Chapter VI: Part II: Ubique (2)

He, however, was a regular Gunner, thank God, and slithered off the mound like an eel. I followed him like his shadow and we tucked ourselves half crouching, half sitting, under the ledge, with our feet on the road. For four hours the Bulgar tried to get that French battery. If he’d given five minutes more right he’d have done it,--and left us alone. As it was he plastered the place with battery fire every two seconds.--Shrapnel made pockmarks in the road, percussion bursts filled our necks with dirt from the ledge and ever the cases whined angrily into the ravine. We smoked many pipes.

It was my first experience under shell fire. I found it rather like what turning on the quarter current in the electric chair must be,--most invigorating, but a little jumpy. One never knew. Thank heaven they were only pip-squeaks. During those crouching hours two French poilus walked up the pass--it was impossible to go quickly because it was so steep--and without turning a hair or attempting to quicken or duck walked through that barrage with a _sangfroid_ that left me gasping. Although in a way I was enjoying it, I was mighty glad to be under that ledge, and my heart thumped when the Colonel decided to make a run for it and went on thumping till we were a good thousand yards to a flank.

The worst of it was, it was the only morning that I hadn’t brought sandwiches.

10

When the other three batteries went into action and the ammunition column tucked itself into dry nullahs along the road we moved up into Valandovo and established Brigade Headquarters in a farmhouse and for many days the signallers and I toiled up and down mountains, laying air lines. It was an elementary sort of war. There were not balloons, no aeroplanes and camouflage didn’t seem to matter. Infantry pack transport went up and down all day long. It was only in the valley that the infantry were able to dig shallow trenches. On the hills they built sangars, stone breastwork affairs. Barbed wire I don’t remember to have seen. There were no gas shells, no 5.9’s, nothing bigger than pip-squeaks. The biggest artillery the Allies possessed were two 120-centimetre guns called respectively Crache Mort and Chasse Boche. One morning two Heavy Gunners blew in and introduced themselves as being on the hunt for sixty-pounder positions. They were burning to lob some over into Strumnitza. We assisted them eagerly in their reconnaissance and they went away delighted, promising to return within three days. They were still cursing on the quayside when we came limping back to Salonica. Apparently there was no one qualified to give them the order to come up and help. In those days Strumnitza was the Bulgar rail-head, and they could have pounded it to bits.

As it was, our brigade was the only English Gunner unit in action, and the Battery Commanders proved conclusively to the French (and the Bulgar) that the eighteen-pounder was a handy little gun. The French General ordered one of the 75 batteries to advance to Kajali. They reconnoitred the hills and reported that it was impossible without going ten miles round. The General came along to see for himself and agreed. The Captain of “C” battery, however, took a little walk up there and offered to get up if the Colonel would lend him a couple of hundred infantry. At the same time he pointed out that coming down in a hurry was another story, absolutely impossible. However, it was discussed by the powers that were and the long and short of it was that two of our batteries were ordered forward. “C” was the pioneer; and with the two hundred infantry,--horses were out of the question--and all the gunners they laboured from 4.30 p.m. to 6 a.m. the next morning, at which hour they reported themselves in action again. It was a remarkable feat, brought about by sheer muscle and will power, every inch of the way a battle, up slopes that were almost vertical, over small boulders, round big ones with straining drag ropes for about two miles and a half. The 75’s refused to believe it until they had visited the advanced positions. They bowed and said “Touché!”

11

Then the snow came in blinding blizzards that blotted out the whole world and everybody went underground and lived in overcoats and stoked huge fires,--everybody except the infantry whose rifle bolts froze stiff, whose rations didn’t arrive and who could only crouch behind their stone sangars. The cold was intense and they suffered terribly. When the blizzard ceased after about forty-eight hours the tracks had a foot of snow over them and the drifts were over one’s head.

Even in our little farmhouse where the Colonel and I played chess in front of a roaring fire, drinks froze solid on the mantelpiece and we remained muffled to the eyes. Thousands of rock pigeons appeared round the horse lines, fighting for the dropped grain, and the starving dogs became so fierce and bold that it was only wise to carry a revolver in the deserted villages. Huge brutes some of them, the size of Arab donkeys, a cross between a mastiff and a great Dane. Under that clean garment of snow which didn’t begin to melt for a fortnight, the country was of an indescribable beauty. Every leaf on the trees bore its little white burden, firm and crisp, and a cold sun appeared and threw most wonderful lights and shadows. The mountains took on a virgin purity.

But to the unfortunate infantry it was one long stretch of suffering. Hundreds a day came down on led mules in an agonised string, their feet bound in straw, their faces and hands blue like frozen meat. The hospitals were full of frost-bite cases, and dysentery was not unknown in the brigade. Pot-face in particular behaved like a hero. He had dysentery very badly but absolutely refused to let the doctor send him down.

Our rations were none too good, and there were interminable spells of bully beef, fried, hashed, boiled, rissoled, _au naturel_ with pickles, and bread became a luxury. We reinforced this with young maize which grew everywhere in the valley and had wonderful soup and corn on the cob, boiled in tinned milk and then fried. Then too the Vet. and I had a wonderful afternoon’s wild bull hunting with revolvers. We filled the wretched animal with lead before getting near enough to give the _coup de grâce_ beside a little stream. The Vet. whipped off his tunic, turned up his sleeves and with a long trench knife conducted a masterly post mortem which resulted in about forty pounds of filet mignon. The next morning before dawn the carcase was brought in in the cook’s cart and the Headquarters Staff lived on the fat of the land and invited all the battery commanders to the discussion of that excellent bull.

From our point of view it wasn’t at all a bad sort of war. We hadn’t had a single casualty. The few rounds which ever came anywhere near the batteries were greeted with ironic cheers and the only troubles with telephone lines were brought about by our own infantry who removed lengths of five hundred yards or so presumably to mend their bivvies with.

But about the second week of December indications were not wanting of hostile activity. Visibility was very bad owing to early morning fogs, but odd rounds began to fall in the valley behind us in the neighbourhood of the advancing wagon lines, and we fired on infantry concentrations and once even an S.O.S. Rifle fire began to increase and stray bullets hummed like bees on the mountain paths.

In the middle of this I became ill with a temperature which remained for four days in the neighbourhood of 104°. The doctor talked of hospital but I’d never seen the inside of one and didn’t want to.

However, on the fourth day it was the Colonel’s order that I should go. It transpired afterwards that the doctor diagnosed enteric. So away I went labelled and wrapped up in a four-mule ambulance wagon. The cold was intense, the road appalling, the pip-squeaks not too far away until we got out of the valley, and the agony unprintable. That night was spent in a Casualty Clearing Station in the company of half a dozen infantry subalterns all splashed with blood.

At dawn next morning when we were in a hospital train on our way to Salonica, the attack began. The unconsidered right flank was the trouble. Afterwards I heard about a dozen versions of the show, all much the same in substance. The Bulgars poured over the right in thousands, threatening to surround us. Some of the infantry put up a wonderful fight. Others--didn’t. Our two advanced batteries fired over open sights into the brown until they had exhausted their ammunition, then removed breech blocks and dial sights, destroyed the pieces and got out, arming themselves with rifles and ammunition picked up ad lib. on the way down. “Don” and “AC” went out of one end of the village of Valandovo while the enemy were held up at the other by the Gunners of the other two batteries. Then two armies, the French and English, got tangled up in the only road of retreat, engineers hastening the stragglers and then blowing up bridges. “Don” and “AC” filled up with ammunition and came into action in support of the other brigades at Causli which now opened fire while “Beer” and “C” got mounted and chased those of our infantry who “didn’t,” rounded them up, and marched them back to face the enemy. Meanwhile I was tucked away in a hospital bed in a huge marquee, trying to get news from every wounded officer who was brought in. The wildest rumours were going about but no one knew anything officially. I heard that the infantry were wiped out, that the gunners had all been killed or captured to a man, that the remnants of the French were fighting desperately and that the whole thing was a _débâcle_.

There we all were helpless in bed, with nurses looking after us, splendid English girls, and all the time those infernal guns coming nearer and nearer.--At night, sleepless and in a fever, one could almost hear the rumble of their wheels, and from the next tent where the wounded Tommies lay in rows, one or two would suddenly scream in their agony and try and stifle their sobs, calling on Jesus Christ to kill them and put them out of their pain.--

The brigade, when I rejoined, was in camp east of Salonica, under the lee of Hortiac, knee-deep in mud and somewhat short of kit. It was mighty good to get back and see them in the flesh again, after all those rumours which had made one sick with apprehension.

Having pushed us out of Serbia into Greece the Bulgar contented himself with sitting on the frontier and making rude remarks. The Allies, however, silently dug themselves in and prepared for the defence of Salonica in case he should decide to attack again. The Serbs retired to Corfu to reform, and although Tino did a considerable amount of spluttering at this time, the only sign of interest the Greeks showed was to be more insolent in the streets.

We drew tents and moved up into the hills and Woodbine joined us again, no longer a shipwrecked mariner in clothes off the peg, but in all the glory of new uniform and breeches out from home, a most awful duke. Pot-face and the commander of “C” battery went to hospital shortly afterwards and were sent home. Some of the Brass Hats also changed rounds. One, riding forth from a headquarters with cherry brandy and a fire in each room, looked upon our harness immediately on our return from the retreat and said genially that he’d heard that we were a “rabble.” When, however, the commander of “Don” battery asked him for the name and regiment of his informant, the Brass Hat rode away muttering uncomfortably. Things were a little strained!

12

However, Christmas was upon us so we descended upon the town with cook’s carts and visited the Base cashier. Salonica was a modern Babel. The cobbles of the Rue Venizelos rang with every tongue in the world,--Turkish, Russian, Yiddish, Serbian, Spanish, Levantine, Arabic, English, French, Italian, Greek and even German. Little tin swords clattered everywhere and the place was a riot of colour, the Jew women with green pearl-sewn headdresses, the Greek peasants in their floppy-seated trousers elbowing enormous Russian soldiers in loose blouses and jack boots who in turn elbowed small-waisted Greek highlanders in kilts with puffballs on their curly-toed shoes. There were black-robed priests with long beards and high hats, young men in red fezzes, civilians in bowlers, old hags who gobbled like turkeys and snatched cigarette ends, all mixed up in a kaleidoscopic jumble with officers of every country and exuding a smell of garlic, fried fish, decaying vegetable matter, and those aromatic eastern dishes which fall into no known category of perfume. Fling into this chaos numbers of street urchins of untold dirt chasing turkeys and chickens between one’s legs and you get a slight idea of what sort of place we came to to do our Christmas shopping.

The best known language among the shopkeepers was Spanish, but French was useful and after hours of struggling one forced a passage out of the crowd with barrels of beer, turkey, geese, pigs, fruit and cigarettes for the men, and cigars and chocolates, whisky, Grand Marnier and Cointreau for the mess. Some fund or other had decided that every man was to have a plum pudding, and these we had drawn from the A.S.C. on Christmas Eve.

In Egypt letters had taken thirteen days to arrive. Here they took from fifteen to seventeen, sometimes twenty-one. Christmas Day, however, was one of the occasions when nothing came at all and we cursed the unfortunate post office in chorus. I suppose it’s the streak of childhood in every man of us that makes us want our letters _on_ the day. So the morning was a little chilly and lonely until we went round to see that the men’s dinner was all right. It was, with lashings of beer.

This second Christmas on active service was a tremendous contrast to the first. Then there was the service in the barn followed by that depressing lonely day in the fog and flat filth of Flanders. Now there was a clear sunny air and a gorgeous view of purple mountains with a glimpse of sea far off below.

In place of Mass in the barn Woodbine and I went for a walk and climbed up to the white Greek church above the village, surrounded by cloisters in which shot up cypress trees, the whole picked out in relief against the brown hill. We went in. The church was empty but for three priests, one on the altar behind the screen, one in a pulpit on each side in the body of the church. For a long time we stood there listening as they flung prayers and responses from one to another in a high, shrill, nasal minor key that had the wail of lost souls in it. It was most un-Christmassy and we came out with a shiver into the sun.

Our guest at dinner that night was a Serbian liaison officer from Divisional Headquarters. We stuffed him with the usual British food and regaled him with many songs to the accompaniment of the banjo and broke up still singing in the small hours but not having quite cured the ache in our hearts caused by “absent friends.”

13

The second phase of the campaign was one of endless boredom, filthy weather and the nuisance of changing camp every other month. The boredom was only slightly relieved by a few promotions, two or three full lieutenants becoming captains and taking command of the newly arranged sections of D.A.C., and a few second lieutenants getting their second pip. I was one. The weather was characteristic of the country, unexpected, violent. About once a week the heavens opened themselves. Thunder crashed round in circles in a black sky at midday, great tongues of lightning lit the whole world in shuddering flashes. The rain made every nullah a roaring waterfall with three or four feet of muddy water racing down it and washing away everything in its path. The trenches round our bell tents were of little avail against such violence. The trench sides dissolved and the water poured in. These storms lasted an hour or two and then the sky cleared almost as quickly as it had darkened and the mountain peaks gradually appeared again, clean and fresh. On one such occasion, but much later in the year, the Adjutant was caught riding up from Salonica on his horse and a thunderbolt crashed to earth about thirty yards away from him. The horse stood trembling for full two minutes and then galloped home in a panic.

The changing of camps seemed to spring from only one reason,--the desire for “spit and polish” which covers a multitude of sins. It doesn’t matter if your gunners are not smart at gun drill or your subalterns in utter ignorance of how to lay out lines of fire and make a fighting map. So long as your gun park is aligned to the centimetre, your horse lines supplied conspicuously with the type of incinerator fancied by your Brigadier-General and the whole camp liberally and tastefully decorated with white stones,--then you are a crack brigade, and Brass Hats ride round you with oily smiles and pleasant remarks and recommend each other for decorations.

But adopt your own incinerator (infinitely more practical as a rule than the Brigadier-General’s) and let yourself be caught with an untidy gun park and your life becomes a hell on earth. We learnt it bitterly, until at last the Adjutant used to ride ahead with the R.S.M., a large fatigue party and several miles of string and mark the position of every gun muzzle and wagon wheel in the brigade. And when the storms broke and washed away the white stones the Adjutant would dash out of his tent immediately the rain ceased, calling upon God piteously, the R.S.M. irritably, and every man in the brigade would collect other stones for dear life.

Time hung very heavy. The monotony of week after week of brigade fatigues, standing gun drill, exercising and walking horses, inspecting the men’s dinners, with nothing to do afterwards except play cards, read, write letters and curse the weather, and the war and all Brass Hats. Hot baths in camp were, as usual, as diamonds in oysters. Salonica was about twelve miles away for a bath, a long weary ride mostly at a walk on account of the going. But it was good to ride in past the village we used to call Peacockville, for obvious reasons, put the horses up in a Turkish stable in a back street in Salonica, and bathe and feed at the “Tour Blanche,” and watch the crowd. It was a change, at least, from the eternal sameness of camp and the cramped discomfort of bell tents, and there was always a touch of mystery and charm in the ride back in the moonlight.

The whole thing seemed so useless, such an utter waste of life. There one sat in the mud doing nothing. The war went on and we weren’t helping. All our civil ambitions and hopes were withering under our very eyes. One hopeless dawn succeeded another. I tried to write, but my brain was like a sponge dipped into khaki dye. One yearned for France, where at least there was fighting and leave, or if not leave then the hourly chance of a “blighty” wound.

About April there came a welcome interlude. The infantry had also chopped and changed, and been moved about and in the intervals had been kept warm and busy in digging a chain of defences in a giant hundred-mile half-circle around Salonica, the hub of our existence. The weather still didn’t seem to know quite what it wanted to do. There was a hint of spring but it varied between blinding snow-storms, bursts of warm sun and torrents of rain.

“Don” battery had been moved to Stavros in the defensive chain, and the Colonel was to go down and do Group Commander. The Adjutant was left to look after the rest of the brigade. I went with the Colonel to do Adjutant in the new group. So we collected a handful of signallers, a cart with our kits and servants, and set out on a two-day trek due east along the line of lakes to the other coast.

The journey started badly in a howling snow-storm. To reach the lake level there was a one-way pass that took an hour to go down, and an hour and a half to climb on the return trip. The Colonel went on ahead to see the General. I stayed with the cart and fought my way through the blizzard. At the top of the pass was a mass of Indian transport. We all waited for two hours, standing still in the storm, the mud belly-deep because some unfortunate wagon had got stuck in the ascent. I remember having words with a Captain who sat hunched on his horse like a sack the whole two hours and refused to give an order or lend a hand when every one of his teams jibbed, when at last the pass was declared open. God knows how he ever got promoted.

However, we got down at last and the sun came out and dried us. I reported to the Colonel, and we went on in a warm golden afternoon along the lake shore with ducks getting up out of the rushes in hundreds, and, later, woodcock flashing over our heads on their way to water. As far as I remember the western lake is some eight miles long and about three wide at its widest part, with fairy villages nestling against the purple mountain background, the sun glistening on the minarets and the faint sound of bells coming across the water. We spent the night as guests of a battery which we found encamped on the shore, and on the following morning trekked along the second lake, which is about ten miles in length, ending at a jagged mass of rock and thick undergrowth which had split open into a wild, wooded ravine with a river winding its way through the narrow neck to the sea, about five miles farther on.

We camped in the narrow neck on a sandy bay by the river, rock shooting up sheer from the back of the tents, the horses hidden under the trees. The Colonel’s command consisted of one 60-pounder--brought round by sea and thrown into the shallows by the Navy, who said to us, “Here you are, George. She’s on terra firma. It’s up to you now”--two naval 6-inch, one eighteen-pounder battery, “Don,” one 4.5 howitzer battery, and a mountain battery, whose commander rode about on a beautiful white mule with a tail trimmed like an hotel bell pull. “AC” battery of ours came along a day or two later to join the merry party, because, to use the vulgar but expressive phrase, the Staff “got the wind up,” and saw Bulgars behind every tree.

14

In truth it was a comedy,--though there were elements of tragedy in the utter inefficiency displayed. We rode round to see the line of our zone. It took two days, because, of course, the General had to get back to lunch. Wherever it was possible to cut tracks, tracks had been cut, beautiful wide ones, making an enemy advance easy. They were guarded by isolated machine-gun posts at certain strategic points, and in the nullahs was a little barbed wire driven in on wooden stakes. Against the barbed wire, however, were piled masses of dried thorn,--utterly impassable but about as inflammable as gun-powder. This was all up and down the wildest country. If a massacre had gone on fifty yards to our right or left at any time, we shouldn’t have been able to see it. And the line of infantry was so placed that it was impossible to put guns anywhere to assist them.

It is to be remembered that although I have two eyes, two ears, and a habit of looking and listening, I was only a lieutenant with two pips in those days, and therefore my opinion is not, of course, worth the paper it is written on. Ask any Brass Hat!

An incident comes back to me of the action before the retreat. I had only one pip then. Two General Staffs wished to make a reconnaissance. I went off at 3 a.m. to explore a short way, got back at eight o’clock, after five hours on a cold and empty stomach, met the Staffs glittering in the winter sun, and led them up a goat track, ridable, of course. They left the horses eventually, and I brought them to the foot of the crest, from which the reconnaissance was desired. The party was some twenty strong, and walked up on to the summit and produced many white maps. I was glad to sit down, and did so under the crest against a rock. Searching the opposite sky line with my glasses, I saw several parties of Bulgars watching us,--only recognisable as Bulgars because the little of them that I could see moved from time to time. The Colonel was near me and I told him. He took a look and went up the crest and told the Staffs. The Senior Brass Hat said, “Good God! What are you all doing up here on the crest? Get under cover at once,”--and he and they all hurried down. The reconnaissance was over!

On leading them a short way back to the horses (it saved quite twenty minutes’ walk) it became necessary to pass through a wet, boggy patch about four yards across. The same Senior Brass Hat stopped at the edge of it, and said to me, “What the devil did you bring us this way for? You don’t expect me to get my boots dirty, do you?--Good God!”

I murmured something about active service,--but, as I say, I had only one pip then.--

It isn’t that one objects to being cursed. The thing that rankles is to have to bend the knee to a system whose slogan is efficiency, but which retains the doddering and the effete in high commands simply because they have a quarter of a century of service to their records. The misguided efforts of these dodderers are counteracted to a certain extent by the young, keen men under them. But it is the dodderers who get the credit, while the real men lick their boots and have to kowtow in the most servile manner. Furthermore, it is no secret. We know it and yet we let it go on: and if to-day there are twenty thousand unnecessary corpses among our million dead, after all, what are they among so many? The dodderers have still got enough life to parade at Buckingham Palace and receive another decoration, and we stand in the crowd and clap our hands, and say, “Look at old so-and-so! Isn’t he a grand old man? Must be seventy-six if he’s a day!”

So went the comedy at Stavros. One Brass Hat dug a defence line at infinite expense and labour. Along came another, just a pip senior, looked round and said, “Good God! You’ve dug in the wrong place.--Must be scrapped.” And at more expense and more labour a new line was dug. And then a third Brass Hat came along and it was all to do over again. Men filled the base hospitals and died of dysentery; the national debt added a few more insignificant millions,--and the Brass Hats went on leave to Alexandria for a well-earned rest.

Not only at Stavros did this happen, but all round the half circle in the increasingly hot weather, as the year became older and disease more rampant.

After we’d been down there a week and just got the hang of the country another Colonel came and took over the command of the group, so we packed up our traps and having bagged many woodcock and duck, went away, followed after a few days by “AC” and “Don.”

About that time, to our lasting grief, we lost our Colonel, who went home. It was a black day for the brigade. His thoughtfulness for every officer under him, his loyalty and unfailing cheeriness had made him much loved. I, who had ridden with him daily, trekked the snowy hills in his excellent company, played chess with him, strummed the banjo while he chanted half-remembered songs, shared the same tent with him on occasions and appreciated to the full his unfailing kindness, mourned him as my greatest friend. The day he went I took my last ride with him down to the rest camp just outside Salonica, a wild, threatening afternoon, with a storm which burst on me in all its fury as I rode back miserably, alone.

In due course his successor came and we moved to Yailajik--well called by the men, Yellow-Jack--and the hot weather was occupied with training schemes at dawn, officers’ rides and drills, examinations A and B (unofficial, of course), horse shows and an eternity of unnecessary work, while one gasped in shirt sleeves and stupid felt hats after the Anzac pattern; long, long weeks of appalling heat and petty worries, until it became a toss-up between suicide or murder. The whole spirit of the brigade changed. From having been a happy family working together like a perfect team, the spirit of discontent spread like a canker. The men looked sullen and did their work grudgingly, going gladly to hospital at the first signs of dysentery. Subalterns put in applications for the Flying Corps,--I was one of their number,--and ceased to take an interest in their sections. Battery Commanders raised sarcasm to a fine art, and cursed the day that ever sent them to this ghastly back-water.

I left the headquarters and sought relief in “C” battery, where, encouraged by the sympathetic commanding officer, I got nearer to the solution of the mysterious triangle T.O.B. than I’d ever been before. He had a way of talking about it that the least intelligent couldn’t fail to grasp.

At last I fell ill and with an extraordinary gladness went down to the 5th Canadian hospital, on the eastern outskirts of Salonica, on the seashore. The trouble was an ear. Even the intensest pain, dulled by frequent injections of morphia, did not affect my relief in getting away from that brigade, where, up to the departure of the Colonel, I had spent such a happy time. The pity of it was that everybody envied me.

They talked of an operation. Nothing would have induced me to let them operate in that country where the least scratch turned septic. After several weeks I was sent to Malta, where I was treated for twenty-one days. At the end of that time the specialist asked me if my career would be interfered with if he sent me home for consultation as to an operation. One reason he could not do it was that it was a long business, six weeks in bed, at least, and they were already overfull. The prison door was about to open! I assured him that on the contrary my career would benefit largely by a sight of home, and to my eternal joy he then and there, in rubber gloves, wrote a recommendation to send me to England. His name stands out in my memory in golden letters.

Within twenty-four hours I was on board.

The fact that all my kit was still with the battery was a matter of complete indifference. I would have left a thousand kits. At home all the leaves were turning, blue smoke was filtering out of red chimneys against the copper background of the beech woods--and they would be waiting for me in the drive.