TRENCH WARFARE + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +HOW THE ROYALS HELD THE BLUFF: AN EPISODE OF TRENCH WARFARE + + +I + +_Waiting_ + +The beginning of March found me with a battalion of The Royals in a +rather battered Belgian town. Its centre received a good deal of +attention from enemy artillery, but it offered two attractions which +brought in officers from divisions all around. After all, to men +accustomed to living in the trenches, the atmosphere was one of almost +Sabbath peace. The hall where 'The Fancies' made much of the humours of +trench life to uproariously delighted audiences was crowded out night +after night. You could not find anywhere greater zest and enjoyment. The +striking comradeship of soldiering, the common experience of audience +and actors, and the abandonment of all thought for the morrow, gave that +impression of cheerful carelessness the root of which is not happiness +but the conviction that the future is so uncertain and the possibilities +so dreadful that he is wise who lives for the hour only, even as the +hour may snatch life from him. I thought I knew the head in front of me, +and, leaning forward, saw it was my brother-in-law. It has always struck +me as quaint that he, who had been with his battery for a year and a +half, and I, who had been out for nine months, should have met again +under such circumstances. I had pictured a stricken field and much +coolness exhibited in an admittedly dramatic moment--something in line +with Stanley's 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume.' It was comforting to find +it otherwise, but, as Smee says in _Peter Pan_, it was 'galling too.' +First when looking into a shop window, and now in a concert hall, in all +these months of war! We said, 'Not a bad show, is it?' 'Not half bad.' +But there have been some strange meetings in this war. A private in our +battalion discovered his son, a boy of seventeen, in a new draft which +had just come up to the line. He had run away from home and been lost to +sight. The father set matters on a proper footing by thrashing his son +there and then in the front trench! + +War was not very far off after all. Two days later we were having lunch +in the comfortable warm restaurant which is this tedious town's other +attraction. We drank our coffee to the accompaniment of the nasty sound +of arriving shells. Every time a shell screamed towards us the stout +lady behind the counter dropped on hands and knees, emerging flushed and +trembling after each had burst. We were rather amused; but when we went +out and round the corner of the street, the body of a man was being +swiftly carried away wrapped in a brown blanket. Forty soldiers, it was +said, had been killed and wounded. Distracted women stood in little +groups in the passages of the houses, and there was much blood in the +gutters. + +Only a country invaded by the enemy drinks to its dregs the cup of war, +but the narrow belt a few miles behind the friendly army's trenches +enjoys great prosperity. The love of home or the love of money keeps the +population in many places where it would be better away. One beautiful +spring day I took shelter behind a farmhouse in the Hallebast-Vierstraat +area until some shelling on the path ahead had died down. The farmer's +wife came out and we got into conversation. A rise in the ground gave +some shelter from the German lines, but she told me that any movement on +horseback was immediately sniped with whizbangs. The day before all her +cows had been killed by shell-fire in the paddock behind the farmhouse, +but if she and her elderly husband let their land go out of cultivation, +how were they to live, and if they left, where could they go? When +high-explosives blew great holes in their sown land they just filled in +the holes and ploughed and sowed the place over again. The settled +sadness of her face and voice haunts me still. Others, however, stay in +danger because they are making so much money. Several shopkeepers in +this town admitted they had never known such prosperity. The estaminets +make enormous profits from the sale of very weak beer. A friend of mine, +having drawn battalion pay in notes of too large amounts, was told to +return to the paymaster and draw it in smaller sums. He found the office +closed, and turned into a little village shop to see if they could +change a part of it. To his amazement they changed the whole of it from +the till. The total amount was ten thousand francs. But how many +Belgians have lost their all? + +Our billets were clean and very airy. For some reason, though all +furniture had been removed, the presses, which were all open, were full +of beautiful bed and table linen. It was very tempting, but fortunately +we resisted the temptation. The morning after we arrived, about seven +o'clock, a disturbance arose below. Angry women's voices were heard in +altercation with the servants, there were hurried footsteps on the +stair, and a moment later our door was thrust violently open. Two +strapping Belgian women strode in and demanded answers to many +questions. We adopted our friend the Major's plan, and feigned to know +even less French than we did. We were anxious to be very inoffensive as +we lay on the floor and watched these determined individuals throwing +open the presses and wardrobes. Inside the linen lay untouched, folded +neatly; we felt thankful we had left it so. They stamped out again, and +we heard the Colonel's voice raised in protest next door. The doctor and +I looked at one another. He seemed rather pale, and I noticed for the +first time that his head rested on an enormous soft pillow covered with +a spotless linen pillow-slip edged with beautiful lace. + +But next morning we had a different awakening. Dawn was rising wanly +from the east to another day on the Salient. The broken windows were +rattling and the floor trembling under the dull continuous thudding of a +concentrated bombardment. We lay and listened, and for the thousandth +time hated war. We knew that men, some of whom we knew and loved, were +going over the parapet, many never to return. + +That night, as dusk fell, the old steeple with its rent side looked down +on cobbled streets thronging with ordered ranks of men standing ready to +move. Here and there a few officers spoke together, or a man gave his +chum a light from his fag, or straps were tightened. A rifle butt rang +on the pavement, and the adjutant's horse moved his feet restlessly. +These men had no illusions as to what they would probably have to face; +but none guessed that there lay ahead the most dreadful test of physical +endurance which the old battalion, since the great retreat, had ever +known. + + +II + +_The Bluff_ + +What had happened was this. Soon after our division had been moved back +to the rest area, part of the line which it had been holding was +strongly attacked and lost to the enemy. Several counter-attacks failed, +and finally our own Division was brought back from rest to recapture +the lost trenches. One brigade attacked with great dash and success. The +lost trenches were re-occupied, and our own brigade, which had been +lying in support, was ordered to take over and hold them against the +expected counter-attacks. The Bluff, which was the main feature of the +position and the worst part of which The Royals, as the senior +battalion, were given to hold, was a low hill jutting out at the +re-entrant to the Salient, south-east of Ypres. It was a strong tactical +position commanding the approaches to our trenches, as the enemy well +knew. Seen from our front line farther south it had the dead, bleak +appearance of all ground that is much shelled. Pitted by high explosive, +burned yellow by fumes of gas and shells, and stripped of every living +thing, with blackened stumps of trees sparsely scattered on its summit, +this muddy hillock dominated the flat lands, and, on the sunny morning +when I first saw it, seemed indescribably sinister and menacing. It said +to me, 'I am war, the antagonist of everything clean and comely, of +everything fresh and young: misery of mind and body, torment of kindly +earth and all its little growing things, lover of all that is foul and +dead.' + + +III + +_'We've keepit up the reputation o' the auld mob, onyway'_ + +That night the weather suddenly changed. There had been a hint of spring +in the air, but in an hour that was wiped out by a bitter north wind +sweeping the bare fields with icy rain and snow. The transport, pitched +in the filthy morass known as 'Scottish Lines,' saw its labour of three +weeks thrown away in a couple of nights. For the human beings there were +a few tents and huts, but in face of the searching wind canvas seemed +quite porous, and the huts were badly built and had a hundred openings +to the bitter air. But up at the Bluff conditions were terrible. The +trenches had disappeared under repeated bombardments, and had become +mere chains of shell holes in which the men stood up to their thighs in +liquid mud. When the C.O. arrived to take over the headquarters' dug-out +he found it blown to pieces. Within lay the bodies of the previous +occupants--four officers. Another dug-out was finally found. It was deep +in a bank at the end of a narrow passage twenty feet long. Within was a +chamber six feet long, four broad and four high, and in this place, so +horribly like a grave, the C.O., second-in-command, and adjutant lived +for three days and four nights. A candle gave light, and whenever a +shell burst above the flame jerked out. The sergeant-major and the +orderlies and servants lived in the tunnel, squatting on their haunches +in the mud. Outside there were no other dug-outs at all. The shelling +was continuous, but the cold was far worse. Men sank in the mud and +remained motionless for hours. Many fell into shell holes and had to be +hauled out with twisted telephone wires. The wounded suffered horribly. +Owing to the mud and the German barrage no supplies could be brought up, +and it was impossible to light braziers. On the fourth night relief +came, but it was daylight before the last company sucked itself out of +its mudholes and waded back in full view of the enemy. Fortunately a +blinding snowstorm swept down from the north and hid all movement just +when it seemed certain that disaster would occur. Every available +vehicle was sent up to meet the battalion, but there was a long walk +before these could be reached. The men crept along on sodden, swollen +feet--no gumboots had been obtainable. They came along in groups, now of +two or three, now of six or seven, or one by one. They were bent like +old men, and staggered as they walked, their faces set and grey. The +most terrible thing of all was the utter silence. Snow muffled the fall +of the dragging feet; it lay thick on the masses of ruins in the +shattered empty villages; and when the brigade major's greeting rang +out men shrank and looked fearful at the sudden sound. Yet when I spoke +to any, as they staggered through the snow past the point whither I had +gone to meet them, life flickered up for a moment from the depths of +that final exhaustion. 'What price Charlie Chaplin now, sir!' said one +man whose wavering footsteps led him hither and thither. And another in +simple words summed up the heroic simple spirit of them all: 'Well, +we've keepit up the reputation o' the auld mob, onyway.' Indomitable +men! Who could ever vanquish you? + +Rest meant tent boards under frozen canvas, but it was rest. On that +weary morning even the uninviting outline of Reninghelst village seemed +like home. + + + + +THE HISTORIC TRIANGLE + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HISTORIC TRIANGLE + + +The last time I saw the Ypres salient was from the shoulder of the +Scherpenberg. The torn church tower of Dickebusch stood up darkly near a +leaden gleam of water. From St. Eloi in front of it trenches ran curving +up to Hooge and back again to within, on the north, a mile and a half of +Ypres, enclosing the level, sodden farmland four miles across its base, +two from base to nose, which is the Ypres salient. A reluctant dawn was +turning the darkness to a dull and threatening day, and as it grew +lighter the famous miles slowly came into view. It was the hour of +'Stand-to.' All round the Salient, and north and south of it far beyond +the horizon, the trenches were filled with watching men, weary from the +night's toil at digging or wiring or 'carrying' fatigues, but standing +ready until the dangerous hour of dawn should pass. It had been an +anxious week, for the wind was blowing from the enemy's lines, and night +after night the long warning call of the gas-gongs, followed in a moment +by the awakening of all the Salient into a ring of darting flames and +tremendous concussions as the guns were called into action, had brought +all ranks to their feet. But this morning no sound broke the strange +silence. It was hard to believe that hidden beneath the soil tens of +thousands of men were silently standing face to face. As the dawn lifted +I knew that everywhere in the ten-mile ring the British soldier was +boiling the water for his tea, very strong and very sweet, the first of +half a dozen tea brewings he would make that day. Another day of the war +had begun. + +Surely so long as great deeds appeal to the British race those weary +miles will be always sacred. Within them lie the unnumbered British +dead, 'the dear, pitiful, august dead.' Comrades of the dauntless +warriors of Gallipoli, comrades of the sailors who have gone down +fighting in the cold waters of the North Sea, brothers of all brave men +suffering for a clean cause, they leave the issue with us. As long as +the British Empire endures, and it will endure so long as it works for +God and no longer, the memory of the heroes of the Ypres salient will +live and glow. + +'I hate war: that is why I am fighting,' said one of them. They fought +not merely for their country, but because they believed they were +fighting war itself. We shall not be true to their memory unless we +remember that. 'Slavery will always be,' said the defenders of slavery. +'It is impossible to prevent those things, human nature being what it +is,' said others of schools like Dotheboys Hall. A little time ago +England and Scotland were at one another's throats; a little before that +clan fell upon clan with vindictive fury. When we have beaten Germany, +who stands for the old, rotten, pagan belief in old, rotten, pagan +things we must see that we do not betray the men who died fighting +because they hated war. + +But war has good in it too, they say. Yes, and amid its hideous wrong no +doubt there was good in slavery, as there is in cancer or blindness. +Almost any evil or agony may be the root of noble qualities, and war is +no exception. + +These men died in the hope that it might be impossible for a civilised +nation again to thrust this evil on the human race. They died trusting +us to see that Europe would not again have to choose the alternative of +entering upon such an agony or of forgetting its honour towards God. +Force, it would seem, must long remain the last remedy, but might it not +be force resting on a pivot and striking with effect wherever +international crime seeks to disturb the peace of the nations? The mere +knowledge of such a united determination would at least be a powerful +persuasive. That may be only a dream. The immediate fact is that the +doctrine of Will to Power must first be crushed, represented as it is +to-day by Germany and her dupes. But men who have been through the +furnace will not rest content with less than the solemn attempt, in the +name of the dead, to put the nations of the world in a worthier +relationship to one another than has so far prevailed. Our brothers who +have fallen died in the hope that for succeeding generations life would +be different. They died believing that because of their sacrifice it +might be possible to substitute for the German (or any other) Will to +Power the Christian Will to Righteous Peace. This effort alone can be +their fitting monument. + + * * * * * + +Printed in Great Britain by T. AND A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty +at the Edinburgh University Press + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of On the King's Service, by Innes Logan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE KING'S SERVICE *** + +***** This file should be named 16992.txt or 16992.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/9/9/16992/ + +Produced by Irma Spehar, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. 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