Chapter V: Part 5

This is a tragic story of a Dane who was forced to fight in the
German Army. He was mobilized at the beginning of the War and
forced to serve on the Western and Eastern fronts. He wrote the
first revelations of life in the German trenches. This is the first
authentic account of how Germany makes war from the lips of a German
soldier. After being wounded, disfigured for life, and a cripple, he
went home where his own father and mother hardly knew him. Twenty
editions of his book have appeared in Danish but for obvious reasons,
its sale in Germany has been prohibited. The experiences herein
related are by permission of his American publishers, _Robert M.
McBride and Company_.

[6] I--STORY OF SUFFERING ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT

On the East front I took part in the great offensive against the Russians. My old comrade was there also; he was still alive. But there were many new faces in my division. The bloody days before Liège, the horrors of the fight through Belgium, and the long strife in the trenches of Flanders, had cost many men their lives or their reason....

I remember how Belgium was laid waste. But to tell the truth, things were much the same in East Prussia. Before the invasion, it was in many parts a melancholy country. But it looked more pitiable than ever, as we marched through it, with the Russians retreating before us. Trampled fields, ploughed up by shells, burnt farms, property wantonly injured or destroyed, towns in ruins and human beings in despair, robbed of all they had, their happiness, their joy, their future. It was an indescribable scene of misery and woe. But at the same time it was exceedingly touching to see how the greater number of the people clung to the devastated home, whose master was probably in the fighting line, if he were not already killed. The wretched hovels and the ruined farms still sheltered human creatures, who did their work as best they could, and hid themselves from the night and the rain in some cramped space, between half-charred boards and ends of beams, or whatever they could find to hand.

It was misery. It was poverty. It was wretchedness. But it was home--the one fixed point in their existence. If they once forsook that, they were exposed to the merciless uncertainty of life. So they clung to it obstinately and faithfully in spite of all they had to bear and suffer, both when the Russians advanced, and when they retreated. Among their other miseries they had also learnt to know famine. When the Russians advanced, they did not leave much behind. Many a time these people begged our last slice of bread from us, to stay the worst of their hunger.

We gave to them willingly. I felt at times, that their lot was far worse than ours. We indeed might lose our lives in many different ways, and we also knew what it was to be hungry. But we had not to listen to our children crying for food, or see our tiny infants sicken and die because there was no milk to be had and the mother's breasts were empty.

I can well understand why wherever we came, the people greeted us as their deliverers.

I understand their joy and their often boundless gratitude in word and deed. I understand why the old men and the trembling women so often fell upon our necks with tears of joy.

It must be heart-breaking to see the plot of ground you love laid waste and trampled down, without being able to do anything to save it. It must be still more heart-breaking to see the home that you have cherished devoured by flames, and then, on dark and stormy nights, taking your children by the hand or on your back, and followed by terror-stricken women and bewildered old people, to flee from that home and wander along toilsome roads to uncertainty, in company with hundreds of others who know just as little where to go for help or safety.

We met many such crowds of homeless wayfarers on our march, people who could hardly drag themselves along for hunger and cold and terror.

There were miserable carts drawn by miserable, starved horses and wretched bits of furniture, piled up anyhow in haste and fear. There were people huddled together under the lee of a hedge or in a wood, or sheltering in the holes they had dug into banks of earth or dykes, wrapped in rags, starving with cold and still terror-stricken. Men gazing towards the homes from which they had fled, looking in bewilderment and despair at the down-trodden and ruined country; women lying down and trying to warm their little ones at a naked, impoverished breast, or groaning in misery and hopelessness over the dying eyes of a child; old men and old women with only one wish in the world--the sum and substance of their prayers from hour to hour being that God would take them away from all this misery, which they could not in the least comprehend and which they had not strength enough to bear.

II--"WHAT APPALLING THINGS THEY TOLD US"

And what appalling things they told us, in trembling voices and shaking with sobs!

Not only their homes, their domestic animals and their furniture had been harried by fire and sword--it cannot be otherwise in war, I suppose, for it has no mercy.

It had been here as it had been in Belgium--the soldiers were intoxicated with savagery and the lust of destruction. In such an army there may be a thousand scoundrels amongst a hundred thousand decent men; but scoundrels create new scoundrels, drink begets coarseness, and coarseness begets violence. Old men are mocked and tortured, women outraged without mercy, and innocent little children are made to suffer without pity. Men have to pay for their hate and their defiance, even though honest and justifiable, with military retribution, merely because one of them has been impudent. He has stirred up and set ablaze passionate instincts that no one can quench.

I knew what might happen--I had been through the whole affair in Belgium. I knew from experience all that they told me, and a great deal more.... But I can assure you now, and I shall dare to say it on the day I have to stand before my Eternal Judge, I have never of my own impulse harmed any civilian; I have no murder or other deed of shame on my conscience. The guilt of whatever I have had a share in doing is entirely on the heads of those who could demand it of me. They could demand of me that I should do my duty and whip me into doing it, or shoot me if I refused. I had long since sworn loyalty to the colours. That oath is sacred, like any other oath. And I was a subject of the country I served and had to serve.

That being so, may I not be allowed to say that while I was appalled at what I now saw, I was at the same time filled with a certain satisfaction. It appalled me because all horror appals, yet at the same time there was a certain satisfaction about it, because I saw in it a just retribution for all that we had done in Belgium--a mild and very lenient retribution, by the way.

Don't you think one may be allowed to say that without being stamped as cruel and merciless?

There is, amongst my Russian experiences, an incident which I shall always be glad to cherish with the warmest gratitude, because it represents to me what we mortals usually call Nemesis--that is, chastising justice, or whatever name you prefer to give it.

I call it the judgment of God because it seemed as if there was a leading and guiding hand in it--a hand that struck one who was guilty and gave atonement for two whose lives had been taken.

The rearguard to which I belonged--I think we were only a couple of thousand men--had been billeted for a day in a fairly large village not far from the Russian frontier. It was one of the first places to be laid waste. There were not many farms or houses left that were not in ruins. The cattle had been taken and the corn trodden down. Many homes were quite deserted, and no one knew where the inmates were. Besides, who could know at such a time, when each one had enough to do to save himself and those belonging to him. Perhaps they were dead; perhaps terror had driven them to madness; perhaps they had dragged themselves along, weary to death, in the train of the fleeing crowds and had fallen by the wayside in a ditch or at the edge of a forest, left behind by the others who continued their insensate flight and took heed of naught but themselves and their own affairs.

Perhaps they lay by the roadside gazing towards the home that was now a ruin, at the fires blazing over the flat country, and up to the heavens where it seemed to them that everything was forgotten--mercy, goodness, justice.

Perhaps they murmured a prayer, the last, the very last, and then lay down and waited for what was to come--for silent, reconciling death, that would bring them peace and alleviation for all that they had not been able to endure in a world that seemed to them to have been quite forsaken by God.

I know that old men were found with their hands folded on their breasts and the reconciling peace of death on their wasted, rigid faces.

I know that young women were found with their infants pressed close to their bare breasts, as if trying to give them their last warmth, until they had both gone into the land of everlasting peace, slain by cold and hunger and terror.

III--STORY OF A PRUSSIAN MOTHER

In one of the poorest of the small houses in the village lived a young woman. She had been beautiful, as women in villages often are, a radiant figure of health and strength, with the perfume and sweetness of the fields and their sunshine on her lips and in her eyes. She seemed to be about half-way through her twenties. But now her face was drawn and pale, and she dragged herself wearily about as if she were ill.

I remember her home distinctly. It had been a little six-windowed thatched house near the end of the village. Two of the windows belonged to a room with an alcove and the kitchen. The other part of the house had been allotted to the cow, the pigs, and the hens.

It was now almost in ruins. The roof was gone, the woodwork charred, and the walls had tumbled down in a crumbling heap where the animals had been. Only the little room with the alcove and the kitchen were intact, but the window-panes were smashed, the door battered in, and rags had been stuck in here and there as a slight protection against wind and weather.

Behind the house there was a small, down-trodden garden, hedged about with a dyke of willows and elders.

On the day when the Russians entered the village they ravaged it with fire and sword in their savage exultation. It was said that many of them were drunk. However that may have been, they forced their way into farmsteads and houses, took what there was of cattle and fodder, smashed everything to bits here and set on fire there, and did not deal gently with the women in the houses.

The little house at the end of the village was also visited by a soldier. He stormed and raged and shouted and spared nothing of the little that could be spared. Finally he threw himself upon the young wife and tried to take her by force.

Then the husband rushed upon him to save his wife's honour. He did not succeed, and it cost him his life. He fell within the room, killed by the blow of a sword on his head.

The soldier's savagery increased, and at last it completely mastered him. He kicked the young woman till she was nearly beside herself with terror, and stabbed her little boy, who was lying in the bed, with a bayonet thrust.

Then only, and not till then, was he satisfied with his achievements.

The poor woman buried her husband and child the next day in a corner of the garden and covered the little mound with flowers.

There was no one who could have helped her to give them Christian burial. It then became clear to everyone that she had lost her reason. She went about muttering continually, with a remote and strange look in her tearworn eyes, that sometimes looked as if they were blind. She would often sit for hours on the garden dyke beside the grave of her husband and child.

It was extremely sad and pathetic, and heart-rending to see her sitting there, sometimes till late at night, as if she were waiting for the two to come back.

Sometimes she would lie down on the grave, pressing one cheek against the ground, and she would lie a long time like that--sometimes until she fell asleep. If anyone asked her why she lay there she stared vacantly with a pair of bewildered, tear-bright eyes and answered through her sobs that she could hear her little boy crying and calling to her.

IV--"MY LOVELY LITTLE BOY--THEY KILLED HIM"

Every time a convoy of prisoners passed through the village she was seized with restlessness. She was eager and quick in her movements and she stood staring intently at those who passed by.

It seemed as if she were looking for one particular face amongst the many hundreds, but when they had passed by she collapsed again and dragged herself back to the house, or out to the dyke and the mound in the corner of the garden.

Towards evening, on the day that we had entered the village, I was standing outside her house with one of my comrades. She was going about that evening moaning as she had never moaned before. Her hair was hanging in matted strands about her face, and her clothes were nothing but torn rags. It seemed as if she had torn them in her horror.

All the time she went on murmuring, between her moans: "My lovely little boy--my lovely little boy!..."

Now and then she clenched one hand in the other or struck them both against her forehead.

While we were standing by looking at her my lieutenant came up. He tried to soothe her and patted her shoulder, but every time he touched her she shuddered and seemed to shrink in sudden terror.

"My poor little boy!" she moaned. "They killed him. He was only six years old and was lying in his bed. 'Pray to God,' I cried to him; 'pray to God.' I was lying on the floor by his bed and saw him fold his hands in prayer, while he gazed at me in terror.

"But he who was standing over him did not spare him. He stabbed him in the breast with his bayonet, and he kicked me along the floor. My husband was lying murdered on the doorstep; his face was red with blood; his forehead was cut open."

Her words came in rapid, violent gasps, while she pressed her hands against her eyes as if to shut out all the horror she saw before her.

"But there _is_ justice in the world," she screamed. "There is justice. I shall find him; I shall find him; I shall find him!..."

Then she grew a little calmer, and the lieutenant and I stood whispering to each other about what we had just seen and about what we had heard about her.

V--SHE FINDS AT LAST THE MAN WHO MURDERED

Some time after a convoy of prisoners passed by. There were about two hundred men.

The instant the young woman saw the prisoners she rushed out on the road. Meanwhile my captain had come up, too. He stood by her side and closely watched her movements. She looked like an animal ready to spring. Every muscle was tense, every nerve tightened, and meanwhile her eyes scrutinized the prisoners as they passed by.

There was a strange, penetrating force in her eyes. They burned like live coals. They flashed like rapiers.

Suddenly she rushed out and almost threw herself upon one of the prisoners in the convoy. It stopped, and as she clenched her hands threateningly in the air she screamed in mingled exultation and agony: "It's he! It's he! I knew I should find him!"

At first the captive soldier stared at her in surprise. Suddenly a wave of deep red suffused his face, and then he turned ashy grey and bent his head. It looked as if he were slowly sinking on his knees.

The young woman went on crying: "It's he! It's he! I knew I should find him!"

At last she laughed wildly, a laugh that was more like a mad shriek, and then collapsed on the roadside while the froth oozed through her tightly-closed lips.

VI--THE GUILTY MAN--AND JUSTICE

My friend ceased speaking for a moment, and I felt a prickling and tingling all over me. It was emotion and uneasiness both in one.

I looked at him. His eyes had suddenly become bright and clear, and there was a smile about his narrow lips of mingled sadness and joy.

I will not tell you anything more about it. I will not go further into what happened. I will only add that half an hour later that man was no longer among the living.

_We shot him._

Was it honourable and just? Is it never permissible to shoot a prisoner? Perhaps--perhaps not. I don't wish to dispute about it with anybody. In this case that question does not interest me in the least. I don't care whether it was lawful or not.

I will only honestly and openly declare that to me this little incident stands out, amongst all the appalling things I saw, as something infinitely beautiful and exalted.

I felt that at that moment I had seen cold, stern Justice face to face.

VII--STORY OF A GERMAN SOLDIER'S HOME-COMING

The day I went home was terribly long. It seemed to me as if my journey would never come to an end....

I was so deeply stirred that I could have wept. My lips quivered and my breast was as empty as if all the air had been pumped out of my lungs.

As the train glided into the small station I pulled down the window and looked out.

It was all so joyously familiar. The name with the foreign, snarling sound. The station-master, erect and stiff, like the old non-commissioned officer with a big German beard that he was. The flowers on the window-sills of the station-house. The faces of the station-master's wife and children against the window-panes. The smell of asphalte from the sun-baked platform.

And over there--why, that was my father, _my_ dear, dear old father! He seemed to me to have aged a good deal. His broad back, which before had been so straight and so proudly erect, was bent and tired; and his face looked worn as if after a long illness.

His glance went down the train from carriage to carriage. I waved my hand to him and called out:

"Father!"

He turned at the sound and stared at me a moment.

At first a startled look seemed to pass over his face. A sudden wonder, as when you see something you have not expected, and then it seemed to me that he tottered backwards a step or two when he understood who it was that had called. He bent his head and pressed his hand to his eyes.

I think he was weeping.

Then I jumped out of the carriage, and the next instant I was beside him.

VIII--"MY FATHER THANKED GOD"

He threw his arms round my neck and kissed me fervently on both cheeks as he whispered in a trembling voice:

"Oh, thank God we've got you back again! Welcome home, my dear boy--welcome--welcome! Thanks be to God from your mother and me and all of us! O my God, my God!--it has been a hard time!"

He shook me as you shake a friend in exuberant joy. And then he took my arm. "Why, I could not recognize you at first," he said with a little smile. "You have changed--somewhat.... But on the whole you are looking quite well."

"Yes, am I not?" I said. "Quite well--I think so myself."

I smiled.

I remembered that that was what they always said at the hospital....

Then we drove along the road to my home, and in thirsty eagerness my mind drank in all the old, familiar and beautiful luxuriance: the white road with the perfume of the poplars; the hedges with the wild roses; the white-washed, thatched farmsteads; the bright, summer gleam of the blue fjord.

It was all just the same as when I left home nearly two years ago--so it seemed to me, at any rate. I could not see any change.

My father had sat silent awhile and had now and then stolen a glance at me, and I understood why. He had to feel at home with my face first before he could feel quite at home with myself. He was never at any time one to speak much, by the way.

We drove past one of the big farms. The house stood close up to the road, and looked so peaceful, so bathed in sunshine; and the blossoms from the fruit trees sprinkled their pure white snow over the bright lawns.

"The farmer in there fell last September," said my father; "and his two sons are also gone. There are no more men left now in that family....

"The husband is gone over there, and yonder the son. Both sons from that place are gone. And over there they have lost a son-in-law--you know, the one who had just got married. At the farm yonder the husband came home a cripple last Christmas; and the son in that one is blind."

His hushed and mournful words spoke of nothing but death and grief. There was scarcely a farm or a house the door of which was not marked with the cross of death, or in which mourning or disablement had not a home....

IX--"MY FIANCEE--SHE ONLY WEPT"

My _fiancée_ was standing in the middle of the yard. Her face had not the same bright gentleness as before. About her features and on her lips there were the same sad and mournful lines that I had seen on the faces of the women in the hospital. She, too, was stamped with the daily silent longing and uncertainty, the nightly dread and heart-ache.

She seemed to me to look old. And she was not yet twenty-two.

She threw her arms round my neck, almost before I had reached the ground. She said nothing. She only cried, clinging closely to me and hiding her face on my shoulder.

"Well, _you_ can recognise him, it seems," said my father. "It was all I could do--just at first...."

She looked at me, and then turned to my father as she said:

"I _knew_ that he would look like that--that was how I always saw him. In my thoughts by day and my dreams at night."

Then we went into the sitting-room.

X--"MY MOTHER--SHE BROKE DOWN AND SOBBED"

My mother was standing by the table. She was pale and there was a frightened and despairing look in her eyes.

She gazed at me for a moment as if in terror. Then she sank down upon a chair and hid her face in her hands.

"Is that _my_ boy--is that _my_ boy?..."

It sounded like a heart-broken wailing. I saw that she was sobbing. I perceived that my face had frightened her; the empty sleeve too.

I went over and knelt down beside her, putting my arm round her waist and my head in her lap.

I had always done that as a boy when she was grieved about anything.

Then I felt her hand gently, stroking my head. How soft that hand was! What a blissfulness there was in that quiet, gentle stroking!

Is there anybody who knows how to caress like a mother? Is there anything in the world that holds such rapturous joy?...

After a little while she took my chin in her hands and raised my head. Our eyes met. Hers were soft and shining--a fathomless deep of love to gaze into.

Her face was grey and there was a quivering about her firmly-closed lips. But I could see that she was happy--silently, speechlessly happy.

I felt her lips on my forehead. It was like a great solemnity to me. And then she said in a soft whisper:

"My own big boy--my own big boy--thank God for ever that I have you back again!"

A sad little smile passed over her face, and, as if she felt a desire to say something showing a little of her warm-hearted and charming humour, she added between smiles and tears:

"But you are _not_ such a handsome boy as when you went away."

Then she broke down and bent her face over mine.

That was my home-coming. I had looked forward to it and it had given me all the happiness I could wish for.

(The Danish soldier boy tells the tragic story of the "folk back home;" how mothers, and wives and children are "waiting" for their loved ones. His whole story is one of the most pathetic and loving tales of the broken hearts of the war.)

FOOTNOTES:

[6] All numerals relate to stories herein told--not to chapters in the original sources.

"ADVENTURES OF A DESPATCH RIDER"

_An Oxford Man With the Motorcyclists_

_Told by Capt. W. H. L. Watson_

This young Oxford student at the outbreak of the War was in
London to begin his work in the British Museum. "At 6:45 P.M., on
Saturday, July 25th, 1914, Alec and I determined to take part in the
Austro-Serbian War. I remember the exact minute," he says. They were
certain Armageddon was coming. He went straight to Scotland Yard and
joined the Despatch Riders with several of his fellow students. He
then began his daring adventures carrying despatches for the British
Army in Northern France. He rode through the battle of Mons and in
the thrilling pursuit that lead to the Aisne. His experiences teem
with exciting incidents of those never-to-be-forgotten days. The
thrill of the charge, the depression of retreat, the elation of
outwitting a clever enemy and all the little incidents of heroism,
self-sacrifice and comradeship that have become commonplaces in the
daily lives of the British Tommies, are most interestingly described
in this Oxford man's account of "Adventures of a Despatch Rider" by
permission of his publishers, _Dodd, Mead and Company_.

[7] I--STORIES OF THE SIGNAL OFFICE IN NORTHERN FRANCE

It had been a melancholy day, full of rain and doubting news. Those of us who were not "out" were strolling up and down the platform arranging the order of cakes from home and trying to gather from the sound of the gunning and intermittent visits to the Signal Office what was happening.

Some one had been told that the old 15th was being hard pressed. Each of us regretted loudly that we had not been attached to it, though our hearts spoke differently. Despatch riders have muddled thoughts. There is a longing for the excitement of danger and a very earnest desire to keep away from it.

The C.O. walked on to the platform hurriedly, and in a minute or two I was off. It was lucky that the road was covered with unholy grease, that the light was bad and there was transport on the road--for it is not good for a despatch rider to think too much of what is before him. My instructions were to report to the general and make myself useful. I was also cheerfully informed that the H.Q. of the 15th were under a robust shell-fire. Little parties of sad-looking wounded that I passed, the noise of the guns, and the evil dusk heartened me.

I rode into Festubert, which was full of noise, and, very hastily dismounting, put my motorcycle under the cover of an arch and reported to the general. He was sitting at a table in the stuffy room of a particularly dirty tavern. At the far end a fat and frightened woman was crooning to her child. Beside her sat a wrinkled, leathery old man with bandaged head. He had wandered into the street, and he had been cut about by shrapnel. The few wits he had ever possessed were gone, and he gave every few seconds little croaks of hate. Three telephone operators were working with strained faces at their highest speed. The windows had been smashed by shrapnel, and bits of glass and things crunched under foot. The room was full of noises--the crackle of the telephones, the crooning of the woman, the croak of the wounded old man, the clear and incisive tones of the general and his brigade-major, the rattle of not too distant rifles, the booming of guns and occasionally the terrific, overwhelming crash of a shell bursting in the village.

I was given a glass of wine. Cadell, the Brigade Signal Officer, and the Veterinary Officer, came up to me and talked cheerfully in whispered tones about our friends.

There was the sharp cry of shrapnel in the street and the sudden rattle against the whole house. The woman and child fled somewhere through a door, followed feebly by the old man. The brigade-major persuaded the general to work in some less unhealthy place. The telephone operators moved. A moment's delay as the general endeavored to persuade the brigade-major to go first, and we found ourselves under a stalwart arch that led into the courtyard of the tavern. We lit pipes and cigarettes. The crashes of bursting shells grew more frequent, and the general remarked in a dry and injured tone--

"Their usual little evening shoot before putting up the shutters, I suppose."

II--"I AM WRITING UNDER SHRAPNEL FIRE"

But first the Germans "searched" the village. Now to search a village means to start at one end of the village and place shells at discreet intervals until the other end of the village is reached. It is an unpleasant process for those in the middle of the village, even though they be standing, as we were, in comparatively good shelter.

We heard the Germans start at the other end of the village street. The crashes came nearer and nearer, until a shell burst with a scream and a thunderous roar just on our right. We puffed away at our cigarettes for a second, and a certain despatch rider wished he were anywhere but in the cursed village of Festubert by Béthune. There was another scream and overwhelming relief. The next shell burst three houses away on our left. I knocked my pipe out and filled another.

The Germans finished their little evening shoot. We marched back very slowly in the darkness to 1910 Farm.

This farm was neither savoury nor safe. It was built round a courtyard which consisted of a gigantic hole crammed with manure in all stages of unpleasant putrefaction. One side is a barn; two sides consist of stables, and the third is the house inhabited not only by us but by an incredibly filthy and stinking old woman who was continually troubling the general because some months ago a French cuirassier took one of her chickens. The day after we arrived at this farm I had few despatches to take, so I wrote to Robert. Here is some of the letter and bits of other letters I wrote during the following days. They will give you an idea of our state of mind:

If you want something of the dramatic--I am writing in a farm under shrapnel fire, smoking a pipe that was broken by a shell. For true effect I suppose I should not tell you that the shrapnel is bursting about fifty yards the other side of the house, that I am in a room lying on the floor, and consequently that, so long as they go on firing shrapnel, I am perfectly safe.

It's the dismallest of places. Two miles farther back the heavies are banging away over our heads. There are a couple of batteries near the farm. Two miles along the road the four battalions of our brigade are holding on for dear life in their trenches.

The country is open plough, with little clumps of trees, sparse hedges, and isolated cottages giving a precarious cover. It's all very damp and miserable, for it was raining hard last night and the day before.

I am in a little bare room with the floor covered with straw. Two telegraph operators are making that infernal jerky clicking sound I have begun so to hate. Half a dozen men of the signal staff are lying about the floor looking at week-old papers. In the next room I can hear the general, seated at a table and intent on his map, talking to an officer that has just come from the firing line. Outside the window a gun is making a fiendish row, shaking the whole house. Occasionaly there is a bit of a rattle--that's shrapnel bullets falling on the tiles of an outhouse.

If you came out you might probably find this exhilarating. I have just had a talk with our mutual friend Cadell, the Signal Officer of this brigade, and we have decided that we are fed up with it. For one thing--after two months' experience of shell fire the sound of a shell bursting within measurable distance makes you start and shiver for a moment--reflex action of the nerves. That is annoying. We both decided we would willingly change places with you and take a turn at defending your doubtless excellently executed trenches at Liberton.

The line to the ----[8] has just gone. It's almost certain death to relay it in the daytime. Cadell and his men are discussing the chances while somebody else has started a musical-box. A man has gone out; I wonder if he will come back. The rest of the men have gone to sleep again. That gun outside the window is getting on my nerves. Well, well!

The shrapnel fire appears to have stopped for the present. No, there's a couple together. If they fire over this farm I hope they don't send me back to D.H.Q.

Do you know what I long for more than anything else? A clean, unhurried breakfast with spotless napery and shining silver and porridge and kippers. I don't think these long, lazy after-breakfast hours at Oxford were wasted. They are a memory and a hope out here. The shrapnel is getting nearer and more frequent. We are all hoping it will kill some chickens in the courtyard. The laws against looting are so strict.

What an excellent musical-box, playing quite a good imitation of _Cavalleria Rusticana_. I guess we shall have to move soon. Too many shells. Too dark to write any more----

III--HOW IT FEELS TO BE SHELLED

After all, quite the most important things out here are a fine meal and a good bath. If you consider the vast area of the war the facts that we have lost two guns or advanced five miles are of very little importance. War, making one realize the hopeless insignificance of the individual, creates in one such an immense regard for self, that so long as one does well it matters little if four officers have been killed reconnoitering or some wounded have had to be left under an abandoned gun all night. I started with an immense interest in tactics. This has nearly all left me and I remain a more or less efficient despatch-carrying animal--a part of a machine realizing the hopeless, enormous size of the machine.

The infantry officer after two months of modern war is a curious phenomenon.[9] He is probably one of three survivors of an original twenty-eight. He is not frightened of being killed; he has forgotten to think about it. But there is a sort of reflex fright. He becomes either cautious and liable to sudden panics, or very rash indeed, or absolutely mechanical in his actions. The first state means the approach of a nervous breakdown, the second a near death. There are very few, indeed, who retain a nervous balance and a calm judgment. And all have a harsh, frightened voice. If you came suddenly out here, you would think they were all mortally afraid. But it is only giving orders for hours together under a heavy fire.

Battle noises are terrific. At the present moment a howitzer is going strong behind this, and the concussion is tremendous. The noise is like dropping a traction-engine on a huge tin tray. A shell passing away from you over your head is like the loud crackling of a newspaper close to your ear. It makes a sort of deep reverberating crackle in the air, gradually lessening, until there is a dull boom, and a mile or so away you see a thick little cloud of white smoke in the air or a pear-shaped cloud of grey-black smoke on the ground. Coming towards you a shell makes a cutting, swishing note, gradually getting higher and higher, louder and louder. There is a longer note one instant and then it ceases. Shrapnel bursting close to you has the worst sound.

It is almost funny in a village that is being shelled. Things simply disappear. You are standing in an archway a little back from the road--a shriek of shrapnel. The windows are broken and the tiles rush clattering into the street, while little bullets and bits of shell jump like red-hot devils from side to side of the street, ricochetting until their force is spent. Or a deeper bang, a crash, and a whole house tumbles down.

_¾-hour later._--Curious life this. Just after I had finished the last sentence, I was called out to take a message to a battery telling them to shell a certain village. Here am I wandering out, taking orders for the complete destruction of a village and probably for the death of a couple of hundred men[10] without a thought, except that the roads are very greasy and that lunch time is near.

Again, yesterday, I put our Heavies in action, and in a quarter of an hour a fine old church, with what appeared from the distance a magnificent tower, was nothing but a grotesque heap of ruins. The Germans were loopholing it for defence.

Oh, the waste, the utter damnable waste of everything out here--men, horses, buildings, cars, everything. Those who talk about war being a salutary discipline are those who remain at home. In a modern war there is little room for picturesque gallantry or picture-book heroism. We are all either animals or machines, with little gained except our emotions dulled and brutalized and nightmare flashes of scenes that cannot be written about because they are unbelievable. I wonder what difference you will find in us when we come home----

IV--A NIGHT SCARE AT THE FRONT

Do you know what a night scare is? In our last H.Q. we were all dining when suddenly there was a terrific outburst of rifle fire from our lines. We went out into the road that passes the farm and stood there in the pitch darkness, wondering. The fire increased in intensity until every soldier within five miles seemed to be revelling in a lunatic succession of "mad minutes." Was it a heavy attack on our lines? Soon pom-poms joined in sharp, heavy taps--and machine guns. The lines to the battalions were at the moment working feebly, and what the operators could get through was scarcely intelligible. Ammunition limbers were hurried up, and I stood ready to dart anywhere. For twenty minutes the rifle-fire seemed to grow wilder and wilder. At last stretcher-bearers came in with a few wounded and reported that we seemed to be holding our own. Satisfactory so far. Then there were great flashes of shrapnel over our lines; that comforted us, for if your troops are advancing you don't fire shrapnel over the enemy's lines. You never know how soon they may be yours. The firing soon died down until we heard nothing but little desultory bursts. Finally an orderly came--the Germans had half-heartedly charged our trenches but had been driven off with loss. We returned to the farm and found that in the few minutes we had been outside everything had been packed and half-frightened men were standing about for orders.

The explanation of it all came later and was simple enough. The French, without letting us know, had attacked the Germans on our right, and the Germans to keep us engaged had made a feint attack upon us. So we went back to dinner.

In modern war the infantryman hasn't much of a chance. Strategy nowadays consists in arranging for the mutual slaughter of infantry by the opposing guns, each general trusting that his guns will do the greater slaughter. And half gunnery is luck. The day before yesterday we had a little afternoon shoot at where we thought the German trenches might be. The Germans unaccountably retreated, and yesterday when we advanced we found the trenches crammed full of dead. By a combination of intelligent anticipation and good luck we had hit them exactly----

From these letters you will be able to gather what mood we were in and something of what the brigade despatch rider was doing. After the first day the Germans ceased shrapnelling the fields round the farm and left us nearly in peace. There I met Major Ballard, commanding the 15th Artillery Brigade, one of the finest officers of my acquaintance, and Captain Frost, the sole remaining officer of the Cheshires. He was charming to me; I was particularly grateful for the loan of a razor, for my own had disappeared and there were no despatch riders handy from whom I could borrow.

Talking of the Cheshires reminds me of a story illustrating the troubles of a brigadier. The general was dining calmly one night after having arranged an attack. All orders had been sent out. Everything was complete and ready. Suddenly there was a knock at the door and in walked Captain M----, who reported his arrival with 200 reinforcements for the Cheshires, a pleasant but irritating addition. The situation was further complicated by the general's discovery that M---- was senior to the officer then in command of the Cheshires. Poor M---- was not left long in command. A fortnight later the Germans broke through and over the Cheshires, and M---- died where a commanding officer should.

V--"I WAS SENT A MESSAGE"

From 1910 Farm I had one good ride to the battalions, through Festubert and along to the Cuinchy Bridge. For me it was interesting because it was one of the few times I had ridden just behind the trenches, which at the moment were just north of the road and were occupied by the Bedfords.

In a day or two we returned to Festubert, and Cadell gave me a shake-down on a mattress in his billet--gloriously comfortable. The room was a little draughty because the fuse of a shrapnel had gone right through the door and the fireplace opposite. Except for a peppering on the walls and some broken glass the house was not damaged; we almost laughed at the father and mother and daughter who, returning while we were there, wept because their home had been touched.

Orders came to attack. A beautiful plan was drawn up by which the battalions of the brigade were to finish their victorious career in the square of La Bassée.

In connection with this attack I was sent with a message for the Devons. It was the blackest of black nights and I was riding without a light. Twice I ran into the ditch, and finally I piled up myself and my bicycle on a heap of stones lying by the side of the road. I did not damage my bicycle. That was enough. I left it and walked.

When I got to Cuinchy bridge I found that the Devon headquarters had shifted. Beyond that the sentry knew nothing. Luckily I met a Devon officer who was bringing up ammunition. We searched the surrounding cottages for men with knowledge, and at last discovered that the Devons had moved farther along the canal in the direction of La Bassée. So we set out along the towpath, past a house that was burning fiercely enough to make us conspicuous.

We felt our way about a quarter of a mile and stopped, because we were getting near the Germans. Indeed we could hear the rumble of their transport crossing the La Bassée bridge. We turned back, and a few yards nearer home some one coughed high up the bank on our right. We found the cough to be a sentry, and behind the sentry were the Devons.

The attack, as you know, was held up on the line Cuinchy-Givenchy-Violaines; we advanced our headquarters to a house just opposite the inn by which the road to Givenchy turns off. It was not very safe, but the only shell that burst anywhere near the house itself did nothing but wound a little girl in the leg.

On the previous day I had ridden to Violaines at dawn to draw a plan of the Cheshires' trenches for the general. I strolled out by the sugar factory, and had a good look at the red houses of La Bassée. Half an hour later a patrol went out to explore the sugar factory. They did not return. It seems that the factory was full of machine guns. I had not been fired upon, because the Germans did not wish to give their position away sooner than was necessary.

A day or two later I had the happiness of avenging my potential death. First I took orders to a battery of 6-inch howitzers at the Rue de Marais to knock the factory to pieces, then I carried an observing officer to some haystacks by Violaines, from which he could get a good view of the factory. Finally I watched with supreme satisfaction the demolition of the factory, and with regretful joy the slaughter of the few Germans who, escaping, scuttled for shelter in some trenches just behind and on either side of the factory.

VI--HOW THE GERMANS BROKE THROUGH

I left the 15th Brigade with regret, and the regret I felt would have been deeper if I had known what was going to happen to the brigade. I was given interesting work and made comfortable. No despatch rider could wish for more.

Not long after I had returned from the 15th Brigade, the Germans attacked and broke through. They had been heavily reinforced and our tentative offensive had been replaced by a stern and anxious defensive.

Now the Signal Office was established in the booking-office of Beuvry Station. The little narrow room was packed full of operators and vibrant with buzz and click. The Signal Clerk sat at a table in a tiny room just off the booking-office. Orderlies would rush in with messages, and the Clerk would instantly decide whether to send them by wire, by push-cyclist, or by despatch rider. Again, he dealt with all messages that came in over the wire. Copies of these messages were filed. This was our tape; from them we learned the news. We were not supposed to read them, but, as we often found that they contained information which was invaluable to despatch riders, we always looked through them and each passed on what he had found to the others. The Signal Clerk might not know where a certain unit was at a given moment. We knew, because we had put together information that we had gathered in the course of our rides and information which--though the Clerk might think it unimportant--supplemented or completed or verified what we had already obtained.

So the history of this partially successful attack was known to us. Every few minutes one of us went into the Signal Office and read the messages. When the order came for us to pack up, we had already made our preparations, for Divisional Headquarters, the brain controlling the actions of seventeen thousand men, must never be left in a position of danger. And wounded were pouring into the Field Ambulances.

The enemy had made a violent attack, preluded by heavy shelling, on the left of the 15th, and what I think was a holding attack on the right. Violaines had been stormed, and the Cheshires had been driven, still grimly fighting, to beyond the Rue de Marais. The Norfolks on their right and the K.O.S.B.'s on their left had been compelled to draw back their line with heavy loss, for their flanks had been uncovered by the retreat of the Cheshires.

The Germans stopped a moment to consolidate their gains. This gave us time to throw a couple of battalions against them. After desperate fighting Rue de Marais was retaken and some sort of line established. What was left of the Cheshires gradually rallied in Festubert.

This German success, together with a later success against the 3rd Division, that resulted in our evacuation of Neuve Chapelle, compelled us to withdraw and readjust our line. This second line was not so defensible as the first. Until we were relieved the Germans battered at it with gunnery all day and attacks all night. How we managed to hold it is utterly beyond my understanding. The men were dog-tired. Few of the old officers were left, and they were "dead to the world." Never did the Fighting Fifth more deserve the name. It fought dully and instinctively, like a boxer who, after receiving heavy punishment, just manages to keep himself from being knocked out until the call of time.

Yet, when they had dragged themselves wearily and blindly out of the trenches, the fighting men of the Fighting Fifth were given but a day's rest or two before the 15th and two battalions of the 13th were sent to Hooge, and the remainder to hold sectors of the line farther south. Can you wonder that we despatch riders, in comparative safety behind the line, did all we could to help the most glorious and amazing infantry that the world has ever seen?[11] And when you praise the deeds of Ypres of the First Corps, who had experienced no La Bassée, spare a word for the men of the Fighting Fifth who thought they could fight no more and yet fought.

VII--SPY STORIES: "THE OLD WOMAN"

A few days after I had returned from the 15th Brigade I was sent out to the 14th. I found them at the Estaminet de l'Epinette on the Béthune-Richebourg road. Headquarters had been compelled to shift, hastily enough, from the Estaminet de La Bombe on the La Bassée-Estaires road. The estaminet had been shelled to destruction half an hour after the brigade had moved. The Estaminet de l'Epinette was filthy and small. I slept in a stinking barn, half-full of dirty straw, and rose with the sun for the discomfort of it.

Opposite the estaminet a road goes to Festubert. At the corner there is a cluster of dishevelled houses. I sat at the door and wrote letters, and looked for what might come to pass. In the early dawn the poplars alongside the highway were grey and dull. There was mist on the road; the leaves that lay thick were black. Then as the sun rose higher the poplars began to glisten and the mist rolled away, and the leaves were red and brown.

An old woman came up the road and prayed the sentry to let her pass. He could not understand her and called to me. She told me that her family were in the house at the corner fifty yards distant. I replied that she could not go to them--that they, if they were content not to return, might come to her. But the family would not leave their chickens, and cows, and corn. So the old woman, who was tired, sank down by the wayside and wept. This sorrow was no sorrow to the sorrow of the war. I left the old woman, the sentry, and the family, and went in to a fine breakfast.

At this time there was much talk about spies. Our wires were often cut mysteriously. A sergeant had been set upon in a lane. The enemy were finding our guns with uncanny accuracy. All our movements seemed to be anticipated by the enemy. Taking for granted the extraordinary efficiency of the German Intelligence Corps, we were particularly nervous about spies when the Division was worn out, when things were not going well.

VIII--THE GIRL WHO WAS SHOT

At the Estaminet de l'Epinette I heard a certain story, and hearing it set about to make a fool of myself. This is the story--I have never heard it substantiated, and give it as an illustration and not as fact.