To reach the rear lines movement could only be made ON THE TOP and fully exposed to enemy snipers, who, suffering badly from forced inactivity and ennui, delighted to exercise their shooting powers by a few minutes"
pleasant concentration upon your helpless figure.
Mud and water, upon which floated an interesting conglomeration of filthy rubbish, flowed saucily around your ankles, sometimes your knees, and when you fell off a high duckboard, your neck.
The humour of it--afterwards! The acute misery and suffering of those long, long nights standing in water; cold, hungry and weary. Body aching from the fierce winter"s blast and the fingers gone stiff, immovable, almost unfeeling ... with no hope for the future, but always the ceaseless watch and wait until the great Peace of Death overtakes the tired body and a troubled soul leaves its burden to be carried on by those who follow after.
Rain lashed stinging into the face, dripping in rivulets from off the steel helmet and forcing its way into the neck ... the shrieking of an unnerving wind ... the blast of mighty sh.e.l.l ... the gas ... death was NOT the worst alternative.
Fritz played heavily on the back areas; we returned sh.e.l.l for sh.e.l.l, but no infantry action took place on either side during the eight days of Norman occupation. The enemy was concentrating his man-power for a Push with the opening of finer days, and we did not have an excess of men to waste after the heavy toll of the Cambrai stunt.
The Ten Hundred were relieved for a brief rest.
XIII
Pa.s.sCHENDAELE SECTOR
POPERINGHE--STEENVOORDE--BRANDHOEK
The Ten Hundred had revelled in the luxury of a hot bath. "Casey," who had found and hurriedly slipped into his trouser pocket a full packet of "f.a.gs" inadvertently left behind by some individual with an unbalanced mind, portrayed his bare arm for general admiration of the four small scars thereon.
"Waccinated," he said, "by good ole Kinnersley." (Dr.--Captain Kinnersley, undoubtedly the one man who held the softest corner in the hearts of all the old Normans, and whose friendly hand-shakes as from man to man were never forgotten by the "boys" of the original 1st Battalion).
"Wots the good?" Le Page demanded.
"Good--wot a question. Why, it stops fever, an" smallpox, an" almost everythin"."
"Any good fer toothache?" The crowd chuckled noisily.
"Would it stop a clock?"
"Any good for a bloomin" non-stop thirst?"
"P"raps it might stop the war?"
"Ever tried it on yer ole woman"s tongue, Casey?--but it wouldn"t stop that!"
They were interrupted by a command from the Company Officer to "get a move on." Company Officer controls a Company. Main functions to dole out pay (when he"s not stopping it), C.B., and rum.
C.B. (Confined to Barracks) and similar punishments are usually granted you by the genial administrator as an adequate reward for such crimes as too little razor, too much beer, too weak a polish, or too strong a language, late on fatigue or early OFF it....
Some men are always in trouble, but provided with a programme of glib excuses and prepared at a moment"s notice to call witnesses (false), always escape punishment. Some do not care if punished or not and who boast that they had full value for their "two days C.B." Heaume had a cute dodge of replying to an officer"s angry expostulation that he (Heaume) had already been "up" twenty times with: "No, sir,--only sixteen so far."
Seven or eight days at Brake Camp were followed by a week at English Camp, from whence working parties daily moved up the Line by rail to the vicinity of Merrythought Station. The Ten Hundred were put through the mill as never before. "Out fer a rest," a Stafford summed up, "be "anged fer a yarn ... called the last place Brake ... breaking us in fer this."
Poperinghe made up for it. A week without one Jerry aeroplane dropping an experimental bomb or two, without the unpleasant company of Jerry sh.e.l.ls and free from apprehensive hours of uncertainty following a gas alarm from forward areas in an unfavourable wind.
To be able to purchase from the inhabitants almost every conceivable necessity dear to the heart of the soldier, to mingle freely with "civies," to walk on hard, firm roads, theatres, cinemas, and to mingle nightly with other regiments compensated somewhat for what had pa.s.sed.
They were shyly proud of their Cambrai record, said little of their deeds before other men, but withal treasured up every meagre speech of candid appreciation emanating spontaneously from those who had heard of, but hitherto had not met the 1st Royal Guernsey. Stumpy, a.s.sisted by his diminutive Middles.e.x pal, unofficially appointed himself an authority on Normans and their place in European history.
"It was like this yere," he informed a crowd of Ess.e.x in the Church Army Canteen one quiet evening, "we "elped to make a "ell of a mess of England an" the chap wot we fought for made us, us----"
"Granted you democratic self-government."
"Eh, yes, wot you said."
"But you don"t play games--football, cricket--in Guernsey."
"Why don"t we?"
"You "aven"t any room ... you"d kick the ball over the side into the sea." The Englishmen grinned.
"Wot do they wear--clothes or just a belt?"
"Don"t s"pose they eat each other?"
"Wonder if any of "em"s black?"
"Wot do they live in--wigwams or caves?"
Stumpy, conscious of somehow saying the wrong thing and hurt by the shower of friendly sarcasm, shrugged his shoulders.
"Orl right," he said, "take the bloomin" advantage of the tiny isle--any"ow we "ad the guts to come out yere."
"That"s right, kid," someone offered him a f.a.g, "you were a democracy, a free country, long before England was ENGLAND at all, before the British Empire was dreamed of. You were the first elements of that Empire...."
""Ere," said Stumpy, grinning with delight, ""ave a bloomin" drink."
"Your Battalion saved a whole Division at Cambrai--."
"Ave a bloomin" nother!"
Even during this "rest" in Pop., working parties were daily sent up on missions varying in detail but never in hardship or risk. They groused and growled, maintained that their physical condition was becoming worn down by the excess of work, insisted angrily that a rest should be a REST and not a camouflaged existence of heavy fatigues, pointed out that if Jerry came over he would find them too utterly washed out to jab a bayonet into an ounce of b.u.t.ter, much less a man, and finally demanded in disgust "if they were the only available Battalion in the Army and whether they had to clean up the whole bloomin" Front?"
Once within the hospitable walls of Talbot House (can any Tommy ever look back upon that oasis in war"s grim desert without pangs of pleasant memories) and ensconced deep down in armchairs they forget working parties and fatigues.
From there they penned their difficult missives home-bound, there they read and re-read what few lines of intimate information could be eagerly cleaned from those brief treasured letters from home over the waters to them.
There was something almost tragic in the downcast look of those who turned their day"s mail aimlessly over with anxious hands and at last shamefacedly requested some sunny-natured fellow to read out what was writ thereon. The awful reaping of ignorance, the great void of their apathetic existence!
What pregnant apprehension of drawing blank pervaded the mind as the eye expectantly watched the fast dwindling mail in the hands of the N.C.O.
bawling out each name. The exhilarating thrill of glad delight with which you realised YOUR name and number had been called almost at the end of the file ... the sense of lonely desolation when there has been nothing for two days ... back to that torn copy of a magazine that has been read, re-read, and re-read again and again. But you can"t settle down. They have forgotten you. You don"t mind the h.e.l.l of existence out here, but their letter was due yesterday and now----"Bah!" bitterly, "let them bloomin" well forget."
The Ten Hundred moved into Steenvoorde and found themselves entangled in the intricacies of rehearsals for, and then later actual parade of Ceremonial Reviews. Here also they had the opportunity of indulging in that salient portion of training that appealed to them as nothing else--"firing." Undamaged by sh.e.l.l, cosy, they would have appreciated a lengthy spell with little to do, but rumours of an avalanche of troops that were manoeuvring behind the enemy lines became the predominant topic of discussion and lead to preparations for further movements.